Sun coral (husbandry)

[CarmieJo]

Chris,
It is interesting but feeding time at my house is anytime between 5 PM and 1 AM so maybe that is why mine are also open most of the time.

Lucas,
I have been feeding my 2 polyps of sun coral 3-4 Marine ZOE and garlic soaked mysis a day but I have not had any new polyps. Maybe I need to feed more. Will yours quit taking food when they are full?

[doctorthompson]

Lucas,
I have been feeding my 2 polyps of sun coral 3-4 Marine ZOE and garlic soaked mysis a day but I have not had any new polyps. Maybe I need to feed more. Will yours quit taking food when they are full?

Yeah, they'll start slowing down and eventually start spitting the food out - not something you should induce often but I did it with both of our colonies initially to see how large of an appetite each one had. I'm sure our yellow colony has enough polyps on it now to gulp down 3 or 4 cubes of mysis in one sitting - but they're growing/spawning fast enough already.

Also, garlic doesn't do much for corals, more of a fish "appetite stimulus" thing and it could attract cleaner shrimps or crabs that will pester or injure the sun coral polyps to steal the food ( if you have shrimps/crabs). Soaking the food in ZOE, Selcon, or some other vitamin-soak is an excellent practice, though.


3-4 per day sounds like plenty for 2 polyps, have you taken a keen look around your tank for new buds lately? They're quite small when they first pop up.

[CarmieJo]

Well, I've been looking for new polyps on the rock the others are on and haven't been searching the tank for them specifically. But, I do spend quite a bit of time looking for new stuff in my tank. I've recently found a couple of pocillopora recruits.

I just prepare the food for everything all together so that is why the mysis gets the garlic. I rarely have a problem with stealing, perhaps because there is food for everyone???

[cmay]

Carmie - Feeding times,, this could be the reason why our polyps are out regularly.



Just recreantly my fish have started to rip food away from the polyps, even though I feed my fish first.

I will need to reposition if I'm to use a feeding dome or remove the coral when feeding, I'm not over keen on this idea as my tank is only 60 gal and im worried about stressing my fish out on a regular basis.

I've also thought of placing the coral in my refuge for a while in order to fully establish a good colony

[lReef lKeeper]

that sounds like a good idea Chris. they dont need the lighting so that would work out great. no fish to steal the food from them AND a nice place to live !!

[doctorthompson]

Could just toss it in the fuge for feeding and move it back. Ours got used to being moved into a big old Brita jug full of saltwater for an hour every day.

Personally, I couldn't bear to stash our big yellow colony in a fuge - we have an upstream refugium/RDSB on a shelf near the tank that's sort of a "display fuge" but the water probably isn't even deep enough to cover the coral - and I wouldn't be able to see if I put it anywhere else in the system (under the tank). I love having a giant yellow fireball sitting in the center of the display.

I need to take some pictures of our sun corals, the most recent photo I have of the T. faulkneri colony is nearly 6 months old and it looks so small!

[lReef lKeeper]

very healthy looking !! i love the corals but between taking care of my system, work, a new house, a wife, and writing for reefreaders.com ... i have very little time anymore. so feeding regularly is NOT gonna happen right now, but maybe in the future i will take on the challenge again.

[V]

Doc, very nice brother


Ive got one of these, & a midnight purple on order, well its prob more black who's looking anyways.
i do hope its close to this quality.
whats been your spread rate & duration?

[doctorthompson]

Ive got one of these, & a midnight purple on order, well its prob more black who's looking anyways.
i do hope its close to this quality.
whats been your spread rate & duration?

That yellow colony (T. faulkneri I think?) hasn't done much more than bug new polyps between the existing polyps within the colony (so imagine that same picture, same size base/rock, but double the # of polyps and make them all about twice as long!).

When I do my daily "hunt down and kill new aiptasia spawn" through the tank I've been finding new T. micrantha polyps as frequently as I find new aiptasia for the last couple of weeks - which is quite amazing if you've ever seen the rate that aiptasia can reproduce at. While this is generally good news it's also a bit of a pain because they tend to look very similar (they're both usually 5 or 6mm across and it's usually pre-dawn so my only illumination source is a couple of tiny keychain LED lights (1 red, 1 white).

my digital camera is back in working order so I'll try to remember to snap a few shots of both colonies one of these evenings ... I don't think any of the new black sun coral polyps are big enough for my crappy Canon powershot to see in detail, even in macro mode, but I'll hunt around and see.

[cmay]

doctorthompson - your posts have been really useful and interesting (big thanks) your sun coral is amazing and credit to you.

I would like to keep my sun coral in my display tank, but unfortunately he keeps getting attacked and because he's quite small I feel slightly protective and would like him to develop.

If I take him out every day to feed i'm concerned about constantly placing my hands in the tank. (doctorthompson I guess this did not effected your tank, is your tank large ??)

[lReef lKeeper]

you should be fine just pulling the coral out of the water Chris. just be sure to wash your hands and arms (to the point were water will be touching them) before you put them in the tank. OR you could just go to this link ...

Fish : Gloves & Tongs

and order some. they are only about $3 for the ones i have.

[cmay]

you should be fine just pulling the coral out of the water Chris.

I will give it a go, im slightly worried as I was positioning some corals for about 3 days and my fish got white spot, until than I rarely placed my hands in the tank and I never had any issues before for over six months.

I had 4 domino damsels from the start (bad advice) as they grew they started to pick on each other, so im not sure if this may of caused white spot.

[CarmieJo]

White spot, which we call ich, is a parasite. Did you add anything new to the tank before the outbreak? Ich is often brought on by stress and I think the fish picking at each other would be far more stressful than having your hands in the tank.

It is a rare day when my hands are NOT in my tank. The biggest stress about that is having my maroon clown attack me. (Sometimes to the point of drawing blood!)

[lReef lKeeper]

It is a rare day when my hands are NOT in my tank. The biggest stress about that is having my maroon clown attack me. (Sometimes to the point of drawing blood!)

i had an Allards clown that did the same thing ... RARE fish or not, he is outta here !! (let this be a lesson ... never bite the hand that feeds you)

[doctorthompson]

I would like to keep my sun coral in my display tank, but unfortunately he keeps getting attacked and because he's quite small I feel slightly protective and would like him to develop.

If I take him out every day to feed i'm concerned about constantly placing my hands in the tank. (doctorthompson I guess this did not effected your tank, is your tank large ??)

Had no issues when we used to take them out (other than the clownfish bites of course!)

Our tank is 75g but we're currently pushing ~1800gph of flow in the main display which I think helps keep everyone distracted. I'll usually kick the closed loop and powerheads back on as soon as the sun corals have a good grasp on the food, everyone else chases the bits that float away and the sun corals chow down without any hassle.

Try a feeding dome perhaps? cut off the bottom of a 2L plastic bottle (some folks will glue PVC to the spout to add food thru).

[cmay]

Carmie - No the only new addition was the coral, since then i only have 1 damsel left.

Lucas – Using a feeding doom seems like a good plan, I feel more reassured about placing my hands in the tank, Bobby also mentioned purchasing long cloves which I now have on order.