My sun coral
- Thread starter K9coral
- Start date
I fed every other nite or so when it was in a smaller, less fish populated tank. Now, there are more fish, and I feed a lot, so I target it "once in a while" (this is after several months) I'm keeping my eyeballs on it. If the polyps start dying off, best get up on the feeding more.
Also a good tip someone had was to cut the end off a big pop bottle and put it over the coral. Then take a turkey baster and feed through the narrow top of the bottle. That way the tubastrea has a better chance of getting the food before the other inhabitants do.
These corals (Tubastraea spp. or Sun Corals) are, as said above, completely non-photosynthetic. You don't need to put them anywhere out of the light as such but they do prefer areas with moderate water movement. You can 'train' them to open during the day - they're very beautiful when you get full polyp extension. Depending on how long they've been in the shop, they may have been without decent food for a while and lost some tissue. They need feeding to help them recover and regain nice, long tentacles to aid in prey capture.
I have two Tubastraea corals (one Sun Coral, one Black Sun Coral) and a Duncanopsammia axifuga, which is a related coral but with zooxanthellae (able to derive some energy from light). All of them have been rescued to some extent and so required heavy feeding in the beginning to beef them up. This can be bad for the main tank - lots of nutrients. One way around this is to have a small tank, bucket, container that you can fill with water from the main tank and immerse your coral in. You can keep it aerated with an airstone and target feed the polyps with meaty foods. I have used mysis shrimp and krill pellets with success, soaked in a little bit of liquid coral food and tank water beforehand.
When they don't have much to grab food with, placing the mysis shrimp or pellet directly on the pellet gives them a chance to eat. Having them isolated means you don't have to contend with water movement and greedy little fish/crabs, etc. Once the coral has had a feed, you can put it back in the main tank and throw the feeding water away.
I fed mine daily to help them regrow lost tissue and expand their polyp size. Try to feed at a regular time each evening and your coral will start to open up when the lights are on. Once the polyps can extend enough to grab food, you can feed them in the tank, blowing shrimp at them with a baster or pipette (but feed your fish first so they aren't too much competition).
I've posted my pic below of the recovery of my D.axifuga from arriving as live rock rubble in October to how he looks now, 3 months on.
Best of luck.
PS: Edited to post better pic.
I have two Tubastraea corals (one Sun Coral, one Black Sun Coral) and a Duncanopsammia axifuga, which is a related coral but with zooxanthellae (able to derive some energy from light). All of them have been rescued to some extent and so required heavy feeding in the beginning to beef them up. This can be bad for the main tank - lots of nutrients. One way around this is to have a small tank, bucket, container that you can fill with water from the main tank and immerse your coral in. You can keep it aerated with an airstone and target feed the polyps with meaty foods. I have used mysis shrimp and krill pellets with success, soaked in a little bit of liquid coral food and tank water beforehand.
When they don't have much to grab food with, placing the mysis shrimp or pellet directly on the pellet gives them a chance to eat. Having them isolated means you don't have to contend with water movement and greedy little fish/crabs, etc. Once the coral has had a feed, you can put it back in the main tank and throw the feeding water away.
I fed mine daily to help them regrow lost tissue and expand their polyp size. Try to feed at a regular time each evening and your coral will start to open up when the lights are on. Once the polyps can extend enough to grab food, you can feed them in the tank, blowing shrimp at them with a baster or pipette (but feed your fish first so they aren't too much competition).
I've posted my pic below of the recovery of my D.axifuga from arriving as live rock rubble in October to how he looks now, 3 months on.
Best of luck.
PS: Edited to post better pic.
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my advice don't just "put them lower" in the tank, literally find some ledge or some cave that has a shaded area and you'll most likely get the polyps to extend during the day (depending upon how shaded it is), this is usually a good thing because it does give them a chance to pick up "stray food" when you feed your tank normally. Other than that.. turkey baster or syringe works good, rather than "blasting" corals that I feed I like to spot feed them so more food goes into corals, and less floating around.
Unfortunately for me the two devil spawn cleaner shrimp that I had in the tank made sure that any spot feeding of mysis was an invitation for them to rip the food out later.
Unfortunately for me the two devil spawn cleaner shrimp that I had in the tank made sure that any spot feeding of mysis was an invitation for them to rip the food out later.
http://www.reefs.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.p ... highlight=
Check out this thread. It will explain alot.
Here is another link that will help you on a DIY project for feeding.
http://www.reefrancher.com/diy/lunarlander/
HTH
Check out this thread. It will explain alot.
Here is another link that will help you on a DIY project for feeding.
http://www.reefrancher.com/diy/lunarlander/
HTH
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