Pruning/fragging a sun coral...ok or no?

[Zen Reeferer]

I purchased a large (6" colony) sun coral, tubestrea I beleive, yesterday for around $15.00 along with a few other corals from a reefer that is having to move. Most of the cluster looks great, polyp extention and feeding response looks good...with the exception of two small 'life challenged' spots. Is it ok to prune the dead spots off? Also, would it be ok to frag this large piece into two 3" colonies?
Thank you.

 

[mojoreef]

Hmmm they are such a tough coral to keep alive and thriving. I would leave it be, the stress might be to much.


Mike

 

[Maxx]

Like Mike said, I would just feed it, and you'll see the recovery in the areas you're concerned about....tyr this sort of thing...makes feeding easier and you dont have to worry about anything else stealing the food.

Underwater Feeder aka Lunar Lander

Nick

 

[Zen Reeferer]

Will give it a go this evening, thanks. Made one last nite, but I used a 1/2 gal juice container and it was a about 1" too small. Food just slipped under the plastic. Made one out of 2 liter bottle and dog chewed that one up. (bad chihuahua, lol) Am trying to finish another 2 liter soda to try again tonite.

 

[Spracklcat]

I had very good luck target feeding them at the same time every evening first with a little squirt of DT's to get them to open up, then with mysis. I used a long 10ml lab pipette to target the feeding right to each polyp so there wasn't a lot of waste nutrients polluting the tank. After a few weeks they would open up at that time every evening without the DT's (and I fragged it--no problems )

 

[Anthony Calfo]

yes, please do focus on near-daily small feedings to spur growth and recovery. Do some keyword searches to see how others feed. Find threads on "feeding hats" for Tubastrea... quite handy way to focus feeding effforts if this coral is in a garden reef display.

 

[Zen Reeferer]

Thanks for the helpful suggestions...seems we're over the stress of figuring out what will/won't work.
The feeding hat I made was pretty ineffecient, and was raising nitrates very fast.
Used our blender to mix silversides, mysis and squid. Put 1 tablespoon of the goop into each ice cube space. When they froze solid, I cut each one into 4 pieces. Then I can just thaw one cube every morning before lights come on, and spot feed the tubestra, pagoda and brain corals, with my turkey baster. They appear to be getting fat-n-sassy. 75% or so of the tubestra polyps now open every am to eat.

 

[spongebob lover]

The feeding hat I made was pretty ineffecient, and was raising nitrates very fast.

hehe that's the problem i was having before and on top of that my algae just bloomed like there was no tomorrow.... until i gave away my sun coral, now it's not only in a better tank but with a better owner .