Sun Coral Lighting and Feeding

[rgeiersbach]

Hello,

I just got a sun coral a few days ago with about 15 polyps. I had metal halides on my 75 gallon system, but my dual 250's were heating the water up to much so I put my PC on with about 110 total wattage. So far I put the sun coral under a few pieces of live rock and I haven't seen its polyps open, especially during the day. At night the polyps tend to extend more, but I haven't even seen it feeding. Are the PC enough lighting for it during the day? And also what can I do to help the sun coral open up so that I can hand feed it?

Thanks
Rob

 

[spongebob lover]

i believe the less light the better.
sun corals only open up at night (unless you try training him to open a little during the day, but i believe no matter what they'll always open at night) .
you gotta feed the coral at least 3 times per week (mysis shrimp or cyclopeeze).
you should try feeding it everyday for now at some time (2 hours after your lights go off or something like that) and do it at the same time everyday and after a while the coral will be open by the time you will feed it.
don't forget to feed it with the moonlight feeder thingy so nobody bothers the coral while it's eating .

 

[mattseattle]

yeah, lighting does not matter with sun corals as they are not photosynthetic. you have to feed each polyp by hand.

the polyps will not usually come out during the day but they will get used to the time you feed and open at that time.

 

[redrooster]

No you do not need to feed each one by hand. I bought a 30 polyp piece 6 months ago and feed it cyclopeeze almost everyday. It has spawned twice since and I have little tubestra's all over my rocks and powerheads. Many of the babies perished when both local LFS didn't get their shipments of cyclopeze a while back, but I still have hundreds. I was without food for them for about 1.5 weeks. You would need to starve a healthy colony for weeks to kill it, but the babies started to perish after a few days without feeding. I use up a stick of cyclopeze in about a month on my 75gal to give you an idea how much to feed. I also feed with the lights on. Light or no light doesn't matter to them I have them right at the top in full light and totally hidden in darkness. About a half hour after feeding all the polyps should open up and stay open for about 3-4 hours. They also seem to respond to phytoplankton, but that is not their food of choice. Hope this helps.

 

[steve-s]

http://www.reefs.org/library/aquarium_net/0797/0797_3.html

 

[spongebob lover]

http://www.melevsreef.com/suncoral.html

just to add to Steve info .

also if you search for lunar lander, it'd show you the coral feeding thingy for it .

 

[vaporize]

One more thing to add is that they do like high flow, so if you can have PH pointing or indirectly pointing at them, they will open up easier (at night i.e.) It is not unusual for a newly arrived sun coral to take a few weeks to get use to aquarium conditions and open up. The trick is to get it used to the food you are feeding it (whether it is mysis, brime, cyclopleeze, bloodwrom, or even flaks), so they will automatically open when the food hits the water. You might have to target feed them in the beginning since they might not put out alot of tenacles just a few feelers.

 

[hollister750]

has anyone had any expirence with them? I was thinking about getting one for my 20g m tanks, how do they do w/ clown fish and watchman golbys

 

[rgeiersbach]

So far I have gotten the sun coral to open up pretty well. At night I put a Kentucky Deluxe whiskey fifth, with the bottom cut out, over the coral. Then I thaw some mysis and brine shrimp and inject it into the bottle. The food floats down onto the coral and it feeds for an hour or two till I remove the bottle. It seems to be working pretty well. During the feeding the coral polyps expand and seem to swell. During the day the coral also looks a lot more full. The feeding method I use has worked very well and I would recomend it to anyone who is having problems with their sun coral.

 

[spongebob lover]

has anyone had any expirence with them? I was thinking about getting one for my 20g m tanks, how do they do w/ clown fish and watchman golbys

i had one and gave it away to a better home.
they're very nice and cute looking corals but if you're gonna get one make sure you get to see it before buying it just to make sure it's healthy.
they're awesome for nanos because it's easier to reach in order to feed them .
i have a clown and when it was in my tank it never bother the coral, i don't know about golbys but when feeding make sure you cover it with something so the fishes don't go stealing its food .

 

[WABlonde]

Bumping an old thread here. I brought home a suncoral from the frag swap raffle which I have sitting on our sandbed along with the other new corals. After reading through various sites, I've taken in good tips about feeding and flow. But my question still isn't answered so much as to lighting.

We have 2 150 20K MH's along with a few T5's. The little guy didn't open up for us until last night, after the MH's turned off (with T5's still on). So I'm just assuming that it's a bit senative to the MH lights? I'd like to place this higher up in our tank but am curious if I need to find a shady spot for him?

Thanks

 

[returnofsid]

WABlond, lighting is not important, one way or another, to a Tubastrea coral, since they are not photosynthetic. It can be in high light, or low light, with no ill effect, either way. However, if it's been kept in a lower light area, it'll need to be adjusted to a higher light area. They do like high flow, as they depend on flow, to bring food to them. Each head does need to eat. Put it in an area that's easy for you to reach, so you're more likely to feed it on a regular basis. You can "train" them, to open up during the day, by feeding them during the day. Eventually, it'll extend it's polyps, when it's been "trained" to eat.

 

[user 26995]

I have mine at mid level in the tank. Medium flow. I feed twice a week, shaved mysis with a pipett. Reef Aquarium Coral & Invertebrate Care: Disposable Pipettes for Target Feeding
I cut about an inch off the end to make the opening bigger and target feed each head. Its fun....I end up feeding my trumpet coral and some of the acans too cause I always cut too much mysis for just the sun corals. I feed right after the lights go out, so they have learned to open about 2 hours before the lights go out and I can enjoy them for those few hours. They are usually open about 6:30 pm and still open at 5 am when I leave for work.

 

[thatguy559]

my dendro,sun coral, and black sun corals all open during the day. i use a turkey baster to feed them mysid and brine. they are all in shadded areas

 

[DTECH07]

I pick up some discount ones(for a nice price, thx Cy) from BR a month ago and won one at the Swap Sat (a Bob Moore piece) and i can tell you the lighting means nothing to them only FOOD and WATER FLOW. I have mine trained to coome out twice and working on the new addition. I was feeding the older ones twice a day but can get away once till they get total health which you'll see in the Picture. The new one i took my syringe full of Mysis and blow just on top and 3-5 min later they were open up and ready to eat and man can they eat. even if you miss what time their use to eating you can draw them out with a little food across the mouth, this is one way that they feed in the wild.

 

[DTECH07]

So BEFORE FEEDING:

AFTER FEEDING:

It took me two weeks of shooting water from the 1 1/2 oz syringe i use to feed the Sun C to train the 5 shrimp i have to stay away during feeding time

 

[WABlonde]

Thanks for all the tips. We used the soda bottle trick as our diamond goby doesn't like to leave food sitting around. Was funnier than heck watching her continually try to bite into the bottle.

Here's the suncoral last night. I'm looking over my monitor and see that it's open right now. Very happy with it.

 

[DTECH07]

Glad it worked got that from Meevsreef (I think I spelled it correct) and a few other sites, but it was from a topic here on RF that help me in the right direction. Here is my NEW add, I gave a one to the LFS and pick one up from Barrie Reef today. It's ate but waiting for a (lights off feeding (2nd)) tonight:wink:. It's a Black Sun Coral:

 

[WABlonde]

Oh please please please post a photo of the black suncoral once it's "out". I have yet to see one.. I'll refrain from googling it and save all the excitement for this thread.

 

[DTECH07]

It was out some what last night and i gave it a little more food but it should be this weekend when it will do it's full preview and i'll post the pictures. I'm glad that your Sun's opened up they have lovely red in the center that really stands out, nice job:biggrin1: