Sun Coral not opening up

[Andy]

i bought a fist size beautiful sun coral but to date it has not opened up. it has been almost a week. Looks healthy and no signs of degredation or anything to that effect... jsut won't open up. i am doing the spot feeding at night as well. Ideas? Happy Holidays!

 

[fall0n]

Hmm, You can try other places in your tank. Mine is up top, lots of light and in medium to low flow. It's always open. I make it a point to feed it during daytime lights which keeps it open pretty much all day long. What are you spot feeding? Mine eats pellet foods, squid and mysis (it's primary food i feed). I know that sometimes when my candy cane corals are not sticking out their tendrils, I suck up the mysis water and squirt it around the heads. They tend to open in anticipation.

 

[estanoche]

it will take some time for you to "train it" to open up in the daytime....

I'd get a small cup to put over it, and spray a mix of mysis and other tasty meaty foods into the cup (which is over the sun coral) - when the coral senses the food it will likely open up and eat. The challenge is keeping your fish away long enough so the coral has time to open up and eat - which is why the cup is useful

I use this to feed my LPS corals when I know my fish are gonna snatch the food up before the coral has time to eat ...

 

[Andy]

Thanks guys! will try this and report back

 

[fall0n]

Good point with the cup over the coral. More than fish, my cleaner shrimps are the jerks that swoop in for the food.

 

[N1Husker]

I also shoot some food right at the cleaner shrimp and elsewhere in the tank to draw them away from my acans so wwhen I target feed them the other guys stay busy until I can get them fed. I also use the top of a 16 oz lastic soda bottle with a hole in the cap and put a syringe in the hole. I cut the needle off and drill out the center of the syringe hole so that mysis shrimp will squirt through. I hold the bottle over the top until the acans can get their share. I'm new at this but it works and they are growing like crazy. In fact I need to get a larger bottle top as they are outgrowing the 16 ozer.

 

[Andy]

N1Husker love your suggestion with the soda bottle. will try thisfor sure.

 

[leena2674]

I feed my sun coral with a pipette in the evening when it starts to open. Typically, when I feed the fish, it must catch the 'scent' of the food and starts to open more fully. I notice it's typically only completely open at night, but usually opens some polyps over the course of the day as well. Typically they like a substantial amount of flow and won't open as fully without it. Lighting is not an issue since they are nonphotosynthetic.