Sun Coral not wanting to feed.....

[Toolio]

Have an established tank with many corals for almost 2 years now.

Just purchased 2 sun corals, one orange and one black last week. I have been trying to coax the polyps out to feed, but the best i can get is 1/2 way out on the orange and hardly any at all on the black. I have been doing this by target feeding diiferent foods, DT's...etc.

I am ready to keep up with feeding them every day...if I could just get them to open up and take it!

Any suggestions?

I currently have them on the bottom of the tank, mostly hidden under rock ledge from the lights, in low to moderate flow. I have tried to feed first thing in morning(lights still out). mid day, and at night all with little to no results.

 

[Gordonious]

Difficult to define low to moderate flow, but it may like a little higher flow. What is the etc. in your different foods? Have you tried mysis shrimp? Sun coral is capable of taking in things from photo plankton up to mysis shrimp which it loves. If it doesn't open up with mysis shrimp floating by trying cutting off the bottom of a 2L soda bottle, putting a hole or two in the bottom to allow air bubbles out. Place the bottom upside down in the tank over the sun coral. Use a turkey baister to squirt food into one of the holes and surround the sun coral with food. Leave it there for a couple minutes to allow it to feed then pull the container away to feed the rest of your animals. As always watch that you don't over feed your entire system and cause Nitrate problems. It may take a couple days for it to adjust to your tank, but keep up with your feeding and you'll watch your colony grow in no time.


Check out the links below:
http://www.melevsreef.com/suncoral.html
http://www.reefs.org/library/aquarium_net/0797/0797_3.html

More background info:
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/dendrophylliidae.htm

 

[Gordonious]

Why is there no way to delete repeat posts?

 

[MtnDewMan]

Because there has been undue abuse with the edit features recently, therefore the edit features have been cut back.

 

[Toolio]

Ok thanks. I will try that 2 liter trick. I have seen that done in posts before, but I always thought that was when the polyps were out. I have bombed them with DT's phytoplankton, live brine shrimp, and a food concoction I bought from Tropicorium (listed as mostly vegetable) that I made into a "smoothie". The smoothie seems to coax the polyps out a tiny tiny bit.
I will try feeding the mysid shrimp when the polyps are closed and see if that helps.
Thanks!

Sorry if this is a repeat post, but I havent read one that deals with suncoral not opening polyps to feed....

 

[Gordonious]

I didn't mean that the whole thread was a repeat, so that second post of mine which originally was the same as the first. Either Reef Frontiers or my browswer messed up and even after I posted the content was still listed in my message so I thought it hadn't gone through and I posted again. There is no way to delete a post once it is up there, but you can edit it, so the second thread was what ever I felt like typing so I wouldn't look like an idiot for posting the same thing twice.

Good luck with the sun coral, mine is one of my fav corals. Also if you do have good luck keeping this one alive for a year try the other colors of sun coral out. I have the black and the orange, but really want the red.

Jon

 

[Anthony Calfo]

the black sun coral (Tubastrea micrantha) should not be collected for aquarium use and has no prayer of living in any aquarium for more than a matter of some months (less than a year almost without exception... rare). They require EXTREME currents so strong it would tear the tissue off of most every other coral in your aquarium. To put it into perspective, when the US did underwater nuclear testing in the South Pacific half a century ago... the only coral left standing after the reefs were raised from the atomic explosion... was T. micrantha! Really staggering. Anyone that has tried to fragment the corallum of this coral knows that a ballpeen hammer and chisel still dont stand a chance.

As for yoru other Tubastrea corals... they commonly wont eat on arrival from prologed starvation on import (7-14 days without eating). No biggie actually. You can tease them to open easily by first squirting a bit of shrimp juice (or thawed juice from mysis, crushed cocktail shrimp, etc). Anysuch. Put just a tiny bit of juice into the aquarium each night after the lights go out... the same time every night for up to 2 weeks. Without polluting your tank with meaty foods in premature attempts, this trick will train your coral to open and you can then begin target feeding with meats.

 

[Toolio]

Awesome

Thanks everyone for the suggestions!

The shrimp juice seemed to do the trick. I am trying to get them to open up during the day, as this tank is at work. They seem to love to eat!!

As for the black ones, are there different kind of black sun corals? I have seen colonies at the LFS and online that seem to be all seperate tubes for each polyp. Mine is more like a tall stalk with polyps coming out of the sides of the one stalk. (the whole stalk is black and the polyps are light green)

Thanks again!!

 

[unclejack]

The black sun coral is definitely a very diff one to keep. I bought one about a month ago and its polys never opened. As time goes by, this coral is receding (it was already receding when I picked it up, just not to the extended that it is now). As of now,the black color only exists on a few spots.

However, I do have a few black baby poly that do open and eat. So out of like 40 polys I got from the LFS, looks like 3 to 4 poly will srivive for sure

I also had a yellow one but the yellow is so much easier to feed and look after.

 

[Anthony Calfo]

very good to hear, my friend. The shrimp juice is a foolproof trick for all but the almost dead Tubastrea to get them to resume feeding.

As for the black suns... many different morphs (and there are other species) but most all in the hobby trade are Tubastrea micrantha. Thats the tricky (OK... near impossible) one to keep. You really would tear the flesh off of most all other coral if you give this one one enough to survive.

Do a google image search for comparison, bro.

 

[pitmam01]

Where do you get the shrimp juice??? Can you buy it in a grocery store??

:badgrin:

 

[small alien]

I find that if I feed my fish first (frozen mysis, cyclopeeze, prawn roe), the sun coral will open up over the course of 10 minutes or so. And then I rain food down upon the little fella who eats it right up. So far so good. I just got my second one (first was yellow, this one is orange). I love the color and the groovy little polyps. There's nothing I've seen quite like them. Awesome!