Sun Coral Question

[CutieWitBooty]

Ok, well he still hasn't come out so I put him in another container with a bunch of mysis and it didn't really come out but it got all fat looking like it was going to. After about 2 hours in there, the polyps starting kinda comming out of the hard part and got all fat, well i waited like 3 more hours and it stayed that way. I ended up putting him back into the tank, becasue i didn't want him sitting in the container all night. Is this what it looks like when it's trying to come out? Why would the polyps only extend this much then stop? I guess i'm going to try again tonight, any suggestions?

 

[RoyalGrammaPrincessHannah]

Mine never looks like they are trying to come out, they just are out or in. Have you tried target feeding it with an eyedropper or turkey baster? Their shape doesnt allow them to catch adequate food for their needs. I mix zooplex, phytoplex, and some fish food with various things in it. IME though, the polyps usually only come out when it is hungry and when the lights go out. So maybe it just isnt hungry. When I had mine in the full light, the polyps would never come out until the lights were out. But now it is in a shaded area in my tank and the polyps come out more often during the day. So if it isnt under shading already, you may try that, as they dont have high lighting requirements anyway.

 

[Navarre]

I have found the best way to feed suncorals is to first feed thetank with a solution so the coral gets a taste of whats out there, then once the coral is opened i would target feed it. If you have shrimps or fish that might mug the coral then i would do this in a seperate container such as you have done already.

I have used Cyclopeze in the past, this gets eaten by the fish and corals and gives the sun coral plenty of warning time that food will be offered when its opened. You can train your coral to open up at feding times if you work on a regualr schedual.

 

[CutieWitBooty]

but it wouldn't come out at all in the tank, i put it in th container and put alot of feed in there and this is what it looked like....weird huh? You know what it kinda looks like to me (might be wrong though), it looks like it's open but doesn't have any tentacles, woinder what would case that... Here is a pic of it closed, so you can see the differance from the above picture.

 

[steelhealr]

The corals will eat if you dropper the mysid onto the oral disk. In the bowl, they will not fully open but they WILL eat. If you rest/drop some food on the oral disk, they will engulf it. Also, next time you do this, swirl the water around it rapidly and you will see them open their tentacles larger. This coral prefers low light but HIGH flow. Producing a coral in the bowl will encourage them to open and mysis will begin to stick the tentacles. SH

Add...sadly, this was my suncoral when I first got it:

Since then, half the colong has died or whithered away. Feeding twenty heads of coral with mysis shrimp really bumped up the nitrates and I had to selectively pick a few heads to save. SH

 

[CutieWitBooty]

yeah i was moving the water around,but it still didn't show me it's tenticals, guess i will just give it time and i think i will just let the mysis sit on its mouth for a while, with the flow i had on the container it would just drift off, so i'll try doing it without floe. (when i took the pic i turned off the flow in the container)

 

[steelhealr]

BTW..that frag looks about just the right size to keep in a nano. My frag was too large IMO. SH

 

[CutieWitBooty]

Well it finally is opening in the tank, but up untill yesterday i still had to take it out of the tank to get it to open like the pic above. I think my sun finally got tthe idea that mysis is good food, so all that work this past week was worth it. It's still not as nice looking as yours, but it's made some big improvements and looks better everyday. It ate 1/2 a cube of mysis last night and it can finally grab the food with it's tentacles, which is sooooooo much easier than holding the food for it lol here is a pic from last night

 

[steelhealr]

It looks MUCH better than mine.....mine is half dead......too many nitrates for my tank and I had to let half the colony go. SH

 

[bunjiweb]

Looking great, its hard to get a sun to extend that well, you've obviously been doing the right thing!

Ben

 

[CutieWitBooty]

thanks guys for the input, i'm really excited it's doing so well now

 

[steelhealr]

Keep a close eye on your nitrates for the first few weeks. SH

 

[CutieWitBooty]

thought i would give an update on my sun. It doing really good and eats a whole cube of mysis every day. My nitrates and everything are still go, i think i have to thank my huge skimmer for that. All the food gets eaten by the sun or the crabs and then whatever tiny peices are left in the water the skimmer tankes care of. After a feeding it fills up that whole collecting thing, but once it's dumped it stays down. I also noticed there are alot of tiny poyps growing in between the big ones and along the edges. You can't see to many of them in the pics though, because almost all of them are on the other side, i'll have to get a pic of all the babies!!

Here is the sun 10 min after the lights went out

Here it is eating the first round of mysis

Here is is a couple min later opening up for more!

 

[steelhealr]

Good job with that one. SH

 

[CutieWitBooty]

do you have a recent pic of your sun?