Sun coral Help

[Lorna]

A week or so ago I bought a small sun coral. Since that time I tried target feeding it with a turkey baster in tank, nothing. I have since started taking it out and putting it in a container to feed it to no avail. I have been giving it mysis, brine, cyclopeeze, plankton you name it I have tried it.....no luck, I have yet to see it even attempt to open. My parameters are .....ph 8.3/8.4 salinity 1.025 temp 79.5-81.7 ca is 415 alk 3.5-4.0 meq/l everything else in the tank is doing well with this exception........any advice ???? *SICK*

 

[MrBungle]

where abouts in the tank do you have it? A lfs over here has a beautiful sun coral and every time I go its open all the time. The thing is, they have it under a cave of LR, not in direct light. Switching from container to tank and vice versa made my zoa's not open fully for a few days also.

 

[Lorna]

I have it placed under an overhang where it doesn't get direct light.

 

[MrBungle]

Found this on nano-reef: "They seem to naturally come out to feed at night right as the lights go out, so I would recommend removing them to a feeding container at night - that is what I did. You also want to coax them out with juice from frozen food in the container first. I used a tiny bit of oyster eggs and then fed them frozen cyclopeze, mashed frozen mysis, mashed marine cuisine, or mashed frozen formula one - I varied it every day. Even the ones that were recessed revived by doing this daily right as the lights were going out. Be careful not to let the feeding dish cool off though - it cools down fast if it is not floating in the main tank.

Try to keep them from being exposed to the air while removing them to feed.

I kept this routine up for about two months and now they seem to get plenty of food from the natural plankton in the tank. I have not target fed them for months yet they are still growing - although much slower than with targeted feedings in the feeding dish. Howeve,r I keep an eye on them to see if target feedins will ever have to be resumed"

 

[Limi310]

Have you looked at it at night?

 

[Lorna]

I was up a few nights ago a couple hours after lights out......nothing.....Please tell me this isn't a baby that needs a 2 am feeding?

 

[Lotus]

I did read one tip for feeding which was to use the top of a soda bottle (the funnel-shaped part) to place over the coral, and squirt food through the neck. It keeps the food over the coral, and probably helps concentrate the smell/taste of food.

 

[1979camaro]

I have seen the same tip that Lotus just gave in action; works really well.

 

[CoolWaters]

if u feed it a certain time and each day do it sooner everytime u might get it to open around 10:00.

have you tried a cave?

 

[Lorna]

It is in a cave sort of under a rock overhang. I looked at it closely when the lights came on this morning and it looked puffy like it had been open.......I am going to try the soda bottle and reef chili

 

[Limi310]

If you can at least get it eating you can eventually train it to open when you want. I would try that soda bottle trick for sure. It might not have been fed for a while. I've found them to be extremely hardy as long as their food requirements are met.

 

[KahluaZzZ]

I use

to feed each one when i do maintenance on a tank..they open but it takes time.

 

[Brack-Man]

Lorna,
Were they opened up at the store?
The ones that I have (and Limi has the sister colony) actually took about a week and a half to fully open up. Its not uncommon for them to take a couple of weeks or more to open up when you first get them. Just keep basting them with the food juices at about the same time each night and they wil start opening up.

 

[kay-bee19]

When I first got my sun coral(s) it wasn't very responsive to food. I tried cyclopeeze, mysis, brine shrimp, etc for the first few days with no apparent feeding response.

About a week after having this coral I then took a pinch of several mysis shrimp (the frozen Piscine Energic variety), and with a little tank water mashed it all up until it was a thick opaque chunky liquid. After turning off the tank circulation I turkey basted this stuff onto the sun coral until it was pretty much enveloped by it. This elicted a strong feeding response from the sun coral (which was interesting since it previously didn't react to 'whole' mysis).

As soon as the polyps opened it accepted whole mysis and all the previous foods I tried feeding it, and even flake food on occasion (I only had to mash up the mysis once to 'get things started'). Not sure if the mashed up mysis did the trick or if being in my tank for a week was what it needed though.

 

[Lorna]

I have been placing it in a dish of tank water and adding thawed pe mysis (the only kind of mysis I buy) last night it was almost opening up then I placed it back in the tank and this morning it looks like it had been open.....

 

[BONGRIPPER0420]

just keep up with the target feeding. mine took about three days to open up but now they come out all the time. usually at night when i get home from work. its almost like they have been "trained" to eat at a certain time!