show me your sun coral

[nashorn]

I know this is hard to keep long term so let's see what you have?

[kookerson]

its been a roller coaster with these guys, but they are worth it! Ive had them since june and the four polyps on the bottom left werent there when I bought it.......... : )

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f10/gwhype132/UpdatedSunCoral-1.jpg

[Caleb Kruse]

Here's mine

http://i164.photobucket.com/albums/u1/CalebKruse_photos/suncoral.jpg

[pscheel]

Here are mine just before lights out. Polyps are just coming out.

http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t22/pscheel/DSCN0167-1.jpg

[edandsandy]

Here's ours!

http://i238.photobucket.com/albums/ff177/salligood/Reef%20Tank/024.jpg

[Qckwzrd]

Nice suncorals guys! I'll try and post my suncorals later tonight. Edandsandy is that a Scroll coral as your avatar with a blenny in it? lol pretty cool

[Qckwzrd]

Here is a frag from one of my colonies
http://www.saltbucket.com/d/11767-1/P1020399.JPG
my whites
http://www.saltbucket.com/d/11761-1/P1020410.JPG
colony, the red is from the christmas tree lights
http://www.saltbucket.com/d/11593-1/P1020370.JPG

[Qckwzrd]

http://www.saltbucket.com/d/11470-1/P1020298.JPG
yellow and orange suncoral on a "hammer oyster"
http://www.saltbucket.com/d/11596-1/P1020371.JPG

[otiso777]

Wow! Those are amazing!

[dendro982]

I would not say hard to keep - it just takes twice a week manual feeding (very small colony can be fed accurately by tweezers), cleaning and a good filtration and skimming - for a dissolved organics and a small particles.
Pretty hardy, IMHE - I wish, that the red mushrooms, xenia and neon green candycane could stand the same (they actually stood, in the same tank, but not so good).

Since end of April 2006, was:
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g78/dendro982/LPS/Apr29sunNC.jpg
is:
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g78/dendro982/LPS/Jun22_07daytime.jpg
Just for fun, the red is chili coral, the yellow - sun coral (since Aug 06):
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g78/dendro982/LPS/smJul31_07.jpg

New, yellow sun:
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g78/dendro982/LPS/sunD2.jpg

Does anybody know who is who between tubastreas - is the high skeleton yellow T. aurea and the low skeleton orange - T. faulkneri or not? Any links to differential ID?

[kay-bee19]

Here's mine (orange and black types):
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a259/y2kenny19/Saltwater/tubastraea-1.jpg

[Qckwzrd]

Nice guys. I turn my fuge off and drop food in the tank. My powerheads and koralia pump makes sure all my babies eat. What's left between rocks and on the sand my great clean up crew takes care of. Bristleworms, pods, nassarius snails, cucumber, hermits and my fish.

[fishyfishy23]

Forget sun corals. Dendros are so much better they're out all day all night!!

[Qckwzrd]

I have Dendros, they are nice. Suncorals you can get in colonies, try getting a dendro colony lol. I have a dendro colony that was 12 heads its about 16-20 heads now but I love my suncoral colonies.

[dendro982]

Anything about red sun corals? I had seen some photos and mentions of them.
Are they dyed or not?

[ReneX]

Here are the two sun corals I purchased back in October. One of them was purchased as a "red" sun coral. It was from Aquatic Collection and looked pretty much identical to their photo at the time I got it.

http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o215/peregryn88/non-photosynthetic/redsun1231-1.jpg

Boring speculation on "red" sun corals...

It had a bright pink/red coenosarc and brilliant reddish orange polyps. It has faded gradually to what you see today. I have my doubts about any tubastrea being dyed. Typically, it's done to zoxanthellate corals that are bleached (forced to expell their symbiotic algae) and become pale or white in color. Tubastrea's color is not based on zoxanthellae--they don't have any--and I have never heard of them bleaching. So I'm not sure how one would go about dyeing a coral that is already so intensely colored.

I'm wondering if in "red" sun corals that fade over time, the culprit is diet. I expect they get a much more diverse diet in the wild, probably with a lot of crustaceans that have been eating phytoplankton. Phytoplankton are high in carotenoids, a set of pigments made by plants but responsible for bright colors in animals.

Carotenoids are responsible for red, yellow, orange, pink, and brown colors, so I wonder if diet isn't the reason a lot of sun corals change color after a few months in captivity. They exhaust what's stored in their tissues and when they don't get any more, the colors change. Since we feed meaty items, they probably aren't getting the same amount of carotenoids they get in the wild. This is one reason that the colors in some marine fish (firefish, some dottybacks, others) will fade if they don't get a good mixed diet in captivity. Maybe the same thing is happening in tubastrea.

That's my guess about what's going on with red sun coral, anyway. I'm going to hit the fish store and buy some meaty foods that are rich in carotenoids and start feeding them to see what happens. So far I've been feeding them mysis and I just added some krill to their diet. Krill sometimes have some carotenoids in them, but not nearly as much as some other foods I think. Cyclopeeze is supposed to be really high in some of the carotenoids, and there are several specially made foods to color enhance fish that would probably work. I'll see what I can find.

What specific items do you all feed your sun corals? If you have had them for a while, have you noticed any shift in color?

End rant...

Anyway, other than the color change, it looks healthy ;) It's grown two baby polyps since I got it and recovered from a lot of tissue recession.

http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o215/peregryn88/non-photosynthetic/blacksun1231.jpg

And here's the black one, which is possibly T. diaphana. I also got it as four polyps and it's grown five new ones in two months! Wow!

I love my sun corals. I get a huge kick out of feeding them.

[dendro982]

Thank you! Will keep my eye for them in LFS - may be some day they will have it.

My plain orange sun coral become more pale with time, and it is fed by mysis, pink bigger ocean plankton, grocery shrimp and red salmon.

I tried cyclop-eeze diet for more, than year - no mysis or other big food, for the babies around the chili coral (on the photo above). The color is more natural, pinkish-orange. Don't have uploaded photo yet.
It works, but feeding pigmented food (or additives) in significant amounts will increase cost of feeding drastically. Here the Cyclop-eeze is the most affordable, still, it bites. Anything better to try?

[ReneX]

Thanks Dendro, that's what I was hoping to hear!

I picked up some ocean plankton and cyclopeeze. I know cyclopeeze is really good, I'm going to try to get the flakes too so I can feed it to bigger polyps without so much waste.

I haven't gotten anything else yet to try. I'm going to look into pelleted food for fish and see if anything looks good. And yes, foods with high natural pigment concent are usually more expensive. But if I can feed them to that one colony and get it back to the colors I purchased it with, I will be happy with that.

[Qckwzrd]

Great infor guys. I feed my corals and fish mysis, plankton, cyclopeeze, squid, formula 1 flakes and diced shrimp from the fish market. I don't think there is a red suncoral. No one I've ever spoken to has had one stay red for a long period of time. Renex the red suncoral you had have your ever touched the skeleton and the color came off? How long did it take to change from red? Anyone know why the black suncoral color comes off when you touch it but the others don't?

[Kreeger1]

http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e109/kreeger1/tubast.jpg
http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e109/kreeger1/blacktub.jpg

[xroads]

Ive had a sun for about 2 months now. It nver fully opens, even at night. SOmetimes it swells alot and seems to open little slit mouths, but never opens it tenticles. I even drench it at cyclopeeze.

Any suggestions

[ReneX]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11497893#post11497893 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Qckwzrd

I don't think there is a red suncoral. No one I've ever spoken to has had one stay red for a long period of time. Renex the red suncoral you had have your ever touched the skeleton and the color came off? How long did it take to change from red?

Yeah, the jury still is out on if there is such thing as a red sun coral! Even if I can't get mine "red" again, I'm happy with the deep peachy pink color it is :) Qckwzrd, mine took about a month before I couldn't really call it red anymore, just deep pink. The whole thing just gradually got lighter and lighter. I did touch it by accident when I was still putting it in a feeding bowl to feed, and the red color never came off on my hands, though I did puncture the tissue and the skeleton showed :mad2: I did the same thing to my black sun coral, and have never seen the color come off.

Kreeger, wow, you have T. micrantha. How's that doing for you? They're supposed to be the hardest of the tubastrea to keep.

[Carbone]

here is mine http://youtube.com/watch?v=3olFsgxmoOI

[ReneX]

xroads I am far from an expert, but what's the flow like that you have it in? They need/like significant flow. Neither of mine opened fully until I put them 6" under a 100gph water flow source, almost directly in the current.

Carbone, very nice! I love how those polyps are moving around in the flow.

[Qckwzrd]

Carbone sweet video

All nice looking suncorals guys, keep'em coming

http://www.saltbucket.com/d/11755-1/P1020412.JPG
http://www.saltbucket.com/d/11458-1/P1020322.JPG

[Qckwzrd]

it was all good a few months ago...some old pics
http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p60/qckwzrd/P1000620.jpg
http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p60/qckwzrd/P1000667.jpg

[dendro982]

Yummy! Any information about what Tubastrea species they are, any difference in care?

xroads: did you try container feeding?

[ReneX]

Qckwzrd,

I love your white tubastrea. When you got it, how did you know it had white polyps? All the ones I've ever seen in aquarium stores have been closed, and many of the online vendor photos of corals show suns with closed polyps as well. Did you just take a chance and get lucky? What's the color of it when the polyps are closed?

[Qckwzrd]

Well it started about 4-5 months ago when my tank had crashed. I lost all three of the suncorals pictured above (I gave what was left to a friend) and moved my orange frag I had to my tank at work. All the polyps died but there was skin left on the side. After about 2-3 monthsi started to see small white polyps that started to bud. I fed them cyclops for a month and moved them to my home tank. Since then they have grown a lot and I have about 15-20 polyps. They are white with red mouths and I do have one baby orange suncoral polyp next to the whites. Its the only one suncorals I've ever seen. So that's my pride and joy coral.

[dendro982]

There are also cupcorals, pure white and with orange body - mine were much smaller (~8x), than tubastreas.
Link to another thread (http://thereeftank.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1152886)

And on this website (http://www.guba-mittelmeeraquarium.at/) , non-photosynthetic big tank (very nice), in gallery are Mediterranean Astroides calycularis. Link (http://www.mnhn.fr/mnhn/bimm/protection/fr/Especes/Fiches/Astroidescalycularis.html) to ID.

Quite interesting are all tubastreas and the similar corals.

[ReneX]

That's very interesting. So the white polyps grew back from a coral you had that was previously orange? There were no white polyps before the crash and the meltdown?

While we're sharing photos, here's another photo of a white tubastrea in the wild.

http://www.divegallery.com/tubastrea_2.htm

[Kreeger1]

That German tank is amazing dendro. How did you find that? I wish I could find a translation to the site as it looks like a lot of useful information
Erik

[Kreeger1]

little more looking at the german tank site, it seems to be a cold water tank. Beautiful none the less

[Kreeger1]

I stand corrected on the not a cold water tank

[dendro982]

How I found it: while non-photosynthetic corals web search leads mainly to general information and don't do it, the search for Menella and skimmer - gave that (through the illustrated croatian forum, which I don't understand). And Scleronephthya plus skimmer search - non-photosynthetic forum at Ultimate Reef (uk). You never know :D

The Karl's tank is interesting for me by aquascaping, possibility to have a lot of LR, even with high levels of feeding (my rock accumulated nitrates and phosphates with time, so I moved it after mechanical filtration). Also - classification of tube anemones and their keeping. I have one, and hoping to have more, if they will be compatible.

Translation: Google has Language tools (at the right from the search box), pasting url do not working for the frames, so I copied pieces of text for translation box.

Was particularly impressed by automatic translation from Japanese - the best looking tank with Dendronephthya, you know it: Japanese site (http://www.cpfarm.com/) and link to it (http://www.reefcentral.net/forums/showthread.php?threadid=667312&perpage=25&pagenumber=4) from RC.

[Emc2]

Wow. some of those sun corals are just beautiful.

Here's mine. It looked pretty bad when I picked it up but it has done well with a little extra attention.



http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/86295sun_coral.jpg

[aninjaatemyshoe]

Dendro, I have my doubts about the Japanese tank you linked. I do not think that it actually maintains the dendronepthyas, just held them for the sake of a pretty picture. If whoever setup this tank actually managed to care for them in such a setup, they need to reveal how they did it. I find it difficult to believe that they are thriving in a mixed reef when very few people are able to maintain them in dedicated tanks.

[dendro982]

Anything could be, of course... I linked the source of this information.
I'm not big fan of sps, but here is link (http://www.reefpark.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=25309) to mixed sps and azoa corals tank.

[Mental1]

So what's this guy? Got a bunch of them as hitchhikers on my Caribbean rock...
Sorry about the picture ...

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/131354mine.jpg

[Kreeger1]

aptasia a pest, use joes juice to kill it

[ReneX]

That looks like Phyllangia americana or one of the other many Caribbean species known as "cup coral". Non-photosynthetic, needs small meaty foods to live. I have some of those on my LR as well in my sun coral tank and I use them to catch whatever the sun corals miss. The skeletons on mine are a little smaller than a dime, and the polyps when open can be about 1 1/2" wide. Pretty, aren't they? Like very long-tentacled transparent sun corals.

Edit: Or, well, it could be Aiptasia ;) If it doesn't have an obvious hard skeleton when closed. But I think I can make one out in the picture.

[Kreeger1]

http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e109/kreeger1/DSCN0282.jpg

[Mental1]

It's not aiptasia. I used to have an aiptasia garden and I know what that looks like -- I ended up throwing all of that rock out. I have never target fed them and they seem to be surviving just fine! I have about ten in my tank and they have been there for 18 months! They are very beautiful looking. I love how their tentacles are so transparent. Thank you ReneX -- took me a while but I found someone who took a decent picture. It's the Hidden Cup Coral. It must be getting something! I will start getting food to them! I love em...

[JokerGirl]

Here's mine - it's slowly recovering from a massive algae problem I had that killed half the colony.

http://i150.photobucket.com/albums/s110/JokerGirlsPhotos/IMG_2357.jpg

[aninjaatemyshoe]

JokerGirl, was your algae a wispy hair-like algae? If so, I've had the same problem. A good way to deal with it is to blast the algae off it with a turkey baster.

[JokerGirl]

Nope, not the same problem. What I had was some form of hair algae. It had really strong holdfasts - could pick up my live rock by it. It was covering almost every rock in my tank along with my sun coral.

[Qckwzrd]

Nice looking tubastrea JokerGirl. I had the same hair algae problem with my whites. I couldnt get it off with a powerhead. I used a toothbrush and kept my lights off for a few days.

[JokerGirl]

A toothbrush didn't even work on this stuff. I tried that when the tank got transferred over in March. The only thing that has worked is a Phosban reactor and lots of peeling. When the stuff starts to die, it would get this "melting" look to it, at that point I could just go in and it would peel off the rocks in huge strips leaving clean rock behind.

You can see it up close in this picture... it otherwise just looked like little fluffy mats all over the tank.

http://i150.photobucket.com/albums/s110/JokerGirlsPhotos/IMG_4122.jpg

[whoopper]

Here's mine!! Not a good photo, it was with the cell but i think he deserve my recognition anyway!


http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/15518110-21-07_0506.jpg

[Qckwzrd]

http://www.manhattanreefs.com/gallery/files/1/2/0/7/P1020614.JPG

http://www.manhattanreefs.com/gallery/files/1/2/0/7/P1020623.JPG

[foolish08015]

heres mine ?

[foolish08015]

http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc40/foolish08015/reef011.jpg

[Kustomreefer]

Great looking corals. I just never had good luck with them

[Kreeger1]

Qckwzrd what do you feed your tank?

[Qckwzrd]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11664815#post11664815 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Kreeger1
Qckwzrd what do you feed your tank?

Mysis shrimp, frozen and flaked cyclops, formula one flakes, diced shrimp and squid, and I also soak my food in selcon from time to time. I feed my tank just about everyday.

[ZenMan]

I just picked up some sun polyps from a LFS. I've had them two days and I have yet to see any polyps. Even one hour after the lights go out, no extension.

Should I start to worry? Is there anything I can do to encourage the polyps to feed?

[dendro982]

ZenMan:
If you have bright lights, sun coral will likely open after the main lights are off - late evening.
To provoke it open for a feeding, the best, what worked for me, was a pinch of Cyclop-eeze, added to 90g tank. Polyps open in ~15 min. But fine particles from frozen seafood should work too.

If this will not work - in a couple of days (or tomorrow) try container feeding. Removing sun coral from the tank, placing it in container with tank water, adding food. Cover from bright light. Keeping there, until eats, but within 1 hr. Watch for temperature drop - double container with warm water between them may be necessary.
Then return to the tank.

For my new starved coral one container feeding was enough to make it open in the tank by itself.
More illustrated information and links to other ways to feed - here (http://defineyourreef.freehostia.com/refpages/sunfeed.html).

Good luck!

[ZenMan]

Thanks a bunch for the link. I'll try it out!

[PauChi]

Here's my two old Faithful ..... (old pic .. a year or two ago ... ) ;)


http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/MapleReef/SunDendro.jpg

[krajacich]

Here's mine several months ago:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v731/krajacich/PICT1844.jpg

Unfortunately they suffered from neglect while I was finishing up my masters but I think they've made a turn for the better with a little more personal attention :)

[Qckwzrd]

PauChi you still have the sm polyp suncoral on the bottom? any pics of it open?

[dendro982]

Looks, like the sun coral people are subscribed on this thread.

I have some questions:
1. Is this Tubastrea aurea?

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g78/dendro982/LPS/sunD2.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g78/dendro982/LPS/sunD5.jpg

2. Was Tubastrea aurea reclassified in Dendrophyllia something? Can't find the link right now.

3. Septal pattern differences within Tubastrea - maybe you have a photos or additional information.
In Dendrophyllia, the calyces follow the Pourtales Plan wherein the septa fuse in groups of three together at the center of the calyx. Tubastrea conversely shows no central fusion of the septa. link (http://www.bishopmuseum.org/research/pbs/Oman-coral-book/Chap3/CorBkCh3htm.htm) . More drawings of Pourtales plan and skeleton photos are here (http://www.planktonreeftech.com/TH/articles/coral/suncoral_taxa.htm) , only no translation available.
My orange tubastrea's skeleton, possibly T. faulkneri (pink-salmon shade at arrival and new colonies have it):
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g78/dendro982/LPS/Feb0308skel_t.jpg

4. What do you use for improving coloration, other, than cyclop eeze and white fish (the fish is an ultimatereef.net non-photosynthetic forum information)?

5. Who has/had dedicated NPC tanks with tubastrea - how high flow was tolerated?
I have suspicion, that scleronephthya and tubastrea could be incompatible because of flow.
Any particular tips on filtration?
I would like to remove my sun corals from the big tank and keep the fish in clean water - they deserve that.

6. Who has sun spawned and new colonies growing:
what to do with them and how? I would like to remove them from main tank and grow in easily accessible for a tweezers feeding place, but that would require removing all the big rocks - they are plagued by babies.

How make a compact placement of the babies, with room for a growth?

I know, that one of the options is having a sun coral forest :) , as Daniela has (13 Mb pdf link (http://www.korallenriff.de/Sindelfingen2005/daniela_torsten_2005.pdf)), but my skimmer (ASM G-3, venturi, needlewheel pump) can't handle that. Could do that at nano-scale (10-12g tank with 7x oversized skimmer).

Will appreciate the input and, especially, the photos.

[Kreeger1]

You could always add another pump to your asm g3 if it's not handling the waste load.

In my high flow tank I can always find a area that is not getting blasted by flow. I'd say my tubastreas like medium flow. I feed them mainly P.E. Mysis shrimp. But they react really fast to the nutramar ova. I highly recommend that over cyclopeeze. I no longer feed my tank cyclopeeze.

I'll need to look into the white fish stuff, I have no idea about it so I can't comment on it.

good luck
Erik

[dendro982]

Link (http://www.ultimatereef.net/forums/showthread.php?t=211341&page=3) to evilervin post about coloration in relation to the feeding.

Another pump means recirculating modification?
If you can take a look at the ASM skimmer club (http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=991162&perpage=25&pagenumber=30) my post and the answers, that it's likely related to frequent feeding and they have no experience with this.

Or recirculation mod should solve the problem anyway?

Regarding the feeding - the Nutramar ova and PE mysis are not available locally. I used pink Pacific plankton, krill and shrimp as a substitutes, they didn't helped with coloration.

Only young colonies are pinkish, the older colony lost salmon-pink shade within months after purchase, even being fed with chopped salmon (together with other food).

7. One more thing of concern: lateral growth of colony.
Mine is on bare bottom, moved slightly during cleaning, so it hadn't rock surface to expand onto. Now some polyps started facing downward and not able to feed.

How you are dealing with this problem? Fragging every year or letting it encrust the rock around it?

So far I raised one side by gluing a small rock below, but this is a temporary solution. Have to mount to a bigger surface later.

[Kreeger1]

Yes, adding a recirculating pump would really help out. I'm going to mod my asm g4x with another pump don the road when I add more and larger fish.

With the growing down polyps I haven't had that "luck" yet. If it were me I would frag and trade with other reefers and maybe let a little encrust on the glass.

I haven't lost any color yet in my tubs so I can't help you there yet.

I bet in a few more months the nutramar product will be in Canada, untill then I would just contine what your doing as it seems to be working minus the intense coloration your looking for.

on a side note, picked up a new dendro last night, new pics coming soon :)
Erik

[currentking]

heres mine....
http://i210.photobucket.com/albums/bb34/currentking/DSC01702.jpg

[dendro982]

Erik, can you post photo of your already working sump setup in your tank built thread (http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1240790)? Which worked well for NPC tank?
And how to fight overflowing or no skimming problem, and matching inflow-outflow in the baffled sump (I'm referring to ASM skimmer club link above). They are not familiar with this kind of feeding and non-photosynthetic people are hard to reach for particular advice. Can we move skimmer discussion there? It's slightly off topic here, and I really need improvement.

How long you have the sun coral, that it not covered the rock yet? No, no questioning your methods, only curious, what influences that. You see, if with my rare feeding it filled the rock in a little more, than year, I only can imagine how it grows with better or more frequent feeding.

Sorry folks, for this deviation from main topic, but it's related to general practices of NPC keeping ;)

[reefierone]

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh163/fishieone_2008/Pictures2207.jpg

[Kreeger1]

http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e109/kreeger1/tub-1.jpg

[Cramz07]

Here's mine. Here's a pic the night after i put it in my tank on sunday the 24th i've been pretty aggressive feeding it everynight about and hour and a half before i shut the lights off


IMG]http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/ii285/CamCramz07/lillyandtank184.jpg[/IMG]

[Cramz07]

http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/ii285/CamCramz07/lillyandtank184.jpg

whoops should work now...