Dendro Growth

[LouPhoenix]

I've had my Dendro for almost a year now. It looks super healthy, stays open most of the day and most of the night, eats like a pig, and at some point, about 7 months ago, it grew two little heads out of each side. The thing is, since then, the coral has not grown any bigger or multiplied at all. I have an mixed tank with a majority of my corals being SPS. It is in an area of good flow, plenty of light and it is fed a mix of mysis, Selcon, cyclopeeze and oyster eggs weekly. All 3 heads eat it all with gusto, but no growth. In contrast, I added my Duncans to the tank at the same time with the same food, same feeding schedule, same placement and it went from 3 heads to over 30 heads now. Again, nothing appears to be stressing the dendro and it looks happy as can be. I wonder what is keeping it from growing. Everything else in the tank grows! Here are some pictures for reference...

This one is from nearly a year ago, one happy head...
http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s237/louphoenix/Reef%20JUne%2009/DendrosF2.jpg

This one is from a couple of months ago (still looks the same)... 3 happy heads...
http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s237/louphoenix/Reef%20JUne%2009/Dendro.jpg

[shaneh]

mine is the same way they jsut grow really slow.

[pntballgunz]

Try Aqua Vitro Fuel and see if it helps out. I beleive it helped me with my corals overall and helped repoduction of my dendros. I started with 2 heads and 3 babies and not have 25-30 heads in a two year period.

[Milky3]

I bought mine in March 2009 it had one head it now has 10 heads

[stunreefer]

Different species of Dendrophyllia grow at drastically different rates. I have some that have shown very little growth in three to four years, while others have grown considerably. I would venture to guess you have a slow growing species...

[mak3mydae]

kinda off topic, but those are some pretty cool zoa's. And i dont really know what to say, ive had mine for a couple months and its only grown one new head a couple days

[LouPhoenix]

Thanks mak3mydae. Those came to me as ugly brown zoas (from being kept in sub-par conditions), but they colored up nicely in my tank and was able to identify them as Emerald Sunrise zoas. These, however, continue to morph with each new baby batch. The brown at the mouth is completely gone, leaving a very bright green area, and the white line that goes from the mouth to the outer edge has disappeared, likely due to the fact that the entire 'disk' area is densely covered with white dots. each new batch is a slightly lighter brown (greenish / beige now) with fluorescent green at the tip of the tentacles. not too bad for ugly browns!

[jnbrex]

feeding weekly is probably just enough to keep it alive. I feed my dendros every other day and get great growth. Try feeding them more and I bet the growth rate will speed up.