Urgent SUN CORAL

[amphirion]

I have a sun coral since last friday but it doesn't open even during the night!
What can I do??? It's in a dark place of the tank and polyps seem to be full of water but they just don't open...

Thank you!!!!!!!

[thatguy]

Cut the bottom off a 1-liter bottle. Cover the sun coral. Get a bunch of food, small stuff. Put a little into the bottle, using a turkey baster. Wait a few minutes add the rest. Gently mix the water with the baster every now and again. It should open up after a while. If not try again the next day.


Just my opinion, do with it as you will.

["Umm, fish?"]

BTW, the lighting doesn't matter. Just put them where you can feed them. If thatguy's suggestions don't work, get some squid juice and baster that over the polyps a couple of times/day. When you start to see polyps, then reward with food. Repeat as necessary. The smell of squid juice or crushed cyclops seems to warm the coldest of hearts. :)

Good luck!

[Qckwzrd]

I put mine is a small container and fed them cyclops and diced shrimp came out in mins.

[Grand Wizard]

Try squeezing a cockle or a whole Mussel over the sun coral that normally brings the polyps out, can you guys get cyclopeeze as that is brilliant food for all filter feeders. ;)

[amphirion]

It opens a little bit at night. I'll try what you have told me.

Thanks!

[Rockitmakr]

Mine usually only comes out at night, or right after feeding time. Cyclops seem to really tickle their tase buds.

Cheers & Happy Reefing

[blackheart]

spray polyps with foods when the polyps begin to open and thye will soon start comeing out. For these corals the first month in your tank is the most important. They usually come in almost starved. So you must nurse it back to health using any of the great methods described above. When the polyps do start comeing out fully you should make a mix of cyclopeeze mysis and brine and feed them hardilly for at least a month this will get them back healthy again. After that once of twice a week shouldd be fine. Make sure at the begining you feed each polyp.....let it eat and if it comes back out in five to ten minutes feed it again. Once this coral gets full strength it will be able to fight off fish, star fish, and anything else that tries to steal its food. But till that happens you will have to keep the preditors away from it. Good luck and tell us how it goes

Some pics of my colony:

http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r37/skess4444/fishtank125.jpg

http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r37/skess4444/fishtank127.jpg

http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r37/skess4444/fishtank137.jpg

[wcpeixoto]

I've read a lot about suncorals and for my own experience I can say they don't care too much about lighting or position. But they do care about circulation.

Be sure to place yours in a medium/strong circulation and add any food on the water to see what happens.

I have four for several months and initally feed them carefully as everybody recommends. They like but it is not necessary. Nowadays they eat just like all my others lps: phytoplan and zooplan three times a week and reefobooster weekly add to the water.

The ones on higher circulation opens much more than the ones under poor circulation.

[blackheart]

I second that high flow!!!!

[Qckwzrd]

Blackheart your colony looks GREAT!! Do you just have the orange? because I have the black and it comes out more then the orange.

["Umm, fish?"]

I have the black and it comes out more then the orange

That's my experience, too, and the black grows fast. I think the yellow is the hardest to get out with the lights on. It's sure pretty, though.

[Qckwzrd]

Yea your right@ Umm,fish? I'm feeding mine as we speak. Diced up some shrimps and feeding each polyp. I gotta get my hands on the reds!

[musty baby]

When will this be a sticky? Seems like there's 3 of these threads a week...

[amphirion]

Thanks for your answers! Mine wasn't in current at all... I'll put it in current today and see what happens.

Thanks!

[2revup]

yeah i am still having issues with mine mine is now in the 3 week area without food i have since put mine a qt tank with nothing else and i feed it every day all foods, brine mysis, krill, filter foods (jucies, which stink fishy) plankton the list goes on and it still has not come out i have left this coral in total darkness for over a week and still nothing i have played with high flow little flow. I am at a loss its starting to die and i have done almost eveything in my power any help?
PLEASE

["Umm, fish?"]

Qckwzrd-- I gotta get my hands on the reds!

Reds? Can you point me to some pictures? Thanks!

2revup--I'm sorry to hear about your coral. You say you feed every day. Does that mean that you feed multiple times per day? They like that.

Have you tried the same time every day? I've heard that helps.

How's the water quality in the QT? Remember, these are stoney corals and the water quality must reflect that.

[2revup]

yeah i have tried same time everyday,
The water is from my main so water qality is perfect

cal 530
kh 10
ph 8.2
nit 0
nitrit 0
Amm 0
Phosp 0

I have tired on the occasion feeding 2 times a day, but this creates to much problems in the QT with nitrate etc.

I dont know what else to do. The poloyops bases dont extend as much as they use to (like its getting weak), i just checked and they were extended as if they wanted to feed, so i threw some krill, mysis and filter feeding liquard in the tank and they still havent opened.

["Umm, fish?"]

I think I would try the feeding bowl trick, then. Put the colony in a bowl. Squirt a little juice. If you see a reaction from the coral in 30-45mins., feed it. If there's no reaction, squirt a little juice again. Keep this up as many times as you can until it gets some food (you don't have to worry about water quality because you're going to throw this water out). When it does come out, fill the water with alarming amounts of small food. You want to reward it for showing its polyps. Stir up the water occassionally to keep the food in suspension so it's available to the polyps.

It might take a couple of days of this, but it will start coming out. Especially since it's probably pretty darn hungry by now.

[blackheart]

I have a black sun coral also and it does very well too it was almost dead when i got it and i have brought it back to the point where i dont have to worry much about it. They both come out at night or during the day. However even if they come out during the day they are still out all night.

I never feed my tank with the halides on so what i usually do i at about 7 oclock is feed the fish and corals. then wait about half an hour for these sun corals to come out, i then feed them out of a turkey baster. I feed a combo of brine, mysis, and cyclopeeze.

My yellow has sent polyps all over the tank so now i have about twenty colonies. The babies are still very very small and i do not feed any of them but. this is a great coral even though it is a baby sitter coral. I think it is well worth its draw backs.

Oh yeah I feed this coral now directly about once a week. If i feel like i neglected it i will feed it twice a week.

good luck

[blackheart]

Ok for all you that just can not get yours to eat no matter what. Drastic times call for drastic measures.

Here we go: Get your self a five gallon bucket put in two gallons of your tanks water (do a water change) into the bucket. Now add a power head (nothing to crazy but enough to get the water moving. then add you sun coral. Please make sure that it is not getting blown around by the current. Now first add some cyclopeeze, maybe oyster eggs, and some squid juice. You will not need any large meaty food items yet. Let you sun coral sit in here for about an hour- hour and a half. then take it out of the feeding bucket and put it back into you tank. (oh yeah do this at around ten or eleven at night). Do this once or twice a week for about a month. (although it should only take a couple weeks).

Once you start to get a responce from this coral. You can use the same mixture to get the polyps out in your own tank. Once you see the polyps extend for a couple nights in a row then you can start to feed larger pieces of food. Just remember that if you try to feed it to early it will not respond well because you could scare it into resession.

The main thing you are trying to do with this is to let your coral know that when it smell this mixture we spoke of that it is time to put its polyps out and try to feed. When it starts to get stronger it will reform its neumatocytes which will allow it to grab on to larger pieces of food.

So i think that is good to get you guys started if you have anymore questions please ask. Also, please let me know how this works for you.


another thing: dont ever put your suncoral on sand. keep it on a hard surface aka rock.


And so you know most of these red sun corals are dyed. If anyone has a true red i would love to have a frag. Last time i got one after a year it turned yellow. I found the destributor who sold it and asked what was happening. She said if i wanted it to be red again then i should dye it. ha ha

Good luck all

[2revup]

another thing: dont ever put your suncoral on sand. keep it on a hard surface aka rock. i have always been told put it on the substrate.

so thn it should be on the bottom of the tank but on a rock? why?
I will try your trick, just need to buy some more salt and some more fresh seafood.

Thanks

Brad

["Umm, fish?"]

I doesn't matter if it's on the bottom or not. Tubastreas have a hard time ejecting sand out of the polyp tubes if it gets in there. That said, all three of mine are on the sand at least a little.

[blackheart]

what Umm, fish? said is correct. Anywhere there is sand in polyps you will have prooblems. It doesnt matter where the coral is in the tank. However if the skin of the coral is under the sand it will die causing ressecion which is never good. So if I where you i would keep it off the sand.

The reason people say to keep these in the shade is because algae will grow where detritus settles so if they are in the light have them in high flow, and clean them off with you turkey baster every once in a while. In the wild they grow in the dark upside down under incredible flow. This way nothing settles on them. Upside down would be best however you would need a lot of glue.

PS: all the colonies that have started growing in my tank are on the underside of over hangs and rocks

[2revup]

It is in a very high flw area, where the 2 PH meet so its getting the best flow in the tank i would say (that is not directly infront of the power head, but the most natural flow i would say) I do have a sand sifting goby that does like to put some sand on the coral but i always brush this off.

[blackheart]

I would say then you have found you answer. If I where you, (which i am not), I would get that coral away from the sand sifting goby. I have seen sand sifting gobies, and jaw fish kill many LPS by spreading sand on them and bothing them to the point where they dont come out and then starve to death.

[one8thscale]

When I got my first sun coral it opened at night for one week then decided not to open for while. Well it did respond to food by elongating but the polyps never opened. Couple of weeks later it released little buds that made new baby sun coral. Oh and my jaw fish got eaten by one of my acans that was on the sand. I guess it was tired of it being sanded. Same acan ate one of my snails too. Killer acan I guess.

[Qckwzrd]

I'll be moving my suncoral from the sandbed ASAP. My Goby doesn't put sand on my suncorals, but he does to the plate coral. It just moves it right off and chills.

[Gordonious]

Are many people in this post not native speakers of English? You guys are confusing me.

"After that once of twice a week shouldd be fine" you mean once or twice a week?(sounds like a small number to me)

"I have four for several months" have had? You mean you tried them and they died with in several months, or that you still have them.


I figured my sun wouldn't open for a couple of days in my tank, but one polyp started opening up while I was acclimating it in a bucket and the rest opened after 5 minutes in my tank. I would think this is a good sign and perhaps it just smelled a lot of food in my water? I do have gorgonians and feed pretty often.
Is it possible at all that they would open when they are super hungry or not liking the water or could this only be a good sign?

["Umm, fish?"]

I think you're probably fine.

[blackheart]

for timmy