Reef Central Online Community - View Single Post - Acanthophyllia Deshayesiana "Meat coral" lesson learned

IridescentLily · 07/15/2011, 07:47 PM

I've always thought this was the most beautiful coral ever and defintely planned to get one when my tank was not so new.
Unfortunately i'm now learning more about the acanthophyllia because mine is close to dying.
I didnt know the acanthophyllia deshayesiana "meat coral" needed to be spot fed.
After about two months of growing in my tank it began expelling her zooanthelae, because of bleaching from too high of light, so i put it in a more shaded area.
What i did'nt think of though is that since it was no longer getting her energy from light, it needed to be supplemented with Spot feeding. Before, we didn't feed the corals because we had such an explosion of pods that we assumed ALL the corals were eating pods. They were all eating pods, except for her.

But now we feed her everyday (regardless of how she looks now) hoping she'll revive/survive. And a lesson well learned for me. So i thought i'd pass it on figuring maybe it might help someone who
might want to have one of these beautiful animals their tank someday.

Here's how it looked when we first put it in our tank.

Here's two pics of how it looked two months later.

Here's what it started to look like when it started declining.
In this 2 minute video that i took of my tank, just in general, i'm completely unaware that the deshayesiana was in any distress.
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y18...t/2e5dcd65.mp4

This is what it looks like now.

We're feeding it everyday in the hopes that it will turn around in spite of my stupidity. We have a plastic container with a hole in the top so we can feed her and not have the blenny steal her food.
All isnt lost if even one person learns from my mistake.

07/15/2011, 07:47 PM	#1
IridescentLily Editor-Reefkeeping mag Join Date: May 2008 Location: Albuquerque, New Mexico Posts: 3,858 Blog Entries: 5	Acanthophyllia Deshayesiana "Meat coral" lesson learned I've always thought this was the most beautiful coral ever and defintely planned to get one when my tank was not so new. Unfortunately i'm now learning more about the acanthophyllia because mine is close to dying. I didnt know the acanthophyllia deshayesiana "meat coral" needed to be spot fed. After about two months of growing in my tank it began expelling her zooanthelae, because of bleaching from too high of light, so i put it in a more shaded area. What i did'nt think of though is that since it was no longer getting her energy from light, it needed to be supplemented with Spot feeding. Before, we didn't feed the corals because we had such an explosion of pods that we assumed ALL the corals were eating pods. They were all eating pods, except for her. But now we feed her everyday (regardless of how she looks now) hoping she'll revive/survive. And a lesson well learned for me. So i thought i'd pass it on figuring maybe it might help someone who might want to have one of these beautiful animals their tank someday. Here's how it looked when we first put it in our tank. Here's two pics of how it looked two months later. Here's what it started to look like when it started declining. In this 2 minute video that i took of my tank, just in general, i'm completely unaware that the deshayesiana was in any distress. http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y18...t/2e5dcd65.mp4 This is what it looks like now. We're feeding it everyday in the hopes that it will turn around in spite of my stupidity. We have a plastic container with a hole in the top so we can feed her and not have the blenny steal her food. All isnt lost if even one person learns from my mistake. __________________ ~April Editor-Reefkeeping Magazine Last edited by BlueCorn; 07/20/2011 at 10:50 PM.