New Deodronephthya sp. study group?

[kenny77]

i have mine on a cave and so far it is spreaind on the rock. when i got it it was as small as the piece on the right and now it has double it size and reproduce a couple of time. im thinking on getting a few more Scleronephthya and Dendronephthya since i still have about 5 cave left. so far i feed the tank live phyto every other day

[graveyardworm]

Hi Kenn, looks great. Do you have any more recent photos to compare?

Could you give us a better tank description ( livestock, equipment, params )?

[DonJasper]

I'd add: How long have you had it? (if less than a year then keep at it and let us know when it's been a year) And what do you think that you're doing different than a conventional reek tank?

[Stbringer]

I have used the Phyto Feast, and love it for a lot of things.
I only have pink and orange scleros.
The real key for mine seems to be location (flow).
They like it dirty, and stirring the bottom makes them the happiest.

[graveyardworm]

Well I've moved my Dendro specs out of the tank they were in and into a well established 10 gal that I've had running with only a brittle star, peppermint shrimp, and a pile of LR rubble. So far the only filtration has been LR with an Emperor bio wheel set up for circulation.

Last night I fed the tank with a few drops of selcon and noticed a feeding response from the dendro. I'm sure other people have tried this stuff, but I cant find much about it. Anyone with experience let me know what your results were please.

[graveyardworm]

Has any progress been made with getting a predatory coral forum up?

[charles matthews]

From what I understand, the organizers are going to determine how much use we get as a thread before turning to a column.

Regarding Selco, Peter Wilkins talked about using some product that sounds similar, about two or three times a week. He also stirred gravel frequently- the exact frequency isn't disclosed. He is reputed to have kept them for 8 years running (per Anthony Calfo).

I am presently feeding live phytoplankton, which everyone has tried, but also squeezing a sponge into the tank. I keep three larage sponges suspended in the 120 gallon, and squeeze all of them twice daily or sometimes every eight hours. A milky fliud drains out, presumably bacteria and cell fragments. I am also feeding the chromis (9 of them) heavily on granular yeast and other things. I get the strongest feeding response I have observed from the sponge technique.

I moved the several dendros I had in a 29, and one I had in a 120 cryptic in front of a wave 2K, to the 120 where they are three feet away from a Tunze 2002 Stream. They like it here better than the other places. I am thinking that they need very good oxygenation and need the circulation.

I also think the temps need to stay at 78 max. Peter Wilkins has made the same observation, and actually writes that for all the anthozoans but especially for those of deep water, they actually do better at 20-22 degrees C! I find this plausible. I may end up buying a chiller.

Charles

[DonJasper]

Something to consider: another way to simulate zooplankton.
A powerhead blowing through egg crate.

What I've noticed is that 'stuff' eventually grows on the egg crate, and then gets worked free by the water flow. The result is that I've got scads of particulate matter 24x7. Even occasional full grown 'pods, hairworms, all kinds of stuff. Must be lots of algae pieces as there’s algal growth on the egg crate. I keep meaning to look at a sample of the water column under magnification – but just haven’t got around to it.

While I don't have specifically have a powerhead and egg crate - you get the idea. High water flow through a mesh of some sort.

[Gargausius]

I don't know about suggesting this. But I just came to a realization one day recently. Do most of these Dendronephthya come from the Red Sea? If so, wouldn't it make a lot more sense to make the water hyper-saline like it is in the Red Sea? So, instead of 1.025-1.027 which is fine for Indo-Pacific corals, shouldn't it be more like 1.027-1.030?

I've also kind of wondered about the current regimen. I've noticed Dendronephthya sp. corals don't like currents that blow perpendicular to it, but rather it seems to prefer currents that move against the direction of which the coral is growing. In other words, if the coral is growing upwards, it seems to like currents that are coming downwards.

I've also observed how this coral doesn't like to be exposed to the air. They more often than not, for me at least, tend to deflate badly if that was done to them.

Now, I don't know what they're eating, but these corals can be observed feeding in the aquarium. I'm uncertain of whether there is a viable amount of suitable food particles, but the polyps do react violently to something that comes onto it. Although nobody has been able to disclose the exact species of phytoplankton these corals feed on in nature, they are for certain feeders of phytoplankton. Zooplankton the size of baby brine shrimp is rejected because they're too big for the polyps to consume.

I've also noticed that they get monstrously large if the temperatures are a little closer to 72 degrees F.

Let me know what you guys think.

[Gargausius]

You know what's funny. I also had good results from keeping this coral near a skimmer. It obviously still died, but they didn't deflate like the ones I've put in the actual aquarium. Maybe it has something to do with the direction of the current since in many skimmer designs the output water flow is downwards.

A Dendronephthya coral I kept back in the day was kept under the flow of a hang on the back filter. The thing lasted 3 months total. It started to melt away after 2 months, and had deflated badly, but after a large partial water change with water that wasn't heated, it perked right back up and lived on for another month.

Apparently this coral is also very resilient.

Lighting never seemed to be an issue.

[graveyardworm]

It's way to soon for me to make any determinations, but it seems that there has been growth with the feeding of selcon. I've only been doing it for a week, but where the size of my polyps are so small even a small amount of growth should be noticeable.

I'd also like that on the rock with my dendro I'm beginning to see what appears to be tunicates where there were none before. I'll be posting some pics.

[charles matthews]

I am very interested in the observations about temperature. How long did you keep them at 72 degrees? This is really interesting. Peter Wilkins agrees. I think I am seeing a negative effect around 80 degrees and aim for 78, but I haven't gone lower.

It does make sense that lowering their metabolic needs would be helpful, as long as they feed as regularly.

I agree, bu the way, that gravel stirring produces a strong response. The sponge squeezing also produces a great response. I stir gravel, squeeze sponges, feed cyclopeez to the fish, feed omega 3 fatty acid and vitamin soaked small shrimp to the Tubastrea sitting on top of a powerhead close to the surface,
add a small pinch of golden pearls, and when everything is inflated, I add live phytoplankton until the water is slightly green. Unfortunately, all of this clears within 30 minutes or so. Mine are about six months old- most seem to be stable or growing, and frags are all slowly adding polyps and size.

Watch for Aiptasia with all the feeding!!

More information about temperature please!

[charles matthews]

a few other observations. I have investigated flow extensively. I agre with Mary that they need a four foot tank- and the reason is the flow. They like laminar flow, about 6 inches/second. Surge doesn't work, I've looked at this carefully; also, the polyps adapt to flow, and reversing flow doesn't work. Just steady current at 6 inches per second, far away from a power head or use a Turbelle stream.

Also, eggcrate and detritus doesn't work. There are a number of ways to do this sort of thing- but basically, this floc doesn't seem to work. Much better to lightly stir the top of the gravel. Also, squeeze a sponge twice daily (not one from a filter, but one passively hung in the aquarium). Too much turbidity is not appreciated, and large particles can be irritating.

They are indifferent to light- both in my experiments and in the wild. They have been observed growing on fish cages in bright sunlight, where heavy food is given to the fish.

Live phyto should be fed (see the scientific literature, Fabricius et al) but will not be sufficient. In my experiemnts, live stays suspended better, and for some reason (I'm not sure it makes sense) the water quality is better. I recommend trying to feed at least twice daily, after obtaining a feeding response with gravel stirring and sponge squeezing, and Selco or similar soaked material fed to fish or Tubastrea.

I recommend fragging new arrivals, place the frag on coarse gravel- don't worry about flow until they attach in 5-10 days. They can even be placed in a pvc tube leaned against where you want them to attach. Save the pvc! any attached holdfasts sprout babies.

Temperature is probably important! I'm going to go down lower than 78 and see- 76 degrees first- there are reports from Wilkins that all anthozoans do better down to 20-22 degrees C (I think this works out to 68-70 degrees in real measurements!).

Charles

[DonJasper]

I'll ponder ways to simulate / produce zooplankton. If I can come up with something that's not already well known - I'll post it here. The sponge idea is a good one, and might be a (the?) solution. I've sorta figured if there's anything lacking in their captive diet - it's going to be zooplankton.

Feel free to ignore my (future) ramblings if they don't seem to apply :-) I'll be lurking with interest.

[Gargausius]

Kept it in a sump without a heater for three months. Temperatures were obviously much cooler down there than in my sps tank. Got really f-in' huge! It was about 8-10 inches tall or taller! Stayed fully inflated most of the time. Yes, the sump water was hyper-saline at times as well.

[Gargausius]

I want to try for a species Dendronephthya tank with nothing but these corals in the distant future as well. I've always tinkered with the idea that they're not very strong producers of powerful toxins in chemical warfare with other corals. It makes sense since they don't smell as bad as many of the more toxic soft corals available in the market. They obviously don't have powerful nematocysts and don't handle large zooplankton well either, making them easy targets for many soft corals, sps and lps corals.

[charles matthews]

Gargausius- any estimate of the tamp of that sump? And what finally happened to the dendro? And what did it look like? What were you feding?

Tonight in my 120 gallon dendro tank I found about a 2 inch area of destruction on a sclero that was doing beautifully. There was a snail on the area- not the "ice snail" described by Wilkins, and it didn't blend in- I thought it was the snail. I just went back in to check, and there was a small crab there, eating tissue. Thinking about it, I am pretty sure it was the crab.

I think the whites, and definitely the parts of the slero that were not damaged- are expanding better at 76 than at 80. I am going to stay at the 74-76 range, strictly below 77F. I lost one red rather soon after importation, too fast for starvation alone- ?a little starvatoin and a lot of metabolism?

I have noticed that they atach beautifully to artificila surfaces, as described by Fabricius in the literature- they grow well on oil derricks and shipwrecks, sticking out into the current. One thing that may be happening is irritation of the polyps by night crawling critters. I have seen ostracods interfering with polyp expansion at night. I am getting a new shipment in on Tuesday of three more color morphs, and will frag them immediately. I am going to zip-tie some curved 1.5 inch clear hose onto the tank divider so that it curves onto the wall of the tank, and place the frag in there and let it attack to the wall. I have about four frags placed on the bottom next to the wall that have visible attached to the glass and are spreading. It's very intresting to watch and they seem to do well there. I suspect the elvation wil do them good.

If you look in Paletta's book on reef examples, there is one guy thre who has kept a "long lived red dendro". I called him- he kept it well over a year. He has a mud sump and fed everything. I noted later that his temps were on the cool side for a reef (I think the book said 75-78F). He said that they "prefer the upper tird of a tank"- and he had worked with them a lot. That fits with the idea of keeping them cool and attached to the side walls.

Another way to elevate them is to wedge the frag into the top of a rigid PVC pipe and stand it up against the glass. The frag would attach to both, I think, and the pipe could be cut away later. When I did this with a short pipe on sand with the white dendros that come with gravel on the bottom, there was extensive growth of holdfasts onto the pipe. I removed it from the pipe later, but kept the pipe. I now have at least five "babies" growing out of some residual holdfast material, and they are very healthy appearing. So, elevating them in a PVC pipe might be a very good way to propagate them. In fact, the PVC pipe could just be separated after a month or so, and moved to another spot on the wall.

I am currently re-doing my cryptic 120- nothing grew well in it. It had a wave2K and a large algae scruber- the algae scrubber didn't keep up with the Chaetomorpha refugiums, and the dendros don't like the Wave2k. I am going to turn the 120 into another photosynthetic refugium.

Some observations watch for Aiptasia! In a heavily fed tank, they will rapidly get out of control. It's possible that they don't bother dendros though- I have seen no ill effects (has anyone else?). Also, heavy feeding tends to bind up coarse gravel, and it will have to be stirred. I haven't had that problem with the fine Southdown sand refugium. However, I suspect that stirring detritus from coarse sand is more nutritious- some of the fine sand particles will get suspended and possibly are irritating. I get a better feeding response from coarse gravel stirring. However, I am happy with the sponge technique now.

My present regimen- fed the chromis yeast granules; then some cyclopeez; and feed the Tubastrea some selco-soaked small shrimp; pull a sponge or two out of the water, gibvint a little wave and some cloudy material; then the dendros come out and begin feeding; I will do some other chores (I dose trace elements into the refugia and add pickling lime as a slurry two teaspoons to a pickling lime jar with five drops of silica and a teaspoon of vinegar, to tapwater, shake and pour into sump twice daily). when that's done I feed the Tubastrea some more, and then add DT's phytopoankton until I get a green color. I do this twice daily.

By the way, possibly important observation- has anyone noticed that live phytoplankton does not visibly get into the skimmer, whereas paste does? Dennis Tagrin has reported no skimmer uptake using a downdraft of live phyto but didn't compare to paste. When I switched from paste to live, I got a dramatic change in the sk9immate, which no longer looks like phytoplankton- and in fact, there is very little skimmate at all now. Very different. Any comments? I've emailed Eric Borneman and Dennis Tagrin about this- any of you seeing this?

[aguabeast]

Ive been doing quite a bit of research on Nepthea-type coral care, and have decided to give it an earnest go. Much of the information Ive come across has been traced back to the same- Few- original sources, so I was quite happy to find this thread providing new, current, and constantly changing info from tanks-in-progress. Kudos to yall for that.

I thought I would add my own thoughts and experiences with this project/experiment as the tank develops, hopeing that I can help out members in this group, and that yall can give me some feedback as you feel like it.

The aquarium Im using is actually one of several well established reef displays that have been around for years in the LFS I work at; Ive just been overhauling and modifying the tank to better suit the corals I want to house now, so the tank is biologically very stable. I am using a 75 gallon w/ corner box containing approx 60lbs Fiji and Tonga live rock and a +/- 3" super fine grain sand bed. The rock is arranged with a large open space in the front, smaller open spaces to each side, and a rock wall that curves up and in from the bottom sides capped with a hanging cave of liverock (supported by PVC running across 2 crossbeams) that spans the middle 2/3 of the tank. There are 4 powerheads of various size scattered around the tank, hooked up to a Red Sea wavemaker, which provides good circulation with a decent surge (for the other corals in the tank). There is also a 12" spraybar running along the top back of the cavetop that runs almost constantly. I will be adding another large circulation pump, T'd off 2 or 3 times sitting in the bottom of the cave with the returns all aimed at the back wall of the tank with an upward angle- the aim here is to create heavy flow curling through the back of the cave out towards the front and across hanging dendros in a way that will provide an even, constant, heavy flow- without the problems of individual powerhead streams hitting the coral directly (think of it as a crude form of upwelling).

The tank is actually rather bright- it sits facing a 40' long glass wall that faces the South- its blinding up there in summer lol. The tank is lit more directly by 2-65wt actinic PCs and 2-65wt 50/50 PCs (and a single moonlight LED for fun). Ive been asked several times if the corals will react poorly to such lighting, but in my experience, and with the research Ive found, they shouldnt care that much about intense lighting, as long as there is sufficient food, and algae is not allowed to grow on the coral itself. As I mentioned, there is a cornerbox- the tank runs through a sump (no bioballs) that I pretty much just use to hide equipment. Im currently running a ProClear 75 skimmer in there. Im leary to use a larger skimmer because of the posibility of some dendros being pure chemotropes, so I dont want to remove a Ton of organic matter. Water quality is coming out perfectly clean regardless, despite very heavy feeding. A 10-15% weekly waterchange is done to make sure levels dont get too out of whack.

Current tank residents: Potters Angel, Rainfordi Goby, Male Watanabei Angel (looking for a mate), and a single Blueeye Glass Cardinal (with about 10 in quarentine to join him soon). It will be a fairly heavy bioload, but again, my thought is potentially free food in the form of detritus and bacteria (again- weekly water changes).

There are a number of palythoa and protopalythoa in the tank that I couldnt bring myself to take out- weve had them forever. There are also: 1 Deresa Clam, 1 Koko Worm, 2 black-1 pure yellow- 3 orange Tubastrea colonies, 1-small patch Anthelia, 3 Dendronephthya, and 3 unidentified Nephthea types (I think sclero, but who knows), and 3 deepwater Acropora sp. All are currently in great shape- inflated well and all respond to food when it is offered.

I may try the sponge method for collecting some food- good idea. Currently, I feed heavily with a slury of DTs live phyto, frozen Cyclopeeze that I grind into a liquid (more size appropriate for the dendros), and... the juice of several handfulls of squeezed macroalgae (I have tons of sawtooth- it harbors a lot of detritus, bacteria, algae, asst microfauna- it gives a great brown runoff that I blend with the other food- same Idea as the sponge method I suppose). As I said, all colonies give a feeding response, but who knows if the dendro/scleros are actually consuming it.

YOURE STILL READING THIS LONG POST- GOOD FOR YOU, YOURE PATIENT! LOL

I believe my feeding method may work for a few reasons, please tell me if this logic is really flawed. Each of the Dendronephthyas has a number of brittle starfish that are colored to match their host perfectly living among the corals branches. This leads me to believe that these particular individual corals came from an area with a significant amount of largeish particles suspended in the water, which the stars were able to feed on. This may point to the idea that these corals also fed on relativly larger particles rather than feeding on bacteria or straight chemicals since they were available. The Unidentified coral colonies each have small living barnacles buried into their tissue, which leads me to think they may have come from areas rich in phyto or other small, but still not necessarily nano-sized food particles. Do these guesses seem reasonable?

OK, I dont think Ill ramble on more right now. The newest corals have been in the tank nearly a week at this point, so it is really WAY too early to tell if there will be any success with this endevour. I will post some pics later on when I can get them if anyone is interested in seeing the tank as it is now. ~Aaron

[nickb]

Very interesting thread.

Charles, have you posted a detailed description of your 120G dendro tank set-up? Skimmer type, lighting, tank inhabitants, substrate used, etc.? Any photos we could see?

[Fredfish]

Charles. How long have you been doing the sponge squeezing? Have you noticed the appearance of any unusual sponges in your tank since you began?

I wonder if this feeding method would be suitable for other hard to keep animals like sponges or tunicates?

aguabeast. I may be wrong on this, but I believe that when you see two organisms occupying the same niche it is because they are taking advantage of different foods available. If they were competing for food, one or the other would dominate. This opinion is partly based on an article by Dr. Ron on Species diversity where he talked about specializing on a food source as a way for an organizm to get away from direct competition for food.

Fred.

[aguabeast]

I believe that when you see two organisms occupying the same niche it is because they are taking advantage of different foods available. If they were competing for food, one or the other would dominate.

Yeah, I had thought about that aspect too. I know there are instances where 2 organisms may be located in the same area and feed on completely different food sources, so they dont compete with eachother. At the same time, I know of situations where there is simply such an abundance of a particular type of food that several species that feed on the same prey items are able to coexist. I mostly just HOPE that this case will be the second situation- lol.

[DonJasper]

Originally posted by aguabeast
Ive been asked several times if the corals will react poorly to such lighting, but in my experience, and with the research Ive found, they shouldnt care that much about intense lighting,

That's your opinion - the corals themselves might disagree with you. After all - why should corals care about temperature?

Maybe light is like temperature. Too much temperature - and they die. So too much light - and they die. Maybe they need to be kept in utter black to survive.

Originally posted by aguabeast
Do these guesses seem reasonable?

Nothing that hasn't been tried before, by many other people. Over and over again. Too much "in the box" to have much hope.

Ask yourself: What is keeping Deodronephthya sp. from taking over the entire ocean? And maybe it's not something that we're lacking, but something we have that is giving us such an exceptionally consistant success rate with them. I mean even with Goniapora (sp) there are isolated pockets of success.

[aguabeast]

Nothing that hasn't been tried before, by many other people. Over and over again. Too much "in the box" to have much hope.

Cant try what nobody knows to do- any positive suggestions?

[Gargausius]

Dendronephthya in my sump died. But it took an awfully long time, around 3 months solid. That sucker was, like I said, nearly a foot tall! Stayed inflated most of the times. Spicules still fell off, but it didn't deflate completely. Thing sways a lot, but not directly because of the current, it just likes to sway. The expansion was so great, I could see the tissues in between the spicules on the branches look translucent.

[Gargausius]

There was also a new baby colony at the base. This one also had a drastically fast rate of growth and expansion. Within that time frame, it went from 1/4" to almost 3/4" tall.