Candy Cane Coral - Healthy Growth

[golby]

I understand that candy cane/trumpet coral heads multiply over time. An individual head will elongate, figure-8 and close off to form two heads. What rate is a "healthy" rate--a head should split every three months, 7 months, year? And how long should it take for a head that elongates to close off--is it a one week process once it starts, one month process?

I'm curious because I have my first candycane/trumpet and just want to know what to expect and if it's slow I'll know to think about relocating it within my tank so it's happier!

 

[MotorCityBadBoy]

Congrats on the candycane. My candy cane grows very slow. it took 4ever to "get comfortable". Even now almost 5 months later, i still haven't seen any new heads. however it appears to puff up more and more every day. The heads just keep on expanding..Who knows when it comes to reefing?? Good luck!

 

[RyanEG]

Mine went from six heads in october to over twenty today.

 

[golby]

Okay, thanks folks. I now have some data points. Mine is a frag with two heads. I've had it about 6 weeks and one of the heads has elongated but not closed off. It seems healthy...poofs up during the day and opens up to expose tentacles every night.

 

[cardiffgiant]

Mine grew very slowly under CF lighting. I used to feed it like crazy, had good flow, and god calcium and magnesium. It went from 2 heads to 7 or 8 in about 18 months. I've had it under T5 since the beginning of March and it's just going crazy. Almost every head has 2 mouths, and a couple have 3.

A 7 head frag went to my LFS 3 weeks ago, and the piece in my display has almost 20 heads right now.

 

[strayvoltage]

I had a seven head colony grow into over 100 heads in about 18 months. They are in medium flow under a 6x96w CF fixture. I had one huge colony until it ended up broken into five different smaller colonies during a tank up grade. I don't think any of us can expect the same results in different tanks.

 

[golby]

Seven to 100 in 18 months?! What's in your water? The coral equivalent of HGH?!

My calcium has been a bit low (330 ppm) and so I just bought Seachem Reef Complete to up it to the 400 ppm range--perhaps that will encourage some growth. I think that I'll leave the coral where it is, bottom/medium flow under my CFL lighting system so I can see if the calcium supplementation changes things.

 

[strayvoltage]

The only thing I add to my water is B-Ionic two part at about half the dose they recommend. I do 10% weekly water changes and nothing special.

 

[olemanwinter]

I bought a 4 head frag in September 08. Under T5s until last month. Now HQI. All the heads have spread and puffed up a bunch. I feed them mysis on occassion. Several new mouths have formed, but no splitting or additional heads. It seems very health and responsive, but I've had no new concrete evidence of growth. Discouraging to say the least.

 

[strayvoltage]

One thing that I think we might be missing here is the color of the corals we are talking about. I do have another colony of them that have not split nealy as fast as the ones that have turned into over 100 heads in the 18 months. The ones that done so well are whitish green in color, I also have a colony of brownish red with green centers that have only gone from 4 heads to maybe 20 heads in about two years. I don't know if it has to do with the color of them or if it could have to do with tank placement. They were in the same general area of the tank but could have had a little different flow or maybe the light just wasn't exactly the same on them.

 

[golby]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15066333#post15066333 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by strayvoltage
One thing that I think we might be missing here is the color of the corals we are talking about. I do have another colony of them that have not split nealy as fast as the ones that have turned into over 100 heads in the 18 months. The ones that done so well are whitish green in color, I also have a colony of brownish red with green centers that have only gone from 4 heads to maybe 20 heads in about two years. I don't know if it has to do with the color of them or if it could have to do with tank placement. They were in the same general area of the tank but could have had a little different flow or maybe the light just wasn't exactly the same on them.

Were they the same color at the time of purchase and then their colors shifted? If they were always different then color might not mean much...all the candy cane coral in the store are slightly different in color--different colors may be perfectly normal variation.

Mine seem happier (more "poofed" up) now that I've started adding a bit of Seachem Reef Complete to keep my calcium levels up.

 

[strayvoltage]

No they were not the same color in any way.There are lots of different colored ones. I don't know if the lighter color grew faster due to color or due to something slightly different about tank location. Glad to hear yours seem to be happier.

 

[Miasma_F]

I got a two head frag of the neon green trumpet/candy (not sure which) a couple of months ago. I noticed a week or two ago that both heads formed additional mouths. They're just now starting to pinch into the figure eight. I figure I have at least another month before the new heads separate.

Assuming this continues, mine will double approximately every 4-5 months. Like everyone else, mine took forever to get happy. Now that it's happy, it's possible that doubling could occur as fast as every 3 months. We'll see.

 

[goldenfamaliy]

Yep, I have the neon green one too, started with 3 and now at 25+after 8 months. MH lights(250 watt 12K) some flow, very infrequent feedings.

 

[golby]

Okay. Let's look at lighting. I wonder if its power/strength or color that matter more.

Mine are growing slowly (but look healthy) under ~325 Watts of 6500K CFL bulbs (in a 90g)

goldenfamaliy has fast growth under 500 watts of 12,000K metal halides (in a 75g).

Hopefully some earlier posters will give some more lighting detail.

 

[bigreef23]

candy cane coral

candy cane coral

I got a 3 head frag on February 23, now it has 8 heads on it.

 

[Rancherlee]

Candy Canes are the "Rabbit" of my tank, One 5 head frag 2 years ago it now 2 50+ head colonies plus several other broken/dripped of frags laying around.

 

[Webmanny]

For me it went from 6 heads 3 months ago to over 15 today. Please note that I have fragged it and exchanged a few heads for other corals. I think that one thing that has helped mine is when I see the tentacles open at night, I feed them misis and they have taken off since then.

When I first got them:

Recent with the tentacles open:

Recent with the lights on: