carnation coral

W

wilawalo

New member
I purchased a small orange carnation coral this week from a LFS, he has had these for a while out in the light not in a cave and they have been doing well. So I placed mine in the light I have a 24" Tek T5 lighting with 2 super blues 1 regular blue and 1 daylight bulb. Is this okay? Since it is non-photosynthetic would the hurt it?

Also I have been feeding it newly hatched BBS, live phytoplankton, coral frenzy, and frozen cyclopeeze. Not all at once but throughout the day. Is this enough?

Last thing my LFS told me just to stir up the sand bed every couple of days and that should be good enough... I have a mated pair of Diamondhead gobies so would they stir it up enough? And is stirring up the sand bed really enough food?

Sorry for all the questions but I really want this coral to live, I have looked up articles on wet web media and have read success stories on all these methods, but no follow up like a year down the line. Thanks!
 
Unless you are willing to set up a tank solely for keeping NPS corals, the likelyhood is that you will get to watch your coral slowly starve to death and disintergrate.

They take several months to die, first they act fine, then they close up, then they self propagate into little corals, then the little frags wither and die. They literally shrink into nothingness.

They are not suitable for conventional reef tank setups.

Your LFS lied to you to sell what they know is a doomed coral that would have died regardless of anything they tried to do to keep it alive.

You should be very cautious about trusting the good words of your LFS ever again.

there are a handful of guys out there with "mad scientist" tanks that can keep these things alive. All of these are purely experimental.

Someday though.....................................................Sigh...............
 
Thanks for the info. The one I have is probably 1/2" big right now he was a shoot off from a big one. I'll keep trying to feed it and make it live.
 
This thread was useful for me.

What else to pay attention: flow and frequent, almost constant feeding by the food, that makes them open (whatever available, but you may search for scleronephthya and Fauna Marin recipe or Shellfish diet, scleronehthya feeding is more general).

My orange, pink and yellow scleros feel better not far from 600 gph Seio powerheads: upflow from them, up, below or beside. Including being between 2 Seios.

I'm also trying to figure out, what they require - not in general terms, but with full list of problem-solution. If you will have some tips or observations for us, who are not proficient with them so far, post please.
 
jeweldamsel: Is there a problem? :p
No, I'm not a long term keeper, but deeply believe in giving them the best chances.
In these conditions my last scleros are doing much better, than the first ones, that lasted a little less, than 2 yrs, and were lost in accidents.
 
dendro982,

There is no problem at all. As a matter of fact, lately I am trying to keep carnation corals. I bought two about a month a ago. One seems to be doing fine but the one is withering. I sure would love to hear your experience on keeping them and may be learn a few things from you. Thank you.
 
My apologies for sore questioning, sincerely. Past experiences, you know - silencing, something like organized ban on any information about making keeping non-photosynthetic corals possible.

Please, share anything you notice: scleronephthya is very different from straightforward corals, like tubastrea and gorgonians.
 
I really dislike the LFS and online stores that sell Dendronepthya and Scleronephthya corals, along with most aposymbiotic Gorg's. These corals have like a 98% death rate and only the most dedicated people can keep the alive (some of the good people here), but those people design a system just for them and still it is not always successful. The LFS people that say, "just stir the sand" it worked for Peter Wilkinson! That's bull pucky, they (LFS) sell them because they get them from their supplier, they don't order them, but still are "stuck" with them. So instead of losing $$ they sell them and say, just stir the sand! Good people buy them and then go through a lot trying to keep them alive (I have been there) and in the end, they die. They are so beautiful, no one really buys them recklessly, they go on the word of the LFS people. The right thing to do is, never buy from them again, but the problem, sometimes there are not a lot of stores, so in the end, people still patronize the store. What I would do is take it back, explain to them, that it will die and you were disappointed that they gave you bad advice just to sell a coral. Let them know, you are in a big reef club and the members will start boycotting them. People, these corals are not yet sustainable, some day they will be, but not now. Shame on the LFS, they duped you.

Dan
 
OOT, Dan:
Are you the Dan, who was able to keep blueberry gorgonian and many other non-photosynthetic corals years ago? If so, can you make a thread with description of your setup, tips for all of us, new to this, how to keep them. Will greatly appreciate this.

Back to the topic:
Non-photosynthetic forums help a lot for scleros and dendros keeping. All I did, following advices, is increased pulling, reflected or distant flow (not blasting) and drastically increased amount of food, trying to make supply close to constant, and this improved situation significantly.
The next step - to keep algae away.
 
Yes, I was able to keep the blueberry gorgonian and a dendronepthea, like almost all, they eventually starved to death. I feed frequently and used laminar flow, it's just not enough for these beautiful animals. I also know you are excited in having them and really I wish the best for you, but I really think these animals need their own bio-trope. There are some people here in this forum that have been successful, but their setups are really just for those corals, the successful people seem to use a syringe pump to feed 24/7 but on a slow controlled basis, to me feeding the right food and keeping it constantly in the water is the biggest hurdle. I have read some post's here and those are people are to pick their brains, but they are really going all out and still the success is not long term (longer than two years). I kept mine for just under a year, but in the long run I couldn't keep them healthy, I really love those corals and I was disheartened to see them perish. But I still believe one day they will be keep-able. Talk to the mod here and some other pioneers here (I am not one of them), they have a good system. I wish you all the best and maybe you will come up with a breakthrough method. Check into Fauna Marin, they have some products you might be interested in.

Dan
 
Thank you for the response! Can you post, may be in separate thread, details of your filtration or give a link? I highly unlikely shall come with anything good, have constant problems with filtration.
Any observations will be highly appreciated. You see, blueberry and 2 diodogorgias haven't even chance to starve in my tanks, very fast decline - never fed.

I was already advised of dendronephthya: to by the healthiest specimen, with open polyps, very soon after shipping, prevent mechanical traumas when in my care. Apart from drastically increasing flow and almost continuing feeding in quite an amounts.

It worked! At least new dendronephthya didn't died within days. Same tank, same chemistry, same, but more, feeding.

Can you add something like that for me?

wilawalo: sorry for drifting away from topic, but all this should work for scleronephthya too.
 
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