Carnation Coral

B

BrentB

New member
I have a 30 gallon reef tank with an established 3 inch live sand bed and 40lbs of encrusted live rock. I've only been running the tank for a month and have limited the tank to sand bed turners.

Water conditions are good. Calcium 420ppm, KH 143.2ppm, PH 8.2, Ammonia 0, Nitrite 0, Nitrate 6, water temp 77.7.

I added two Carnation corals over the weekend. One pink and one yellow. They are not in direct light and have moderate water flow.

They've opened up a bit, but close up just as quickly. They have only opened to about 1/2 the height they were in the store. They look healthy enough and do not seem stressed or diseased.

I’m in the process of setting up a refugium to support the tank. It’s not connected yet.

Any ideas for helping them along, something their missing, something about the water quality I need to change? I don't want to add anything else till I get this solved.

Thanks in advance!
Brent
Bellevue, WA
 
Carnation Coral

To start your take is either not completely cycled or newly cycled. On top of that to quote the keeping of this coral on the live AQuaria website:

"It is extremely difficult to maintain in the reef aquarium, and should be housed in an established reef aquarium, by the more advanced marine aquarist"
 
I'm not an expert, but try to place them in high flow (not tearing flash away flow), you should feel difference by placing hand at the place in question.
Preferably in reflected from the glass flow from a strong soft flow powerhead (Koralia, Seio) or in a 20-30 cm from it, where flow is already diffused.
Continuous feeding, or multiple feedings, automated or slow dripping of the frozen food in front of powerhead. Food size - to fit the mouth, 50 microns or so. You can find details by search on dendronephthya recipe or feeding.
If you can - try Fauna Marin specialized food, cut you can find a lot of lower level substitutes.
From what I noticed, they tend to close, when food is no longer available.
HTH
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13960201#post13960201 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by dendro982
I'm not an expert, but try to place them in high flow (not tearing flash away flow), you should feel difference by placing hand at the place in question.
Preferably in reflected from the glass flow from a strong soft flow powerhead (Koralia, Seio) or in a 20-30 cm from it, where flow is already diffused.
Continuous feeding, or multiple feedings, automated or slow dripping of the frozen food in front of powerhead. Food size - to fit the mouth, 50 microns or so. You can find details by search on dendronephthya recipe or feeding.
If you can - try Fauna Marin specialized food, cut you can find a lot of lower level substitutes.
From what I noticed, they tend to close, when food is no longer available.
HTH
Click to expand...

Dendro,
Thank you for the insightful answer. I will try both changing the direction and diffusing the flow. Plus, I'll try feeding more often, as continuous feeding might not be practical. At least not until I can get an IV drip bag and rig something up.
Again, thanks for the response!
Brent
 
One VERY SURPRISING development…. Upon close inspection, I noticed several juvenile serpent stars on both carnation corals. There was one 1/8 inch wide serpent star wrapped around virtually every coral branch. I removed a total of 15 from both corals. Not sure the relationship between the serpent stars and the corals. I don’t see them anywhere else in the tank. Not sure whether or not to release them back into the tank or into my refugium.
Anyone else know if there is a beneficial relationship or do they simple hatch there and hang out till they are bigger?
Water quality remains good: Salinity 1.022, pH 8.3, KH 196, Calcium 420, phosphates 0, temp 78.1. ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrates less than 5. The test doesn’t have reading other than 0, 5, 10 etc. It looks very close to 0, but I still assume some nitrates and complete 20% water changes twice weekly.
Research indicated carnation corals do not do well in direct light. So, I created a darker side of the tank by forming a shelf from a large flat piece of my live rock. One of the carnations was getting more light than the other and seemed to benefit from the additional light. My thought is the articles I’ve read are assuming halide lighting in most reef tanks. With this in mind, I removed the shelf, exposing both carnations to more light and they seem to be doing just fine.
I added a KORALIA Nano pump. I was surprised how little water the Nano version moves. The box indicates 240gph. The flow is light enough one could be used to provide direct current flow for an individual coral specimen from a distance as close as 8-10 inchs. I can see dozens of potential uses of this size pump in a reef tank.
 
These micro brittle stars are common, a couple of posts here mentioned that people, who had them, removed them. Lucky me to have only a couple of them :) They could be parasitic, but have no information about this.

One more link, to the summary by mcox 33, she had very good results.
 
I tend to agree with your assesment.
They may have arrived as eggs.
I pulled a dozen or so off. After removing them and placing them in a specimen jar, I noticed a piece of polyp had been pulled off along with one. The other's immeadiately mauled it and it was consummed overnight. Pulled 3 more off this morning. I'm not convinced they are the wonderful scavengers some of the sites claim.
I'll keep you posted.
 
I believe that in the thread I mentioned motivation was the toxic pink color of the stars. As dendronephthya dies, they lose color too. It could be that they used coral's tissues as a food.
 
I've got to agree with dendro982 Most stars that come in on Denrdos or scerlos seem to be parasitic in my experience.
Supply food to my large system has been a problem, money and just plain out finding it at times. Most of my non photo corals have suffered and have lost most. I noticed a decline when they didn't get food for 3-4 days. Recovery after decline is almost impossible for me to do. :(
 
These corals are usually found hanging upside down under ledges or in caves. Try to duplicate this environment. Target feed them untilo you get that IV bag rigged up.
 
Don't really have any way to hang them upside down. Would be fun to try though. One is doing great, opens up all the time and seems to feed well. The other has never really recovered from the micro stars. I'm thinking about riggging up a temp shelter over the sick one and see of a bit of shade would help.

The filter feeders in my tank get a good mix of foods. I raise live rotifers, they get PhytoFeast (by Reef Nutrition) and two or three other types of plankton I bought on ebay. As a matter of fact, I think I'm over feeding as my hair algea growth has increased and I haven't added a protein skimmer yet.

That's about all for now. I'll post a couple pictures this evening.
Thanks for the responses!
Cheers,
Brent
 
Unforgiven:
Did you ever seen it open?
If not, it could be a problem. Two of mine never opened too and died very fast.

But: I bought a shriveled chunk of dendronephthya (small arboreal, white with purple tips), with torn top ($10), placed it turbulent flow (corner, there 200 gph or return pump reflect multiple times from the bottom and walls, creating some rotation). Food is dosed here and stays here the longest time.

To my astonishment, it inflated and opened to feed, even started to grow root-like structures.

But I have it only since end of this December.
 
I keep going back and forth on the lighting issue. One (pink) doesn't seem to mind direct light and opens during the day. It also opens at night. The other (orange) looks like it trys to open at night. It's the one that was covered by micro brittle stars (removed another yesterday).

This evening I'm going to cover the section of my lights that shine directly down on the carnations. See if a little less light is helpful.

dendro982, did you say your seemed to benifit from a stronger current flow? Or was it just the fact the food stays there the longest? Thoughts?

Thanks for the replys,
Brent
 
Brent, in nature Dendronepthya grows right on shelves alongside of Acropora. Keeping them alive (let alone thriving) has to do with feeding and flow, not light. They are predatous corals, and soley eat food for energy, and they must be supplied with a lot of food, seemingly constantly. Success has been achieved by providing small amounts of food, 10-12 times a day. "Success" is all relative though, I only know a couple/few people who can get them to live.

An IV bag is a great idea, but I dont think it would work for the types of foods you should introduce. A syringe holding the food that pumps via a perastaltic pump seems to be the way to go, heres a great example: http://translate.google.es/translat...thread.php?t=10087&sl=es&tl=en&hl=es&ie=UTF-8

Moving onto the STARS you guys are reffering to... I see someone mentioned they're pink sometimes, but your not reffering to mini-brittle stars like these are you?:

minis.jpg


The stars pictured are just your run-of-the-mill mini brittles that are great scavangers, and I'd susect the coral was already on its way out if these were the kind of stars you saw on it.
 
THe stars generally match the coral there on. The prey just on that species of coral. Those are just common mini brittle stars and are good to have in the tank.
Erik
 
Brent:
I was talking about this kind of dendronephthya, likely belonging to the Divaricata group (at the right):
Panaswhole.jpg

This is right in the reflected 200 gph flow. Food passed through without stopping, but returns, as it disperses in the tank.
Does, by any chance, the orange one looks like the left one? This is scleronephthya.

I have the same kind of dendronephthya, only with purple tips, at the right bottom corner (right beyond this picture), it the same, but turbulent rotating flow. Food holds longer there. And returns after being dispersed in the tank. Better.

Different kind of dendronephthya, large arboreal almost mono-colored - likely belonging to Glomerata group:
Dec13_08dp8.jpg

Is in 150 gph brushing aside flow, added to losing its strength 200 gph. Same behavior in the similar flow, as the first one has.

Stopping feeding for several hours usually is followed by these corals closing polyps. Can't guarantee cause- effect relation, though :)

HTH and share your observations, OK?
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14092611#post14092611 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Kreeger1
THe stars generally match the coral there on. The prey just on that species of coral.
Click to expand...
OK thats what I figuired, like a zoa eating nudi.

BTW Erik I just found your build thread and posted some questions... AWESOME set-up man!
 
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