Chalice care thread

[Stylaster]

Glad this thread is still helping people out

 

[nickdo]

Glad this thread is still helping people out

Thx for your information, I learn a lot here.

 

[MrsBugmaster]

Glad I found this thread! I have been looking at getting some chalice.

 

[frankyrivera]

Since i switched over to radions and kessil i have had to be very careful with my chalices. Most dont like the higher light and are kept at the bottom of the tank. An exception is the pink boobies it loves the light

Really that's good to know. I have a pink boobies and was concerned about open placement

 

[spoon671]

My chalice eating mysis. :beer:

 

[h0bite]

Update here please !
Thanks

 

[nelsonkearstin]

Care, Growth, and propogation of Chalice Corals

I made this list to help others out. If you have any tips or suggestions please post them!

Chalice corals are a Large Polyp Stony (LPS) coral belonging to the families (enchinopora, enchinophyllia, oxypora and also i am going to put in pectinia since the care requirements are the same) These corals have been in the hobby a long time, but in the last 5 years have grown in desire, mostly due to the outrageous colors they come in

Here is my list of care requirements for these corals

Lighting - In general they prefer subdued lighting. Form follows function, which with corals that plate out such as chalices they do this to capture the maximum amount of light. Most chalices are collected between 40 and 80 feet of water. In our systems this means that newly acquired wild specimens should be started out at the bottom of the tank in a shaded area. Frags that have been purchased should be set in the same lighting situation as from the sellers tank. My personal tank runs two 250w 20k radiums that are about 3 years old now. I have by trial and error been able to figure out where they do best in the system. Most of them the optimum placement is about 20" or greater away from halides.

Water Flow - The chalices prefer a flow that is enough to keep debris from settling on them. The best would be alternating flow. Don't have so much flow that you can seen the tissue blowing or to the point its so much you can see skeleton poking up through the flesh.

Feeding - Chalices are very active feeders.... at night! If you take a look at your system 2 hours after the lights have gone out, your chalice will be a mass of tentacles. This is a great time to feed, it keeps the fish from stealing the food. I feed mine a mix of brineshrimp and small mysis (PE mysis which are very popular are almost too big) We want to make sure the chalice can get the food inside the mouth and close the mouth in less than 5 mins. This is important because it will hopefully keep any other hungry inverts from tearing open the mouths of the coral. The ideal feeding situation would be to use a cut open 2 liter pop bottom and feed through the top of it. This does a good job of keeping other inverts, fish, etc out while the coral feeds. The chalices in my system are fed every 3 days. I dont try to feed every mouth, i just give the coral a good squirt of food and let it capture what it wants.

Water Parameters - Your system should be an established tank of at least a year before you add any chalice corals. The water parameters should be standard for a reef tank system. You can keep the levels up with calcium reactor, two part dosing, kalkreactor, water changes etc. Be sure to keep your magnesium in the 1400ppm, low magnesium tends to lead to tissue loss around the edges of a colony.
In regards to nutrient rich and nutrient poor systems. Personal experiece chalices normally dont do well in nutrient poor systems (SPS systems). I have tried to grow chalices alongside SPS corals in an SPS propagation system and they did poorly. Slow growth and poor tissue expansion. That system did not have any fish and only snails and hermits for algae control. The system i setup just for chalices is high nutrients (ie fish and snails to provide nutrients) along with a skimmer set to run a wet skim. I also dont run carbon, but do run phosphate remover. A 20 gallon water change is done every two weeks. This has kept the system running fine for over 4 years now.

Chalice growth - Chalice growth is really dependent upon the specimen. Some species such as enchinopora lamellosa (aka hollywood stunner) with paper thin skeletons have a very rapid growth rate. Oxypora sp. (aka usually have one large central mouth surrounded by small mouths and grows in a circle) are fairly slow growers and tend to have a thicker skeleton.
Flow rate will play a role in chalice growth. If the coral needs to develop a thicker skeleton due to strong currents, the growth rate will slow and vice versa for low current.
Most chalices will increase the production of mouths (eyes) as they grow. This does seem to be dependent upon the amount of feeding. If you feed a lot, more mouths develop. If you feed less, more tissue, but less mouths develop. You can also influence the direction the chalice will grow to an extent by feeding the mouths on the side you want the coral to grow.

Chalice propogation - Chalices are fairly hardy corals to propogate as long as you follow some steps along the way. Here is how i frag mine
Take the colony you want to propogate and determine where you want to make your cut. Try to find an area where you won't cut through any mouths
Flip the colony over and use a dremel or other cutting blade to score the back of the skeleton. Once scored, it should break by a gentle bend. Do this by having the underside of the coral facing you and bend down (so the coral flesh halfs come together.
Now flip the coral to the flesh side and use a scalpel to cut the flesh along the score line. You should now have your frag removed from the main colony.
Take the frag and main colony and dip in saltwater / iodine solution (or what ever coral dip you want to use)
Mount the frag to a rock, frag plug, etc with superglue. Try not to get any superglue on any living tissue. Place the frag in low light and medium flow to heal. Most chalice corals will heal in about a week. Place the main colony back in its original spot on the reef.
Regarding frag size. I try to make most of my frags have atleast 2 eyes in size. If you can only get one eye try to make sure the frag is atleast the size of a dime or larger.


I hope this helps some of you with your chalice care. Those who have yet to try this coral.... Go for it! It is a beautiful coral and easy to keep.

I appreciate this post like mad! Thanks. I've questioned my chalice for the last couple weeks. Mag is my answer! Wonderfull

 

[oldbones]

If you're not seeing any feeding action from your chalice, come out and check on it very late at night after all lights have been out for a while.

I brought home a Bubble Gum Monster, and happened to wake up at 0400 a couple mornings later. Peeked in the tank with a red flashlight, and was shocked to see a mass of 1-1/2" long tentacles coming from the chalice. It was crazy!

However, if I so much as turn on a lamp across the room, it reels them back in pretty quick.

 

[nelsonkearstin]

If you're not seeing any feeding action from your chalice, come out and check on it very late at night after all lights have been out for a while.

I brought home a Bubble Gum Monster, and happened to wake up at 0400 a couple mornings later. Peeked in the tank with a red flashlight, and was shocked to see a mass of 1-1/2" long tentacles coming from the chalice. It was crazy!

However, if I so much as turn on a lamp across the room, it reels them back in pretty quick.

Wow 4 am. That answers my other question of, does every light on tank have to be off including dark night light? Do lights in room have to be off?... cool I'm looking forward to possibly catching mine going crazy!
Everything I read just states 2 hours after light off but, that's not working so far. There's more light in room tho. Cool

 

[datboyhieu]

Idk so far all my chalices are in my 50g mixed tank and doing pretty good Im using REd sea coral pro but just swapped to salinity but flow my chalice is a nice flow areas but I barely check my water but I do a water hangs every end of week so I guess that helps lightning it sits in the bottem of my tank in the center but my G3 is at 40%

 

[oldbones]

My chalice can sense ambient light in the room, and is much more active when the room is completely dark.

 

[ExpensiveHobby]

Thank you OP for posting this. I have been in the hobby roughly 10 years. I've Kept mixed reefs a majority of the time. About a year ago I realized that keeping a mixed was too difficult for me. Its just too hard to chase the numbers, high light - low light, high flow - low flow, nutrient rich - nutrient poor etc...

I started running a dedicated chalice system. Low light, Low flow, nutrient rich. I currently have about 70 chalices in my custom 130 gallon tank. Initially I was still chasing numbers and dosing 2 part. Checking parameters daily. I ended up getting too many alk swings and melting a few chalices. I was running GFO and Carbon, ended up stripping tissue on a few chalices this way too. I since ditched the carbon and run only GFO now. Once I figured these two things out I stopped killing chalices but growth was super slow.

I think I finally figured it out as the past month I have switched up my feeding. I was target feeding reef roids mixed with cyclopeeze one time per week. I was doing this with the pumps off and right before bed time but my lights were still on very low intensity. After talking to a few people in the hobby who have amazing chalice growth I kept hearing the same thing, FEED FEED FEED. So I increased to 2x weekly the same food. Still not much growth. What I am doing now is shutting off all pumps and lights. Making the room pitch black. I put a tiny little pinch of roids in the water to entice the chalices to open up their feeders. About 10 minutes later all of them will be completely open and hungry. It is then that I target feed each coral. I am doing this at least 4 times a week now, sometimes daily. I have also started to alternate RODS coral blend. So one day is rods, next is roids/cyclopeeze. Once all corals have been fed I leave the pumps off for at least one hour if not two. This allows them to completely ingest all the food they trapped in the mucus of their tissue.

I'm no expert but this advice has truly helped me see growth in my chalices.

here is a video of my tank when I was feeding one time weekly and the tank was relatively new. I need to make an update video now that I have been feeding more. Also I want to show off my MACNA corals. I left there with 12 new chalices.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2518560

 

[Nick James]

This thread was also what I was looking for!

One question I have, tonight I saw my chalice emitting a red stringy slime looking substance from each mouth nearly simultaneously. Each string was just short of an inch long. Lights were on, just did a water change today and all tests are within normal range. Just curious if this is normal behaviour that I just have not witnessed until today?

Thanks

 

[ExpensiveHobby]

This thread was also what I was looking for!

One question I have, tonight I saw my chalice emitting a red stringy slime looking substance from each mouth nearly simultaneously. Each string was just short of an inch long. Lights were on, just did a water change today and all tests are within normal range. Just curious if this is normal behaviour that I just have not witnessed until today?

Thanks

normal behavior. My miami hurricane does that almost daily while others I have rarely or never seen it.

 

[Nick James]

normal behavior. My miami hurricane does that almost daily while others I have rarely or never seen it.

My chalice is also a Miama Hurricane.. Coincidence?

Thanks for the response, I needed a little reassurance!

 

[VWD]

My chalice can sense ambient light in the room, and is much more active when the room is completely dark.

I agree, if I have a light on in the room and not very bright they will pull back in. I have to check them out in total darkness.

 

[Nick James]

I agree, if I have a light on in the room and not very bright they will pull back in. I have to check them out in total darkness.

Do the moon lights affect them? Should I have them off for a period of time during the night?

 

[VWD]

I don't run moon lights, I get a very small amount of light from my LED fixtures display and that's all.

 

[oldbones]

Do the moon lights affect them? Should I have them off for a period of time during the night?

They do mine. They will put out very short feeders with the moonlight on, but within 20 minutes after they go out they are much longer.

 

[purplereef]

Has anybody successfully brought back a chalice from a severe bleaching incident?