Coral questions

[undertcontrolj]

Okay here is the situation i have right now. A few weeks ago my nano started to crash and several things did not make it but several things i was able to move to my pico and save. So my question is a acan coral i have had almost completely receded to seeing the skeleton very bad. But it has started to come back just not very fast. How can i insure that it continues to grow and maybe speed it up? Should i move it back into my nano under a stronger light. Another question is about a candy cane coral. I got this coral about 3 weeks ago from the critter with 4 heads and it looked good. No it still looks pretty good but the skeleton is showing some but the tops still look good and the tenacles still come out. So should i be feeding this and if so how? And placement right now it is high in the tank to get more light should i move it to lower light? Any help would be great.

 

[DMBillies]

Acans generally do not need a whole lot of light. If it is growing again where it currently is, I'd leave it. At least until it gets a good chance to settle in and put some size back on.

As far as the candy coral, those kinds of branching LPS grow by building up skeleton, but the polyp itself does not get much larger and the flesh doesn't stay on the lower parts of the skeleton. If you think it is healthy and it seems to be growing, what you might just be seeing with the exposed skeleton is a natural side effect of their growth. That said, in my experience they seem to be particularly sensitive to low calcium compared with other LPS (and of course softies), so make sure you're keeping that in range. They don't need a lot of light either. Feeding can't hurt (which is true of just about all LPS). Many of them you don't need to specifically feed, but just about all of them can benefit from it.

 

[undertcontrolj]

Brain thanks for the input on the coral. The candy cane look okay. I am going to start target feeding them and see how they grow. Also going to leave the acan in the pico till it gets some good meat on it. i am just glad i was able to save it for the most part. Oh yea and i am only running pc in the tank with the cand coral biut i still moved it a little from the light and it actully looked a little better today. Thanks again for the help since nobody else had an answer.

 

[Mikeyjer]

The way to feed Candy is simple. They like to be fed during lights out time. You must turn off all powerheads during this process. I use a medicine dropper for this process and I was feeding mysis shrimp. Mine also would open up for me even during light on period. Just a gentle squirt of food towards the center of the heads and the tentacles should come out and it should try to grab some food. That's where you lightly place food on the tentacles with the medicine dropper. I stopped feeding mine, but they do real good when you do feed them. Mine got HUGE and part of it die off during my battle with bryopsis, since bryopsis been gone, it have recovered pretty good and it's coming back in full force growing more heads. I should feed it again to encourage more growth.....

 

[undertcontrolj]

Cool thanks fro the info on target feeding. Do you put the food in water to defrost it and suck it up with the medicine dropper? Mine look okay and at night they open up really good and the tentacles come out and they swell up. So i am going to try for a while and see how it goes. How many times a week would you recommend feeding?

 

[Mikeyjer]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13802353#post13802353 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by undertcontrolj
Cool thanks fro the info on target feeding. Do you put the food in water to defrost it and suck it up with the medicine dropper? Mine look okay and at night they open up really good and the tentacles come out and they swell up. So i am going to try for a while and see how it goes. How many times a week would you recommend feeding?

I put the food in a small container to defrost first then I drain out the defrosted water out of it and then mix it with tank water. Then use the medicine dropper. I used to feed it twice a week.

 

[leezer]

I've got a small candy cane that only has 2 full heads and 3 heads that are still re-growing from the abuse administered by the LFS. The 2 full heads open up really well shortly after lights out. Basically, I've been trying to feed them any time they put out their tentacles. Some nights they don't, some nights they do. I figure they know when they want food better than I do. I feed a mixture of frozen brine and frozen cyclops. I also shoot that at my hammer coral, too. Since I started to target feed the candy cane, I've noticed a lot more flesh growing over the skeletons.

 

[undertcontrolj]

Well i am going to try my first target feeding session tonight. Hope it goes well.

 

[undertcontrolj]

First time target feeding was cool. They ate pretty good tonight. i also feed the two hammer corals i have they ate up too.

 

[Mikeyjer]

My hammer or frogspawn never would eat for me, they would spit it back out.... Good job on the feeding part!!!

 

[undertcontrolj]

Yeah it was pretty exciting to see the tentacles come out ready for some food. So I guess i will just wait and see how it goes from here with a couple of feedings a week.