dendro and rhizo propagation

acerr2562

New member
I am fairly new to the propagation side of the hobby and wanted to ask some tricks of the trade that have worked in the growth and reproduction of dendro, duncans and rhizos. I have come across a few good tips such as keeping them out of direct light gives them better color and keeping the in a lower flow area allows them to expand more and grow better. What are some things that you guys have found work, especially with the rhizo!
The major question I have is what gets them to spawn there eggs? I heard it has to do with the lunar cycle, but haven't heard anything conclusive.

I know feeding heavy is what i hear most, but I have also heard that you feed heavily for one month then don’t feed it the next to get a grow spurt, new heads and extended tentacles. I know there has to be more then heavy feeding. Then going into heavy feeding, what have been some successful foods that enhance color and growth and at what frequency a day? I have tried shrimp, gamma’s, mysis shrimp, and cycloptis, each one with its pro’s and con’s.

Shrimp I found that you have to watch the size that you feed them or it will stress them out eating it and you have to take out the legs or it could pierce the coral, gamma’s have the same problem. Both are good for absorbing secondary additives as well as having good protein and crude fat.

Mysis shrimp are nice because they are small and absorb the additives well, but I have found that they don’t affect the coral in growth and color much.

Cycloptis are nice because they are really small and you can feed more of them to the coral and some brands can be made into a paste and be able to stay together longer to get more to the coral. The only bad thing about them is they are small and get everywhere and most of the food will never make it to the coral.

also if you have pictures, please share! especially any pictures show how well what you are doing works. i will put mine up as soon as i get my new shipment in this week.
 
You just need to feed them meaty foods at least a couple times every week and you will see growth. Dendros and Rhizos are azooxanthanelle so they need to be fed for survival. Duncans do carry zooxanthanelle so it isn't necessary to feed them but it will make them grow faster. The more you feed the more growth you should see. I've never heard of feeding for a month then not feeding at all. This will get you better extension because they will be doing all they can to get as much food as they can when you stop feeding. I don't know about it getting new polyps because of this though.

Coral spawns at night. If I remember right, it's the same time of year every time they sexually reproduce. Lunar cycles encourage the coral to know when it is time for them to reproduce. Other than correctly mimicing the cycles, most coral will never spawn in your tank.

Rhizos have not yet been propagated from captivity. That is undoubtedly one of the reasons it is so expensive. Another is that it's a coral being freshly imported from Australia, and in very small numbers.

You can see pictures of what I have in my thread.
 
acerr, I wish you luck in dendro and rhizo propagation.

It doesn't matter if you have the dendros under direct lighting or indirect, mine will open up and look beautiful right under my halides. In fact, I have a few that only open up when my lights are on.

As far as food, many have reported that their dendros like squid. I have tried squid but you have to be careful to give small pieces. Too big of a piece and the coral will waste its energy trying to fit it in its mouth and then spit it out later because it was too big. I tried shrimp and same thing with shrimp....gotta make sure its small.

Cyclopeez I don't like using because it creates a big mess and a lot of it will float up.

I think I will stick with mysis shrimp. I usually soak it with selcon. Mysis shrimp aren't too big and the dendros can easily eat it.

I am going to try Formula One pellets. They have some that are medium size which sink which I will feed my dendros to see how they like it.

If you are going to feed heavily like every day or whatnot, please watch your water quality. I have a few dendros that are dying. Their tissue is receeding and I can't seem to save them. Sucks because just a few months ago they were so big and magnificent. What happened is, I continued to feed BUT started being lax on big water changes. I believe the high nitrates and phosphates have hurt a few of them.:( :( :( :(
They are now in my other tank that has a skimmer and fuge and I will start doing more water changes.
 
well that can be true that they doent spawn in captive because i talked to someone who's rhizo did reproduce. he did say it took most of that year, but thats why i am asking around to see if anyone else had success with it.
 
Anything that is azooxanthanelle won't care about lighting. They can't bleach or go brown from too much/not enough light like other corals.
 
here are a few pictures of my dendros, duncans and rhizo who was shy this weekend.
rhizo.jpg

duncan2.jpg

duncan.jpg

dendro4.jpg

dendro3.jpg

dendro2.jpg

dendrosinfragtank.jpg

dendro.jpg
 
You must have spent a ton on all those dendros, rhizos, and duncans!

I wish you the best in your propagation efforts but the hardest will be the rhizo. I have not heard of any captive born rhizos.

Duncans and dendros should be fairly easy to propagate.
 
suprizing to me, i didnt spend that much on them. definately under a thousand for everything i have, which sounds like alot but when you have 30 heads of dendro, 15 heads of duncan and a rhizo, i think i did ok. i just hope that i can grow these right and be able to let other enjoy them like i do. i just hope to enjoy some balanos and another rhizo or two.
 
i finally found it, here is the quote i have from another reefer about rhizo propagation:

organism01-19-2007, 12:26 AM
they grow extremely, extremely slowly, I had one for a year that finally started to pop a baby off one side, and the baby took another 6 months to even get to a noticable size, definitely not a coral to pick up for propagation, but very nice either way though

http://www.club-zoa.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1866&page=2
 
acerr -link doesn't work and I tried and change it to club-zoa. Resend another link

Also sent you a pm and a email so if you can please get back to me :-)
 
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