Dendro growth rate

[smogl00]

I'm curious to hear some opinions on this.

I bought a polyp of this dendro about a month and a half ago:

As can be seen, everything is very healthy, so it didn't need any tlc or anything like that from the day I got it. I'm not going crazy or anything yet, but I was told that with consistent feeding that these things grow babies like crazy usually, and so far not a single sign of babies spouting here. Here is what it looks like now:

Still very healthy and opens up wide, and is fed either mysis or rod's food on a daily basis- not to mention what it snags at night when there are more critters running around. i keep up with water changes at a rate of 20% weekly as well, so I'm stumped. Like I said, it hasn't been a terribly long time, but usually with some acans or a torch coral head or something of the like, I'd see some pretty noticeable growth of some kind by now, so I figured I'd find out other people's experience.

 

[Useful_Idiot]

I had a single dendro head for a year feeding some mysis 3 times a week because I read you can overfeed Lps. 2 months ago I decided I should have some growth by now and something was wrong. I started feeding it kidney bean size chunks of food every day and the flesh started to grow down over the skeleton. A few weeks later some small strands grew from the side and now is a small head. More lumps are starting to develop around the base. So I'm going to keep overfeeding it maybe my water is too clean and it needs the extra food. Your second pic looks like the flesh is receded back some. I'd increase the amount of food it gets in its daily feeding.
Edit, my dendro head is bigger than a quarter not counting the tentacles. I've seen some at the lfs much smaller I wouldn't feed them a kidney bean size chunk of krill.

 

[smogl00]

Thanks! that's good to hear. Actually you can't see it because the head of the dendro is so big, the the flesh is growing down the skeleton steadily. I have been feeding the way you mentioned, so I will continue that regiment and as long as the flesh keeps growing hopefully I'll see some baby heads in the coming months.

 

[Caesra]

don't overfeed...that is really bad for them. They actually will grow pretty fast. Some articles I have read the actually build skeletons faster if not on par with a fast growing SPS...the issue is their skeletons are denser so they appear to grow slower

Overfeeding can cause two issues

1) rotting...rotting food in the gut of a denro or sun is bad and can cause damage to the coral
2) too much food, even if properly digested can cause tissue growth faster than the skeleton can be built.

It is my beleif that dendros appreciate a bit meatier feeding than a typical sun coral, but the frequency should be pretty much on par with a sun. 1-2 (maybe 3 on occasion)

Food size I generally do the same I do with everything, vary it.