Dendro not coming out anymore

[mndfreeze]

Hey all,

Bit of backstory first. I startd a new tank a few months ago, 12G nano. I got some small pieces of rock out of a dendro tank that supposedly were bare of coral to start my cycle, etc. Better then the live rock selection they had since this was in their display and fully 'live'.

Well, after a day A dendro appears, tiny, like a new bud. So I nursed it through my cycle, its grown a lot and was fine up until a day ago or so. It's been in the tank for about 2 months now.

I've since added my livestock and other coral. Zooa's, one acan, sexy an cleaner shrimp, porcelain, firefish, tiny pistol/high fin pair, etc.

Only thing I've noticed is the sexy shrimp picks at it a lot along with my other corals. It never seems to actually hurt it or take off tentacles or anything. However since I noticed this teh dendro stops coming out at night to get fed.

Need advice on how to handle it. I don't have a seperate tank to quarantine and money is tight.

Water params are fine. Nitrates are slighty high, but nothing in the danger zone, 10ppm.

 

[mndfreeze]

Forgot to add, everything else, all corals, fish, inverts are all doing well. Porcelain just molted as did the cleaner. Zooa's are growing, acan puts out tentacles and eats.

 

[stunreefer]

It's the shrimp. They try to steal food from the polyp and irritate the hell out of them. I would take the shrimp out.

 

[pipebash]

same thing happening to me lately. I believe it coincides with the introduction of a cleaner shrimp. banished the cleaner to the sump and dendro seems better but not fully recovered after 2 days.

 

[bosshog]

Maybe try giving the shrimp a big chunk of mysis a couple minutes before trying to target feed the dendro. While he`s busy with the mysis you can feed the polyps. Shrimp are verrry annoying with species that need to be target fed.

 

[mndfreeze]

I moved my dendro polyp to its perm home on the otherside of thet ank away from where teh sexy shrimp calls home. Got some minor tentacles tonight and I think it ate a tiny piece of brine shrimp. My cleaner leaves it alone, but the sexy shrimp sort of wanders around all day and picks at everything, but doesnt come after stuff right when I feed the tank. I'll find him on the coral hours later usually.

Hopefully tonight I get enough extension to be 100% sure it took and ate the food and didn't just let it half sit there getting it stolen by something else.

 

[mndfreeze]

Just an update. My dendro will barely extend a tiny little tentacle anymore at night. I tried to get it to stick a small piece of brine but it was impossible to tell if it ate it or just dropped it down inside the tube it started growing inside of. (Its an empty dead dendro tube that a little polyp started growing in on one side of it)

*sigh* I really hope it opens to feed sometime and doesnt die off. I've grown rather attached to my dendro since it was there with me from day 1.

 

[Aquabacs]

Try to bucket feed the dendro.

1. take a bucket and fill it with tank water
2. remove the coral from the aquarium and put it in the bucket
3. cover the coral with defrosted cyclopeeze and mysis
4. cover the bucket
5. leave the coral in the bucket for 30 minutes
6. then put the coral back in the tank
7. do this ever other day until the polyps open completly to the way you want

If you are feeling vengeful, feed the shrimp to it.

Mike

 

[mndfreeze]

I'm going to give it another day or two to 'recover' from sexy shrimp rape. I'll try this method next. what sucks is I just moved it and aquamneded its tube to its perm home ont he other side of the tank away fromt he sexy. and so far he hasnt been molested that I've seen. Sexy now picks at my acan. hah :/

I have a big can of that powererd cyclopeeze, and some frozen variety pack food like brine, squid, then emerald entree and one other I cant remeber. If anything I can use the dried powerey style to float around and stimilate the coral to come out hopefully, right?

 

[Aquabacs]

Frozen cyclop-eeze or regular red cyclops work best. The dried cyclopeeze can be rehydrated in a cup of tank water then feed it. You can also take mysis shrimp with a little aquarium water and put it in the blender (I use one of thos majic bullet blenders)

Mike

 

[Am07f]

This happened to mine, just keep target feeding.