Dendrophylliacs: Roe's vs. Fraggle

[WendyMc]

Sirrus, awesome to see improvement! Try chopping those pieces in 1/2. I think they might be too big, and your dendros are expending more energy trying to digest them than they should have to. They are getting some nutrients from your feedings, but not enough. After they have swallowed the smaller piece, try again after 3-4 hours. If you can keep this up daily, I'll bet my dendros yours will be a wonderful display within a week or 2, open 95% of the day. This isn't a light bet, either, I love my dendros more than any other coral in my tank! 3x a week will sustain a colony, but for the best display, daily feedings do the trick. After you have your polyps open all the time, you will only have to feed once a day, I just suggested the frequent feedings to get them caught up on their nutritional needs.

I don't think they're getting too much light. I got some of my dendros from Mike @ The Captive Reef, and he keeps them right under his halide at the top of the tank for ease of feeding.

 

[sirrus6]

Thanks Wendy. I'll try your suggestion. The food chunks in the pic are just part of my normal fish chow. I think that I will have to prepare some separate dendro-sized pieces (squid as per JenDub?). The major problem that I have in feeding the dendros is poaching by my fish, especially my tusk, pep hog, and mandarin. Unfortunately, I have not yet been able to design a workable feeding cage that can accomodate the dendros on their rock ledge. So, after feeding I guard them with my turkey baster, shooing away the poachers with blasts of water. The mandarin is particularly persistent.

 

[WendyMc]

Yup, Squid seems to be the best. I do a mix of Hikari Mysis, chopped scallops, prawn, and calamari steak from the fresh seafood counter which I grate/chop finely. Mine eat it all really well, but the calamari gets the best response out of the new ones when they are still stressed. I have to guard my caulastrea from my clowns because they have a slower feeding response than the dendros. Hopefully when yours are stronger they won't take long at all to swallow thier food, and you'll have less baster time .

 

["Umm fish?"]

The mandarin is going after squid? Wow!