favites, brain croal help (pics)

[SteveNMegz]

Hey everyone, so we've had our brain for 5-6 days now, and we've only ever seen one polyps sweeper tentacle.

we're thinking of placing the coral on the substrate for a few weeks, and putting a 2L bottle over it with holes to try and get some food on it without the pesky shrimp jumping all over.

is this a good idea? where would we drill holes in the bottle for flow? any other options?

Thanks

placement

 

[DLANDINO]

I was in the same boat as you a few weeks back. For mine, I gave him time to get used to the new surroundings and then placed him in a really high flow area of my reef. I then nightly, one hr after lights out, target fed him with Coral Frenzie to stimulate feeding. It workerd like a charm. Within 3 days his sweepers were out and was also feeding on frozen Mysis shrimp that again, I target feed him three times per week. Best of luck, he will be fine. Just have to wait him out. I know how stressful it is because you just spent a decent amount of money on him.

Dave

 

[weaselslucks]

my christmass favia was in a bucket for almost a month with no heat and he was still tring to eat everything on site. I would turn off the pumps and lay some mysis shrimp on him. it may take an hour for him to come out but once he learns he will do it more often. I also distract my shrimp with food of his own.

 

[SteveNMegz]

thansk guys.

tonight we noticed that two of them have fans coming out and 2 other ones have tentacles coming out.

the fans king of look like what are on a porcelain crab for them to fiter feed, is this right? then other 2 just look like torch coral tentacles? do brains have different types of ways to catch food, getting confused here lol

Thanks!

 

[DLANDINO]

I am sure that there is an actual, scientific answer but from my observation, the short tentacles catch the food and the lonf sweepers are defense. I actually saw mine zap a Majano. Saved me having to do it.

 

[weaselslucks]

i wish mine would zap my glass anemonies. the little tenticals are what feed. mine has never put out sweepers

 

[SteveNMegz]

well we posted int he new to the hobby section to and someone said it could be barnacles, we researche dand found a video of barnacles eating, and the fans are exactly the same.

so i guess we have barnacles living in the coral and sticking theyre fans through the flesh of it to eat lol....

anyone have this problem before? and are having barnacles a bad thing in a reef? haven't heard of to many people having them if at all lol.

Thanks!

 

[Lotus99]

It was I who suggested they might be barnacles in the other thread. To be honest, I don't remember where I read about them. I do have barnacles on a favites that I have. They've been there for about 8 months, and the coral seems to be fine. I did read that they usually die off (the barnacles), but mine seem perfectly healthy.

As far as I know, they're not a threat to the coral, but perhaps someone with more experience could confirm.

Edit: I just found this on Melev's site: http://melevsreef.com/id/pods.html

 

[SteveNMegz]

Awesome thanks! thats one less worry haha

 

[SteveNMegz]

well we woke up this moring to the coral expelling waste, this is a good sign right?

 

[SteveNMegz]

anyone?

 

[cloak]

When you gotta go you gotta go. It's natural. I don't think the lights are burning it up.

 

[SteveNMegz]

haha ok. well its been 2 1/2 weeks since the corals been in our tank and the thing still hasn't opened up to eat. We've tried putting a bit of brine shrimp on top but that didn't work. we've been letting it be besides that one time trying to feed it. any ideas?

 

[Lotus99]

Mine seem to put out their tentacles mostly late at night. Have you seen any on it?

 

[seapug]

Don't worry so much about feeding it. Bleaching and recession are the only things that you need to look out for.

Most of the favias will do their "opening" at night after the lights go out. Check it with a flashlight an hour or so after all the lights are off. It'll probably look a lot different.

 

[SteveNMegz]

we check it all the time at night, always at least 1-2 hours after all the lights go out and nohting at all. looks exactly the same as during the day, its weird.

 

[SteveNMegz]

its a stubborn bugger, 3 weeks now lol

 

[nUgZ]

Don't worry Steve and Megz...they don't HAVE to be fed, they are photosynthetic. Some favites like to feed a lot and some rarely feed. There's nothing wrong either way.