food for chili coral.
- Thread starter zoomfish1
- Start date
Herpervet. That looks like the same gorgonian I have. Is yours Indo Pacific?
From what I have read, it is actually photosynthetic. Some of Eric Bornemans European contacts have been keeping this gorgonian quite successfully.
Mine seems to give a feeding response to most things I put in the tank. I have seen it consume rather large pieces of fd cyclopeeze as well.
Fred
From what I have read, it is actually photosynthetic. Some of Eric Bornemans European contacts have been keeping this gorgonian quite successfully.
Mine seems to give a feeding response to most things I put in the tank. I have seen it consume rather large pieces of fd cyclopeeze as well.
Fred
Herpervet
New member
I am not certain but it almost has to be indo pacific. It definately isn't caribbean. The color is way off in the picture. The body is brick red/orange with canary yellow polyps.
Quite a stunning coral.
You might be right about it being photosynthetic. It opens up in full "glowing" glory during the day and is closed at night however this could be due to time differences between here and where it was collected.
The fuscia colored one in the background also opens during the day but I seriously doubt it is photosynthetic.
No question the yellow one ingests lots of stuff and even is grabbing the "pappone" italian diet (see last months thread of the month). It is a mixture of clam, oyster, mussle and shrimp with sugar added as a carbon source to keep nitrates down.
Quite a stunning coral.
You might be right about it being photosynthetic. It opens up in full "glowing" glory during the day and is closed at night however this could be due to time differences between here and where it was collected.
The fuscia colored one in the background also opens during the day but I seriously doubt it is photosynthetic.
No question the yellow one ingests lots of stuff and even is grabbing the "pappone" italian diet (see last months thread of the month). It is a mixture of clam, oyster, mussle and shrimp with sugar added as a carbon source to keep nitrates down.
Malifluous:
Light: they are nocturnal, and are closed most of the day. I'm starting to feed (in one of the tanks) in the morning, before lights are on, otherwise it closes.
In nutrients-rich tanks chili can has the microalgae with debris film on it's surface, after this coral is not opening polyps and inflating more, but: it could be scratched away with the fingernail, and coral opens again.
Flow:
I have 150 gph pump, flow is reflected at 8" from the front glass, then are chili corals. In another tank with the first chili, it was 126 gph, reflected at 10", coral was in 8" down the reflected flow.
Polyps extension is better, than in the big tank, where 600gph of laminar flow (Seio PH), is sideway in ~12"(not direct blast, but touches corals by the side of the flow cone). Without high flow, my chilis refuse to open at all.
BTW:
There are at least 2 kinds of chilis:
- vertical cactus-shaped, dark cold red, with bigger white polyps;
- hand-shaped, more "fingers" in all directions, just red with more frequent, much smaller pinkish polyps.
They can survive for months in contracted state, then, in right conditions, or after removing the surface film, they open, if nothing happened. Skinny, but alive.
I can speak only for my 3 chilis, but straight from the ocean they have hard time to adapt. I had to frag the vertical kind, and frag is doing much better than the main coral, in the same tank.
Watch for a small isopods: when chili is contracted, they are starting to eat it from the ride of LR, leaving shell; slowly - there will be time to stop that.
Red finger gorgonian (Diodogorgia nodulifera) looks like magnified chili, somehow. Easier to find food and see what is going inside the white polyps, and is opened all day, as long as you feed it. Same requirements.
Same warning, as everyone does:
non-photosynthetic corals need feeding in quantities, that will compromise water quality of the usual tank. The tank should have filtration (could be protein skimmer), turnable off, when coral is feeding. Same have long established deep sand beds and big refugiums, but I have no experience with this, at my nano-scale.
Otherwise - frequent massive water changes, and corald don't like that, especially if this is not natural seawater...
This is a PITA, but a challenge too, and I just like these corals.
The easy way will be keeping good-looking corals with no special requirements, like white xenia, bright red mushrooms and neon-green candycane, green star polyps. And they are open all day long, and it will me good-looking reef.
Light: they are nocturnal, and are closed most of the day. I'm starting to feed (in one of the tanks) in the morning, before lights are on, otherwise it closes.
In nutrients-rich tanks chili can has the microalgae with debris film on it's surface, after this coral is not opening polyps and inflating more, but: it could be scratched away with the fingernail, and coral opens again.
Flow:
I have 150 gph pump, flow is reflected at 8" from the front glass, then are chili corals. In another tank with the first chili, it was 126 gph, reflected at 10", coral was in 8" down the reflected flow.
Polyps extension is better, than in the big tank, where 600gph of laminar flow (Seio PH), is sideway in ~12"(not direct blast, but touches corals by the side of the flow cone). Without high flow, my chilis refuse to open at all.
BTW:
There are at least 2 kinds of chilis:
- vertical cactus-shaped, dark cold red, with bigger white polyps;
- hand-shaped, more "fingers" in all directions, just red with more frequent, much smaller pinkish polyps.
They can survive for months in contracted state, then, in right conditions, or after removing the surface film, they open, if nothing happened. Skinny, but alive.
I can speak only for my 3 chilis, but straight from the ocean they have hard time to adapt. I had to frag the vertical kind, and frag is doing much better than the main coral, in the same tank.
Watch for a small isopods: when chili is contracted, they are starting to eat it from the ride of LR, leaving shell; slowly - there will be time to stop that.
Red finger gorgonian (Diodogorgia nodulifera) looks like magnified chili, somehow. Easier to find food and see what is going inside the white polyps, and is opened all day, as long as you feed it. Same requirements.
Same warning, as everyone does:
non-photosynthetic corals need feeding in quantities, that will compromise water quality of the usual tank. The tank should have filtration (could be protein skimmer), turnable off, when coral is feeding. Same have long established deep sand beds and big refugiums, but I have no experience with this, at my nano-scale.
Otherwise - frequent massive water changes, and corald don't like that, especially if this is not natural seawater...
This is a PITA, but a challenge too, and I just like these corals.
The easy way will be keeping good-looking corals with no special requirements, like white xenia, bright red mushrooms and neon-green candycane, green star polyps. And they are open all day long, and it will me good-looking reef.
Thats interesting. I have the chilli with the white polyps and it opens during the day for me. I find that mine has adapted to when I feed the tank.
Herpervet. Sure sounds like the same gorgonian as mine. If you look at the body closely you will notice that it has a golden brown color at the surface (over top of the red). This is what makes it that brick red color. I think that this is the color from the zooxanthellae.
Fred
Herpervet
New member
My chili's are not always syncronized on when they open. I have 4 colonies and the only time all of them are open is late at night and very early in the morning.
It isn't unusual for one or two of them to extend polyps at other times but it seems unpredictable.
Fred, I fragged the yellow gorg. yesterday and it pouted for about 30 min then was back open to feed.
Hopefully my lfs can get more of these. I would like to group two or three all together.
The yellow polyps fluoresce under my t-5 actinics when the halides turn off. It isn't a real dramatic glow but they do fluoresce. It looks something like the yellow glow sticks that the kids play with on halloween.
It isn't unusual for one or two of them to extend polyps at other times but it seems unpredictable.
Fred, I fragged the yellow gorg. yesterday and it pouted for about 30 min then was back open to feed.
Hopefully my lfs can get more of these. I would like to group two or three all together.
The yellow polyps fluoresce under my t-5 actinics when the halides turn off. It isn't a real dramatic glow but they do fluoresce. It looks something like the yellow glow sticks that the kids play with on halloween.
Malifluous
New member
Dendro, Thanks for the detailed response
