Getting sun coral to eat

[MMM33732]

Ive had my sun coral for about 5-6 days or so now. It wont eat. Its in a shaded area with low flow. Its polyps have only come about halfway out. Ive checked every night multiple times and nothing past about half way out. Ive tried feeding it like that several times and it doest seem like food sticks to them very good when they aren't all the way out. Ive tried drizzling food on them when its half way out at night, then letting it sit like that and watch for a few hours and keep trying, but they never come out more. Any ideas?

 

[aninjaatemyshoe]

Just give it some time and keep trying. My sun coral looked like it was going to meet its end when I got it (I got it real cheap). I managed to nurse it back to health over the course of a month. These corals seem to get used to a routine, so you might try feeding at the same time every day (often best a little bit after the lights go out). They can usually "smell" food in the water, so even if they don't open up fully, they will notice when you attempt feeding. Once you get them feeding, they will not stop. They are voracious.

 

[G.SMITHII]

i has success with like letting the mysis or krill etc that i feed thaw in tank water w/ like 7-10 drops of seclone.

once its all thawed, ill just drain a lil bit to all of the water into my tank PRIOR to actually feeding.

it seems to excite everybody to open (all LPS) just before i feed.

 

[MMM33732]

How do you train them to open and feed during the day?

 

[islandcreation]

Here's what I do. I get water from the tank and let mysis, cyclopeeze, brineshrimp melt in the water. I stop all my pumps and turkey base one pump into the tank allowing it to reach the entire tanks especially the sun coral. Wait about 10-15 mintues an the sun coral will begin opening up. Once its fully extended, I feed the rest of the food into the tank. Works for me... Do you ever see your sun coral extended at night? Or even in the morning when the sun hasn't really come up?

Just do it at the same time when you feed everyday.

Didn't read everyone's response. Just like G.Smith said ha,ha,ha

 

[dendro982]

MMM33732, how is your sun coral doing?

 

[toejammy]

You may also want to try using Garlic extract to entice him to eat, I add two drops to my frozen food mix with tank water and within minutes of adding a squirt, he is open and ready to eat, then I just turkey baste him a few times within about 15 minutes, my nitrates are super high but my corals are super fat so I dont mind.

 

[MMM33732]

Still hasn't opened enough for a feeding yet. I've heard of a method where you remove it from the tank at feeding time. Sound sensible? I would think that would just stress the coral into not opening at all, but I'm not too sure on the sun coral details yet.

 

[spinninmidwater]

hmm... moving the coral before feeding doesn't really sound sensible to me. it'll just scare it and u'll need to wait quite awhile for it to fully open again. JMO. i have some dendro and i guess they have similar needs, right? if so, i guess u really need to get it to acclimate and fully open first becuz when it's just half way out, their tentacles are not that sticky and they're not ready to feed. try give it more shade and they really enjoy better flow since they are not photosynthetic they really need current to bring them food, right. hope this help.

 

[MMM33732]

I'll try giving it more flow.

Today i was looking at it and saw something that may be the issue. there has always been a huge (1/2" diameter, 7" long coiled) vermetid snail attached to the bottom of it. I never noticed it bother it, but once and a while I would see it snacking on something small and bright yellow/orange or even something purple(?). Today I saw that it grew an additional half inch in length or so over the past few days (my calcium is 500ppm) and now was touching a polyp. It was pulling its feeder tentacles out of it and eating them. Seeing this, I tried to snap the worm off, but couldn't, so I took some pliers and broke its tube back about an inch so it cant reach the polyps for a little while until I decide if I should kill it or not. Hopefully what was just the reason. Heres a small pic of it a few days ago before it grew even longer. You can see the snail on the bottom right side.

 

[wegotcrabs]

I have about 70 heads on my sun coral- all heads extend about 1in when fully extended. When I purchased them they were almost dead. they dont need low light- I have had them in direct light for a year. The trick is feeding. Take them out of the tank and put them into a seperate container. I do this for 2 reasons. First it allows them to soak up the food undistrubed, and second it keeps stress off of the main tank. Then take a pair of tweezers and hand feed everyhead brine shrimp when their small- mysis when big- feed everyday- hope this helps.

 

[vaporize]

Finding out what condition help them open is the key to feeding.

They open at night time & like high flow area. You might have to stay up late one or two nights to initiate the feeding. Once you see small tenacles opening, you can start to drop the frozen mysis, bloodworm etc.. onto their tenacles, they will slowly take it in. Once they recognise the smell of their food, they will open whenever you drop it in that specific food. That's same as daytime.

 

[dendro982]

The big vermetid worm can be sealed in its tube by epoxy putty. I did this a 3 weeks ago in 90g tank (where the sun coral is now), still sealed, no ammonia. If the tanks is smaller, watch for ammonia.

What makes my new sun coral to open: a generous pinch of Cyclop-eeze (for 90g tank), in maybe 15 min both suns are ready to eat.

It this doesn't work, try removing in a separate container for a feeding. Try to keep some flow there - my second, yellow, high skeleton sun is closing without flow. The old, orange - indifferent.

The yellow is in a bad shape, but one container feeding was enough to make it open for a feeding.

I posted illustration of this feeding and what I did to my tubastreas on this pages: feeding, sun coral - main page, navigation at the bottom.

 

[audio101]

Just place a piece of mysis on the heads, even if the they're barely open they will still eat the mysis. Make sure your power heads are off though.