Heliofungia

[Javeo]

I just bought a Heliofungia. Has been in the tank 2 days now, looks very good with great tentacle extension and it eagerly consumed a small peice of silverside yesterday. The polyp really inflates well at night and the tentacles look even better.
The problem is that I bought it after reading it was not that difficult in Dr Ron. Shimeks book and this article by Julian Sprung http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/april2003/invert.htm
but on wetwebmedia it says they are difficult to keep. How about some peoples experiances, advice, tips, hints, anything you can throw at me really about looking after the beautiful coaral.
You'd think I'd learn after the sclero. and the goni! but then i wouldnt be me

 

[Sk8r]

I have a short-tentacled orange plate that started out tightly contracted, that has blossomed.

I supplement with CoralVite (Kent) every other week. My params are: alk 8.3, cal 400, mg 1200, temp 80, sal 1.025. I use Oceanic salt, aragonite sandbed.

I was pretty appalled when I read the survival rate, too, even on the short-tentacled (long is indeed harder), but I tried spot-feeding. After a week when it wouldn't unclench, on a reefer's suggestion, I tried a bit of shrimp juice. Then a bit of shrimp. The sparse tentacles came active, and the shrimp went down. In subsequent days the plate took down bits of ordinary storebought human-consumption shrimp, including one piece I didn't mean it to get, a huge piece that took it 3 hours to ingest, but I feared to try to take it away. It puffed further. Its tentacles fattened. Now it looks like a biscuit at night. It eats garlic-laced sinking food (Formula One) every time they drift across its edge or the firefish spits one its direction. I've found very little it won't eat, except that cyclopeeze seems to frustrate it. This is a coral, IMHO, that would eat a fish if it could get one to sit still, but that has trouble eating really fine stuff. Anything that gets on its disk gets passed rapidly up to the mouth, and in it goes.

 

[Jeremy Blaze]

That short tentecale orange plate is a cycloseris, similer, but imo much easyier to keep than the heliofungia.

AS for keeping the helio, place it on the sand, away from any rock or sharp surface, and make sure it recieves only a gentle current.

Feed it no more than once a week.

 

[Javeo]

Thank you for the replies. Sk8r, the Helio. ate half a silverside on its first day, took it about 10 minutes to ingest. I did try cycopeeze first but it just caused the coral to retract its tentecles. I read on wetwebmedia that they need tiny bits of food, but then why would it have such long, potent tentacles and such a large mouth?! I did see one like yours in the same tank at the LFS but I like the long tentacles of the Helio, but the colours on the some of the fungia are amazing.

Jeremy, It is on the sand, but I have to keep it in a "sand bay" walled in by rock. Otherwise it may wander into my ancora or GBTA. Where it is gives it enough room to expand to its full size, which is incredibly wonderful to see! But it cannot really go anywhere. The current im my tank is pretty gentle anyway, being an LPS tank, but ive set the flow so the helio. is only gently swayed.

 

[Javeo]

Gods damnit!!! i hate clowns sooo much. ones now hosting the Helio. after abusing the goni for so long. THEY HAVE A BTA.

 

[Sk8r]

Well, the clowns will see it gets fed, for sure... I have heard of them doing this with the long-tentacled variety. I hope they're the well-mannered sort.

 

[Javeo]

Occelaris, not well mannered at all towards the corals! they nudge and bite and suck and generally cause a nuisence. If anything happens to the Helio theyre both gone! They hardly let the goni eat, dont see them feeding anything.

 

[Jeremy Blaze]

I'd getrid of those clowns!

 

[Javeo]

Do they damage plate corals?

 

[Jeremy Blaze]

Sounds like they are gonna damage any long tentacle coral.

 

[JENnKerry]

I'm not really sure why they're (heliofungia) considered hard to keep. I had one for quite a while til one night a stupid hermit crab knocked my frogspawn over and he landed right on the plate. There was a stinging war all night which sadly the plate lost

 

[Javeo]

Well hopefully it will prove to be as hardy for me. What did you feed it if anything? Also while your here! my goni has receded all along the bottom edges (hempispherical G. stokesi) but the polyps that are left show amazing extension all day and it eats like a pig every other day. I feed cyclopeeze, mysis, grated mussel and prawns, all mixed together and it wolfs down even huge pieces. any ideas about the missing tissue? Thanks

 

[Sk8r]

It might try to regrow. I've had tissue grow back over damaged parts of pocillopora---it's certainly easier for the coral than growing new skeleton, if algae doesn' t get there first.

 

[JENnKerry]

It's very hard to get tissue to regrow back on a goni. They are very succeptible to tissue necrosis. And I'm sorry to say that once it starts, that's pretty much it. We've lost several gonis to this. All you can really do is continue to feed it, try to make it as comfortable as possible and hope for the best.

 

[Javeo]

But the polyp extention! and the wolfing of food! NOOOOOO