Help me to feed my sun coral..

[abhishek@1985]

Hi friends,
Got a small piece of sun coral in pretty bad shape from one of my friends.. have placed it in a shaded location in my 25 gal tank.

However , there are other softies and LPS in my tank . So cant afford to feeed it heavily everyday as I donot want to pollute the water..Og course I do have a reef octopus NW-110 and dosing vodka.But still the nitrates keep on increasing.

So I was thinking of putting the sun coral in a small container every 12 hours and feed it with live brine shrimps in the container.After half an hour of feeeding, will move it to the tank ..

But I am afraid that it may stress him a lot..

So help me to solve the issue and let me know if such a method is feasible....

 

[Nam Nguyen]

I know alot people do the same of what you think. They take sun coral or acan out put in small container to feed them but it take so long. My idea is try to feed it every time you feed your fish so by the time they get use to it. It will be open day time. But you need to train it.
good luck

 

[inthesea]

I don't think it will stress the suncoral if you use the tupperware method. Move the coral to a tupperware and add something stinky like cyclopeeze or oyster juice to make the coral open. The feed him shrimp, keep doing this till he opens up on his own. Mine will open up exactly the same time I use to feed him.

 

[abhishek@1985]

Well I have used the tupeerware method today..surprisingly all the polyps are opened two hours after the feeding..So I guess they are happy..

However , just wanna know can I do this multiple times a day and can I continue to feed it the same way here after .. Or should I stop using tapperware as I donot want to pollute my tank with my LPS there...

 

[sullyfish]

cut a plastic gatorade bottle in half and stick it over the sun coral while in your tank. You can feed it and put the cap on which also keeps fish from stealing food. Works great for me.

 

[abhishek@1985]

Thanks for the replies..
Well the sun coral is eating a lot using the tapperware method.I am feeding it with cyclopzee and brine shrimps.

But have got a few questions :-

1. How long can I continue to use the tapperware method - I dont mind spending 1 hour each day to feed the sun coral.But is it going to be streeful for him if I continue to feed it separately..

2. Are live brine shrimps better than frozen ones in terms of pollution to the tank ..

Please advice..I am planning to get the rest of the sun corals from my friend's tank as he wants them to go for he is planning for sps..

 

[inthesea]

I feed the suncorals just after the lights go out. Within a week they get used to the time and opens up right at that time. Guess they have some sort of internal clock. I feed them small piece of shrimp to each polyp. If you broadcast feed then there is more chance of your water getting polluted. Chopp the shrimp fine and suck it in a turkey baster and drizzle it over the coral.

 

[RCERNA280]

I feed mine an hour after lights out. I turn off the return pump and PH then target feed it along with my other corals. I usually wait another half hour or so before I turn the PH on, to let the uneaten food circulate before i turn the return pump back on.

 

[EllieSuz]

I have rejuvenated a couple of Sun Corals, including the one below:

The trick is to leave it in the container until it gets healthy again. Just lift the container out of the water as often as you like and feed each polyp with a pipette. Since it doesn't get handled there's no stress for the coral. Once it's healthy again, you can position it in your tank. Then you need to make a DIY feeding tube. Get a syringe from a drug store like the type used to medicate infants. Attach a length of rigid airline tube to the syringe with a short piece of flexible airline tube. I also put a piece of flexible tubing on the other end because it's a little softer than the rigid one and I stick the end of it in each polyp to feed. A healthy coral will open when it senses food in the water and mine opens every time I feed the fish. I usually feed it after the lights are out to cut down on the interference from other fish. I took a photo of this apparatus, but PhotoBucket isn't allowing me to re-size it right now. I'll post a picture another time. Feel free to ask questions.

 

[EllieSuz]

Ok, PhotoBucket relented and let me size this picture:

 

[abhishek@1985]

Thanks so much to all you guys for the lovely replies..

@Ellisuz,
It may sound so very stupid but what I do is to take the sun coral out into a container with tank water and feed it twice a day. In that way it does get handled but it seems to coming back to its health..

So what you are suggesting is to keep the sun coral itself in a container within the tank and feed it.In that way the tank water does get polluted .

I was taking it out primarily to feed it as much as I want without polluting my tank water as I have other LPS and softies in there..

Pardon my ignorance but please do let me know if whatever I am doing is right or wrong..

 

[EllieSuz]

The way you're doing it isn't wrong if it's working for you. I kept mine in a container on the sand and lifted the whole thing out for feeding. Just make sure the container holds enough water to completely cover the coral. If you feed individual polyps rather than just squirt a bunch of food into the container, you shouldn't foul the water. If there is food left over when you lower the container back into the tank, the fish will clean it up.

 

[slapshot]

One other thing.....get it off of the Brine Shrimp as soon as you can and switch it over to Mysis. There is no nutritional value to live adult brine. Once you get it feeding regularly you only need to feed it twice a week, unless you want it to grow. Best of luck it sounds like your turning it around.

 

[galoot]

I agree with the Mysis. Much better for them. I would leave mine on the sand bed and place a two liter bottle with the end cut off over it. Make sure to punch some holes so water will flow through. Then I'd just squirt some mysis in there. Within minutes they open up and eat. I'd squirt some water in to stir it up again. Give it a few minutes, remove the bottle, and let the fish and shrimp eat the leftovers. Works very well. Mine would open up whenever anyfood for source hit the water. No matter what time of day, lights on or off!

 

[jamierk]

Sorry to hijack a little. I have an lps tank I feed daily with nanocl greenwater and every second day with live bbs. Is this likely to be sufficient for a suncoral or is target feeding necessary on top. I'm supplementing the bbs with greenwater and probably going to dose rotifera soon also.

Thanks

Jamie

 

[jamierk]

Sorry to hijack a little. I have an lps tank I feed daily with nanocl greenwater and every second day with live bbs. Is this likely to be sufficient for a suncoral or is target feeding necessary on top. I'm supplementing the bbs with greenwater and probably going to dose rotifera soon also.

Thanks

Jamie