Help!! Trying to nurse Sun coral Back to Health

[jimmyPx]

Hi Everyone,

I was at a lfs this past weekend and noticed that they had a sun coral there that looked healthy with a dozen heads of various sizes but no polyps out. I asked the guy at the lfs how much and he said that he thought that it might be dead, so I could have it for $10.

My tank has SPS in it that are healthy and doing well. I have both a Kalk and calcium reactor and use only NSW in the tank. In addition, I have a Solaris LED Lighting system (which I know doesn't matter since a Sun Coral doesn't need light, but it has a nice Moon phase which I thought might bring him around).

I feed Rob's food, DT's Phytoplankton, and Omega 2, so I figured if I target fed him, he might have a chance.

I took him and put him in an area of my tank with moderate flow (via 2 Tunze 6000s) and have been target feeding him every day with Rob's food.

So far, I have never seen his tentacles out.

Does anyone know anything else to try or is this poor coral doomed ????

Rant on-- I wish that LFS's would not get in corals to sell that they can't take care of. ---Rant off.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Uploadead]

They generally fall for cyclopeeze (sp?).

 

[2crazyreefers]

We feed our tank with the black sun poly cyclopeeze once a week and every time the polyps come out.

 

["Umm fish?"]

Take it out and put it in a bowl of SW. Add cyclopeeze and wait for an hour. If it doesn't come out, place the coral back in your tank. Repeat the same process _at the same time_ every night until the coral gets used to your timing. It'll work eventually unless the coral is so starved that it can't extend tentacles to feed anymore.

 

[Freed]

Keep doing what umm said for at least a couple more weeks but I bet if you do it for the next few/several days it will extend its tentacles. If it is starving after several days you can gently place food on each corallite and the polyp will pull it in and eat it. After a while it will have enough strength to extend its tentacles on que.

 

[fishyvet]

I take my sun coral out and place it in a bowl and pulverise a couple of PE mysis shrimps in the water. I used to use the cyclopeeze but it dose so much better with the shrimp; polyps extend faster, quick to eat shrimp. If I'm feeling lazy, I place a shrimp in the unopened polyp and in 30 min the polyp will have began taking the shrimp in.

I have found however, that if I put the coral back before the mysis has been completely consumed that my cleaner shrimp will rip apart the polyp and eat the shrimp out of it killing the polyp.

 

[jimmyPx]

Thanks everyone for the replies.

I have some frozen mysis and will try that. I will also head to the LFS that carrries cyclopeze.

Thanks again!!!

 

[bobafett]

Like everyone said cyclopeeze should do the trick. Another thing to try that I have used with success is take Formula One frozen food and thaw it out. Then crush it until its like a liquid paste and serve it to the corals. My sun corals love it so much that they open up right away once they get the smell of it in the tank even if I am only feeding it to the fish.