How big to Aussie Duncan heads get?

E

Engloid

New member
I bought some live rock yesterday and rearranged some things in my tank. I previously had my duncan down on the bottom center of a 29 gallon bowfront. It got a rather random flow, but was constant. I had a powerhead at the back center, blowing to the front. The duncan was front and center.

When I moved things, I wanted to try putting it up higher. It's now about 2" from the water surface, and just where a hang-on filter lets out water. The heads took a couple days to open fully, but one of them is now a full 1.5" across!! It is larger than any I've seen.

How big do they normally get?

Oh, and this is the frag I bought recently that has just 3 heads on it. It's about 3" tall.
 
They get that big. Mine are a little bigger than that when the flow is not high. You are referring to the disk, and not the disk and tentacles?? They are one of my favorite corals
 
GPhiAce said:
They get that big. Mine are a little bigger than that when the flow is not high. You are referring to the disk, and not the disk and tentacles?? They are one of my favorite corals
Click to expand...

I was referring to tentacles and all. I have noticed though, when it closes up sometimes (since I rearranged and moved it) that the end isn't so tight and squared off on the end. Sometimes it looks soft, bulbous, and more fleshy. It looks almost swollen and pink at times.

Do yours ever do that?

The Duncan is one of my favorites also. You got any pictures of really nice Duncans, or pics of yours?
 
I found a thread with some more duncan pics. There's one in the thread that mentions "after eating" pic. The first pic is similar to how mine looked the other day. Maybe it got a hold of a hermit crab or something. I've not been feeding them, but investigating options and methods of feeding corals.
 
That happens some times when I do water changes, or something irritates mine. All things considered, they are great hardy corals that grow fast. I wonder why they were $125+/head a little over a year ago. Anyway, here is an old pic of mine. Not sure how big mine is now
Duncans.jpg
 
Yeah, they run about $15 a head now, locally. Mine is the type with branches. Do you feed yours? What and how?
 
I used to when I was bored and highly interested in them. I fed a meaty food like shrimp. I also used flakes, pellets, cyclopeeze, reefsnow, all sorts of combinations with AAs added. They will eat anything. Don't know if it helped them grow faster, but it sure did raise my nitrates. :) now they eat when I feed the tank 3x/week. and they don't need it- I don't think. Easy keepers.
 
Yeah, I'm a bit reluctant to start feeding because I anticipate it being a mess. I do have a bunch of hermit crabs, but that's only a partial fix to the problem. One local guy I met uses long tweezers and puts flake fish food directly into the corals.
 
Engloid said:
Mine is the type with branches. Do you feed yours? What and how?
Click to expand...

All Duncans are branching... In captivity, they grow more condensed. I assume this is because we do feed them and it doesn't take as long to have new growth... I feed mine with PE mysis, but any small meaty foods will do... They grow wicked fast if you feed them... The colony pictured has at least 25+ heads now...


Here is a pic of mine from about a year ago that is actually in focus... ;)

DuncAct.jpg
 
I've been feeding my single head (from the same colony as yours) and it is responding nicely and spreading out (when the hawkfish doesn't sit on it). I am not overly worried about nitrates because, well, I do not have sensitive corals and I have a horde of mini starfish that consume any leftover food quickly. Plus, frequent water changes are easier in a 24G. :)
 
That's a great pic of the Duncans. I think I may have to start feeding mine. Does everybody agree that mysis shrimp and the rigid/airline method of feeding is best?

mini starfish...are they good for cleaning glass? Any downside to having them?
 
Well, I tried the feeding tonight. All I had was some blood worms. They didn't do so well with the airline method. I finally dumped them into the tank. the clowns ate several of them, but the corals did get a few too. The Duncans were already closed up as if they had eaten already. This is a newly started tank, so I don't know what they'd be eating that I'd not know about.

I had three paly's eat whole blood worms. I was surprised to see them grab a part and work them into their mouths. It took about 5 minutes total.

One of the blood worms got stuck in the frogspawn but it didn't seem to respond to it being there. Frogspawn does have a mouth, right? I see something in mine that looks like one.

y xenias must have cauthg a worm too because they all closed up and have been like that for about 10 minutes.

When the duncans open up, I'll probably just dump some worms right on top of them, since they're about 2" from the water surface.
 
ct_vol said:
All Duncans are branching... In captivity, they grow more condensed. I assume this is because we do feed them and it doesn't take as long to have new growth... I feed mine with PE mysis, but any small meaty foods will do... They grow wicked fast if you feed them... The colony pictured has at least 25+ heads now...


Here is a pic of mine from about a year ago that is actually in focus... ;)

DuncAct.jpg
Click to expand...

What? No gang signs?
 
I lowered my Duncans to about 6" below water surface, which is about 8" below the T5 bulbs. They seem really happy now. They're about 2" diameter now.

I've fed my corals some blood worms a couple times too. I have them for some freshwater fish I have, and figured I'd give them a shot. They seem to have advantages over little bits of other foods. They don't make a mess. They are large enough that I can just dump them into the tank and they move with the flow until they eventually get caught by one of the corals. I have enough flow that there's not much for dead spots. Within 15 minutes of dumping them in, I can't find a single worm.

Of course the clowns catch a few of them, but they dont' eat much.

If I'd put in flakes or little granules of food, it would settle to the bottom and wind up just polluting the water. the bloodworms seem to work out great.
 
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