Looking for a Dendrophyllia/Tubastrea Guru !!! Advice Needed

[leggy]

Hi,
My sister bought some dendros and tubastrea over the internet. When they arrived a few looked pretty awful and one died back about 98%.
As her aquarium could not hold dying corals (too small) she gave them to me as my systems should (fingers crossed) buffer any deaths.
Anyway - feeding them two/three times a day with a mixture of fortified Liquidlife plankton, cyclop-eez, oyster eggs, mashed shrimps/krill/mysis, lobster eggs, live artemia.
They have all puffed up with nice big heads but no petals???
The longest petal is around 2mm. They are soo short I dont think they can catch any food - I am stopping all powerheads and soaking the corals - therefore have to do 10% water change everyday just incase.
My own sun corals petals are seem to be getting shorter as well...
does anyone know whats wrong ???
Have done all the water tests - from nitrite to magnesium, they all are fine.
Please help - already used 50kg of red sea pro salt these last couple weeks :-(
Sorry no pics - still have not worked out how to post my pics...computers and me dont mix.

 

[grisha]

hey man im not a guru, but you dont have to worry about dendro which eats. in my opinion they are VERY hardy corals.
would love to see a pic of dendro with 2mm tentacles during feeding
to post pics i use photobucket.com after you upload to photobacket - copy a bottom link address and paste it to forum window

 

[mikekman]

Hey, lets see some pics.

By petals, you mean tentacles right? I have a dendro that has really really short tentacles.

Then I have some other dendros that have long tentacles.

Looks like you are really feeding your coral some good food.

 

[leggy]

Looks very strange - all the dendros heads get to around 1+" they look like big smileys. Then theres a sun coral I am not sure about - its very skinny and comes out from the short base 4-5cm all skinny then has a big head... really dont know what it is..but it still has no petals either at the moment.
I'm just worried as I have never seen this before from my sun corals.

 

[leggy]

lol yeah I ment tentacles - its 3.35 am here so could not remember the correct term :-(
With short tentacles - how to they feed ?? do I have to stop all my powerheads all the time ???

 

[dendro982]

Not guru, and have only tubastrea, but I'm using the larger food, like mysis shrimp.
If it is in a bad condition, try to remove it from the tank and feed it in a separate container, immersed in floating food up to 40 min. Mix by turkey baster time from time. Then place it back to the tank.
Few sessions should make it eat. Only cover the container from the bright light, mine didn't open to eat without that.

I second the use of Photobucket.com: it's free, just upload your picture and copy the content of the window "IMG code", paste it in the Post a message window on Reef Central, without using any buttons above the window.
Had the same problem too

 

[leggy]

Thanks dendro892 will try that out also the photobucket. A few ppl still waiting to see my 72 head duncan lol.

 

[leggy]

OK - got my photobucket - lets see if it works...sry testing.

http://s201.photobucket.com/albums/aa8/leggy_album/?action=view&current=ImportedPhotos00014.jpg

should be the pic of part of my duncan sleeping.

 

[Der_Iron_Chef]

Naw, you don't have to remove it from the tank. Just cut the bottom off a 2 L bottle of coke and put it over the coral. Then drizzle the food over the coral, through the neck of the bottle. You can squirt in there with a turkey baster every few minutes to mix up the food if you want.

Worked well for me!

 

[Echidna09]

Yeah it works. Nice looking duncan.

 

[mikekman]

Get some photobucket pics of your sun coral/dendro.

I notice that the one dendro I have that has short tentacles can't catch food well so I put lots of mysis right on its tentacles or near its mouth.

 

[dendro982]

If you paste the string, starting with "", the image will appear right in this thread.
Beautiful duncan!