New Black sun coral help!

[homer1475]

I picked up a black sun coral the other day at my LFS. Read a ton on these and how I need to manually feed them. I've been doing the tupperware container feedings for the last three days. My question arises from not seeing any tentacles on it just bald heads sticking out of the tubes.

While in the container I put some reef frenzy(plenty stinky I think) in there and can see them sticking their heads out, but no tentacles reaching out for food. I can "force" them to eat if I place some mysis or some of the reef frenzy directly over their mouths and waiting till they take them in, but again, no tentacles reaching for food, just bald heads with open mouths.

I'm beginning to wonder if its because I lay it on its side in the container when I feed it? The frag I got isn't on a plug and its base is odd shaped and will not stand up. Could this be causing it? Should I just keep doing as I'm doing and give it a few more days? Glue it to a large plug so it will stand up? try a different food? Any and all help is appreciated.

Pic of my sun coral:

 

[rt67ghy]

Do you try feeding it after lights-out? In a lot of cases when they are new they will not open but you can still go ahead and feed when the tentacles aren't showing. I'd recommend you try feeding nutrimarova. You can drop the food on their polyps and some of the them willl probably eat it even without showing tentacles. Then other heads will start eating more aggressively. You won't have much success with this method if the coral is lying on its side. You don't need to take it out of your tank. Just turn the wavemakers off so flow won't blow the food away. Give them time to eat (30 minutes) before turning the flow back on.

 

[justthewife]

We made a feeding device for our sunpolyps that consists of a long pvc pipe with a cut off plastic soda bottle attached to it. We place the soda bottle part over the coral. We drilled holes in the soda bottle top so we can feed it thru the holes with a Jullian's Thing tool. We then let it sit until the polyps finish eating and no other fish or inverts can get in to bother it. We do turn off the flow to feed it even though its in this device. This works great and we don't get wet and the coral doesn't have to come out of the tank :thumbsup:

 

[justthewife]

Also, try Reef Chili to coax it out and then feed misis shrimp.

 

[homer1475]

Thanks for all the help and advice. I did make a base for it out of 2 part epoxy putty so it can stand up when in the tupperware container, but it seems like I might not need to do it that way anymore. lol :thumbsup:

I came home from work today around 5(nearly the time I've been feeding it every day so far), all the heads and tentacles are out looking for food in my tank!! I think for at least a couple more days, I'm going to feed it in the tupperware, It's just easy that way to make sure it's eating.

 

[rt67ghy]

Good to hear. Always greatly satisfying to see suns with tentacles out and ready to eat, more so than other (photosynthetic) corals which don't depend 100% on external feeding.

 

[BarryV]

Black Sun Coral (After eating)

Black Sun Coral (After eating)

Hey Homer here are a couple of photos of my Black Sun Coral after eating today.
They ate Shrimp and Clams.
Barry
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/55093344/After%20eating.jpg

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/55093344/After%20eating2.jpg

 

[homer1475]

Yeah mines not out like that yet. Very beautiful BarryV.