new black sun coral. TIPS?

[puckbs]

I just inherited a black sun coral that supposedly hasn't been opening. I have only had it for a day but I haven't seen it open either. I tried turning off the pumps and lights and squirting some baby brine nauplii (frozen hikari) gently over it to see if it would elicit a feeding response but nothing yet.

I've been in this hobby for a while so i have a little bit of patience but i wanted to check and see if they had a preffered food, or if anyone had some suggestions for me. Thanks!

 

[DetectiveTofu]

If you're talking about Tubastrea micrantha (the black sun coral), I hate to tell you that it's survival rate in aquariums is absolutely dismal. They require extremely high flow, in addition to a lot of food. Even if these requirements are met though, this does not promise success Now a days I don't think we even know how to properly feed T. micrantha, and how to meet its nutritional needs.

Sometimes it may take a couple nights of basting the food over them until they realize they're being fed. Just remember not to feed so much that you compromise water quality. Unless you have one hell of a skimmer If all goes well, they will open on a regular basis, not only during feeding time, but also during the "daylight" hours of your tank. FWIW it may be worth noting that if you begin to see recession or necrosis in the fleshy area between the polyps, then this is an indication the specimen is probably on it's way to kicking the bucket.

HTH

 

[puckbs]

i've had good success with the reg. sun coral. i can get a specimen cup to feed it in, but that will negate the high flow part, at least at feeding time, but will save water quality.

its in a 10g frag tank with a bak pak skimmer and maxijet 400 with a hydor flow, i think i have bigger maxijets laying around. would that help?

it hasn't opened but i can see bright green spots, man i hope this thing lives. I kept an ornate ghost pipefish once and that was supposed to be tough too, so hopefully my luck will continue.

 

[puckbs]

http://www.buttercreamdreams.com/tubastrea_micrantha.htm

an encouraging bit of reading, luckily i have plenty of cyclopeeze on hand

 

[DetectiveTofu]

The green you're seeing is most likely the polyp expanding/opening up.
Many people have great success with the orange sun coral (T. faulkneri), however like I said before, for some reason the black sun corals just don't do well at all in the aquarium.
Judging by your pictures, the colony looks like it is hanging on by its last threads. I say this before all the flesh along the branches between all the polyps is dead white.
For more opinions, you may also want to try posting in 'non-photosynthetic corals' forum, as the black sun coral falls in that category as well.

 

[puckbs]

those aren't my pictures. they're from someone who had one 4 yrs ago and nursed it back to health feeding cyclopeeze. so like i said, it was an encouraging read, hopefully i'll have the same success.

 

[dendro982]

I have the more hardy black sun coral -T. diaphana, black, without green. With sharp edges, very thin skin, and tissue recession.

It behaves different from orange sun - much slower.

If making the orange sun coral open took around 45 min during container feeding, the black sun coral just ignored this, twice. Adding in tank water the pinch of cyclop eeze makes both - lemon yelow and common orange suns open, but not the black one.

What worked for me with this coral:
1.5 hours of imitating target feeding in tank, on the coral with closed polyps. With flow around it off (filtration still working, 90g tank), gently squirting onto it the mix of defrozen food, trying to hang the pieces of mysis (or artemia, brine - whatever) onto the polyps - to feel the smell or the food nearby all the time.
Every 5 min for 1.5 hrs. Then it started to open first 2 polyps, next day with the same treatment - 10 more, next day - 9 more, daily, until all opened.

Here is another link to T. miracantha nursing to the health, by evilervin.
HTH

BTW, RC made a new forum for non-photosynthetic corals, you probably already know.

 

[Jefe12234]

Wow, I've never heard of black sun corals as having dismal survival rates. I've had two of them and they were both very easy to maintain. I've had them in high/low flow and high/low light, none of it seems to matter as long as they get fed. With my current specimen, I just feed it 2-3 nights a week and it does fine. It even opens during the day sometimes. The only difficult part is waiting for them to start feeding when you first get them. They need to expect food regularly before they will open. Just try feeding it a little bit at the same time each night until it starts to peek out. It may eat right away or take as long as a few weeks. I feed mine a homemade mixture of blended seafood (octopus, squid, krill, etc). I think the reason they are so easy to maintain is because they are capable of eating so much at once. That's my experience anyway.

 

[puckbs]

thanks jefe. i will get pictures of mine soon so i can know for sure which one it is. I will def. try getting into a routine with the feeding and see if that helps.

 

[dendro982]

There is T. diaphana - practically black, compact branching growth, grown to olive green tentacles (mine is diaphana too), that usually described as as easy and hardy, as a common orange tubastreas.

And there is T. miracantha (-us) - the middle brown, long branches, tentacles have the green shade. Again, as I had read, this was much more difficult in many cases.

In my case, it was quite an effort to make the starved diaphana open to feed

 

[fnvarner]

wow that is one that i have never seen before definately different