New Deodronephthya sp. study group?

[reefkeeper59]

down sized

 

[graveyardworm]

Sorry cant see pics.

 

[mcox33]

If no one knows how to keep them, how can you qualify this statement - if target feeding is necessary - a smaller system that will help keep the food near the coral would seem more benificial - as graveyardworm stated



On a side note, I've noticed over the last few days that when I'm target-feeding w/ the phyto/oyster egg mix when my dendro is partially "deflated" that it "inflates" - for those few who have had "some success" is this a good sign? I know this is very short term, but it does not seem to make a difference lights/no lights - it still shows this same response.

I can grab some pictures if anyone is interested.

I also noticed that the first day it was in my tank it dropped a few of it's yellow spicules (the outermost ones on the branches), but it has not now for a few days - I'm assuming this was a stress response?

-Thanks for anyone who can lend an ear and give some help w/ constructive criticizm

-Nick

Because I have tried I also have the babies in a 20 gal They have not grown at all, they haven't died but they haven't grown. At the same time I have moved some of them around to different areas of my 90 and they are growing very well.

 

[mcox33]

On a side note, I've noticed over the last few days that when I'm target-feeding w/ the phyto/oyster egg mix when my dendro is partially "deflated" that it "inflates" - for those few who have had "some success" is this a good sign? I know this is very short term, but it does not seem to make a difference lights/no lights - it still shows this same response.


-Nick

Yes that is a good sign and once you find the spot in your tank that is likes the best it will stay inflated more. But do be careful because just moving it in the tank can cause enough stress to make it drop more branches. So when you do move it make sure it is not in direct line of the flow pump instead try putting it off to just the side.
Another good place for them if you have a drilled tank with the built in overflow is to put it in front of the overflow assuming you have rock stacted in front of the overflow to hid it.

 

[mcox33]

Pictures ? awesome.

My LFS has one that came in a couple weeks ago its not looking to good, Ive tried to get them lower prices on sickly corals in the past, but I guess they'd rather have it die there. I dont know about the spicules falling off. expansion when feeding is probably a good sign atleast short term, thetrick is to get it to stay inflated most of the time. I tried the no skimmer w/fuge thing on my first and only at dendro attempt and couldnt keep water quality up. Where did you get the oyster eggs? I've been trying since i first heard about them but cant seem to locate.

Yeah there is a yellow one at one of our stores it is about the size of a good frag and they want 50 dollars for it. I told the owner he should let me bring it home and nurse it back to health but he just laughed. Anyway price way to high even if it were healthy So I guess I will just have to wish for it. I have tried talking the price down before when it first came in he just won't budge on the price. That shop however is known as the dead coral shop

 

[mcox33]

I'll try in a few days right now my tank looks so bad I don't want a pic of anything everything seems okay but I got brown algea driving me crazy.

But I think it is on it's way out. That's what I get for over doing the redo my tank thing. to many changes to close together.

okay now my tank seems to have recovered from it's major redo of the rock, removal of at least half the sand and changed to the tidepool filter instead of the wet/dry so now I can get out the camera and see if I can get some better pictures

 

[MadTownMax]

Yes that is a good sign and once you find the spot in your tank that is likes the best it will stay inflated more. But do be careful because just moving it in the tank can cause enough stress to make it drop more branches. So when you do move it make sure it is not in direct line of the flow pump instead try putting it off to just the side.
Another good place for them if you have a drilled tank with the built in overflow is to put it in front of the overflow assuming you have rock stacted in front of the overflow to hid it.

Thanks for the support Mary - I only moved them once, after really looking at the flow in my tank, I moved them to the location w/ the most flow - nothing is directly in front of a pump in my tank as I have pumps pointing from the back top corners straight ahead at the front corners - since the glass is curved, this creates a lot of eddies and swirling in the tank everywhere.

I still have to get some pictures - I think that will help explain a lot - but I've been taking up all my time setting up a new peristaltic pump - I've been talking w/ another member of my reef club about a system he is running for his dwarf seahorses - using a timer and a dosing pump hooked up to a container full of food inside of a small refrigerator he has an automated system that feeds his tank 6X a day, 7-days a week. When I get my pump hooked up I may use one channel for dosing Kalk, and the other channel for a food dosing system similar to his - this would definately help keep small amounts of food in the tank at all times .

-Nick

 

[mcox33]

Thanks for the support Mary - I only moved them once, after really looking at the flow in my tank, I moved them to the location w/ the most flow - nothing is directly in front of a pump in my tank as I have pumps pointing from the back top corners straight ahead at the front corners - since the glass is curved, this creates a lot of eddies and swirling in the tank everywhere.

I still have to get some pictures - I think that will help explain a lot - but I've been taking up all my time setting up a new peristaltic pump - I've been talking w/ another member of my reef club about a system he is running for his dwarf seahorses - using a timer and a dosing pump hooked up to a container full of food inside of a small refrigerator he has an automated system that feeds his tank 6X a day, 7-days a week. When I get my pump hooked up I may use one channel for dosing Kalk, and the other channel for a food dosing system similar to his - this would definately help keep small amounts of food in the tank at all times .

-Nick

I agree but dendro seems to need the liquid food dispensed as close to them as possible. I usually feed mine then wait for the polps to reopen and feed again and then repeat that again. I feed about every 2-3 days in this manner. Seems to be fine however since yours has recently dropped off pieces I would suggest daily feedings for about 2 weeks then every other day for a while. When I did this mine stopped fragging itself and even when I moved it slightly in the tank did not frag. I only got one frag total after removing them to a holding container for about 16 hours while the rock was redone and then they were replaced close to where they had been but not exactly just the same zone of the tank.

 

[MadTownMax]

as of now, I'm feeding 3X a day.

 

[MadTownMax]

Here are a few photos:

and one to show placement in the tank:

 

[mcox33]

much darker in color than mine very nice

 

[Fredfish]

Nice pics Nick.

I just re-red your post of 2/24. This is off topic, but what food is your friend feeding his dwarf seahorses using the peristaltic pump and how successful does he feel it is?

I am surprised that more seahorse keepers havn't tried this.

Fred.

 

[MadTownMax]

Mary - thanks, I the pic w/ flash is probably the most representatative of color - I'm still seeing mine deflate about once a day with no respect to lighting/feeding schedule - but when it inflates, it looks huge, an no more spicule loss, so here's to hoping .

Fred - I'm pretty sure he said cubes of formula one and mysis - but it could be his own food that he makes - you can always send him a PM - check the Delaware Reef Club forum and look for GreenEyedBlackCat - he has a post on there about it.

-Nick

 

[mcox33]

mine inflate and deflate with no rhymn or apparent reason as well. if you have more than one put them close enough to touch but not touching unless they choose. when they spawn they will wrap their branches around each other then send up a cloud of cloudy looking stuff it is way cool. some of these little minute particals settled in my tank and when I redid my rock I found some that were about the size of a pencil lead and maybe a 1/2 inch long.

 

[graveyardworm]

I just my first phyto culture, hopefully it works out. I have culture that I purchased from Florida Farms, but I decided to go a different route as a test. I read that DT's could be used to start a phyto culture so I thought I would try that as an experiment and to get my feet wet so to speak. Once I have the phyto figured out I'm going to try some other cultures I've read about ( rotifiers, copepods, ciliates ). I've been raising brine shrimp nauplii as food for some time now so I may also try to feed them for a little more nutrition for corals and fish.

Currently my slowly dieing dendro is in my 35 gal FOWLR so I'm feeding once per day 2 capfuls of DT's. This tank is not heavily skimmed (seaclone 100 ), seems to have a healthy sand bed, and plenty of LR. The only fish are yellow tail blue damsel, decorated foxface, and snowflake eel. Normally I feed fish every other day with dried nori on off days for foxface. Circulation - seaclone return, power sweep power head, and large skilter/w fiter pads, and skimmer set removed.

This is only a temp home for Dendro until new system is up and running.

I just started back using DT's on saturday so far I havent seen any improvement with dendro.

 

[MadTownMax]

I'm pretty sure DT's changed their phyto so that people could not use it to start their own cultures - has something to do w/ using three different types of phyto so that they out-compete eachother and cause cultures to crash. I know I was never successfull in getting anything started using DT's - and my system is so small it does not make it economical to make my own - I only use about a tablespoon a day....

 

[craab]

Hi craab, you probably allready realize this but 2 months is by no means success with a dendro. Like mine and countless others thay do look good for a while, and then the shrinking begins. Dendros can contract down to a small fraction of there full size like most softies. What was percieved as growth during the weeks at the LFS was probably just recovery from shipping and acclimation.

Have you been feeding anything other than the mysis and cyclopeeze? What type of cyclopeeze frozen or dried? Most reports indicate that dendros feed on much smaller stuff.

Charles I'm still relatively new to the hobby and reef central. How do go about getting a new forum?

The more that I think about it having a forum dedicated to non photosynthetic corals would probably be the biggest step towards successfully keeping them. Trying to gather good info from a thread here and there is time consuming and none of them ever seem to lead anywhere.

Just relating my experiences with them. When I feed mine with cyclopleeze, the frozen variety, I can see the polyps grab on to bits of the cyclopeeze and begin to take them in if that is of any relevance.

 

[graveyardworm]

I'm pretty sure DT's changed their phyto so that people could not use it to start their own cultures - has something to do w/ using three different types of phyto so that they out-compete eachother and cause cultures to crash. I know I was never successfull in getting anything started using DT's - and my system is so small it does not make it economical to make my own - I only use about a tablespoon a day....

You could be right, so far the threads I searched which indicated it could be done were fairly recent I believe. I started the culture 2-2 liter bottles on 2-27 at 3:00 pm. I've never done this before so I dont know how they should look at this point, they dont appear to be much greener, but it is a little bit. I know it takes about a week for it to run out of food and become really green. I'll be sure to let you know how it goes.

 

[graveyardworm]

Craab that certainly does look healthy, I guess I'm a little surprised to hear that its eating cyclopeeze, from everything I've read the eat very small particles, but to date I dont think anyone has determined the full extent of there diet. I have tried and continue to feed dried cyclopeeze to my fish and I have yet to see my Dendro consume or even hold onto any, maybe a difference between frozen and freeze dried.

I'm starting to believe that Dendros coming from different locations may be adapted to eat different things so its really hit or miss as to what they will eat which only adds to the difficulty in finding proper food. Hope for some but not for all. Any thoughts?

Mine has definitely been eating something to have lasted a year, but certainly not enough.

On a different note, how do you post a reply use different quotes from different threads in your reply post? Still not really computer literate yet

 

[MadTownMax]

On a different note, how do you post a reply use different quotes from different threads in your reply post? Still not really computer literate yet

the little quote button at the upper-right hand corner of each post

after that you have to use ["quote"] and [/"quote"]

without the " 's