non-photo open in daytime

[donkeys4hire]

Im looking for more non photo corals that are open during the day like the 2 dendro's I have. They are open at least 20 hours a day.

 

[Bongo Shrimp]

In my experience you can get just about all NPS to open during the day time by feeding during the day time. They become used to being fed during the daytime so they just start automatically opening up during the day.

 

[slapshot]

+1 its all in the training.

 

[GhostCon1]

I've been doing that with my dendros, going on about 2 weeks now and usually they open all the time, but sometimes they still close during the day.

I have them under an overhang. How long does it usually take for them to become "trained" ?

 

[Aquabacs]

Time frame is kind of hard to put on the "training" of corals as some corals will not conform. Certain non-photosynthetic corals can be "trained" to stay open throughout the day just by having food constistantly in the water column (gorgonians, tubastrea). For example, take a healthy tubastrea (feeds well, normally opens up at night), with the lights on, add Reef Nutrition Arctic-Pods or Argent Cyclop-eeze to the tank, them come back within 20-30 minutes. You will notice that your close tubastrea is open or partially open. At that point you can feed them mysis or LPS+ pellets. Do this often and they will stay open more often.
Another way to get them to open, shut the flow down to the tank, place LPS+ pellets on the closed polyps, wait a few for the polyps to take in the pellets before you turn the flow back up. That method works well too.

The hardest trick is to keep everything open all the time, especially when you want to take pictures.

Mike

 

[donkeys4hire]

I bought a 23 head balanophyllia for a show piece, What a mistake. It only opened for 2 hours in the middle of the night. I had it for a month. Finally had a guy running a LFS store give me half what i paid in on a trade. I just am not sure they will all train. I would love to get some specifics on something other than dendro's I have great luck and am extremely happy with my 2 dendro colonies. Any one have real life examples of your NPC's opening all the time?

 

[slapshot]

I bought a 23 head balanophyllia for a show piece, What a mistake. It only opened for 2 hours in the middle of the night. I had it for a month. Finally had a guy running a LFS store give me half what i paid in on a trade. I just am not sure they will all train. I would love to get some specifics on something other than dendro's I have great luck and am extremely happy with my 2 dendro colonies. Any one have real life examples of your NPC's opening all the time?

Well I have both of my Chilis open all day, just finished training my Nephthyigorgias and my Gorgonia to stay open. It can take a month or longer. remember they have been eating at night their whole live.

 

[Bongo Shrimp]

I bought a 23 head balanophyllia for a show piece, What a mistake. It only opened for 2 hours in the middle of the night. I had it for a month. Finally had a guy running a LFS store give me half what i paid in on a trade. I just am not sure they will all train. I would love to get some specifics on something other than dendro's I have great luck and am extremely happy with my 2 dendro colonies. Any one have real life examples of your NPC's opening all the time?

I have a rhizo, a colony of Archohelia rediviva, a Chironepthya sp., and had some dendros. The rhizo and dendros are closest to your balanophyllia and I have all of mine trained to be open during the day.

All it takes is patience and usually more than a month unless you do the constant drip type feeding throughout the day. This training is possible for all the common types of NPS in my experience.

 

[uhuru]

Balanophyllia are probably one of the hardest to get to stay open in the daytime. Some of them can be very sensitive.

 

[donkeys4hire]

I no longer have the balano, I traded for a nice favia.