NOY's Sun Corals

Nothing fancy.
35 gallon sump - corner overflow/bottom drain. CSC 250 skimmer (its rated for over 300g - i have a 110g tank). Carbon through a reactor. I was running biopellets but stopped for a couple of months now - a friend crashed his tank running pellets so that scared me. GFO through a reactor.

Refugium with chaeto/grape caulerpa. Mangroves (about 20 plants). The mangrove sit on a floating foam sheet tucked under the flow into the refug - i find that the water running over the foam made a bit of an algae scrubber (i have snails that eat the algae growth).

I change my filter socks every 2 days (i find that made a huge difference from once a week).

IMG_4111 by

With the sun corals the key thing is making sure they get fed regularly and decent water quality (with cal/alk levels required for skel growth).

What type of corals are you growing?

alan.reef · Apr 3, 2013

THnak Noy.
i have few piece Acan, Galaxy, Chalice, black and orange sun coral only.
i feed the blk and orange sun coral in the bucket, respond is low only few poly come out!!
possible the vibration on the small pump make them wont come up.
i shut off all the pump in the TANK and feed, the poly come out all but affect my water so fast.
taht why i want to learn something new to keep them happy and water quality.

noy · Apr 4, 2013

I'm not sure moving them is a good idea. I find that when i move them they get stubborn and won't open for a few days.

You may want to find a spot for them where you can easily access all the polyps. You will also need something to target feed with either a small turkey baster or "julian's thing" - i use both (baster for blood worms and julian's thing for brine). You will have to use a method to keep the fish away (if that is a problem) - either a 2L plastic pepsi bottle cut at the bottom or feed after the lights are out (which i do).

Once they settle and you settle into a routine where you feed them at the same time everyday - the polyps will open like clockwork.

I have a "special" mixture for colonies that won't open up. Its a mix of angelfish food (with clams/meaty items), reef roids, and mysis water. The clams have a distinct odour - i think that may be what the polyps react to. I turn off the flow and squirt some of this mix onto the polyps. I wait about 15 minutes and them i turn everything back on (except the return pump - i let the pumps blow the stuff around in the water a bit). You need to direct one of the pumps at the colony from a distance so it gets a sense of the mixture continuously. I find this routine gets them to open at regular times and after a week or so you can stop with the routine and they will still open.

This mix will dirty up your water so you can't do this regularly - only to get your polyps opening on a routine.

noy · Apr 6, 2013

Once your sun corals get established you will get propagation from your colony "spewing" out mini polyps. Unfortunately most of mine end up stuck under the rockwork and don't make it. This is the only survivor so far.

IMG_5633 by http://www.flickr.com/people/93072545@N02/

alan.reef · Apr 9, 2013

nice Noy.

my PO4 still killing me..15% wc wont help!!!!!

karenvas2 · Apr 9, 2013

Beautiful

Beautiful

Noy, what are you feeding and are you using automatic dosers?

noy · Apr 10, 2013

For the sun corals a rotation of blood worms, Mysis and brine shrimp. I target feed.

I usually dump a mixture of reefroids and cyclopeez manually (with some target feeding) daily into the tank. This is for other non-photo (gorgonians + chili) and sps. I would dose but don't have (or want to invest in) a stirrer.

karenvas2 · Apr 10, 2013

Sun coral

Sun coral

Thanks for the info. Will try with my sun.

TigÃ©21v · Apr 11, 2013

alan.reef said:
nice Noy.

my PO4 still killing me..15% wc wont help!!!!!

Have you tried lanthanum chloride?

JmartWI · Apr 12, 2013

How do you get your sun corals to fluoresce like that under actinics? Is it the species, or the light setup?

noy · Apr 13, 2013

its the lighting setup and the photography.

riely · Apr 17, 2013

hey im new to NPS and thinking of getting a sun coral. looking for some basic info on them and things you have found to keep them looking good like do u have to feed every head every time and will they only come out at night or under actinics im runing LEDS 120w 3v ran at 2v

stunreefer · Apr 18, 2013

riely said:
hey im new to NPS and thinking of getting a sun coral. looking for some basic info on them and things you have found to keep them looking good like do u have to feed every head every time and will they only come out at night or under actinics im runing LEDS 120w 3v ran at 2v

Riely, read this.

noy · Apr 18, 2013

riely said:
hey im new to NPS and thinking of getting a sun coral. looking for some basic info on them and things you have found to keep them looking good like do u have to feed every head every time and will they only come out at night or under actinics im runing LEDS 120w 3v ran at 2v

Riely - i feed my sun corals every other night. I use a squirter thing called "Julian's thing" and a small turkey baster. They do need to be fed meaty foods (brine, mysis, blood worms).

However, I would recommend that when you first get them - to feed them every night. Most of the corals you get from the LFS are in bad shape so i would recommend feeding them nightly for a month or so to restore any tissue recession.

There are 2 basic kinds of sun corals - the dendros (Dendrophyllia see my pix) and the regular sun corals (Tubastrea). The dendros will stay open most of the day whereas the Tubastrea will tend to open only at night. But if you have a regular routine of feeding they will learn to open when you are ready to feed them.

I find the tricky part of feeding them is to keep the fish away. Some people use a 2L bottle thats been cut out to make sure the fish don't take the food from the corals. My routine is to feed right after lights out.

They are beautify corals and if you are ready to spend a bit of time feeding them, well worth it.

If you keep SPS corals together with sun corals - you will need a good size skimmer to maintain your water quality.

Hope that helps!

SantaMonica · May 4, 2013

my PO4 still killing me..15% wc wont help

Let photosynthesis do the work for you.

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