Placement of Plate

[dkk08]

Is there anywhere else apart from the sandbed that I can place the plate coral? Was thinking of on rocks or in between rocks :rollface:

 

[Sk8r]

No. A plate is as soft below as above. It may feel like a hard disk now, but when it blossoms out it is soft as bubble coral and would rip itself to ribbons on rock. They are capable of propelling themselves on the sandbed if unhappy. Put it on the sandbed under full light, in good but not violent flow, and drop bits of food onto its disk occasionally. It will like bits of shrimp. It can clear its own surface of gravel and unwanted debris. It eats almost anything.

 

[Obi-dad]

hmmm...maybe that explains why my plate just brown jellied. A few months ago I superglued/epoxied it to a frag disk so it would stop moving around. Maybe that soft flesh underneatch didn't like being attached to something. Weird, because it looked fine until a week ago when it started not expanding all the way, then brown jellied overnight.

 

[lvreefer]

The only other option would be to build a shelf to hold some sand, then place the plate on it. Make sure that the plate can not fall off.

 

[RobbyG]

Do you have a picture of your Plate coral? I just got one and I am wondering if it is the same.

 

[Jeremy Blaze]

What species is it?

 

[apocalypse151]

I heard plate corals are extremely hard to keep over a long period of time no mater how good the conditions kinda like goniporas.

 

[Jeremy Blaze]

Plate coral is such a generic term. Without knowing the species its tough to say anything. I have kept fungias for years. In fact, I have a rock the produces babies regularly. I have seen this in others tanks as well.

 

[Sk8r]

Long tentacled plate is the difficult one. I have my orange short-tentacled dead flat on the sandbed, in a sweeping moderate flow, 20 inches down under mh 250w, and it eats pellet food, slices of shrimp, flake, cyclopeeze, clam slime or anything else that gets near it. We call it "Audrey," after the plant in "Little Shop of Horrors." It went from totally flat and ribbed to looking like a Pillsbury biscuit most of the time. Last night Audrey stuffed in some 15 medium Formula One sinking pellets, with garlic, and looked like Mt. Vesuvius.
The photograph is from before she reached her full extension. Her tentacles now are half an inch long.