Please help me save my Fungia? (pics)

[Stephany]

I got this two Saturdays ago when I was in Rochester. I've been trying to target feed it at night, but it's a flat coral.. and it doesn't exactly grasp onto the food. It floats away reeeally easily. I have tried target feeding cyclopeeze and mysis.

I feel kind of stupid. I read Borneman's details on this coral, he said low/moderate flow and on the rockwork. I put low/moderate flow and in the sandbed anyway. I see soo many people with it in the sandbed, I thought I could do it too. Although no sand has gotten on this coral either... my levels are fine, and no other coral seems bothered, acropora are doing great.
Is there something different I should be feeding it, or should I just put it in higher flow on the rockwork?

As you can see, there are a few ridges of skeleton poking through around the mouth.

 

[PCIALF]

Is it a long tenicle?

 

[Stephany]

I don't believe so. His tentacles have never been out as much as a long tentacle fungia. Not even in the store.

 

[PCIALF]

I have found lighting is real important to plates. I have not target feed mine in a while. I have had no luck with the long tentacles but have 3 fungia's doing great. Do you have MH lights? I have found that has been crucial with mine. JMO

 

[Stephany]

No, I don't. I have 150 watts of VHO on my 30 gallon, and my acropora is fine... ack.

I can move him up higher on the rockwork... it's gonna be hard to make sure he doesn't slide.

Thanks

 

[crp]

Stephany,
I have one I got from Rochester about a month ago. Its more fleshy than yours. Mine is under MHs and in the sandbed. I don't feed it anything extra other than the cyclopeeze I put in the tank.
Good luck with yours. Here's mine:

 

[Jamie2337]

Stephany,

Is it the pink one? I love that one. It is so cute! I wish I had a suggestion for you!

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

"Cute"?
I never had any type of Fungiid coral. Or "cute" coral.

 

[bosborn1]

I just bought a short tenacle plate very similar to that one and it seems to be ok on my sand bed.Everytime that I stir my sand bed or the diamond goby is near it so its constantly getting sand and crush arganoite on and in it. I just looked to see if any of the skeleton is showing and it seems to be ok. My Open Brain does that sometimes though. I swear that from time to time it looks like the flesh is receeding right off the skeleton and then the next day its open and all puffed up. Incedentally the brain is up on the rockwork.

Also I feed my Plate shrimp pellets once a week. I like to watch the process in which it slowly moves the food to its mouth.

Scott

 

[Jamie2337]

Stephany,

I have no idea if this is helpful or not...but I had a similiar experience with my moon coral. A little while after I had it it started to shrink up and you could see parts of the skeleton where there would normally be flesh. The feeding tenticles weren't extending either.

I did some reading and some people were target feeding them pelleted food. I started mixing a cyclopeze-mysis-pellet mix. It has been 2 weeks and the moon coral looks a lot better and extends its tenticles every night as soon as the lights go out.

I know that fungia and moon corals aren't the same. I just thought I would share what worked for me!

Oh, and Gary, my son said it was cute. We were at the stores and he wanted the "Cute Pink Coral." And it is a very pretty and cute pink! :fun4:

 

[spoon25]

did you know they can actually crawl, the can go up the rockwork, there neat....yep very mobile creatures....

 

[draczka2]

i have a green one that is doing really well. as far as placement, i first had it on some low rock work but it crawled off on to the sand bed, and it has not moved since. for lighting it's under pcs 260 watts. it did take some time for it to become comfortable and inflate. i would try some formula oneor something along that line while all circulation is ceased so it can grab hold of it.

 

[moriartiholmes]

Does your clown ever try to host in it? That might stress it. Are you testing your calcium and alkalinity? Stoney corals can deplete it pretty fast.
Hope it doesn't die, but if it does keep it in there. One of the cool things about those corals is that sometimes when they die they'll take the living tissue they have left and turn it into daughter colonies. I even saw this in person once; one of the LFS's in Buffalo had two of theirs die, which they left in there to become live rock. Last time I saw them, they had a dozen or more nickel size little plates growing from the dead skeleton. I've even heard of people intentionally leaving these corals upside down to encourage this.

 

[Stephany]

The clown pretty much stays on the left side of the tank. I don't know if she is "hosting" in my mushrooms, but she sleeps in them.

I don't think it's my calcium or my alkalinity, I just did a water change this past weekend. I've always had a little higher than normal of both calc. & alk. but I think it's the salt and the seachem buffer I use to keep the pH up.

I'll definitely try the formula one pellets when I get home. If I have to keep this coral on the top level rockwork so that it's okay, I'm not real thrilled about it. I don't have much room up there with my acro frags & porites up there... and I'm really really worried about its mucus getting on them. =/
I am in the market for one of those clamp on halides for my tank... but I have to get a wavemaker or a closed loop setup first. More important.

 

[becon776]

ok... I had one that got ENORMOUS! get it up off the sand a little if it doesn't like it there... you want moderate current not direct. FEED FEED FEED I think you can see from my little pic mine has its mouth FULL of mysid shrimp. you would be amazed... start feeding a little at a time ever day. Just hold a piece of frozens right above it or even better thaw out some cocktail shrimp and cut a chunk off and litterally gently put it onto the coral (not the mouth) but the fleshy part you will be amazed at how it will move it into its mouth. Hopefully it is not so far gone that it won't eat. I used to feed mine every other day and whole cube or mysid.

 

[Stephany]

I got it up off the sand and on the top level that night.
At this point there is twice the damage/missing tissue around the mouth. I'm really kind of upset about it. I'm trying anything.

I tried feeding it mysid shrimp and it seems like it doesn't react at all.
I tried feeding it some of the mashed up paste of cyclopeeze/mysis that I have been feeding my goniopora and it got caught in the mucus of it but it didn't ingest it. I had kept the pumps off for an hour so it didn't blow off as well.
I tried feeding it the formula one pellets and they stayed on top of the fungia plate, one of them even got on top of its mouth but it wouldn't open its mouth to take it in. Maybe they were too hard. I don't know if they get real soft after they've been in water. I'm thinking about mashing them up.
I haven't tried cocktail shrimp, we don't have any. But if you think I should go out and get some I will do it.

Is this coral doomed for death if it hasn't been eating...? Can I force-feed it?? I don't know how I would... but ack.

 

[becon776]

hmmmmm... I would question your water quality but you said gonipora and if a gonipora is doing well then a plate coral should be doing even better IME. as a last resort I would try putting it up as close to the light as you can get it. I have done this with one of mine that was so far gone that it wouldn't eat and the photosynthesis brought it back to the point where it would. I wish you luck!

 

[moriartiholmes]

Has anyone ever tried feeding a coral like this a sugar solution? Like taking some tank water, mixing in a bit of sugar and shooting it gently over the coral with a turkey baster? Just a thought.

 

[Stephany]

I think I jumped the gun on its refusal to eat. I put quite a bit more bloodworms in today's mashup & while it didn't move food on its plate, its mouth did open up to some of the food.

bosborn: Unfortunately when I got the goniopora home I noticed it had bare spots that I didn't see in the store because it's polyps were all out. Since then I've also learned that judging by the tissue thickness, it was very much starving. My nitrates are up, but I did a small water change and will do another tomorrow. All the extra feeding and H20 changes is so much work... I hope I can save the coral though.

 

[fedukeford]

when you feed, try putting a cup over the coral to keep the food near the coral, and wait until its is mostly eaten