Proper Balanophyllia Care?

[teddscau]

Hey guys. So, I bought a pink Australian balanophyllia a few months ago from Marine Experience (I highly recommend them to fellow Canadian reefers!), and the little guy's doing quite well. I've trained him to come out during the day, and he's regrowing the tissue on his skeleton. However, I was wondering about how you guys feed your balanophyllia. I read they should be fed a fair amount of food daily, but my guy doesn't seem to do so well with daily feeding. If anything, he likes to be fed lightly every other day. I feed him a mix of frozen mysis, brine shrimp, oyster eggs, etc. If I feed him daily"”or a large amount"”he starts gaping and retracts his tentacles. Or maybe that's normal? He doesn't seem to completely digest his food, but instead spits out the "husks" that he's sucked the meat out of.

 

[noy]

Daily feeding should not be a problem. Just make sure the frozen foods are warmed to the temp of your water (i.e not frozen or cold). Cold foods will make the tentacles retract. Retracting tentacles is not normal neither is spitting out anything.

 

[teddscau]

Sorry I took so long replying! My dendros are fine with the food and it's temperature, and are absolute piggies. Balano, on the other hand, seems to get upset if I feed him daily. Maybe it was rarely fed before I bought it, and it just needs to learn to eat more often? I think I'll start trying to feed him a little each day, then increase the portion size. It's weird, because when I fed him for three or four days in a row after posting about his issues, he got really upset and refused to stick his tentacles out for almost two weeks. I was still able to feed him by dropping food on his closed mouth (he'd open up his lips after a couple of minutes and suck the food in), but he only just started sticking his tentacles out again this week :/. It's weird, because my button coral has been more eager to eat than he is, and I only just started feeding the button a couple of weeks ago.