Sun Coral Questions

[newguy1983]

All,

Since I only have a 15w Flourescent bulb to my FOWLR, I was told I could try my hand at Sun Coral as they are non-photosynthetic.

My LFS has two types - the orange and black (I am thinking I want the orange one - just looks nice and adds good color ).

It is never out when I go there - but the tips of it are very much so orange. I want to get it and try my luck with it but a) it has a nice aptasia stalk right on it and b) afraid it is already too far down to recover it.

What are your thoughts? I am aware of their feeding requirements which is fine for me, as it gives me something to look forward to when working with my tank.

Thoughts?

 

[stunreefer]

To answer your questions:

a.) Aptasia are easy to kill (small amounts of them )... just scrape it off and make sure not to leave any of it's tissue behind. It is important to carefully check for them before introducing into your tank.

b.) If there is any tissue left, there is hope for recovery.

Main requirement for this coral is food... lots of it... and good sized meaty foods like Mysis shrimp.

When I first bring in any Tubastrea or Dendrophyllia I use the method described here: http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1528186&perpage=&pagenumber=2 It WILL coax an un-cooperating new specimen to open... and for me I use it every time (even if they're opening in the tank) just to ensure the new specimen is getting lots of healthy foods.

 

[E.intheC]

I'd be more concerned with overall husbandry here. I'm not calling your skills into question by any means, but simply saying that reef tanks require higher levels of water quality than fowlr tanks do.

FWIW, I have one aiptasia in my tank. It's been there for at least 6 months, and hasn't spread at all. It doesn't bother anything.. Under good lighting and flow it actually looks all right on its own.

 

[tatkinson]

You could absolutely try it but remember that even though it isn't photosynthetic it still has all the other requirements of coral- i.e. tank parameters for proper calcification. Since you are currently a FOWLR tank you'd need to get your parameters in order if they aren't already. Other than that, no problem.

 

[dendro982]

If it is the bright-orange one:

and it is in shape worse than pictured, I wouldn't go for it.

Pale pink orange, higher polyps skeletons:

was more though, IMHE. Only of the base of polyps is still covered by common tissue, no skeleton exposed.

Sun corals are usually readily available in a good shape - you can wait a little and buy a healthy specimen.

Daily feedings will allow the starved coral to recover.

My suns coexist with aiptasia without being killed, frogspawn coral is worse for them. Better to remove aiptasia anyway.

Sun corals can live is fairly polluted water: 40 ppm NO3 and 1 ppm PO4, but at least phosphates can be easily removed.

Feeding of the large colony or several colonies may create problem for your tank, may not, depending on skimmer you have. Just beware of this.