Sun coral Tank

[dendro982]

kizkiz:
Thanks for the links! Surely give the idea, what they should be like. Especially vertical mount.
The last tank is 7.5 ft long - unlike the 24g cube, mentioned here

Who has nanos with suns - show pictures, please.

sufunk:
How do you put the food inside container and remove the small floating particles, that sun isn't eating? If I understand right, it is inside container without flow for hours? Or you supply some flow, how?
And the last: how much are you giving for a colony of this size?

Filtration with Remora is great, in my set of values.
When I first set the nano with sun coral, it was Nano-cube without skimming at all, with floss filtration . Had to remove coral from there, of course.

Prices and sources:
Apart that different stores have different stocking, the weekend price could be much higher, than weekday's price. Mine was $60 at Sunday, but next Thursday evening I bought it for $36, double colony.
Black sun coral, in bad condition, was $40, but already started to eat. Yellow, also sharp edges, ragged look, recessed tissue, several dead heads, $34, recovered in 3 months. But no one had algae on it.


Opening during the day:
I have low light tank for deepwater fish, maybe this helps. And sun senses the food in the water, in my case not so much of training, as a chance to get a snack

 

[ReneX]

I keep my two tiny colonies and a small dendro in a 2.5 gallon tank. Lighting is minimal at 9 watts and I try not to run it for more than three hours a day. No substrate, tank has about 4lbs of florida live rock. I have a heavy population of 'pods, brittlestars and worms to help cleanup, but the only way this is remotely possible for me in a tank this size is to do regular massive water changes. I change water around 4X a week, about 30-50% each time, so the tank has a 100%-200% waterchange a week. It sounds extreme but it's my only real form of filtration other than the LR, and I'm changing about a half gallon at a time Not hard so long as I have premixed salt ready.

That said, I had some bivalves on the rock croak in the past week and I've been doing daily large water changes to try and get things in line. That combined with how I stopped feeding until I'm sure they tank is stable has made the suns a little unhappy and they aren't open in the day as much right now.

 

[sufunk]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11932102#post11932102 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by dendro982
kizkiz:
Thanks for the links! Surely give the idea, what they should be like. Especially vertical mount.
The last tank is 7.5 ft long - unlike the 24g cube, mentioned here

Who has nanos with suns - show pictures, please.

sufunk:
How do you put the food inside container and remove the small floating particles, that sun isn't eating? If I understand right, it is inside container without flow for hours? Or you supply some flow, how?
And the last: how much are you giving for a colony of this size?

Filtration with Remora is great, in my set of values.
When I first set the nano with sun coral, it was Nano-cube without skimming at all, with floss filtration . Had to remove coral from there, of course.

Prices and sources:
Apart that different stores have different stocking, the weekend price could be much higher, than weekday's price. Mine was $60 at Sunday, but next Thursday evening I bought it for $36, double colony.
Black sun coral, in bad condition, was $40, but already started to eat. Yellow, also sharp edges, ragged look, recessed tissue, several dead heads, $34, recovered in 3 months. But no one had algae on it.


Opening during the day:
I have low light tank for deepwater fish, maybe this helps. And sun senses the food in the water, in my case not so much of training, as a chance to get a snack

Yes, mine is without flow for a few hours when i feed but they dont seem to mind.

I just take a pretty big (1"x1") chunk of frozen cyclopeeze or a similar size chunk of my own mix. I drilled a hole in the top and each side and I use a small syringe, i used to use a joes juice syringe but now just a little plastic one from walgreens for like $1. There is some extra food laying around but my shrimp, hermits and nassarius almost immediately eat the leftovers as soon as i take the bowl off

 

[Tennyson]

How bright should the lighting be, I have a 96 watt, would it be happier under a ledge, the bottom, middle or top? Thats my last question, I might just get some this weekend or the next depending on how much they are and if they are healthy, which they usually aren't. Thanks for the help everyone!

 

[sufunk]

They dont care. They dont need any light but ime, it is a myth that they need to be shaded. I have mine directly under pc's in my small tank and under mh's in my 180g and they both do great.

I'd just place it wherever it will be easiest to get to and feed. Oh, mine like a decent amount of flow as well so i'd put it where it gets a nice amount.

Be careful picking one and check for recession. Most i see in the lfs have a decent amount of ecession. The entire coral should be covered in orange flesh, there shouldnt be gaps where you can see the skeleton. Alot that you see only have flesh on the polyps and all the flesh on the skeleton has receded. You can still nurse these back with alot of feedings but unless you are getting a real bargain, try to find a nice fleshy one without any recession.

 

[Tennyson]

ugh, thats going to be hard, once I get some nice one, I'll place it about 18 inches away from the light, right next to my tree leather. Sun polyps don't sting right? And my leather shouldn't sting it either right? I feel like this is my thread since I've been hijacking, I hope these answered all your questions aqua ed, thanks everyone.

 

[dendro982]

sufunk: Thank you! Appreciate this.

Tennyson:
Positioning under 96W - I had mine within 1 ft from 55W lamp, a little more algae growth, if the skimmer works not perfectly (even with PO4 0 ppm), than on the bottom - 2 ft from light.

I'll second, that more important is access for a feeding and cleaning. The food should be not lost inside the rock branches, where hermits can't go, and the basting it from there is the only option.

If the rock is solid, boulder type, should be no problem.

Here are more links to Daniela Stettler sun corals, including positioning on solid rocks (they drill hole in coral base and insert holder, if automatic translator did the job right). Vertical placement was favored, because less sediment settled on the coral.
All are in German, I used Google translator.
Her own text
Photos of her feedings, another
The last link is about her presentation of the Fair, with details of feeding.

Colonies in bad shape:
I posted photos of the yellow tubastrea regeneration progress - it was done on the twice a week feedings, with the single initial container feeding, and the first week - every second day feeding.

This Sunday bought the pure black one - T. diaphana, in the same shape, another rescue case, trying the same, but the progress is slower - ready to open, but still not opened to feed yet.

The usual orange sun was bought in a good shape - plump, when closed, and it started spawning in 4 months.

 

[cinqmars]

Has anyones Sun Corals ever spawed in there tanks ?? I have pics of mine doing it will post when i figure out how

 

[dendro982]

Congratulations!

A lot of people have sun coral, spawning in their tanks: the few months old list of links is here . More are in sun coral threads here, at RC, the last few months.

I'm interested in catching the planula and making it settle in controlled conditions, no luck so far.
Some info is here , pdf file 13 MB, Daniela Stettler. But not too much - hint only.

 

[Qckwzrd]

Great thread! I think for the summer I'm going to drill my eclipse 6 or maybe a 12 and move my suncorals. Put a 10 gallon fuge under it and leave the stock lights and do it barebottom. All my suncorals are in the 15 gallon and even tho I do a 30% water change every week I still run into algae problems. The bristle worms take care of any left over food between the rocks. So I'll move some of those over to the eclipse.

 

[dendro982]

Qckwzrd:
I have a couple of questions, if you don't mind:

- best layout, in your opinion, for many colonies of different sizes - place them all on the bottom, or do more vertical mounting? When feeding/cleaning and the general looks will be better?

- may be I already asked, but what filtration works for you, particularly for dissolved organics? If the tank is covered by sun colonies, each feeding adds a lot of it.

About refugiums:
I tried to feed raw unfiltered water from the big tank with one sun coral, and had red slime and flat worms, even with 20x refugium water turnover.

My future sun tank:
I'm planning to use ASM Mini skimmer (has a size of 5g bucket), rated for 75g tank, on 10g sun coral tank.
(It will be not too much, already worked on 10g tank with significantly less feedings).

The future 10 g suns grow out tank is now cycling. I glued LR rubble on the back and left wall - for a mounting the 1yr old baby colonies there. Will have a problem with gluing them under water, even SG gel gives problems.

What bothers me most, aside of suns placement: filtration.

One small cube of mysis - in 3/4g container - after 1 hr of feeding makes this:

In 10g tank it will be like 10 cubes for all corals, and I have a doubt, that the skimmer will clean this soup fast and clean enough. Or will water remains polluted.
I have other, lesser skimmers too, but they will be not enough.

Any thoughts and experiences?

 

[Qckwzrd]

I've never done vertical mounting but I would think it would be much better to feed and prevent food from gettin stuck between the colony. Also better flow for the suncorals. I don't think it would look better tho.

Filtration: I use a hang on fuge with cheato and a deep sandbed. With tons of pods and bristleworms. I recently added a fluval with just poly filter pads and cardon to clean up debri and help with waist. I think the bristle worms (some are 3" long) eats a lot of the food suncorals don't eat and get between the rocks. I've never had a red slime outbreak, just hair algae.

My current tank is 15 gallons with a 24" CPR fuge and recently added the canister filter. Runing 2 301 powerheads and a koralia 1. Had a 24" t5 hood (not a 150 hqi mh 14k) I've never had my water cloud up. I rinse my mysis shrimp and cyclops under water for 2mins. When feeding I turn off fuge, filter and 2 powerheads. I target feed with a turkey baster and left over food feeds other suncorals or dendros. I have four large colonies (6") one small (3") and a few frags. Once my computer is up I'll post new pics.

 

[dendro982]

Any thoughts on making the sun tank looks good?

When you can you post the tank photo, not only the corals, OK?
And for now maybe describe the placement of powerheads?
Are they far above the corals, to the stream will not bother them? Koralia1 makes quite a flow, if along the tank (tried it in 20g long).

What your total light is, in watts?

What total amount of food for one feeding (in cubes, spoons, else)?

And slightly OOT:
Having DSB in 24" AquaFuge and cheato on top leaves not too much space. When I'm turning the fuge pump off - the water level lowers and chaeto become exposed to the air. Yours too?

I have Aqua Fuge 24" on Xmas tree worms tank.

Thanks