suncoral isnt opening!

G

goda

In Memoriam
anyideas

i got a coral at the lfs and was told it is a sun coral and needs extreamly bright light and high water movement. well after 3 days he isnt opening


ok no really
after months of looking for a good looking suncoral i finaly came accross one at barrier reef . he is on the bottom of my tank under a partial ledge and dosnt get to much waterflow

3 days have passed an i havent seen him open day or night.
any ideas. im starting to worry

my water is fine
ph 7.9-8.1
ca 380 ( stoped dosing for a bit ... dosing pump went kaplut)
nitrate almost undetecable
phosphate almost undetectable

anyways all my acros and stuff look fine and are growing..
 
bump the calcium up a bit but i dont believe that would cause it to do this. But its only been 3 days...i've had corals closed for a month and i think they're dead so i dont even pay attention to them...then they open up one day.

But are you spot feeding it? If not, try it (as you need to anyways) and it might open. I've heard of that quite a bit...they dont open till theres food or something.

hth
 
I thought sun corals did not need light at all, just lived off of meaty foods. Have to feed each polyp individually.. or am I thinking of another coral?
 
no thats suncoral. thats why i posted the first part as a joke. cause i was actualy told that by some one at ... a lfs...
but anyways. i havent spotfed since there is so much flow its almost pointless but i did does the tank with a heavy dose of phytoplex microvert and.. the other one that kent makes.
along with some brine which the ones that i worked with at the lfs seemed to open for those before
 
weeks

weeks

i had one that didn't open for 2 weeks when I first got it. but they will come up eventually when they need food and they feel safe - survival instinct.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8333010#post8333010 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by goda
no thats suncoral. thats why i posted the first part as a joke. cause i was actualy told that by some one at ... a lfs...
but anyways. i havent spotfed since there is so much flow its almost pointless but i did does the tank with a heavy dose of phytoplex microvert and.. the other one that kent makes.
along with some brine which the ones that i worked with at the lfs seemed to open for those before
Click to expand...


ahh ok, I missed that lol
 
Mine stayed closed for almost two weeks after I got it. Then I decided to feed it even though it was closed and it opened right up. I use the half bottle method to feed mine. If I don't my fish steal all the food and the puffer takes out chunks of the sun coral when it steals food.


Set a schedule to feed it and it will follow it. Mine opens up every night at 9pm.
 
place a bowl or cup over it that is heavy enough to not float away - and squirt in cyclopeeze from a syringe or turkey baster. cyclop is pretty much there main food and you need to feed them at least every other day. try to do it at night before your light go out, at the same time, and they will be trained to open up with out cyclop in the water. once open i usually just include cyclop in the feeding, but if its not enough you might have to do that bowl trick 1x - 2x a week.
 
im gonna aim for a time when my lights are still on

see if i can get it to open when my lights are at 60 percent
 
agree on the cylcop, I don't have a sun coral but that stinky food can open any coral up :) corals go crazy with it.
 
freeze dried cyclopeze ok?


anyways... still only 1 polyp has opened.. img oing to give it its own tank. ( some lr a MJ and some sand.. possiably a sponge just gotta get a few cheep moonlights on it three on during hte day and 1 on at night
 
Shouldn't sun corals be in a high flow area? That's what i thought anyway. Mine is in high flow and opens at 7:00 pm and all night. It should be opening when you feed the tank. You can train it to open whenever you want and get it on a set schedule. Lighting absolutly dosn't matter to this coral you just have to be sure that algae dosn't start to grow in between the polyps.
 
lighting does matter. too much, or direct lighting will likely cause it to be uncomfortable and not open. try turning it so the polyps are vertical, and then do the cup / bowl method i said above with cyclop. any type should be fine.
 
I had orange, yellow, red, and black sun coral polyps under 800 watts of 10k metal halide on a 75 and had absolutely no problem with them. They opened whenever food (or my arm) entered the tank.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8403914#post8403914 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by AquaPython
lighting does matter. too much, or direct lighting will likely cause it to be uncomfortable and not open. try turning it so the polyps are vertical, and then do the cup / bowl method i said above with cyclop. any type should be fine.
Click to expand...

wrong.. lighting has no effect what so ever on these corals.. they are not in the least bit photosynthetic.. they dont know the difference. having raised one from about 15 polyps to around 200 now, id hope i have a little experience. and no matter where i put them, they are happy as can be, although i will say they like to be in higher flow then lower flow.

anyways, they normally wont open on their own. they have to have some food source in the water column for them to "smell" before they will open. and cyclopeeze just wont cut as a regular meal. they need nice meaty foods such as mysis shrimp, which they absolutely love. what i do is about an hour before i want to feed it, i put some cyclopeeze in the water column. 20-30 minutes later, all the polyps are open and ready for food. take a turkey baster and attach some tubing to the end, that will reach the polyps and feed that way, unless you want to go through the trouble of taking them out all the time to bowl feed.

get this on a schedule, then after a few weeks, you wont have to pre-feed with cyclopeeze, they will get on that schedule, and will start opening on their own, when feeding time comes around.
 
both corals opened today one after the other..
i added a small does of each of kents liquid foods. ( no different from anyother attempt )

well the suncoral i got today opened up an hour later followed by the other suncoral i have a few minutes later.

very nice looking it is a yellow suncoral that is beautifull when open

lets see if this continues.
 
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