Sun Coral Feeding

vucious

vucious

Member
Hi,

Does anyone have a sun coral? If so, how do you feed it? I just got one a LFS and it's not opening up too much. I put a bottle with the bottom cut out over the coral and squirt zooplankton into the bottle so other fish does not get to the food. The coral opens up a little bit more when I do this. However, I'm not sure if it's actually eating. Will it eventually open up by itself all the time?

Let me know your experience.

Thanks,
Vu
 
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They pia usually open at night time thats when they feed ive heard of people training em to open all the time with some kind of food but idk how tru that is mine always died one did good for 6months when i put in cave 100 percent out of light but then was buried and died good luck i dint bother wit em no more
 
Damn. The wife picked it out for me for Father's Day. She likes the colors. I hope I can train them to open up during the day else it's pointless since we can't see them at night.

Any success stories?
 
I haven't experienced this personally, but one of the reefers at the CMAS event this month had some sun corals on display that were full on exposed and gorgeous. I asked him how he did it, and he told me that when he would have the Rod's Food sitting in tank water to thaw out, he was told to take the 'juice' from that little cup and use a pipette to put some of that around the sun coral to coax the polyps out (no flow, of course). He noted that he was able to train the corals to come out and it didn't take long before they were out full time. While I haven't done that personally, it thought it would be worth noting and perhaps others who have done the same thing can share their success stories.

- Jim
 
Yes, I am trying the same thing along with the bottle to enclose the juice/food. I'll let you guys know how it goes.
 
I feed mine gut loaded brine once every 4 days. I always feed a little after lights out and for the most part they are open every night all night. It takes some training of them in the begining as they are likely starving from the trip to your tank. Try feeding with brine water and no flow each night until they open regulary. If they open just a little, stick a few brine to the polyps. Mine still ocassionally go through a fasting cycle and they'll closed for a couple back to back feeding cycles.
 
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I always used a turkey baster. I would melt 2 cubes of frozen mysis in a cup with some tank water. I would coax them out with just a small amout of the "juice" from the mysis. Then once they were out, i would feed them.

Their tentacles are sticky so the mysis stuck pretty good.

Flow off and tank calm of course.
 
My sun coral is definitely eating but they do require a lot of work. The wife picked out the coral and I have to do all the work :hopelessness:
 
In time it gets easier. I don't cover mine due to their size but to target feed takes no more than a couple minutes, then about 30 min with a flashlight blinding any fish who want to pick at the food until the coral fully "swallows" all of it. If needed a quick jab with the feeding stick if the flashlight doesn't stop a glutton.
 
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