My input, just for fun:


Why my chili coral reminds me sun coral? and follow up.

I also kept the parent colony in a pico:

for maybe 4 months, until tired of twice a week full tank water changes, after feeding:


This is water quality after feeding:

then these corals were returned in the skimmed tank.

Another sun coral relative, in the big tank:


Feeding:
Mostly twice a week, at least once a week at hot weather, daily small feedings or every second day increase polyps budding:
this, removed from chili:

progressed to this:


Food:
chopped (or grated when frozen) seafood, mostly shrimp and different fish, mysis, a little of brine shrimp for a taste, Marine Cuisine, Ocean of Pacific Plankton for a big polyps, lately New Life Spectrum pellets for a fry, but frozen food is much more preferable.

You know about this device for localized feeding, siphonable off hat feeding version: Lunar lander. Didn't try myself, but looks very reasonable.

dude... that's great! so your chili's polyps came out yellow? that's freakin awesome. and nice sun corals too, hopefully one day mine will extend like that.

I thought this was dead for the last 2 months I had not seen it open.

get my black sun coral on saturday, are they any harder to look after tahn the yellow ones? the yellows i have now are growing lots in the last month and the black ones seem very hard to get in the uk!

My black is weird. I got them both at the same time from the same person. The orange and pinks have done well. The black never really opened, faded, and turned mostly White. I thought it was dead and moved the skeleton by some mushrooms for easy fragging. 5 or so days ago it decided to open. The biggest difference for my tank has been regular feeding of cyclopeeze for the last few weeks. IDK.

tagging along.. might be a regular in this forum soon.. right nomad!... I think i got some baby dendros!

Sure looks like it

here are my beauties...........

When I first got them about 7 months ago.



about a month later



current photos










I feed once a week silversides and the occasional mysis

It's a pity that the black tubastrea didn't survive. They could be separated, fragged like any other LPS, but it's too late.

Black sun coral:
There are two of them: Tubastrea diaphana, compact branching growth, almost black with lighter tentacles, and Tubastrea micranthus, long branches, browner, greenish tentacles, rare, and as I had read requires more flow and more frequent feeding.

I have only T. diaphana, starved to the tissue recession. It took almost a week to make it open for a feeding. It had to be surrounded by food for a twice longer time, then for orange and pure yellow sun corals, almost 1.5 hours. But after it started eating, no problems at all.


The tentacles are brown, not green - it's automatics of the camera playing tricks.

My lemon-yellow sun coral:

Does anybody know reference, where its ID could be found?

They are still plugging away behind there! They just never extend like the yellows

Good!
It's up to you, of course, but you have an option to separate them.

I fragged by big colony, it recovered very well, even single polyps. No infection.
This is half of it, divided in quarters:

That's cool. nice pictures everyone!

I still don't have a pic of the sun coral open, they won't during the day yet but here's the dendro

what is that white thing?

maybe we should ad rhyzo to the thread... don't have one myself though...

Yeah, rhizo, should be included, very close to the family.

How many times a week should I feed my sun coral.

I have it in a 12 gallon is 2 times a week fine to feed it or should it be more ?

Im not really looking for it to grow a lot because it is in a smaller tank.

I've heard of people feeding them 2x a week but they could probably use more, I'd do every other day but maybe see how they do if you step down feedings.

Twice a week will be OK, this is my normal frequency of feeding for 2 years already.

By the way, all my photos are made during daytime

me too.

pictures is too hard to take at night, lol

how do you train a sun coral to be open all day?

Here's the frag I used to have:

Click to view attachment

When I ever I got from the LFS, most of its polyps were dead (or at least appeared to be). It never opened during the day unless it was kept in the shade. I usually fed it frozen cyclops, mysis, or brine 20 minutes after lights out. I got a little more than half of the frag to recover before I lost it completely to a massive algae bloom.

for me, i just alternate feedings between day and night, or if possible both times. and every once in a while throw in a random feeding in the middle of the day. that's how it worked for me.

All mine do not respond to the training at all, and open after adding food in the water, within maybe 15 min. The only problem with opening is when they were open and just closed, then they open very unwillingly. But they are ready to open again after 1-2 hrs after closing.

In the evening, within 1 hr before the lights are off, all suns are starting to open at their best - much more than during the day.

I had read, that feeding in the same time was described as training.

EnjoiFish:
Can you post photo at different angle, to see the shape of colony? Do you have some information about identification?

I have the similar looking coral and just wondering if they are the same:

flattened wide colony shape, branching, small polyps. Were fluorescent-orange-pink in the store, maybe dyed, hard to say. Looking for identification and more info on it. So far Cladopsammia gracilis (Dendrophylliidae) was the closest assumption. They exist in pink and orange morphs (or species).

Does anybody have pure yellow (no orange), lemon yellow sun corals, branching and not? Any information about what they are?

Another question: who has adult peppermint shrimps with tubastrea, did they try to tear tentacles off at night? I was looking for aiptasia control, and found that they may mix tubastrea with aiptasia and harass it to decline. Just curious.

i have two adult pep shrimps with tubastreas. i never have any problems with them trying to tear of tentacles, and my tubastreas are now open almost all day long. i let my pep shrimps eat aipstasia along with fish pellets to keep them from growing a taste for other things.


oh, and your sun coral looks like a branching sun coral.

This thread has lain dormant for months. I guess dendros are so mid summer.

Well... We may be late to the party as we just picked up a 2 headed frag at a local swap this weekend.

Each polyp has opened at some point at least a little. When I get them both trained to open at the same time, I'll follow up with pictures.

I've tried feeding with mysis and cyclop-eze. They opened and ate some mysis but seemed to ignore the cyclop-eze. I'm guessing the provider fed mysis and that's what they're used to. I also plan to feed Rod's carnivore formula and have a go with some frozen brine shrimp.

So, feel free to update your sun/dendro pix and provide tips for a dendro noob.

thanks,
hank

Just bought my first little colony of sun coral, about 20 heads for $5.00! I spotted it in a discount tank and had to have it, I've wanted one ever since I started and it was the perfect size for my tank. I am still coaxing it out, it emerged a little after i fed the tank the first night I put it in. I mashed up some flakes and thawed Cyclops, put it in a syringe and dropped it right on top. I will try using some mysis water to coax it open first now and see how that goes. Will try to post a picture soon. : )

Old thread, but why not.

I have all yellow (no orange or any other colour) suncorals. Non branching. No idea as to species id.


I also have peppermints with suncorals and dendrophylla. As far as I can tell, they do not predate the tentacles, rather they attempt to steal food from them, but generally avoid the tentacles.

I haven't gone over the whole thread, but both of the dendro and sun coral are in relative high flow areas - this produces the best extension, and they are always very full and extended when they're out. Dendro is out most of the day, sun corals usually after lights out.

I have about 6 of these growing on a couple pieces of LR. Is this Rhyzo?
Click to view attachment

HELLO...HELLo...HELlo...HEllo...Hello...hello.

Ahhh..hell, someone please take a look and respond.

My sunny sunnies
Click to view attachment

I have recently heard tale of someone in my area who had the balls to frag a rhyzo, and the frags are making it! Hopefully the technique gets passed on and rhyzos become more affordable soon.

Mkregs, if I was a betting man...and I am, I would say those are not rhyzos (would be the find of the century if they were) maybe aiptasia. Depends on where your live rock comes from, Rhizotrochus typus is found near Japan, so they might have hitched a ride if you got your rock from the indo-pacific region near Japan

Could be another type of dendroid of some kind

I've had my dendro 8 months. No growth. Always open. I feed it about twice a week. Favorite coral but I wish it would grow.

mkregs:
Sorry for not responding soon, e-mail notification comes irregularly for some reason.
Check the web for Devonshire cup coral or Caryophyllia smithii and compare to yours, this name was given to me on another forum.
If it still has dots on the ends, but have no hard skeleton, as LPS should have, then check for Corynactis or Pseudocorynactis, relatives of mushrooms.

joel sandoman:
If you wish or have time, you may try to experiment with your Dendrophyllia, feed it every day or so.
For a common sun coral it increased budding, could work for Dendrophyllia too. Meaty food, not like Cyclop-eeze. Adding mysis or VHP (very high protein formula) may help. I'm not usually using vitamins, aminoacids or Selcon for my suns, but yours is an expensive kind, worth a try.

Fed my dendro today. Came back a half hour later to find a hermit grab sticking his claw down INSIDE the dendro and pulling food out. Good lord! How long do I have to keep the crabs off my corals? I thought once it was swallowed it was all good.

here's mine...

oh sure. NOW this thread pops up.

too funny... well now you know!

quick question for those with dendros:

i just got home with a single dendro polyp, it's still floating in the bag at the moment. I have a single 150w MH over my 25 gallon and i'm not sure where to put the dendro yet. from what i've read they don't like direct light from a MH. i know they don't react to light but will direct light from the MH damage it in any way? or can i just put it wherever as long as i feed it?

here's a pic of my tank... any suggestions on where to place it?
Click to view attachment?

i need a camera i have a whole tank dedicated to non photosynthetic corals
best part
its a pico
it has chili coral,sun coral and a carnation
which is doing very well

my sunnies, i have had them for about a month

Beautiful, Thanks for Sharing!






If you'll go to page 2, post #21, you'll see a pic of my 2 colonies of dendros. Mine are placed low in my tank. I also have MH lighting on my BC29. Keep your dendro well fed and you'll have some new sprouts! Good Luck with yours!

awesome... thanks! i plan on fattening these guys up so they're nice and healthy. it was just fragged so i probably won't see any new growth for a while but i can't wait to get new sprouts! thanks again!

Just picked up a nice colony of sun coral a few days ago. I believe there may be about 4 polyps of black sun polyps on it as well. Don't have a camera on me atm but should have it back in a few days. Are there any descriptive chars to look at besides the obvious black polyps? If I'm not mistaken I've heard that black polyps are harder to keep .... Any truth to that? And hopefully I can train these bad boys to open up during the day pretty fast!

Everyone that's posted a pic: awesome pics! Nice to see such awesome pics!

Just joined the club, got this sun coral last week.



Been feeding it mysis and brine.

Looks like you've been keepin' them "Fat & Happy"! Great polyp extension!

Here are my sun corals. I got them almost 3 weeks ago.

Here is what they looked like when I first got them. They were very unhappy and very hungry. I bought them this way. It has taken them a couple of weeks to even begin polyp extension.


and what they look like tonight after feeding.



I am finding I am liking using the pop bottle method to segregate them for an hour during feeding. Not only do I not have to turn off the powerheads, but I find it much cleaner and with the exception of a couple smart nassarius snails, none of the other CUC bother them.

Thought I woudl add my Sun Coral shots. Just picked them up, but they really add to the tank.

Not the greatest picture of it but it is mine I'm going to try and get a better picture, that one was taken with the lights off, but with flash.

My sun coral pic, I have moved it all over my tank, but it's happiest upside down out of direct light.

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