well... figuring these are the awesomest corals out there. why can't we post our pictures here and our husbandry techniques?





don't insult me corlz... the sun coral now has much much better extension and the dendros look great too, just need to get a recent picture.

SUN CORAL AND DENDROPHYLLIA HUSBANDRY (by me):
1. pumps off
2. Coral Frenzy! (to get polyp extensio on the corals, instead of mysis juice)
why i use coral frenzy instead of mysis juice: coral frenzy get the sun coral and dendrophyllia to open in five minutes as opposed to 20 minutes on mysis juice.
3. I feed a mixture of frozen mysis (4 cubes) and frozen spirulina (3 cubes)
4. Fend off the fish in the tank (secret weapon: turkey baster) to make sure the sun coral and dendrophyllia get as much food as possible (for a healthier and more beautiful coral)
5. Turn pumps back on.

Placement: For my dendrophyllias, i place them on or near the sand because they are open for the majority of the day and can eat pods. the sun corals have yet to be trained to stay open all day and are placed on a shaded ledge in the middle of the tank.

hope y'all enjoy these corals as much as i do. And remember:



smiley courtesy of Pickle010

Awesome Thread

I was thinking of setting up a 3 gallon sun coral tank using a picotope

Could I use only actinic to light it?

Do they look cool under actinic?

under actinic, they look grey. i feel sun corals look best undr yellow lighting, because they are yellow themselves. but here's the thing with sun corals and a pico. too much nutrients in such a small system. unless you are going to skim like crazy, you will probably have high nitrates and ammonia with your sun coral feedings. one solution is to keep a separate tub... a feeding tub, but then that might be a bit of stress on the sun coral and you might never get full extension.

Awesome thread idea! Many are turned off by the requirements of these awesome corals. The results can be rewarding. All I do to excite mine is everyday I wave/baste off my LR to get settled detritus in the current and filtered. This is what happens..They love to eat anything!

Click to view attachment

Thanks. I guess it sounds like too much for such a small tank.

nice sun coral! mine will eat anything too. do you have problems with fish stealing food? EVERYTHING in the tank (except my two pairs of clowns) steal from this coral... scooter blennies, orange shoulder tang, blue tang, purple tang, even my sixline does. turkey baster wins the battle though.



it's not say it cannot be done, but in a system that small, equipment would have to be very specific for the care of these corals.

YES! its like they ignore all the food floating and go for the stuff the poylps are swallowing. I put a drinking glass over the colony while it feeds, mine is small enough for that.

Nice, but my acan thread is better!!!!

Don't these coral need to do in caves?

Are Dendros expensive?

caves are not a requirement. light sensitivity is zero, but i must warn that lighting too high (direct lighting under MH) will damage tissue. dendros are expensive as of right now. the prices range from $40-$75 a polyp, so most people will only buy one polyp, but i found a great deal on my dendros.

I was just wondering because my lfs had a small colony for $300! They didn't look like anything special to me. Nice but not $300 nice.

No, they are found in caves in the wild due to them not needing light for photosynthesis. It is thought that corals that need light dominate the reef leaving the underside of rocks and cave exposed for sun polyps. They can be expensive, I got my colony for 34.00. Ive seen 4 polyp frags for more, I guess it depends on the seller. Black ones are really nice!

my colony is 40-50 heads for $50. black ones are amazing. hopefully somebody will post pictures of their black sun corals.



depending on how many heads, that could be a great price.

How pretty. I saw two of these half dead in the lfs and it made me sick. You could tell they do not feed any of their corals. The sun corals had lost some of their corals pods. They wanted about $70.00. So sad but I could not afford $70.00 for each sun coral.

Your sun coral is BEAUTIFULLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

I have my dendros in a 6gallon pico tank. There are about 5-6 small polyps now (I had one large one and one small, then the frag got knocked down and the polyps were half recessed, then came back with all the little babies)

I second the coral frenzy food -- my dendro loves the coral frenzy, and so does my Hawaiiian featherduster.

I used to try to feed the polyps indivdually, was a real pain. Now I just shoot some coral frenzy in its direction every other day. When there were no feeder tentacles, I just shot DT's oyster eggs at it, worked great t help it recover.

I really recommend a deep sand bed if you keep these in a smaller tank. There's no skimmer, but the DSB does wonders to keep the water quality good, and I have never had a hint of nusiance algae.

My unskimmed 6gal DSB tank is totally free of hair algae, and has never had it, even with the messy feeding of the dendro.

I've got two sun corals, a big colony with 40 plus polyps, and a little frag of branching sun coral with 9 polyps I picked up recently.

I feed a variety of foods mysis, blood worms, brineshrimp etc and I feed them all the same way. Defrost the cube in a small amount of water and drain that water into the tank. Leave it for five minutes and mash the food up a bit so the baby sun corals can eat it as well. Then I just use a pipette and rain the food down on them. I feed about a cube in each feeding, and I feed them every second day. The tank being a nano is also very very overskimmed to ensure the food doesn't nuke the tank.

Sun corals generally are expensive but I was lucky with both mine, I got my big colony for $25 though it was half dead at the time, but regular feedings ahve really brought it back, and the little colony was just part of a mess of broken coral in an LFS tank and I got it for $5.

Big colony, though this doesn't show all the polyps...

beautiful. how long have you had them?

I am so glad you started this thread... I got mine a couple of weeks ago, but had no idea even what it was, or that I had to feed it (hopefully first & last impulse buy ) Thanks to NR - I love my Suncoral...

I have low lighting (2x9w 50/50), so I do not have it totally covered.

Personally, I take about 1/8 - 1/4 cube of frozen shrimp grab a little salt water from the tank smash it a little. Turn off all my pumps and stuff. I have a small feeding baster that I suck all that up into. I then feed my fire fish & cleaner shrimp about 1/4 of that (enough to keep them busy) then drizzle the rest on the sun coral. Then I wait about 10 mins - then turn everything back on. Yesterday, I did a double feeding - same process, but the 2nd time - the mouths were open. What a difference... Might try the liquid from the shrimp first, then the shrimp - after they open.
I do feedings every day. My quantity of shrimp might be a little low, but I think the daily feedings make up for it. What do you think? It's about 50 - 60 polyps. I usually have enough shrimp slurry left over - to cover a few other mouths around my tank that are hungry..

I haven't seen a problem with my other stuff going in & taking it all.. they usually hang out around it though. My drizzling skills isn't that perfect & they usually get stuff too.

Question - Is Dendro the orange one? My colony is 1/2 yellow & 1/2 orange.

Here is what it looked like when I put it in my tank (don't laugh)

But afterwords, I was able to get a better shot-


Last night after the double feeding - They really opened up, but no pics yet.. Maybe tonight I'll get some.

Thanks again for starting this thread..
Dave A.

I have one and its seen better days... I don't spot feed it much becasue I feel that my tank is too young to have all those nutrients and it's a pain to do. This was one of the first corals that I got and the guy told me "you just spray some mysis over ever once in a while" Which was total BS for a sale. I really need to get rid of it but none of my fish stores will take care of it.

Night

Day

I used to love these then got away from them. Now I HAVE to get a big one.

Turkey Baster:
That is a beautiful sun coral you have there. If it opens at night, you can use mysis mixed with tank water and use a turkey baster to feed, its not hard really. for me to feed, i do not aim at a specific head, i just spray a cloud over the corals, they all get fed in the end.

Can I play?? Here are my 2 dendro colonies. The one on the right actually started out as 1 polyp. It stayed that way for a while and then it sprouted like 10 new polyps all at the same time!


Click to view attachment

i just feed them pellets and they eat pods or anything that comes their way.

This is kinda long and boring... but you get the idea..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sI4shWRxkfg

@ JK and Basser: nice corlz. we finally got dendros (other than my own) on this thread.

Duncans and Dendros, I like'em both! Would you believe I caught one of my clowns in the dendros?


Just thought I'd share this pic with you. The large colony on the right was one polyp, then started to sprout new ones. I had just put some mysis in the tank and one of the babies ate one. It stretched out so much you can see the shrimp inside it! I guess its' eyes was bigger than its' tummy!

that's a cool picture. i should have taken a picture when i fed my dendros jumbo mysis... there was huge lumps in the dendros, and you could clearly see a shrimp inside.

I love dendro... so awesome.

'

That"s a great shot -- what kind of goby do you have? Nice looking dendros, too!

Question:

what do you all feed your dendros? I was feeding scallop bits, then frozen cyclopeeze, then some small fish pellets, now it's Coral Frenzy.

Do you find more success in growth with larger foods or smaller foods? My polyps are still pretty small, but I want faster growth. I am thinking I should go larger again-- maybe cyclopeeze?

I've had that coral for three months, the colonies doubled in that time and spawned twice. When I was trying to get it healthy I fed it a cube of food every day, seemed to really like it LOL.

I just got a three polyp frag of branching sun coral, still trying to convince the silly thing to open, one opens well after I feed the tank, one opens a little but doesn't eat yet and the other is totally retracted. The guy I got them from said he didn't feed them much though. They are so tiny compared to my dendro though, I've been feeding him mysis or my homemade food. How much luck are you guys having getting them to open all day? My dendro will stay open most of the day only if he's fed that day.

try coral frenzy yet? it was the only thing that got my sun corals to open... and that was after five months...

please remember what i said in the first post:



smiley courtesy of Pickle010

I don't have any coral frenzy to try, I'd have to order some. Here's a bad pic of my dendro by the way, I still need to get pics of my new stuff.

lunch bump

ocean_of_mirth..... That"goby" is a blue spot jawfish. It is easily one of my favorite fish with a ton of personality! His burrow is actually right below the dendros and he used LR rubble to line the opening with.

I have a pretty large colony of sun coral in my 2.5. had it for about 1 month or two and no large algea boom yet. im keeping a close eye on it but its just so beautiful i dont think i could give it up.

awesome. pictures mate.

Check these out!(not mine)

Just fed it and it is shining.



what in the world is that thing? its awsome!

its a sun coral...

never seen one so extended. mind boggling these things are.
How often do yall feed yours?

I feed mine every day whenever I feed the fish. I feed them either mysis or brine shrimp.

Well then im doing right. always good to know. BTW your tank is absolutly beautiful.

morning bump with pictures!

fed the sun corals this morning and got awesome extension.

I really like how they are in that little crevice, its very cool! must be easy to feed that way, i have the hardest time getting the other side of the rock on my peice.

Yeah, that is a great place for them!!!

I wish i could keep sun coral but im not sure if id be willing to feed it daily just to see it open at that time ya know?

Just curious but do peoples sun corals stay open? Mines open 24/7 only closes if I move it. Though then again I feed it whenever i feel like so sometimes that midnight sometimes 6 am in the morning or at noon, or virtually anytime LOL. So mines always fully extended, it looks gorgeous. I'm still trying to coax my new one to open though, think I'm going to have to start feeding after the lights go out to make sure its eating.

mine only openns when it squirt some shrimp juice twards it, after that it stays open for a while. I wish mine was open all the time, that would be awsome.

train it. all you have to do is feed during random time of the day or multiple times a day for a week to a month.

BUMP for those who missed the thread!