My 5 head of Firecracker Coral Asking Daddy For Food.



Feeding on silverside chunks

Nice dendros

thanks !! had them for about 2 months and got it with 3, 2 more poped out and are growing fast, I should have a nice 7-8 heads by mid summer.. When I get to 10 frags are going up for sale and not for $100 a head either, figured Id price 3 heads at about $50-70.

Dang still going for a bill a head? CRAZY.

Nah, you can get colonies with 7-8 heads for about $325-350 at most places.

So that boils down to about $40 a head

I just want to hurry up and get fraggin before the bottom drops out on this stuff...dont see that happening anytime soon though.

Id never frag it with less than 2-3 head per frag, just dont look right with one head

Those look awesome!

do you feed it everyday? i am curious because i don't know what i am doing yet for i do have one head only! can you tell me about your lighting, food, and current flow. what do i need to do to keep it happy?

Thank You !11

The trick I found to getting really good expantion is not to overfeed them. I feed them 2 time out of a 7 day week, but I feed them heavy when I do. These guys can handle a rather large peice of meat beleive it or not and it takes them virtually a minute to get a decent size chunk of silverside or krill down.

That way they get all the nutrients they need but arnt closed digestong food 5 out of 7 days as they would if you feed them every other day.

Most people think that these guys grow faster the more often you feed them, but mine look better and have grown more since I got them then a buddy of mine that got a sister colony of this stuff from the same dealer.

These guys are non-photosythetic and need to be fed. For Feeding read the above post.

Waterflow is moderate to low, preferably on the low side. Nothing direct at all.

Lighting, since they are non-photosythetic light does not seem to play a big role in their development, however I am sure as with any coral they can be sensitive to hight lighting. With that said, placement should be as close to the bottom of your rockwork as possibe. I have a 14,00k MH over the 25g Salona they are in and they are doing fine as you can see.

This is what has worked for me, I am sure others will argue ( as usual ) but just giving you the best advice that has worked for me.

GOOD LUCK WITH YOURS !!!

thanks for looking

wow, to the back of the pile already ? LoL

Thanks for the quick response! I have just moved my dendro in the bottom cave away from the light? Do u feed them when they stick out their tenicles? Because is closing all the time. I moved away from the flow and put them in the sand. Will that be ok for now?

Nice Dendros!



You should put them in a spot that is easiest for you to feed them. They can take direct lighting pretty well. I had mine under 150w MH right in the middle to upper third of the tank and it stayed open all the time. You just have to watch out for algae growing on them if you have algae problems. Also they like a little bit of flow. Not blasting but a decent moderate flow is pretty good. If is not opening, you could try turning off the pumps and set a piece of mysis on its mouth. It will eventually swallow it up. Do this a few times and it should start opening more often. If you have cyclopeze, you can squirt it a few times to entice it to open up. If not just use the juice from the mysis. nano_keeper30 got good results feeding silversides twice a week. I've tried silversides before but it was just a pain to cut up. I prefer to feed mysis, krill, or plankton. I feed it more often too. I think the more often you feed it the faster it grows. Anyway, they are a pretty forgiving coral. As long as they get something to eat, they should stay open most of the time. My dendros are pigs. They eat alot.

I feed mine a a lot of different foods (mysis, brine, scallops, mussels) but have found that mine love tiny cubes of formula 2 with the gel binder.

Guia x any thoughts on why mine wont eat krill? For some reason krill wont stick to the tentacles but i wish they would because krill soaks up some selcon!

I don't know. Mine grabs it all the time. They grab anything even my baster.

I do give them a variety of foods, usualy I alternate silversides, krill and shrimp. (lobster or crab leggs if thats what Im having for supper, but not to often). Im sure they also get their share of myis and brime to when others are getting fed.

But for the main part they are getting large chunks of food 2 times a week.

You would be quit surprised how large of a meal these things can handle at a time. Not that I set a whole silverside on them or anything but they can eat lets say a 1/3 of a silverside or a half of krill without batting an tentical

weekly bump

Why?

Why not?

I like your style man

Whats going on? I was interested in this thread, b/c I thought the Firecracker Coral, was the Balanophyllia coral. Anyways, nice denro's. I have had Great success with mine as well. Started off with 3 heads, one big one in center, and 2 babies, 1 on each side. I fed and fed all the time. And they all got big, but did not grow any additional heads. So I power fed every morning, and night. After 6 days, I stopped. Low and behold, within about 10 days, I started seeing orange spots all over. So then I switched to every 2 days. I had the coral for 5 months, with no additional heads, and now 6 months later I have 19 heads!!! I have also been using black powder. I am trying in on my bio 29 to see if I get the same. ***question*** Is there a liquid or gel, that I can use to get different food to attach, or like roll into a ball or something? Like a piece of krill, powder, and like pellets or something? Hope you all understand what I mean? Thanks ahead of time. Take care

So what your looking for is a binder that will allow you to mix foods into bite size morsals ?

You're probably better off just feeding krill, pellet food, or powder at different times. I used to farm dendros and the hikari marine s or l will make them grow like crazy.