Well the title pretty much says it all. Just got my first coral. The LPS advised me to feed once a week with some frozen brine but my problem is that the coral doesn't seem to eat it. Any suggestions?

Are you feeding it when the feeder tentacles are out?

Have you seen the feeders yet? How long have you had it? I know mine will only extend the feeders after the lights are off most of the time. I dont know about feeding brine but mine love mysis.

use mysis. at night when the lights are off they extend their feeding tentacles. But if you want to feed them during the day just take the mysis with some tongs and hold it over the "mouth". They will puff up around it and eat it. Then they look like a pillow The more you feed the bigger they get. They split and before you know it there will be 2-3 mouths on one head.

Candy canes were one of my first corals.

Well I just got mine 2 days ago. On the first day the just shrivelled up and didn't look so good but then the next day they l wen back to normal when the lights are on and shrivel up when the lights are off. I was looking for tentacles at night but I don't see any. They just tend to be shrivelled up. I'll see if I can get some pictures of it at night. I'm thinking maybe the have just been feed before I bought them. The LPS says they should be feed 1 a week, does that sound right?

give it some time. It is still adjusting to your tank. in a week or so start looking for feeders. Until then i would not worry much about feeding them directly.

They tend to shrink a little at night and their feeders will come out. However, they also eat during the day. I've noticed the feeders come out after I feed my other corals with Oyster, Roti, phyto, Arcticpods, and Coral Amino's. I wouldn't go out and buy all these foods. However, I would recommend feeding them PE Mysis shrimp instead of Brine. Much more protein and nutritious than Brine. They also do well under good lighting and moderate flow. As you can see in the picks I have a Koralia 2 pointed indirectly at the colony. However, you need to make sure that the heads don't get too much flow:)

Also, where is the candy cane in your tank. Here's a pic of mine. I have it at the top a little off center under 150 watt MH's. I started off with about 20 heads or so 9 months ago and there's at least 80 now. I hand feed my Candy Canes once every few days, but they also pull some food out of the water from the other feedings.

http://i684.photobucket.com/albums/vv202/n...16/IMG_1007.jpg
http://i684.photobucket.com/albums/vv202/n...16/IMG_1023.jpg
http://i684.photobucket.com/albums/vv202/n.../IMG_0230-1.jpg

try adding some shrimp juice or even a few shrimp mysis or brine, wait about 1-20 minutes. Get a good LED flashlight it will make it easier. you should see sweepers if you don't give it a day or two and try again, it will not eat unless the sweepers are out.

Do not confuse sweepers with feeders. Sweepers are used for defense and aggressiveness while feeders are used to eat. A candy cane's sweeper can be 3-6 inches long while it's feeders shouldn't be more than an inch. It usually takes a bit of time during the acclimation before you see the feeders come out at night.

Here is what they look like with the feeders out:

Thanks for all the info guys. I'll wait a few days and see if the feeder tentacles come out. Here is a few pics of it in the mean time.

On the first day that i got the coral I noticed that my peppermint shrimp was jumping right on to it. Does anyone know if they would be compatible with most corals or would i have to get rid of the shrimp?

prefectly safe.

Great looking colony. They look really healthy.

Well it's been about 10 days and the feeder tentacles are still not showing up. I have noticed a bloom of copepods in the tanks though. So I'm thinking that maybe the corals r just eating thoses? By the way the LPS told me that the corals were growing towards each other an that I should split then. So I did, the sugery was sucessful but the putty glue was a pain to use. I'll post some pix

As promised!!!

As u can see i'm also getting a bit of cyano growing so going to cut back the lighting hours to reduce its growth.

Did you solve your problem? My candy cane went through some hard times and I haven’t seen its tentacles for a several months. I thought he lost them, but recently I placed some phyto at night and they swelled up and popped out. I today got some PE mysis and even though the tentacles weren’t out I just used my baster to place it on the coral and the mysis stuck to the coral. If you can handle a piece try to place it on the coral itself and see if that will stimulate the tentacles to come out.