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Is there any hope for my sun coral?


Han Solo

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I got this coral more than three weeks ago, maybe even a month, and slowly the pods have been dying and only a tiny hint of polyps have ever come out. I have tried feeding with mysis shrimp (frozen), marine snow, but never any luck. They are basically in the shade as well.

 

I've moved my aquascape around quite a bit and unfortunately was a bit rough with the sun star, dropping it upside down once, and touching the pods a bit.

 

Is there anything I can do for the remaining two or three or is the dying coral polluting my tank to the point I should take it out?

 

Thanks...

 

u8a2t7W.jpg

 

FTS (20g long)

mV2dcJF.jpg

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Have you bee feeding them? They don't use light so they should be in a shady spot, looks like they are, and fed regularly. Do they have any feeding reaction when fed Reef Roids or another good coral food?

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There's not much reaction at all when I feed them. I use a spot feeder, syringe type thing. I've only tried mysis shrimp "juice" and Marine Snow. Do you have any recommendations of another food I can try?



My main concern though is if the dead polpys will affect my tank in any negative way

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NorthGaHillbilly

shrimp juice isnt going to get the job done, they need meatier foods, the mysis themselves, pellets, something substantial.

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I "adopted" a very sad sun coral several months ago - every day at the same time I put it in a container filled with tank water and literally saturated the container with food - mysis, brine shrimp, cyclopeeze. It very quickly started eating well and growing like crazy.

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I "adopted" a very sad sun coral several months ago - every day at the same time I put it in a container filled with tank water and literally saturated the container with food - mysis, brine shrimp, cyclopeeze. It very quickly started eating well and growing like crazy.

that's an interesting idea! how long would you keep it in container each day? How long until you notice a change? (enough to stop the feedings I guess)

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I don't have any non photosynthetic corals so I can only echo advice I've heard from others and what has helped me bring some LPS back from the dead. Saturate it with easy to consume food. Reef Roids has always worked wonders for me, but there may be better foods for these guys.

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They are tricky top get eating when they are that far gone. Luckily they can usually be brought back with some work. I have one not I'm working with. I mix up food and spot feed it several times a day. Not much at one time, just letting it know food is around. Check it at night as well, they are more likely to be open then.

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I "adopted" a very sad sun coral several months ago - every day at the same time I put it in a container filled with tank water and literally saturated the container with food - mysis, brine shrimp, cyclopeeze. It very quickly started eating well and growing like crazy.

 

They are tricky top get eating when they are that far gone. Luckily they can usually be brought back with some work. I have one not I'm working with. I mix up food and spot feed it several times a day. Not much at one time, just letting it know food is around. Check it at night as well, they are more likely to be open then.

 

I have a small sun coral that's doing very well. I recommend trying what kellysnano said. Also, hvani is right, mine tend to be open a lot more at night.

 

I say, don't give up!

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I did the same thing with a sun coral that i reccued and would place in a seperate container everyday around the same time and that is how i was able to bring it back from near death.

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I "adopted" a very sad sun coral several months ago - every day at the same time I put it in a container filled with tank water and literally saturated the container with food - mysis, brine shrimp, cyclopeeze. It very quickly started eating well and growing like crazy.

 

+1 THIS!!! I have rescued near gone sun corals this way.

 

Saturate a container with roids, mysis, cyclopes, anything so it is good and stinky. Put the coral in it and place the container in a dark place. I left mine in there for about 45 min.

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Awesome. Thanks for the advice guys and I will be trying to save it with the food "bath" technique. Hopefully a good update soon :)

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Don't ever get a bengal cat if you'd never want a dog.

 

Literally as I was uploading this picture this guy took his curious little paw and knocked over the bowl which spilt half of the mysis saturated water all over the floor.

 

Cats.

 

1KpOVuJ.jpg

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One thing I didn't mention is that while it's in the container I swirl the water around every 5 minutes or so to keep the particles of food moving around instead if sinking. I don't have a set length of time that I leave it in container for but probably on average 30 to 60 minutes.

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Don't ever get a bengal cat if you'd never want a dog.

 

Literally as I was uploading this picture this guy took his curious little paw and knocked over the bowl which spilt half of the mysis saturated water all over the floor.

 

Cats.

 

1KpOVuJ.jpg

 

Not being a cat person I had to Google Bengal cat to see what one looked like. Beautiful!

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Don't ever get a bengal cat if you'd never want a dog.

 

ooo... I have two bengal cats!! I love them so much. They do get into EVERYTHING though!

 

DSC_0018_zps0e96ddc5.jpg

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FISH FLAKES.

 

Ok, if i haven't lost you by now, good. I've made a nice discovery with sun corals and fish flakes, in particular with recovering weak/starved suns.

 

As everyone knows, suns are NPS so they get their energy from eating food. What a lot of people don't realize, is that they actually USE a fair amount energy to digest their food. Not only that, but they use up energy to extend their polyps, ingest their food, digest their food, and to get rid of the digested food/waste.

 

So here are quite a few barriers you have to overcome with selecting a good food for feeding starved suns. The best foods must be:

  • Easy to detect/smell -- for polyp expansion
  • The right size -- for ingestion and digestion
  • High surface area -- for ease of digestion
  • Nutritionally dense -- so the net energy gain is substantial compared to the energy loss of digestion.

If you don't meet all these goals, you might find that even if the sun coral has expanded it's polyps, it wont ingest the food. Or worse, it might ingest the food, waste some energy trying to digest the food, and spit it back out because it can't handle digesting it -- resulting in a huge net loss of energy.

 

I've found that crushed fish flakes make the perfect food to meet all of these goals. Formula One flakes are a whopping 60% pure protein, and also have all the vitamins and minerals the morals might need. Once they are crushed to very small pieces, they become a nice enough size for ingestion -- while still being easily digestible, and remaining nutritionally dense. When mixed with water the flakes will retain their shape and nicely settle on top of the polyps, allowing the polyps to easily ingest them. Basically, they're perfect.

 

In short, I've found crushed fish flakes to be far superior to ANY other food for recovering sun corals, and I've seen starving sun corals turn around much faster with crushed fish flakes than with anything else.

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dont forget to test ammonia and nitrates.

 

I lost most of a nice black colony before I figured out I was overstocked with fish.

 

once I removed 3 of my 5 fish, also a 20 long, I have seen tons of pokyp extension.

 

also brs reef chilli mixed with mysis works for me.

 

a good skimmer helps also

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1978648_1387372401538842_1365591970_n.jp

This is Ollie :)



FISH FLAKES.

 

Ok, if i haven't lost you by now, good. I've made a nice discovery with sun corals and fish flakes, in particular with recovering weak/starved suns.

 

As everyone knows, suns are NPS so they get their energy from eating food. What a lot of people don't realize, is that they actually USE a fair amount energy to digest their food. Not only that, but they use up energy to extend their polyps, ingest their food, digest their food, and to get rid of the digested food/waste.

 

So here are quite a few barriers you have to overcome with selecting a good food for feeding starved suns. The best foods must be:

  • Easy to detect/smell -- for polyp expansion
  • The right size -- for ingestion and digestion
  • High surface area -- for ease of digestion
  • Nutritionally dense -- so the net energy gain is substantial compared to the energy loss of digestion.

If you don't meet all these goals, you might find that even if the sun coral has expanded it's polyps, it wont ingest the food. Or worse, it might ingest the food, waste some energy trying to digest the food, and spit it back out because it can't handle digesting it -- resulting in a huge net loss of energy.

 

I've found that crushed fish flakes make the perfect food to meet all of these goals. Formula One flakes are a whopping 60% pure protein, and also have all the vitamins and minerals the morals might need. Once they are crushed to very small pieces, they become a nice enough size for ingestion -- while still being easily digestible, and remaining nutritionally dense. When mixed with water the flakes will retain their shape and nicely settle on top of the polyps, allowing the polyps to easily ingest them. Basically, they're perfect.

 

In short, I've found crushed fish flakes to be far superior to ANY other food for recovering sun corals, and I've seen starving sun corals turn around much faster with crushed fish flakes than with anything else.

Thanks for the info. So are you saying even my white, dead, I guess bleached, majority of polyps on my sun coral rock, may come back to life? Or are they far too gone? There are still a good 5 or 6 that still look orange and OK.

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If the polyps can be coaxed out then they can still be saved. Here's a polyp that I've brought back from the brink with this method:

yo6m7TK.jpg

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This is Ollie :)

 

Thanks for the info. So are you saying even my white, dead, I guess bleached, majority of polyps on my sun coral rock, may come back to life? Or are they far too gone? There are still a good 5 or 6 that still look orange and OK.

 

Should be savable... I have brought some back from hell.

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  • 2 weeks later...

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