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Candy Cane Coral question


cju84

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Hey all - I got my first coral (ever) yesterday and was a Candy Cane coral. Does this look 'healthy'?

 

It clearly isn't opened up but I understand that could take months. I just want to make sure it's not 'dead'.

 

Gracias.

post-85688-0-90682000-1412781183_thumb.jpg

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Mine look like that every morning right when the lights turn on. Yours looks very healthy! One of my favorite corals :).

 

Whew, good to know. They probably aren't happy that a hermit knocked it off the rock to the sand bed either. Epoxy/gluing that sucker tonight.

 

Just looks pissed. Give it time to acclimate to the tank.

 

I'll take pissed over dead!

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So the I epoxied and glued the corals down. Candy Cane tentacles finally are coming out. Hope that is a good sign!

Most definitely :). Eventually they will inflate like little pillows :wub:.

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Most definitely :). Eventually they will inflate like little pillows :wub:.

 

I hope so. I heard that I should feed it. Can you recommend anything? What about Coral Frenzy on Amazon? It's like $13 or so.

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I have a nice size candy cane like yours. It grew to the size of a softball, I eventually cut it and gave a friend a nice piece of it.

 

And I've never fed it! It gets whatever I feed the fish.

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I have a nice size candy cane like yours. It grew to the size of a softball, I eventually cut it and gave a friend a nice piece of it.

 

And I've never fed it! It gets whatever I feed the fish.

 

I hope mine does the same! So I don't have a fish yet.... so nothing is being fed at all. I just have inverts (that are somehow alive) and the two corals (candy cane and xenia).

 

Since I don't have a fish, I should probably get some sort of coral food?

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I hope so. I heard that I should feed it. Can you recommend anything? What about Coral Frenzy on Amazon? It's like $13 or so.

I don't go out of my way to feed mine. They catch some food when I feed the fish. I occasionally feed them small pieces of frozen/thawed mysis shrimp. They love that stuff. They'll also eat fish food pellets. You could totally pick up some coral frenzy and feed them at lights out when all the feeding tentacles are out :). Once a week is plenty.

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Feed them! omgomgomg They're pretty aggressive eaters, and they'll take pellets, tiny pieces of thawed food (mysis, krill, squid, etc), finer particle foods, etc. They're not too picky.

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I don't go out of my way to feed mine. They catch some food when I feed the fish. I occasionally feed them small pieces of frozen/thawed mysis shrimp. They love that stuff. They'll also eat fish food pellets. You could totally pick up some coral frenzy and feed them at lights out when all the feeding tentacles are out :). Once a week is plenty.

 

I might pick up some stuff off of Amazon until I get a fish. Regarding pellets... How does that work? Do I physically place a pellet on top/in the tentacles? Noob question, I know.

 

Thanks again for all your help!

 

Feed them! omgomgomg They're pretty aggressive eaters, and they'll take pellets, tiny pieces of thawed food (mysis, krill, squid, etc), finer particle foods, etc. They're not too picky.

 

I am definitely going to start - thanks :)

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I might pick up some stuff off of Amazon until I get a fish. Regarding pellets... How does that work? Do I physically place a pellet on top/in the tentacles? Noob question, I know.

 

Thanks again for all your help!

 

That's what I do with mine! But I feed it the same brine shrimp I give to my clownfish.

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That's what I do with mine! But I feed it the same brine shrimp I give to my clownfish.

 

Thanks kimberbee! Another dumb question - where do you get the brine shrimp? Do you order online or get from a LFS? I HATE driving in Chicago so if online, that is best hah.

 

Also, how much do you feed each polyp?

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Thanks kimberbee! Another dumb question - where do you get the brine shrimp? Do you order online or get from a LFS? I HATE driving in Chicago so if online, that is best hah.

 

Also, how much do you feed each polyp?

 

My BF works at a LFS downtown so he brings it home from me... But ANY LFS should have some or something similar to use. Even PetCo sells some frozen fish food.

 

Brine shrimp are small, maybe 1/4 inch or less. I use a turkey baster and gently try to drop a shrimp onto each head. Don't want to be too forceful or it will close up thinking it's in danger. I'm sure the same principle applies with pellets and other foods too.

 

If the candy cane is the only thing you have to feed though, pellets might be better for now. The frozen food will last a long time frozen, but it will be hard for you to thaw out just a couple of shrimps at a time I think.

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My BF works at a LFS downtown so he brings it home from me... But ANY LFS should have some or something similar to use. Even PetCo sells some frozen fish food.

 

Brine shrimp are small, maybe 1/4 inch or less. I use a turkey baster and gently try to drop a shrimp onto each head. Don't want to be too forceful or it will close up thinking it's in danger. I'm sure the same principle applies with pellets and other foods too.

 

If the candy cane is the only thing you have to feed though, pellets might be better for now. The frozen food will last a long time frozen, but it will be hard for you to thaw out just a couple of shrimps at a time I think.

 

Very good to know.

 

Also - what LFS does he work at downtown? I'm in the loop - wasn't aware of one here??

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I might pick up some stuff off of Amazon until I get a fish. Regarding pellets... How does that work? Do I physically place a pellet on top/in the tentacles? Noob question, I know.

 

Thanks again for all your help!

Yep...exactly :)

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Very good to know.

 

Also - what LFS does he work at downtown? I'm in the loop - wasn't aware of one here??

 

He's a few miles north then. I work in the Loop!

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21CentSchizMan

Hey, I was going to post the exact same question. I'm in pretty much the same situation as you, as I started a 5g about a month ago. I got this caulastrea furcata(?) candy cane 10 days ago, and it hasn't opened. A couple heads got a little puffy for a couple days, then stopped. Water numbers all good, probably low moderate lighting.

 

So it's good to hear from others that this is normal and could take a while for them to get acclimated. I tried target feeding some brine shrimp, but they didn't take it. I think they liked the diffused zooplankton a bit more, at least in their current state, as that's when they opened up a bit. I ordered some mysis, and I'll try those as well.

 

Good luck with your tank and your candy canes!

 

post-86041-0-78450400-1413286611_thumb.jpg

 

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Hey, I was going to post the exact same question. I'm in pretty much the same situation as you, as I started a 5g about a month ago. I got this caulastrea furcata(?) candy cane 10 days ago, and it hasn't opened. A couple heads got a little puffy for a couple days, then stopped. Water numbers all good, probably low moderate lighting.

 

So it's good to hear from others that this is normal and could take a while for them to get acclimated. I tried target feeding some brine shrimp, but they didn't take it. I think they liked the diffused zooplankton a bit more, at least in their current state, as that's when they opened up a bit. I ordered some mysis, and I'll try those as well.

 

Good luck with your tank and your candy canes!

 

attachicon.gifcaulastrea.jpg

 

Looks fine to me. Look at the skin on the side and make sure it's not receding, otherwise this is just about all they do. Inspect a couple of hours after lights out and you may see them opened up, but typically not during the day.

 

You say numbers are fine, that's not good enough.

 

Alk 8 - 10 and stable

Calcium 400 - 500 and stable, though stability not as critical as Alk

Magnesium 1300 minimum - 1500

Salinity 1.026

 

If you don't have SPS you can let Alk slowly drift down between water changes but you will get better growth and color by having stable Alk. Test kits should be high quality, I prefer Salifert using bottles and holders from the Red Sea Pro kits.

 

Good luck!

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21CentSchizMan

From some of the pictures I've seen of these the heads are so big and puffy that you can't see the stalks at all. Maybe that's a different species of caulastrea.

 

Thanks for the prodding on the numbers, which are below. I had to decrease salinity by .002 yesterday with distilled water.

 

Question - how to determine if stable? Weekly readings, daily?

 

Alk 9
Calcium 430
Magnesium - I don't have a magnesium test kit yet
Salinity 1.026 - refractometer
I'm using an API test kit.
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Sometimes mine will get puffy, like right after feeding.

 

What I do, but I have a bigger tank, is turn off my return pump, leaving the circulation pump on and turkey baste all of my rock to get the gunk off. Sometimes this prompts my candy canes to open up a bit (as well as my sun coral). I then turn off the circulation pump to feed my fish and spot feed my corals.

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Hey, I was going to post the exact same question. I'm in pretty much the same situation as you, as I started a 5g about a month ago. I got this caulastrea furcata(?) candy cane 10 days ago, and it hasn't opened. A couple heads got a little puffy for a couple days, then stopped. Water numbers all good, probably low moderate lighting.

 

So it's good to hear from others that this is normal and could take a while for them to get acclimated. I tried target feeding some brine shrimp, but they didn't take it. I think they liked the diffused zooplankton a bit more, at least in their current state, as that's when they opened up a bit. I ordered some mysis, and I'll try those as well.

 

Good luck with your tank and your candy canes!

 

attachicon.gifcaulastrea.jpg

 

I think yours look great! I am wondering if I have too little live rock in the tank for natural filtration (I used to have a ton more but removed a lot of it b/c I thought it looked to cluttered. Could be throwing off my levels (I haven't tested alk/calcium yet - they are probably off the charts one way or another).

 

I was debating between the zooplankton and the coral frenzy and decided to buy Coral Frenzy yesterday. Should get here in a day.

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Hey all - I got my first coral (ever) yesterday and was a Candy Cane coral. Does this look 'healthy'?

 

It clearly isn't opened up but I understand that could take months. I just want to make sure it's not 'dead'.

 

Gracias.

Definitely not dead. Dead coral won't have anymore flesh. It looks mad, but not sick or anything. Give it some time and don't mess with it. Candy cane coral typically prefers lower flow areas though, so if it doesn't puff up the flow might be too much.

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