September Coral of the Month: Tubastrea

[aquaman3680]

General Information-This months Coral is Tubastrea, also known as sun polyps or cup coral. While this is a very intriguing coral with vibrant colors this coral comes with some cautions and some things you MUST know before purchasing this coral. This coral has caused many debates and tens of hundreds of page long threads. Everyone that keeps these has a different way of keeping/feeding them. So this makes this coral a great coral for COTM so we can hear everyones different ways!

Lighting- This coral does not need light to live because it is one of the few corals that does not contain the symbiotic algae zooxanthellae. Most say that this coral does best under ledges or slopes.

Water flow- This coral needs moderate water flow so it can pick up zoo plankton or anything floating in the water.

Aggressiveness- Sun polyps are not very aggressive, a 1 inch perimeter around the coral would be fine.

Feeding- Now this is where things get tricky! This coral does not get its food from the light, so therefore you must feed each individual polyp. This coral does not have one stomach, each polyp contains a stomach so you must feed each individual polyp. One way you can do this is take the coral out of your tank, put it in a small plastic container, introduce some food so it will come out, then spray the colony with mysis or enriched brine shrimp. This will need to be done 2-3 times a week to keep the coral healthy. Any other ways you have tried feeding these corals would be great!

Hardiness- Provided this coral gets enough food, it is a pretty easy coral to keep.






Feel free to ask questions/post pics/ discuss this coral!

Matt

[caitrina]

I have never seen one like is in the center, the third one, is there a particular name for this color?

[ASH]

Could you not take a medicine dropper and feed it directly to the mouth.

Where can you buy them?

[caitrina]

I got mine at an LFS and I sometimes feed mine by putting a cut off top of a plastic soda bottle over it and use a turkey baster to put the mysis shrimp or live brine in it. (trick I learned from Lynn) Most of the time, I just fill the turkey baster up with mysis or whatever I am feeding and I feed the other inhabitants first to keep them away and then I make sure each little polyp gets fed individually using the turkey baster and sometimes a syringe to get the little guys that are hiding beneath the other bigger polyps.

[BigAl07]

I've had good luck with adding Cyclopeeze to the tank which causes the polyps to expand and then using the turkey baster to drop Mysis on the open polyps. So far medium success.

Allen

[framerguy]

I use a syringe with a 6" piece of tubing attached and target feed each polyp with mysis shrimp just after the lights go out. The fish don't seem to bother it as much after the lights are off. I do turn the return pump off for a while so the mysis don't blow around as much. I like Caitrinas trick with the bottle top, haven't tried that one. I also use this type of syringe for my gonioporas.

[caitrina]

I use cyclopeeze also and in fact trained my sunny to stay like this pretty much most of the day by feeding him in daylight. This was taken about 20 minutes ago (2:00 p.m.)without feeding, teasing, or any other type of food manipulation and he had eaten several hours before hand. Not sure if it is this picture or not, but if you look under one of the polyps there is a little new one beginning.



I need to update the date on my camera, huh? Seriously this was just taken today and for some reason or other my camera did not update to the correct date. Gotta fix that , that is my calendar when I am trying ot remember things. Yikes!

[aquaman3680]

Could you not take a medicine dropper and feed it directly to the mouth.

Where can you buy them?

Yes this will work. The only problem is that if you do that it leaves fish and shrimp open to take the shrimp away from the coral. The taking out and putting in another container was what i used for my black sun, pictured in the first picture. This worked for me until i gave up with the coral because of the amount of work it took to keep it up and healthy.

Most online stores or LFS's have these corals. Usually when you see them at the store they look like the last picture and look like that most of the time.

Matt

[GeeWizzItsMe]

So they can survive under any lighting?? Other than feeding is this considered a beginner coral???

[aquaman3680]

they dont need any light. If you have time on your hands then i would say go for it!

[ASH]

Sweet!!!! I'm gonna go get one....So will they be ok if you do have the bright lights? Cuz I'm sure we'll be getting some next spring?

So what other corals can i have that doesn't require bright lights?

[aquaman3680]

just understand you need to feed every mouth 2-3 times a week. When you get brighter lights you can just put it under a ledge or something. Anything that is non-photosynthetic can be under no lights.

Matt

[caitrina]

Originally Posted by GeeWizzItsMe

So they can survive under any lighting?? Other than feeding is this considered a beginner coral???

From what I understand they are fairly hardy, BUT only if they, each polyp, are fed regularly , then I might stick my foot out on the ledge just a wee bit and say a beginner could keep one of these. I am sure if I am wrong someone will correct me. That being said, remember I said ...IF they (each polyp)are fed on a regular basis I don't see why they couldn't be provided everything else in the tank is good. It can be time consuming.

[ASH]

my LFS doesn't have that great of a selection of corals....they have a lot of everything else....but they would order for me....if they did how would yall go about getting it...like would you leave it there for a few days and watch it or just buy it???

[Techno-Vicki]

Originally Posted by aquaman3680

Yes this will work. The only problem is that if you do that it leaves fish and shrimp open to take the shrimp away from the coral. The taking out and putting in another container was what i used for my black sun, pictured in the first picture. This worked for me until i gave up with the coral because of the amount of work it took to keep it up and healthy.

Most online stores or LFS's have these corals. Usually when you see them at the store they look like the last picture and look like that most of the time.

Matt

Good point Matt, that is the 'ideal' way when you have issues with fish or pumps not allowing for enough food to be taken in by the coral. I target feed with the pump turned off for about 15 minutes. Mine is in my prop tank until I get my 180 up...Ok, that is going to be a while Regarding lighting, I have it under T5's, but I have had them under MH's as well. It receives med flow. I also have a yellow one; however, it doesn't open as ofter or for as long a period. Here is a pic. or the orange one.