Anybody keeps non-photosynthetic corals and will talk shop?

[non-photosynt]

Reef Goddess:
Can you post a photo, or maybe a link to the Image Search for a free standing Christmas tree worms?
And I always was interested in coco worms, but all I had seen looked bleached, off-white pink. Maybe it is normal.

How high flow was under return? Did it bend the crowns of the worms?
Trying to learn about range of tolerances and preferred flow.

Placing sliming coral in the front of powerhead - you gave me the very interesting lead, how to deal with my new slimy tree-like coral, that was sold as scleronephthya. I never thought about this before.

lcstorc:
Thank you, and can you tell:
- tank turnover rate (liters per hour, per tank volume, or gph/tank volume),
- was the yellow finger gorgonian (Diodogorgia) in the high or low flow area,
- how many times a day gorgonian were fed, amount of food the tank received (in pinches or cubes - anything),
- was this gorgonian vertical or wide shaped? I have both kinds in red color, also Diodogorgia, and only one wide is finicky.
- did you feed the sun twice a week, was it a big or small colony, what amount of food it received each time - in cubes, tablespoons, anything. My big colony (7"L when open) takes about 5 cubes of Ocean Plankton and Mysis, or equivalent of chopped krill, shrimp and fish. And 3-4 cubes for all others. The skimmer produces the meat broth after that

Keep posting - very interesting.

[jnohs]

i have a yellow finger gorgonian that had at least doubled it size from when i bought it. it really was a amazing piece.then for no aparent reason it other than moving it to its current location. meanwhile many many other locations were tried. started to wither away. but in the last 2 months it has made a nice turn around. out of nowhere for no obviouse reason it again has growen a large amount. compared from its sickes point.I also have a brown tree gorgonian That has done nothing but growwwwww. It has never shown any signs of weakness. I also have a christmass coral he only comes out at night but is doing quite well.

Additionaly i have 4 sponges. They are as follows. A pineapple sponge that has been with me for a long long time. He has not grown but looks very healthy and its vacioules are allways relocating them selfs. One other is a black sponge he has grown a nice amount since I recived him on a piece of live rock. Then I have a blue sponge who is constantly fighting a battle against red alge. It is a rather exciting process to wath. The alge destroys half then the spong fights back and doubles then gets attacked again, then repeting the process.The last is a red ball sponge that has done nothing it to fights red alge but not as dramatiac as the previous. I just grab it once and a while and I pump it in my fist.Leaving a dust cloud of dust like particulate and red alge off the surface of the sponge. This action seems to clean it very well.

There are also 3 large feather duster i own that have each grown about 4 inches each. It is a good measurment becasuse the new growth on there tubes is a much different shade of color then previouse growth.

I do not think I have any more substantial nonphotosynthetiac animals or corals worth mentioning. I hope this helps.

[jnohs]

My black tubstra died a slow death. And my sun coral is still dying a very slow death with only 2 polyps still alive of about 20. I have put it in the sand a little under a rock, somewhat in the shade. The tank this coral is in is crawling with coupious amount of amphapods and copapods alike. And still is withering away. Much slower then orignally though. I tried target feeding but it is just to slow of an eater.The hermit crabs get the food from this thing. It is so slowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww. I do not understand how this thing survives in the wild.

[jnohs]

Mr lcstoric i have had the exact same problem with my gorgonian. I stated eairler in this thread that my gorgonian seemed to get better for no real reason. but i did recently move its location and i do not no if this is the real reason why it is dooing better. i have had it in many locations before. but anyway I have decided that my new placement is the reason for its new health. I is now in a position of medium flow witch in my tank of power heads is hard to find. it is usally calm spots or hight velocity currents from the power heads. I could be totally wrong about this. but i assure i have not done any thing to my tank. if anything i started neglecting it. Insufficent funds have caused me to perform water change once every 3 weeks now.

But maybe you should try to find the perfect spot in your tank for him.

[non-photosynt]

Thank you! Still have a questions.
My NPS gorgonians (all, including red and yellow finger gorgonians) are not growing new branches, or become bigger - only basal growth at the base. Certainly, would like them to grow.

How do you describe the flow in the best place: are the polyps not bent at all, slightly bent, or many of them are bent and even branches spring in the flow?

What are you feeding, how frequently, how much each time (pinch, cube, part if teaspoon - anything, to give me an idea)?

What else, in your opinion, could contribute to the growth?

About declining tubastrea, if you don't mind my involvement:
What could be potentially done even now - place it not under bright light, but close to the top, not too strong flow, where you can feed it, using tweezers. 1 mysis per mouth, no losses, water quality doesn't suffer. With flow off, you can place sone food onto closed polyp - it may open.

With my massive water changes, I did the container feedings and adding a big pinch of Cyclop-eeze into the water - all suns open then. But that will influence water quality, not now. The tweezers feeding is a fair chance.
My 2 cents.

[jnohs]

I would say thay are in constant random medium. bending the fingers of the polyps but not the stems. I have allways feed a lot of food to my tank at least every other day but sometimes 2 time a day.to my tank. Mysids, cyploses, marinesnow, flakefood and live brine shrimp not very often though.

oh i would say no on the branches do not bend at all in the flow.

[vdituri]

The only thing I could add to this discussion would be to start with good healthy stock. My yellow sun corals (flowerpot kind) were in ill health when I got them and have never thrived. My black sun corals (branching kind)were in good health and have done extremely well. No spawnings, but definitely new heads. I notice more sick and dying suncorals for sale than I do fit and healthy. Coral skeletons should be brightly colored the same as the polyps.

One thing I did notice is that left in the light the yellows were slowly encrusted by coralline algae which may have hastened their demise. Since they are normally in the dark they have not real defense against encrouching corals is my guess.

I would definitely say med to high flow is recommended to help them feed naturally. I did a liquid coral food feeding to the tank about 10 to 15 mins before generall feeding so as to get the polyps open and primed to collect solid food leftovers from the tank feeding.

Just my 2 cents worth. O.k. maybe more like a nickel

[framerguy]

Here is a photo of my porites and worms



Imagine that rock one year ago covered in orange and blue worms. All of the orange ones and most of the blue ones perished in the crash and Three blues and one white worm remain. I believe the blues are Spirobranchus giganteus but I'm not a worm expert (or any kind of expert really). I don't feed them directly, I probably should because this guy...

Sabellastarte magnifica I do feed with DT's phyto and he is flourishing. Both kinds of worms are in high flow areas, especially Mr. Magnifica. I believe the Spiro g's are getting some phyto also because I turn off the skimmer from 10pm-2am and feed between 10:45pm-11pm. I also feed a very small portion to the fish at 9am. I am running a fairly large refugium (55g) as well which I think helps. Any other Q's let me know.

Do you (or anyone) think I should be feeding the Christmas Tree worms directly with phyto? I don't want to put much in the tank because I got a nasty algae bloom because of it once. I use 1 tsp/night. I wonder if I fed them would they multiply...

[non-photosynt]

jnohs:
Thank you! Only tentacles are bent - it's quite indicative for a making a proper flow.
Mine usually had slightly less:

Will adjust.

If you don't mind, amount of food - teaspoon once a day (size of tank?), 2-3 cubes? I have to have some reference amount, you understand.
You see, NPS gorgonians can grow, but very few people are willing to talk about it and give a chance to all others try the same. Will appreciate this.

vdituri:
Thank you, and can you tell me more about kinds of sun corals? You see, I know about them by color (greenish-black T. micranthus, black T. diaphana, but all orange and yellow are always listed together - Tubastrea coccinea, T. faulkneri and T. aurea). I would like to know, how distinguish them, and what the difference is between usual orangeish sun coral with low skeleton and lemon-yellow sun coral with high skeleton - they are visibly different, no need in microscopical examination

My first, orange sun was acquired healthy, and continue to be so, good specimen for a start really helps. But recovery is still possible even in bad cases, where only the part of live tissue is remaining (it was on sun baby, not adult coral).
My second, yellow sun (T. aurea? guessing here), was like this in the first days:

Photo from Nov17,07.
This - Feb 02, 08 - 2.5 months later:


The only difference between orange and yellow was that yellow closed at first, when flow was off for a feeding, then adapted, and it had indigestion from the homemade blend, good for everyone else in the tank, including the orange sun. Had to feed pure Ocean Plankton, Mysis and chopped krill, shrimp and fish, no mixes.
It took one container feeding to make it open to feed, since then - in the tank twice a week feedings, 1 cube maybe - I'm mixing for all suns together.

Also always opens, time or not, when a pinch of dry Cyclop-eeze is dropped into the tank (90g)

framerguy:
Thank you! Gorgeous creatures. We have the same kind of Christmas tree rock. Only mine, that survived the toxic tank crash, bleached and regained color (all worms still alive) had the adult worms - crowns has ~6 rotations. Again, guessing about adult state, but seems logical.

Can I ask about intermittent skimming: how fast skimmer resumes making skimmate, hours or half of hour?

About feeding phyto - tried twice feed ESV dried phytoplankton to the tank, not corals, always get problem with water quality too. The good thing is, that it likely not necessary - mine lives on zooplankton for 1.5 yrs, no target feeding, the whole tank is fed. The worms, having 3/4" high crowns, are big enough to eat cyclop-eeze, in my understanding, but the for the small ones - other rocks - I'm giving ZoPlan (for you Golden Pearls or Roti-Feast could be more readily available), frozen rotifers, frozen baby brine sometimes, small particles, left after washing fish food.
My 2 cents

Keep it coming!

[framerguy]

Can I ask about intermittent skimming: how fast skimmer resumes making skimmate, hours or half of hour?

The skimmer start producing foam almost immediately upon restart.

[non-photosynt]

Good, thank you!

[Terri]

Ok don't laugh, i had trouble with my sun coral so i put it in a bowl on my lap , while watching tv I feed it with a baster keep spitting BBS at for a hr a night. after the 2nd night it came out and ate a lot .it,s now in the horse food dish half way up the tank it grabs mysis before the horse can get it. It eats 3 times a day and is getting big. i want to move it but it pouts when i've tried.

[non-photosynt]

I did the same in the first days for y sun too, only the food was much bigger - mysis and ocean plankton
It grows faster on a bigger amount of meaty food (1-2 per mouth).
Mine grows the soft tissue around the rock, and then grows skeleton - may be yours attached itself too. Theoretically, it could be teared away or undercut, but there is always chance of infection.

[JT101]

Non-Photosynt:

I would be more than happy to share with you my "chronicles" about my sun coral.

I have a single "head", about 35 polyps in all, that I got last summer. Initially, not knowing ANYTHING about sun corals, I didn't even feed it. It never opened, day or night. Then one day I learned about their tendency towards nocturnal feedings, so I took a SeaSquirt (which I consider ABSOLUTELY MANDATORY for keeping these things) and started to squirt a little defrosted Cyclop-Eez towards the closed polyps. I walked away. About 15 mins later I noticed all the polyps were fully opened! I came back and squirted a judicious over each polyp. Each time I did, I noticed that it would close all its tentacles over itself - it was finally feeding!

As time went on, I started to realize that cyclops alone would present a very one-sided diet, so I decided to supplement with mysis shrimp. Problem was: How to deliver the goods without polluting my entire tank? I decided to use a long plastic aquatic gardening tool that allowed me to individually place a shrimp into each polyp. Granted, this is a pain with fish constantly trying to steal everything you lower into the tank, but this kind of heavy feeding is something you only need to do once a week.

As far as light goes, I have an AP24 with the "measly" 64W PC's (I am planning on upgrading to a 144W kit from nanotuners.com) so in my situation it would be very difficult to provide TOO much light.

Today, this coral has sprouted about 8-9 new tiny little polyps all over the perimeter of the colony and I am considering fragging it.

It is a beautiful species of coral that, admittedly, demands a lot from the owner but it's a very colorful addition to a reef tank.

[JT101]

Originally Posted by jnohs

My black tubstra died a slow death. And my sun coral is still dying a very slow death with only 2 polyps still alive of about 20. I have put it in the sand a little under a rock, somewhat in the shade. The tank this coral is in is crawling with coupious amount of amphapods and copapods alike. And still is withering away. Much slower then orignally though. I tried target feeding but it is just to slow of an eater.The hermit crabs get the food from this thing. It is so slowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww. I do not understand how this thing survives in the wild.

I'm sorry about your black & sun corals. They are difficult to feed. You almost have to be "in the right place at the right time", in other words, catch them when they are open and feed them before they close. Case in point: One night the wife was out somewhere, so I was running around getting the twins ready for bed. I ran the bath for them and just before I was ready to put them in it, I ran downstairs just to check and noticed that the sun was fully open. OK, it had been a few days since I fed it and I knew that tonight was the night, so I said "No problem, they should still all be open and waiting when I get back". OK, give the boys a bath (they're 5), get them dressed and in bed, read them a quick story, lights out - didn't take too long. Wnet downstairs and - guess what? All the polyps were closed. I tried to coax them open anyway with a shot of Cyclop-Eez but no luck - had to wait until the next night!!

Anyway, sorry about that boring story, but the trick is to take any opportunity to feed them as much as you can without, of course, polluting your tank. This means if they happen to open up one evening soon after it's "lights out" in your tank, then you have to get right to it ASAP otherwise I think the polyps get a little "disappointed" and close up (I have been up at all hours of the night to go fishing and often check my tank while I'm on the way out - I have never seen ANY of my sun coral's polyps open in the middle of the night after they have closed earlier).

As far as polyp closing speed, I've not seen that to be an issue, even with mysis as soon as it touches the tentacles it seems to get "glued" to it and gets retracted into the polyp almost immediately. I think crabs in a tank are a problem, sorry to say that. I took all my hermits back to my LFS, they are simply too aggressive and don't give sessiles a chance.