Anybody keeps non-photosynthetic corals and will talk shop?

[non-photosynt]

Does anybody keep the non-photosynthetic corals or Christmas tree worms?
Looking for those, who don't hesitate to talk shop - how to make them grow, improve filtration, make life easier.
Photos of corals before and after, do you have actual growth, spawning, larvae settlement, new colonies growing.
Photos of setup, including pumps-power heads placement and the sump.

Will ask how-to questions, beware .
Silence in response will not be appreciated, as you can guess .

I know, somewhere a lot of fellow keepers, who is ready to help - respond please.

[mps9506]

Not a lot of people are keeping these succesfully other than "sun corals."
There is an excellent article in reefkeeping magazine about an aquarist successfully keeping dendronepthea.
Report on a Successful Husbandry Method for a General Azooxanthellate Reef System including Dendronephthya by Charles Matthews - Reefkeeping.com

[non-photosynt]

Thank you, but I'm looking for an actual keepers to ask the questions about the things, absent in this article.
Appreciate a good will to help, though.

[Terri]

I have the pseudopterogorgia (sea plume) i feed marine snow. I just ordered tree coral so i'll let you know hoe it goes.

[non-photosynt]

Thanks for the fast reply
Have this too, really plume like, feeds all day as well, but I was told, that they are photosynthetic, this links says the same: Part 3
The only problem - it's too big for my 90g tank .
Still looking for non-photosynthetic keepers

[lcstorc]

I've tried to keep a few but had no long term success.
Sorry

[Frankie]

Just Sun corals here. I have 4 colony's. I do very little with care for them. They are in good flow. I have had them over two years now.

[framerguy]

I have sun corals and they seem to be hanging in there. I feed them everyday but they don't seem to really THRIVE. I also have christmas tree worms growing on a Porites coral. They, also, have not seemed to thrive, BUT.. many of them did survive through my tank crash last February 07 and are still with me. They looked much better and were many more of them before that! Both of these corals are in high flow areas and both are under halide lighting...I'm not sure what you want to know.

[Frankie]

Greg, Try moving the suns into the shade. I bet they do better not being fried by the MH's UV.

[framerguy]

Originally Posted by Frankie

Greg, Try moving the suns into the shade. I bet they do better not being fried by the MH's UV.

I have no doubt they would and I have tried that, but I have to feed them from behind the aquarium since it is built into the wall, and when I put them in a cave or overhang I can't see them anymore to feed them and I finally moved them out so I could see them. My plan is,(and I should do it now) is to put them in a small tank (plumbed to the large system) all their own to give them exactly the kind of environment they need.

[non-photosynt]

lcstorc:
From what you remember, can you tell: what did you keep, what flow, food, amount and frequency of feeding, kind of filtration, what problems, how declined - for us to know, what to avoid and what pay attention to. Would appreciate this.

Frankie:
Good, that I found you. Are all 4 colonies of the same kind?

I have my orange one around 1.5 years, and it had overgrown its rock and is practically wrapping around. Part of polyps id facing down and can't be fed. Sorry, don't have a photo uploaded to Photobucket yet, but you cen see the bottom of colony at this page: Sun Coral, Tubastrea sp. down the page, bright red AquaGlove is noticeable.

Did your suns grow onto surrounding rock? Mine is on bare bottom, and I didn't notice this quite long. So far glued piece of the rock to keep colony lifted, may be should place colony on the rock to encrust it.

Did your spawn and larvae settled? If so, I will have much more questions

Did you met, by any chance, the information, which of the orange tubastreas is which - coccinea, faulkneri, aurea, and how to distinguish them visually. May be by septa pattern, if part of skeleton is visible.

Did your suns lost some intensity of coloration (coenosarc - body tissue, not tentacles)?
Mine was quite salmon-pinkish, but fade in a few months, despite of feeding by salmon and ocean plankton (pink), in addition to other food. One of the babies was kept in another tank, where it was fed mostly by dried Cyclop-eeze. It had more intense salmon-pink coloration, that other young colonies. In turn, only the young (1 yr+) colonies have the original pinkish shade, even on the same food, as a big coral.

Any ideas on restoring color of the big colony?

framerguy:
I was toying with the same idea of the smaller tank, plumbed to the big tank, but it will restrict access to the main tank, in my case. Now considering keeping it in a separate 10g tank, but have a problem with visualizing good looking tank with one big orange colony, one small yellow, high skeleton, and tens of baby colonies - placed compact, but accessible for a feeding and cleaning. Thank will be accessible from all sides, can't cover back wall by the rock.

It's strange, that your sun just hangs on. May be light, or flow - I'm sure you feed it well. I do that only twice a week, but have low light tank and coral is in relatively low flow.

Your Christmas Tree worms: I'm very interested. What kind do you have, how frequently do you feed it, amount and size of food. Anything, that you noticed, and what is worth to pay attention to.
I'm currently likely overfeeding, but have a scloronephthyas in the same tank, and they must be fed this way. But if I ever move scleros away, I would like to know, what feeding will be sufficient without compromising water quality.

Did your worms grow or reproduce? I mean the colorful ones, Spirobranchus.

I have a more, than one rock with worms, hopefully, they will have a choice for reproduction.
Mine are: common brown porites with large worms (crown is ~3/4" high), same kind, but very young worms (bought them, no reproduction in my tank), green porites with crowns of the same wine-red color, small (~1/2"H) colorful crowns on very fine beige/cocoa with milk color. And brownish with green centers of a new growth porites, but without worms, empty hole. Green pavona with drab-green worms.
If your porites are not brown, I will have more questions, if you don't mind.

My brown porites with large worms also survived toxic tank crash, that killed birdsnest and elkhorn. Bleached to the white, worms' crowns looked as a wet hens, but restored in ~3 months. Impressible. Any photos of yours? I can post mine - have a lot of them, but this is usually conversation stopper, for some reason.

Keep it coming.
Very interesting.

[Reef Goddess]

Frankie those are really nice sun corals!!


I don't really have any non-photosynthetic corals per se, but I do have a lot of tunicates that continue to spring up everywhere and my current flame scallops have been in my tank for 5 months or more. I had a flame scallop in my 180 for over 3 years until an anemone sat on it.

I think it helps a lot to have really established rock or something. I would say a sandbed but we didn't have one in the old tank or the newer tanks. I don't feed phyto, but I do feed lots of different frozen foods pretty frequently. I have had to cut back lately cause our nitrates had crept up to 50 (gasp!) but everything seems to be doing pretty well. I've always had luck keeping christmas worms, etc. Sun coral not so much because you have to be really diligent about feeding them, at least in the beginning. I do think a lot of the filter feeding creatures like good flow and shady spots.

Success with these kinds of corals is about starting with the smaller stuff and working your way up. It takes a lot of trial and error as well. Many people have told me I wouldn't be able to keep certain things that I've ended up having a lot of success in keeping.

[non-photosynt]

Really good - especially flame scallop.
If you don't mind: which kind of Christmas tree rock do you have? Did they reproduce or had grown, anything worth pay attention to. Feeding for them - just frozen food for all tank, how many times a day?

[Reef Goddess]

They are the red christmas tree worms that come in their own tubes not on porites. I find them locally, not as big as coco worms.
I also had a small christmas tree porites for a long time in the 180. I kept them under one of my returns and they did fine.

Just a large variety of frozen foods (daphnia, brine shrimp, mysis, minced krill, cyclopeez, etc) at least 2-3 times per day. Live phyto every few weeks is good too, I just don't do it anymore.

Definately wise to have a good skimmer, refugium, frequent water changes so you don't foul your tank with all the nutrients that these guys need.
Actually a lot of corals in general like good flow. I have a huge green toadstool leather thats literally right in front of my tunze, it never slimes over because it gets constant flow.

[lcstorc]

Well the only ones I have tried are sun corals and a gorgonian.
The suns I had a large piece of yellow and a very small orange piece. They yellow started declining fairly quickly but the orange was fine for a number of months and then finally started to go. I was feeding them mysis and cyclopeze and they were in my seahorse tank so they got quite a bit of mysis by accident as well. When they started to go I would notice more and more empty tube things where the polyps were just missing.
The gorgonian was the yellow with red spots and white polyps. We got this when the tank was very new and I didn't even know to target feed it. It was fine for about 5 months and then the tips started to turn red and were smaller than the rest. I later found out that the red parts were dead. If I broke off the red it would do fine for a while. If I left the red it declined quickly. I had a fairly large piece which gradually broke into smaller and smaller pieces. Gradually I have lost all but one small piece that is still hanging on. The decline of the gorgonian lasted about 2 years.
Hope that helps.
Forgot about flow. The suns were in low flow an low light in the seahorse tank.
The gorgonian was in medium flow on the bottom of the tank. First under PC lights and then under 150w MH. Lighting did not seem to make a difference one way or the other.