sun coral

[crawdad]

i got a sun coral.5 days ago.It wont open.Ive tried shooting brine shrimp then waitng and doing it again.NOTHING.Now I got some cyclopeeze and gave it a food bath this afternoon.Iknow it ate but it didnt open.Im gonna feed it again like that but does anyone have anymore suggestions.

And BTW my LFS guy dont sell them.I bought it from a differentr store,I went in today and told him what was going on and asked why he dont carry them.He saaid because they are hard to keep alive,kinda like they say Gorgonians will only live about 6 months or so in a tank.But opinions are like *******s....everyone has one.And in this hobby everyone seems to have a different take on things.

To the owners that posted there sun coral pictures.SWEET pics. I can only hope mine look like that when they finally openI will try to post a pic.i alittle bit

[dakar]

Dave, do you have some mechanism to view into your tank at night to see if they are opening at all then? (moonlights or a flashlight with a red lens work great).

BTW did you see them open at the LFS where you purchased them?

Best thing I can say at this point is keep at them. It's not uncommon for some coral to be unresponsive for extended periods of time after a move, even a move in the same tank. Ours have been doing quite well for well over a year now, conditions were not always optimal for them during this period, but they are pretty resilient.

[graphixx]

sun coral contrary to the name do not like to be in direct light, I would put them in a shaded spot in the tank, and they ususally only open in the night, the hard part is getting them to open in the day to feed them. And feeding them should occur every 2 to 3 days at least. Good luck , if you can get them to eat they are not tooo hard to take care of

[crawdad]

It wasnt open in the store.and i cant seem to get my pictures to work it says they are to big but i cant downsize them.it is under a ledge for the most part im trying to keep it out of direct light.It would be pretty hard to do thepop bottle feedingthing due to lack of space.I am watching it at all hours of the night also,Im pretty sure it hasnt opened.I just dont want it to die on me.I will just keep doing what im doing and hope its just taking its time adjusting to its new home.
Thanks for your input

[KG]

Graphix makes a good point. I'd try leaving the lights off if you can and see if that helps any. I have some and I can tell you they hate nitrates. You might want to check your level and see. Also, they are nocturnal, so you should wait until late at night and see if they open up. How did you acclimate them? If you didn't do the drip method, you might consider it next time. Good luck!
KG

[dakar]

Have you tried running your pics through the Image Resizer on the board to shrink them down to an acceptable size? There is a link on the Site Nav Bar.

[tigersax7]

In recentaly had a similar problem with my sun coral....just a little back ground we have recentaly move and after the move only about half the colony would open to eat...after about a week I decided to try some thing a little more drastic... as I have mentioned in other related posts a sun coral will eat even if only partialy exstended, but my problem like your is they wouldent even put out a sinlge tenticle... as a solution I tried feeding them by turning off the circulation in the tank and allowing the brine/mysis shrimp to settle in the cups if you can see their little mouths in the base of the cup they might be able to eat. It ispossible that stress/starvation has left your coral with not enough energy to exstendand eat thus you will need to make the food as accessible as possible. In addition you should be testing your water a few times a week to keepconditions optimalas mentioned it could be related to water conditions. Ether way you have a long hard battle ahead of you but dont give up sun corals are very rewarding andas darkar mentioned they should have no trouble in captivity as long as you feed them often aboutevery 2-3 days at a minimum, I prefer to feed the daily. Any howhope this helps and good luck.
tigersax7

[tigersax7]

I just thougth I would ask this...what did the cups of the coral look like at the LFS? because there is a simple way to tell if a sun coral is healthy by look at the cups...if they buldge out ward and look like a piece of dried fruit (for lak of a better discription) with a small depresion in the center they are pretty healthy ( or at least well fed). If the cups look sulken and have very sharp edges to them making them look like craters on the moon then this is abad sign showing that the coral is likly starved/stressed and probaly will die. As an after thought you could try taking a plastic coke botel (the smallest one you can find) cut it in half a place it over the coral so that it sealed in the substrate leaving the cap end open on top. then place a mixture of brine shrimp pulp and cyclops ez into the top using a siringe or turkey baister. Next add as many live brine shrimp as you can into the container and then seal the lid...reason being is that in a sealed containerfrozen brine would justsettle at the botom out of reach of the coral, with the live shrimp they would swim around for a while and hopefuly get cought by the coral.Then is the coral eats... great... if not simple siphon out the excess shrimpso as not to polute the tank. I have never tried any thing this drastic but if you cant coax them out or force feed them it may bethe last resort. Good luck and keep us posted.
tigersax7

[crawdad]

if its possible for these things to lose there tenicles i think mine has.for about 3 hours last night in the darkness.It looked as though each polyp was pushed out as far as it could ,it looked as if they were just gonna bust open any second ,but it never did.1 polyp had about 5 fingers sticking out and couple more had 1 or 2.Big let down,i stayed up late watching and waiting but only another let down.If it doesnt change soon i will make room so i can do the bottle method.

Thanks for all your help
BTW the cups are soft,not hard ridges and all the cups were pushed out today I will be able to post a pic.That is it on my avitar pic,but hard to see anything

[harmanrk]

Dave,
It looks like you my have something there. Here is a picture of my sun coral:
As (http://www.captivereefing.com/album_showpage.php?pic_id=644#ed_op#/A#ed_cl#,#ed_op#/DIV#ed_cl##ed_op#DIV#ed_cl##ed_op#/DIV#ed_cl##ed_op#DIV#ed_cl#As) you notice, that you can see the feelers around each polyp. There is a large polyp just to the right of center, that is a good example of how mine look CLOSED, and you can clearly see the yellow feelers.
If yours will not re-grow the feelers, it may be doomed. I would suggest the bottle feeding method, since without the feelers, it has no chance of holding onto food.
Robert

[crawdad]

ok i can stop my worries

http://www.captivereefing.com/richedit/upload/2k7c147750ef.jpg

it opening

[dakar]

Awwww loookey there :)

[Reef_Angel]

Congrats on your patience, persistence, and sharing your problem with the rest of the board! That's great news, and one heck of a save on your beautiful colony of Sun Coral you have there!! It looks very healthy, so I'm betting on the fact that it just was taking it's time to get acclimated. You've done great with it, and you'll enjoy and amaze you with it's beauty as it grows. Mine is going through some stress right now, but each day they are looking a little better. I found some zoanthid frags that were actually being taken over by the coraline, which prompted me to check many of my corals including my Sun Polyps. It had coraline built up all around the body of each polyp, right up to the head. They still bloomed beautifully and always came out for feedings, but they would have been choked out by the coraline eventually. I spent a couple days gently chipping away the coraline with the tip of a tiny bladed pair of sewing scissor so as not to stress it. Ever since then, I'm now starting to see new baby sunny faces growing in some of the wider spaces that were full of coraline, and some right next to the bases of some of the polyps! Mine really seem to love the brine shrimp. If you have any fish in your tank that like to steal the shrimp right out of the sun coral's mouth, that is a problem. In that case, I use a deep cup or cereal bowl, put brine shrimp and tank water in it, and let it eat undisturbed by others in the tank. When I see it open in the darkness, I find it an excellent time to give it cyclopeeze. After all, they extend so beautifully to night time feed! This helps bring them around as well.

I have a question about these myself though! :) Has anyone ever fragged a Sun Coral. It looks possible, but before I touch mine, I'd like to hear some frag experience on these. When I purchased mine in the first place, I noticed that someone had actually "wired" individual polyps to this rock that I have. It seemed odd, especially since you shouldn't be using metal in or around your tank & corals.
I'd appreciate some input on this. I had to have them when I saw them though, so I accepted them wired down and all. I wouldn't mind having several pieces of Sun Coral in my tank. I'd like to get some black & also the vibrant pink ones as well, but I can't seem to find them anywhere to purchase. I had the pink ones on an extra piece attiached by wire to the my regular yellow. That was a long time ago now, and every now and then a yellow one will attempt to grow there, go to that added piece and attenpt to save it. That piece is coated completely with coraline. Thanks for any help someone can give me! :angel7: