show me your sun coral

[nashorn]

I know this is hard to keep long term so let's see what you have?

[kookerson]

its been a roller coaster with these guys, but they are worth it! Ive had them since june and the four polyps on the bottom left werent there when I bought it.......... : )

[Caleb Kruse]

Here's mine

[pscheel]

Here are mine just before lights out. Polyps are just coming out.

[edandsandy]

Here's ours!

[Qckwzrd]

Nice suncorals guys! I'll try and post my suncorals later tonight. Edandsandy is that a Scroll coral as your avatar with a blenny in it? lol pretty cool

[Qckwzrd]

Here is a frag from one of my colonies

my whites

colony, the red is from the christmas tree lights

[Qckwzrd]

yellow and orange suncoral on a "hammer oyster"

[otiso777]

Wow! Those are amazing!

[dendro982]

I would not say hard to keep - it just takes twice a week manual feeding (very small colony can be fed accurately by tweezers), cleaning and a good filtration and skimming - for a dissolved organics and a small particles.
Pretty hardy, IMHE - I wish, that the red mushrooms, xenia and neon green candycane could stand the same (they actually stood, in the same tank, but not so good).

Since end of April 2006, was:

is:

Just for fun, the red is chili coral, the yellow - sun coral (since Aug 06):


New, yellow sun:


Does anybody know who is who between tubastreas - is the high skeleton yellow T. aurea and the low skeleton orange - T. faulkneri or not? Any links to differential ID?

[kay-bee19]

Here's mine (orange and black types):

[Qckwzrd]

Nice guys. I turn my fuge off and drop food in the tank. My powerheads and koralia pump makes sure all my babies eat. What's left between rocks and on the sand my great clean up crew takes care of. Bristleworms, pods, nassarius snails, cucumber, hermits and my fish.

[fishyfishy23]

Forget sun corals. Dendros are so much better they're out all day all night!!

[Qckwzrd]

I have Dendros, they are nice. Suncorals you can get in colonies, try getting a dendro colony lol. I have a dendro colony that was 12 heads its about 16-20 heads now but I love my suncoral colonies.

[dendro982]

Anything about red sun corals? I had seen some photos and mentions of them.
Are they dyed or not?

[ReneX]

Here are the two sun corals I purchased back in October. One of them was purchased as a "red" sun coral. It was from Aquatic Collection and looked pretty much identical to their photo at the time I got it.



Boring speculation on "red" sun corals...

It had a bright pink/red coenosarc and brilliant reddish orange polyps. It has faded gradually to what you see today. I have my doubts about any tubastrea being dyed. Typically, it's done to zoxanthellate corals that are bleached (forced to expell their symbiotic algae) and become pale or white in color. Tubastrea's color is not based on zoxanthellae--they don't have any--and I have never heard of them bleaching. So I'm not sure how one would go about dyeing a coral that is already so intensely colored.

I'm wondering if in "red" sun corals that fade over time, the culprit is diet. I expect they get a much more diverse diet in the wild, probably with a lot of crustaceans that have been eating phytoplankton. Phytoplankton are high in carotenoids, a set of pigments made by plants but responsible for bright colors in animals.

Carotenoids are responsible for red, yellow, orange, pink, and brown colors, so I wonder if diet isn't the reason a lot of sun corals change color after a few months in captivity. They exhaust what's stored in their tissues and when they don't get any more, the colors change. Since we feed meaty items, they probably aren't getting the same amount of carotenoids they get in the wild. This is one reason that the colors in some marine fish (firefish, some dottybacks, others) will fade if they don't get a good mixed diet in captivity. Maybe the same thing is happening in tubastrea.

That's my guess about what's going on with red sun coral, anyway. I'm going to hit the fish store and buy some meaty foods that are rich in carotenoids and start feeding them to see what happens. So far I've been feeding them mysis and I just added some krill to their diet. Krill sometimes have some carotenoids in them, but not nearly as much as some other foods I think. Cyclopeeze is supposed to be really high in some of the carotenoids, and there are several specially made foods to color enhance fish that would probably work. I'll see what I can find.

What specific items do you all feed your sun corals? If you have had them for a while, have you noticed any shift in color?

End rant...

Anyway, other than the color change, it looks healthy It's grown two baby polyps since I got it and recovered from a lot of tissue recession.



And here's the black one, which is possibly T. diaphana. I also got it as four polyps and it's grown five new ones in two months! Wow!

I love my sun corals. I get a huge kick out of feeding them.

[dendro982]

Thank you! Will keep my eye for them in LFS - may be some day they will have it.

My plain orange sun coral become more pale with time, and it is fed by mysis, pink bigger ocean plankton, grocery shrimp and red salmon.

I tried cyclop-eeze diet for more, than year - no mysis or other big food, for the babies around the chili coral (on the photo above). The color is more natural, pinkish-orange. Don't have uploaded photo yet.
It works, but feeding pigmented food (or additives) in significant amounts will increase cost of feeding drastically. Here the Cyclop-eeze is the most affordable, still, it bites. Anything better to try?

[ReneX]

Thanks Dendro, that's what I was hoping to hear!

I picked up some ocean plankton and cyclopeeze. I know cyclopeeze is really good, I'm going to try to get the flakes too so I can feed it to bigger polyps without so much waste.

I haven't gotten anything else yet to try. I'm going to look into pelleted food for fish and see if anything looks good. And yes, foods with high natural pigment concent are usually more expensive. But if I can feed them to that one colony and get it back to the colors I purchased it with, I will be happy with that.

[Qckwzrd]

Great infor guys. I feed my corals and fish mysis, plankton, cyclopeeze, squid, formula 1 flakes and diced shrimp from the fish market. I don't think there is a red suncoral. No one I've ever spoken to has had one stay red for a long period of time. Renex the red suncoral you had have your ever touched the skeleton and the color came off? How long did it take to change from red? Anyone know why the black suncoral color comes off when you touch it but the others don't?

[Kreeger1]

[xroads]

Ive had a sun for about 2 months now. It nver fully opens, even at night. SOmetimes it swells alot and seems to open little slit mouths, but never opens it tenticles. I even drench it at cyclopeeze.

Any suggestions

[ReneX]

Originally posted by Qckwzrd

I don't think there is a red suncoral. No one I've ever spoken to has had one stay red for a long period of time. Renex the red suncoral you had have your ever touched the skeleton and the color came off? How long did it take to change from red?

Yeah, the jury still is out on if there is such thing as a red sun coral! Even if I can't get mine "red" again, I'm happy with the deep peachy pink color it is Qckwzrd, mine took about a month before I couldn't really call it red anymore, just deep pink. The whole thing just gradually got lighter and lighter. I did touch it by accident when I was still putting it in a feeding bowl to feed, and the red color never came off on my hands, though I did puncture the tissue and the skeleton showed I did the same thing to my black sun coral, and have never seen the color come off.

Kreeger, wow, you have T. micrantha. How's that doing for you? They're supposed to be the hardest of the tubastrea to keep.

[Carbone]

here is mine http://youtube.com/watch?v=3olFsgxmoOI

[ReneX]

xroads I am far from an expert, but what's the flow like that you have it in? They need/like significant flow. Neither of mine opened fully until I put them 6" under a 100gph water flow source, almost directly in the current.

Carbone, very nice! I love how those polyps are moving around in the flow.

[Qckwzrd]

Carbone sweet video

All nice looking suncorals guys, keep'em coming