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  #51  
Old 02/08/2007, 10:35 PM
dendro982 dendro982 is offline
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The first days sun coral was in Nano-cube 6:

For a feeding I removed it in a separate container, 1g water bottle's bottom:

It took around 40 min each time, water cooled quickly, and I had to place this container in the bigger container with warm water, and add it, as it cooled. Too much troubles.

In a few days set separate pico tank, something around 1 g, with 50W heater and Red Sea HOB Nano-filter:

Set near Nano-cube, on a TV dinner table.
Coral was fed with flow on:

Then all water was changed.
Also very tiresome.

Then, when patience ended, moved sun into big 90g FOWLR tank with not reef-safe fish. Tank has oversized skimmer, micron sock, canister filter and refugium for water cleaning, anyway. Easier, but tank is deep, inconvenient to reach for a feeding with turkey baster.
Water has nitrates and some phosphates, microalgae started to grow between colonies.
Everything has own pluses and minuses.

Still looking for an easier way.
  #52  
Old 02/09/2007, 02:42 PM
NanoCube-boy NanoCube-boy is offline
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Yea, it is tiresome when involving taking a coral out and feeding it. Too much hassel. I tried taking my coral out placing in a bucket, but it never open. I'm not sure why it doesn't want to open, even if I feed them some food juice. I waited over one hour and I say forget it. If it does feed like this, I'm just going target feed them. The only problem about target feeding is that other livestock steals food from it and nothing really I can do. So iono... I just feed it, but doesn't show any progress of growing or reproducing.

Well my corals barely reproduce. It's always been the same for long time. Several month, it looks a little more eccept the Sun Coral, it's always the same.
  #53  
Old 02/10/2007, 05:51 AM
dendro982 dendro982 is offline
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You may try this:

Depending on the size of coral, it could be top of 2L coca bottle or even smaller. I used turkey baster to put food into the hut, and to make some food rotation there.

Why coral didn't opened when removed from the tank:
mine didn't opened under bright kitchen counter lights - 200W halogens, but after shading the vessel by newspaper - better. And you may try to make some flow in the bowl periodically - by baster.
BTW, it worked better right after purchase, a couple of months ago I tried to remove it for a more intense feeding - it reacted bad on handling and removing, almost not opened for a feeding, so I just left this idea.
  #54  
Old 02/10/2007, 07:42 AM
Aliie Aliie is offline
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I've been following this thread and this idea rerally seems to be the best I have seen on how to target feed.

Is this going to be a semi permanante fixture until it gets established? Or is this just for a short acclimation period?
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  #55  
Old 02/11/2007, 07:18 AM
dendro982 dendro982 is offline
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New portion of spawns - these are the smallest I could find:

The smallest is below, ~1mm or 1/16". Cutting board's dots and a small hermit - for a size comparison.

Feeding, using top of the coca bottle, is a very common way to feed the sun coral. Tried to find links - plenty of them, seems that they are on another computer. You can get them easily by general web search on feeding sun coral, plus bottle or syringe.

The top of the bottle is placed over sun coral colony only for a time of feeding, then removed. It keeps food around polyps, some will drop on the bottom, make the float again and they will be catched by polyps.

Some screw on the bottle lid (stopper?), some have air tubing inserted into the drilled lid and use syringe to inject food inside.

If I remember right, mcox33 says somewhere in this long thread, mentioning many non-photosynthetic corals, http://archive.reefcentral.com/forum...hreadid=524097 , says that unused excess of food can be syphoned out before removing the cut bottle.

Other way is use the syringe with rigid airline tubing attached - it allows to go deep inside the tank, adding a short piece of curved vinyl air tubing allows feed polyps at the bottom of the colony. There is photo on the web somewhere - can't find it fast, sorry.

The simplest is to use the turkey baster, if feeding Ocean Plankton ((it's larger than mysis), or use the very long Kent "Sea Squirt" pipette, only it has too small opening for fine food, it can be replaced by cut plastic pipette from test kit (Nutrafin in my case):

But smaller sized baster or pipette or syringe is better, when you have to reach the bottom-facing polyps.
  #56  
Old 02/11/2007, 10:56 AM
"Umm, fish?" "Umm, fish?" is offline
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I've starting using airline tubing attached with an air hose to a basting syringe. It's working really well so far, I don't have to put my hands in the tank anymore, and the tubing fouls much less often than the Kent baster that I was using. Plus there's less resistence to the current, so I don't have to fight as much to keep it where I want it.
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  #57  
Old 02/24/2007, 02:38 PM
NanoCube-boy NanoCube-boy is offline
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I tried coco bottle method and when I feed it, the sand starts to spit up to the polyp. Also sometime, the food just float to the floor and the hole is hard to minuver to feed directly to the polyps.
  #58  
Old 02/24/2007, 04:15 PM
PONCHDOG2000 PONCHDOG2000 is offline
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i have had mine for about a month. it had three heads. i feed mine almost every day. i take it out of my tank and put it in a cup with my tank water and feed it mysis. about half a cube. it works pretty well.this way i don't have to worry about too much bio load in the tank. i tried feeding it in my tank and the other critters would go nutts. they would attack the sun coral and even pick the food right out of them. so i always make sure that it has completely "swallowed" its food before i put it in because my shrimp will take the food right out of them. so, in one month i have had two baby heads sprout on the frag of tree original heads. five total now. just some of my experience. good luck.
  #59  
Old 02/25/2007, 07:14 AM
dendro982 dendro982 is offline
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Quote:
Originally posted by NanoCube-boy
I tried coco bottle method and when I feed it, the sand starts to spit up to the polyp. Also sometime, the food just float to the floor and the hole is hard to minuver to feed directly to the polyps.
Mmmm, my tanks is bare bottom...

I placed top of the bottle over the coral, used turkey baster to squirt food inside, and, when some settles onto the bottom, place baster into the bottle neck and squirt few times, aiming along the wall downward - the food starts moving in circles, from the bottom (feeding the bottom polyps) to the top. Few times, until all is eaten.

When I searched for a "sun coral feeding" at the beginning, some people siphoned the food leftovers out from the bottle top.

The other thing is a making a curved pipette for a feeding the side and bottom polyps: the rigid acrylic tubing from LFS, next size after the smallest, and the rubber sphere from dollar store, baby department, nasal cleaner (or something like that) - the short version of the turkey baster. The end of the tubing can be filled with the sand, heated over flame and curved at 90 degree, wide radius, or the food will stuck inside. Then cut to the necessary length, and attach the squeezing part.

Works just like the baster, for a feeding from the sides. Tried, it works. If push too hard - food will flow sideway from the coral. The middle part of the bottle can be used to limit this, and the wide top allows to insert the DIY curved baster.

It's a lot of frustration, until you will find the acceptable way to do that. My sympathy - was on your shoes too.
  #60  
Old 02/26/2007, 12:42 AM
NanoCube-boy NanoCube-boy is offline
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yea, thanks for your tip... It's sound like a lot of work for siphoning or runing tubing just to feed it. That's really an hassel. I think I'll just stick with the regular feeding directly to the polyps. I doesn't reallt matter if the other steals it. Too much hassel.
  #61  
Old 02/26/2007, 10:39 AM
dendro982 dendro982 is offline
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Agreed.
  #62  
Old 02/26/2007, 10:47 PM
sammyp sammyp is offline
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I just got some of this coral. I bought a small frag of 4 or 5 heads. I was going to try to feed it tiny bits of freeze dried plankton or krill that have been soaking in a glass in tank water. i have a glass pipette and some long foreceps that i can use for feeding it. I was told at the store to put it in the shade but after reading this thread (and thinking about how it was sitting right there under the halides in thier frag tank) i moved it to a good spot where i can easily spot feed and it gets plenty of flow.
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  #63  
Old 02/26/2007, 11:20 PM
dendro982 dendro982 is offline
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Just as another option - the frozen food: from LFS or a grocery store, all my tanks inhabitants prefer this, and my SFB dried plankton, even soaked, floats at the top, what is inconvenient.
The grocery seafood should be, as you already know, without salt or preservatives.
I'm not an expert, though, just stepped on the all proverbial racks and received all possible bumps on the head
You will see by behavior of your coral, what is acceptable for it.
Best of luck!
  #64  
Old 02/26/2007, 11:50 PM
sammyp sammyp is offline
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well all right then... i'll get some frozen stuff. thanks.
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There he goes. Too weird to live, and too rare to die. Just another freak, in the freak kingdom.
Humans are just smart monkeys.
If you think about it, the earth is just a big piece of live rock.
  #65  
Old 02/27/2007, 12:45 PM
NanoCube-boy NanoCube-boy is offline
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SammyP,
Welcome to my thread and wish this thread helps you on tips and tricks about SC. Yea don't worry about placing your SC direct to light or not. Most Sun Corals, like mine open up during lighting period off. For placing SC? It's best in the middle of the tank or at the botton. I would recommend right on the top because direct exposer to light can harm tissues. THATS WHAT I HEARD. Yes, you should place where SC can get in contact with the flow for feeding and sensing food. It likes that.

dendro982,
I agreed with you on human frozen food from super markets. They have a lot of salt and preservatives that may harm corals. I THINK you might want to try Organic frozen seafood from Trader Joes or whole food. I'm sure those can be okay. Right? IT'S ORGANIC!
  #66  
Old 02/27/2007, 12:56 PM
"Umm, fish?" "Umm, fish?" is offline
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The only good reason I've heard for shading tubastrea is that it helps to keep algae from growing in between the polyps. I just had to pull my colony out of the tank to scrape bubble algae off.
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  #67  
Old 02/27/2007, 07:27 PM
sammyp sammyp is offline
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really? i figured they say to put it in shade because the books say that in nature it grows in shady areas or in the entrances to caves. Right now mine is right up top but i dont have halides so i dont think it'll be an issue.

Nanocubeboy: thanks its already helped out alot. i dont mean to jack your thread but the lfs didnt have any frozen food small enough for SC so the guy sold me on this stuff called 'sweetwater zooplankton' It came in liquid, in a small jar like for babyfood. Will this be acceptable?
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There he goes. Too weird to live, and too rare to die. Just another freak, in the freak kingdom.
Humans are just smart monkeys.
If you think about it, the earth is just a big piece of live rock.
  #68  
Old 02/28/2007, 10:52 AM
dendro982 dendro982 is offline
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Light and tubastrea - mine refused to open under 200W halogen lamps over kitchen counter, when I tried to feed it first time, in a separate container. After shading by newspaper - opened.

"Sweetwater zooplankton" should be daphnia, better to use saltwater origin food. The LFS should have the big refrigerator with the frozen cubes - mysis or ocean plankton (the last is bigger) should be good. $5 for 30 cubes - just thaw some in a saltwater.

The grocery food - just read the ingredients, no cooked, salted or with preservatives. Asian stores may have a lot of it. What I meant - do the search on reef food recipe, it will show you articles, like Adam Blundell's: http://www.wetwebmedia.com/ca/cav1i3...ive_Recipe.htm , or farmerTodd's using the frozen food, scroll down to Feeding time: http://www.farmertodd.com/presentation/default.htm , and Melev's Reef - feeding mysis to the sun coral: http://www.melevsreef.com/pics/0604/suncoral.html .
 

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