Sun Polyp feeding schedules?

[!wrass!]

I had always wanted to have Sun Polyps in my tank. I could not resist a mixed orange and black rock at the LFS. They are happy and eating well, but I am getting tired from the lack of sleep feeding them at night. They were too big to fit in the cave I had planed for them, so they are in a very shaded area of the tank.

Now for the questions...Can you train them to feed during the "day"? If not, I will have to alter by photoperiod. It is well worth in to have these corals flourish in my tank, but would prefer to leave the timers as they are.

What are the real world feeding requirements? I am prepared to feed as often as I have to but does every polyp have to be feed every day, as all the “specs” say. I have heard with other corals that if one eats they all benefit. Is this true?

[dendro982]

I didn't find any hard evidence in support of the necessity of feeding the each polyps, but prefer not to risk.
My schedule is feeding it twice a week, after it opens after the fish feeding.
Others said to squirt the frozen food juices on the colony, and it should open within 15 min, then feed. And that the feeding in the same time of the day will train them to open before this.

[2crazyreefers]

I just put cyclopeeze in the tank and everyones happy.

[zoozimmy]

wow

[trae]

My tubestrae is fed with a turkey baster three-four times a week. I have had it for 3 mnths and already there is a baby on the far side of the tank. in the wild these have to produce mucus and capture whatever floats by. so just dust it with two cubes and it will flourish. You can also glue it to another rock so you can position it wherever.

[jaynel78]

i trained mine by squirting mysis water (from the cube) into the tank the same time everyday...the second day it came out and remained on a schedule for two months until i missed 3 days of feeding it...now it will only feed once the actinics go off which is 11:30, so i miss sleep to lol

[45commando]

I take my colony out of the tank to feed it-but that is because I have a bunch of shrimp/wrasses,that pull the food right out of the polyps.I only feed the colony about once a week,but the polyps open anytime that I feed the fish.The colony is placed in full light,with high flow & has polyps out for most of the day.I have it located so that I can easily remove it for feeding.[IMG][/IMG]

[aerie]

It should not be a big problem teaching the corals to be open in the day, I usually just put some filterfeeding food(like Fauna marine Ultraclam or some phyto) and then 10minutes later the polyps are somewhat out and I can feed them. When they have begun to feed, usually every polyp opens up on all 3 colonies.

IME the polyps only have to be feed individually if the flesh has disintergrated between them( which has been the case for all my colonies, being in bad shape when I got them). However, if you feed them every other night for 2-3 times(just let them swallow and open again, then feed again) they will start to reproduce, sprouting new heads and spreading out over the stone, connecting to eachother.
So far I have not got any to shoot out polyps, I figure they will need more food for that.
BTW, I feed mine frozen Golden gate artemia.

[ATJ]

Corals don't have brains and so can't be trained to do anything, as such. They do have a preprogramed reaction to stimuli which you can use to your advantage.

For Tubastraea (and many other corals) high flow tends to stimulate extension of tentacles. Tomascik et al. (1997) report wild colonies of T. micranta being fully expanded in areas of high flow (greater than one metre per second). It is not something that I have seen (and I have seen many colonies on dives), but most of my dives have been in relatively calm water. I do have a colony in one of my tanks that is frequently expanded while the lights are on, but it gets high flow (it is at the intersection of two powerheads) which tends to support the observations of Tomascik et al. 45commando's observations are also consistent.

I think the main reason that corals such as Tubastraea don't expand more often in tanks is they don't get enough flow or they are starving (or both).

Tubastraea (and other asymbiotic corals) get ALL their energy from food. If they don't get enough food they won't have a lot of energy. Tentacle extension requires energy and so if energy levels are low, they are not going to waste energy at times when prey capture may be less likely. As their tends to be more prey items present at night than during the day, a starved coral is more likely not to expand during the day. A well fed coral will have plenty of energy and so may expand at other times of day in attempt to capture even more food.

I think the main reason people see their colonies expand when being fed at the same time each day is less about the coral "learning" and more about a coral having enough energy to expand more often, and also the stimulus of flow.