bangooface

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Hi, I recently bought tube coral (blak sun coral??) from a local store a week ago but it never opens up. Any suggestion? My water should be pretty good, I also have a sun coral which opens up every day. Thanx
 

tunicata

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hm, I just bought a black sun coral also. I saw it open fully once.
I read that they don't like light so I waited until 9pm so only my room light would be a bother. Then ran to the tank and saw it opened just before they went back in.

Its going to be tricky feeding this critter...

Also, before I forget...maybe 40mins before I went into the room, I sprayed some mysis juice around in the tank about 2 mins before turning off the flow.
Just to make sure it understood me...
 

Timbo

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I have one and it opens every day, usually once food is introduced to the tank. Mine does just fine catching all the food it needs. When it opens up I would make sure to spot feed it if there isn't enough food getting to it. Mine will eat anything that goes into the tank.
 
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Just spray it with some cyclops, selcon or mysis juice (as tunicata has done) everyday to get it to open. Try doing this everday till the polyps start to come out. As they come out feed them mysis shrimp. I feed mine mysis, formula one flakes, cyclops (flakes and frozen), diced shrimp/squid. Give it a few weeks and it'll open up alot during the night and you can even train it to open during the day. Any pics? O and keep moderate flow on it also.
 

tunicata

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just fed mine!!
I fed everyone else some flake cyclopleeze, and then came back maybe 20mins later and it was out. Still hard to feed everyone. I gave them a chance though.

I'd prefer to be able to seeeeee them though.
Oh, for light sensitivity I looked at them with the lamp I have for my snake.
In labs we use red light for aquaria critters because they can't see it :)
yay
 

KathyC

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Barnum Island
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These corals can easily be trained to come out during the day and have no issue with light (mine out out there under 2 x250w MH's). In the wild they often live under overhangs at the entrance to caves, not because they enjoy the dark but instead because water tends to flow briskly through these areas and that makes them a prime location to capture food.

If you want to train your coral to open during the day you need to be consistent about what time you are feeding it each day.
The coral will catch on in a short time.
..and btw, even with mine opening during the day, they also do open up at night.

You only need put a small amount of food into the tank about 10 minutes before you want to feed while training. I used cyclopeeze. Not so sure about using mysis 'juice' since that has a unwanted pollutents in it...
I also spot feed each head daily with my baster filled with mysis and have had much success with them mulitplying.

Just a suggestion - if you are turning off any pumps to feed them (I don't)..make use of an egg timer so that you remember to turn your pumps back on!!
Some folks have problems with their other fish & shrimp stealing the food from their sun corals..my Purple Tangs favorite entertainment. You can cut the top 4 or 5 inches off a plastic soda bottle & hot glue a few marbles on the outside to weigh it down, and pop that over the sun corals until they are finished eating.
 

tunicata

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wow, that's a lot of polyps.

Oh, when I say Mysis juice, I have pre-soaked and rinsed them of the liquids that come with the packaging, by washing them and siphoning all water out.
I then do a wash in some saltwater from the tank. Do the rinse and siphon one more time. Then finally put the mysis in a cup and add tank water.
That's the final version of the mysis juice im talking about.
Not a cup full of the liquid the mysis comes in.

oOOH, Consistency...that's hard.
:)
 

rebar

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I put mine, which i bought a couple of weeks ago, and wasn't eating, in a small 1 gallon tank and filled it with food. it then really starteed to open up. after a few days of doing this, it opened up more and more. It's almot opening up fully. the advantage of this is that you can dump the water after and not worry about introducing too much nitrates.
 
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I put mine, which i bought a couple of weeks ago, and wasn't eating, in a small 1 gallon tank and filled it with food. it then really starteed to open up. after a few days of doing this, it opened up more and more. It's almot opening up fully. the advantage of this is that you can dump the water after and not worry about introducing too much nitrates.

I use to do that when I first got my suncorals because alot of them aren't in the best shape. Only problem is hassle of taking them out and the acclimating them back once they are done eating. Its the best way to ensure that they eat and the shrimp/fish dont take all the food.
 

tunicata

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I just fed them again. I need to get them used to my hand being around them.
My dendros and every other lps I feed lets me HAND FEED them the cyclo, and I syringe feed mysis. My dendros are right next to the sun polyps and have no qualms...and I recieved them the same day.
Hopefully they loose their shyness.
 
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I just fed them again. I need to get them used to my hand being around them.
My dendros and every other lps I feed lets me HAND FEED them the cyclo, and I syringe feed mysis. My dendros are right next to the sun polyps and have no qualms...and I recieved them the same day.
Hopefully they loose their shyness.

Hey Tunicata Post some pics of ya suncorals and dendros, I know this isnt the post/thread for it but I know they have one for both types of corals. I wouldnt mind seeing them.

Bangooface can't wait to see your suncorals :)
 

Mario

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Just spray it with some cyclops, selcon or mysis juice (as tunicata has done) everyday to get it to open. Try doing this everday till the polyps start to come out. As they come out feed them mysis shrimp. I feed mine mysis, formula one flakes, cyclops (flakes and frozen), diced shrimp/squid. Give it a few weeks and it'll open up alot during the night and you can even train it to open during the day. Any pics? O and keep moderate flow on it also.

Hello. Where does one get cyclopese or the Liquid Life+cyclops? I have heard good things about the product. The Website for the company nor the phone number is out of service?
http://.liquidlifeusa.com
 

BrooklynsReefMan1

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.
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Dont worry i have ap and it wont open for 36 hours after a water change but after those 36 its fully out and it looks nice!! good luck maybe list your lighitng
 

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