Added Carnation Coral

[hdfisher]

I added a nice piece of carnation coral to my 120g tank yesterday and it opened up nicely overnight. I added some phytoplankton today and a portion of the coral closed down some.........Most of what I've read about it says that it is somewhat difficult to keep. Any tips or tricks out there?

 

[linda lee]

Check this thread posted back in July:

http://atlantareefclub.org/forums/showthread.php?t=6333">Tree Coral / Carnation</a>

Jin (FutureInterest) has one and I got to see it in his tank. His looks beautiful. Jin is a knowledgeable reefer who could probably offer you some excellent advice

Good luck and keep us posted on how yours does!

 

[FutureInterest]

Thanks Linda. Now I feel obligated to chime in!

They do indeed need to eat to live as they have no photosynthetic ability. I target feed by putting half a water bottle over it and pumping some phyto into the bottle. It allows the carnation to get heavily saturated without having to pollute your whole tank. I do that may be 2 or 3 times a week, and once every 2 weeks I do the same thing with reefchilli as I target feed my other corals. I've had it for many months now, and it has grown only slightly. Which tells me I should prolly be feeding it a lot more .

 

[hdfisher]

Jin - Thanks for the tips. The coral seems to be doing pretty good. It opens and closes several times a day. I have been feeding it every 2-3 days using a turkey baster, but it seems that most of the pyhto ends up in the protien skimmer........I'm going to try the coke bottle method in the next couple of days to see how that works. Bernie

 

[hdfisher]

Sad to say, but I think that the carnation has passed on...it closed up last week and has not shown any signs of life since then - 5-6 days so far........Oh well........It was such a nice piece.......