I'm In Love - My New Sun Coral

[jonboyb]

After finally gaining the courage to get a coral that requires special attention (ie. direct feeding) I lucked up and found this one. I gave up trying to count heads but it's well over 50. There's over a dozen babies all around. Total size about like a baseball when deflated. I was shocked at how quickly it opens up and doesn't even close when touched. It was almost full open in the bag while I was floating it. Beautiful in my little nook and I went ahead and fed it after acclimation which made it very happy.

Note the fat bellies on my 6-line and purple firefish after snacking at the Sun Coral buffet. I don't ever hardly see my scaredy-cat firefish but even he couldn't resist. Note the black spot in one photo....it's some kind of clam or mussel that opens and closes constantly but seems harmless to the Sun Coral. I haven't seen my cleaner shrimp more than 2 inches from it yet...LOL.

Sorry for all the "proud pappa pics" ... LOL The pics were taken over about an hour total and the final is 5 minutes after my lights went off.

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[hn1]

Gorgeous coral! I'd be nervous with the anemone so close though. I've been drooling over sun corals myself.

 

[jonboyb]

The nem isn't as close as it appears but I'm about to split/sell/trade the GBTA because it's just too big for my small tank (or just get a bigger tank:yes

 

[jonboyb]

This is my first reef tank as I had always only had fish only or FOWLR tanks and it's been extremely fun and suprisingly easy to transition to reef. I'm getting some truly amazing growth rates on most of my corals so it has been a much faster process than I expected. Some of my favorite corals like my Tyree Sunset Monti and chalice that I expected to take years to grow in have at least quadrupled in 6 months.

 

[kirru]

Gorgeous sun coral, love the BTA as well... I a waiting to hear back from JessPete for my sunny coral as well... i can't wait

 

[smoothie]

Nice!
I see your shrimp has already posted up close to steal food from it. Feed it at night and you will only need to squirt a little food in the shrimp's face and the rest on the sun coral. Everything else will be asleep and not compete

 

[jonboyb]

Yep, cleaner is a greedy little bugger. No joke, I've seen him diggin through my salad plate sized GBTA and the monster meat eating shroom in the bottom of one picture after it was completely balled up ingesting a meal. He's gonna turn up missing one day

They were all very interested when I put it in the tank because it had 2 cubes worth of PE Mysis hanging out of it's mouth(s) from the acclimation tub. I wanted to give it more time to "swallow" but the temps were falling in the tub.

 

[jesspete]

beautimous

 

[smoothie]

They'll keep eating. No worries there.
Have fun change it up. Mine eats anything frozen to flake to pellet. If you really want to see it cracked out and huge after a feeding give it a cube of squid.

 

[jonboyb]

BONUS!!!! The spot that I thought was a mussel is actually 2 beautiful deep red tunicates (or sea squirts or whatever they're called). There was also a baby electric blue hermit in the bag too so this purchase just keeps getting better

 

[hn1]

Congrats! I saw your pic on AA. Very cool.

 

[ralph atl]

very cool.

 

[bclark7169]

very nice I have one and it is doing good

 

[jonboyb]

You're in luck....no lights needed for this one Just regular feedings.