Sun Coral question

jp30338

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I was rearranging the rocks in the dt today, and accidently scraped one of the heads of the skeleton on the sun coral and damaged it. Does anyone know if it will be ok, will it grow back?
 
If there is some flesh around the mouth, you should be "ok". Just keep feeding it. And you can feed them whatever you want. They will eat pretty much you toss it's way. Best time to feed is at night when their sweepers are out.
 
I just got mine yesterday(thanks Adam), it opened up with the lights on a few hours after I got it, so I spot fed it mysis, and each head ate some.
 
Even if it does die another head will take it's place with proper feeding
 
I moved mine into a "cave", I read that like darker areas, and it has some of its sweepers out, so I just fed it.
 
ry57speedybird;385676 wrote: I was told they prefer shade over direct light. Whats the offical forum answer? I always thought more light always = better.

by sweepers do you mean the heads open or have I not seen them in full glory yet?

This coral actually doesn't require light. If it is in light, the lower the better. This guy primarily relies on what it can eat. So make sure each polyp is fed, they act as individuals.
 
Put it in as much shade as you can, and feed every night when the lights are out. If you do that, it'll regrow and start growing little babies all over.
 
I have mine slightly shaded but he's happy anywhere I've found. I also have it trained to open when the halide goes off but my actinics are still on. The one in the picture is going to take a while to rebound but if you feed it REALLY heavy it'll speed up the process.

I recommend taking it out of the tank in a container and saturating it with food for 15 minutes or so...ever how long your water will hold temp. I mean saturate it.....mine will eat 2-3 cubes of mysis, squid, bloodworm, anything really (but it's 80 heads or so). I stick "Country Crock Butter" container in-tank and place the suncoral in it then move the whole thing from the tank. It's actually learned that me handling it equals feeding time and opens on command. While I don't normally like handling corals, the suncoral doesn't seem to mind and it prevents ANY excessive food in the tank. I do this once a week normally.

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Sun corals don't require shade. They are simply a non-photosynthetic coral, which means they don't have any light requirements.

A lot of people lose sun coral because they tuck them under rocks, making feeding them difficult. They also prefer some flow - certainly not a pump blowing directly on them, but flow which will easily remove excess food from between the polyps. Put them in a place easy for you to access so that you can feed them easily and properly. You need them in even less flow if you have shrimp in the tank as they will clean off the coral for you.

You want to target feed them when the polyps are out. We feed a mix of spirulina enriched frozen brine shrimp, frozen mysis and when I have it, Reef Nutrition Oyster Feast. I just defrost the frozen foods in a small container, suck it up with a baster, then spray the food close to the coral.

As they get used to your feeding schedule, they will open the polyps when you feed the tank, allowing you to target feed easily.
 
Agree with Tokejr. They are actually a deep water coral and as you know there is no light down there. There a lot of people that with feeding twice a day you can get them to stay out all day with full extension of there polyps. There was actually an interesting article in the last Coral mag about a deep water tank. It was a good read with some good info.
 
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