Easiest non-photo animals, for CoralKeeper

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nonphotosynt

Guest
The private messaging takes only a short messages, with 6 min interval, so I'm posting the long text here.
If we are talking about corals, the text is below.
If fine filter feeders, like Christmas tree worms, scallops, filter feeding sea cucumbers and feather stars, then very little information is made public, and experience differs. Mostly trial and error. For a 2 yrs I have only Christmas tree worms, they require very fine food and high light for porites.
Tube anemone and basket stars are non-photosynthetic, and are easier, because of the meaty chunks of food, they require. But the first comes in conflict with other non-photo inhabitants, because of low flow requirement. Do not have basket stars, though.
I tend to say Tubastrea and Dendrophyllia (or Cladopsammia, all are LPS), but don't want to mislead.
LPS should be fed, at least twice a week, roughly each head 2-3 mysis shrimps (feeding each polyps is not mandatory, from my humble experience). The smaller colony, the less impact on water quality. Daniela Stettler has an sps tank, 1/3 of which is densely filled by sun corals. Spectacular view, and crystal clear water. She feeds by washed frozen mysis and brine shrimp, every day, by syringe. For such amount of sun corals such feeding could become expensive, $6/pack.
Grated frozen seafood and fry marine pellets is another way, but tank a look at this thread, https://forums.saltwaterfish.com/t/330199/how-many , what is going on in my tanks. But I have a lot of suns, and feed them approximately every second day equivalent of 8 frozen cubes.
Gorgonians:
Popular choice, especially Menella and Swiftia. Diodogorgia (red or yellow finger gorgonian) for many is problematic, it just dies within year. Mine is 2 yrs already and doing fairly well. I'm trying to find, what was the problem. Guaiagorgia and Leptogorgia (you can see photos by entering name in Google Image search) are probe either to algae growth, or chemistry of the tank, apart from catching every crud on itself, like velvet does.
Gorgonians will need 5-8 times a day feeding, manual, automatic or slow thawing in double centrifuge tube with hole, above flow source. 200-600 micron food, could be dried food, frozen seafood blend, crushed flake food, FaunaMarin seems gives the best results. Flow: medium high, they will die in low flow, and if polyps are bent too much - will fail to feed enough in very high flow. Wavemaker or timers will be good.
One thing more: there is high probability, that LPS will reproduce in the tank, but not so for gorgonians and soft corals.
Soft corals:
Continuous feeding (24/7) and high flow for them.
Having the healthy dendronephthya - if you had seen the polyps open in the store - is surprisingly trouble free, but I have it for a very short time, few months, and two previous, bought not in a good health and unattached - died withing few days. It is considered most difficult coral, after blueberry gorgonian. But - again - it does surprisingly well so far. Smallest food, up to 70 micron maybe, bacterioplankton too.
Scleronephthya and chili coral are usually named easier, but I believe, this is personal. Scleros are holding worse, then dendros for me, and chili is fighting for existence even 2.5 yrs later.
Summary:
1. Dendrophyllia and Tubastrea (mind manual feeding and filtration)
2. Menella and Swiftia (continuous feeding is preferred). Less impact on water quality.
3. Do not, if you can: blueberry and Muricella gorgonians and chili corals. In any case, post your results and observations. I believe, that all together we could work put, that the non-photosynthetic corals require.
 

reefkprz

Active Member
the easiest non photosynthetioc animals would be,........ damsels.

sorry couldnt resist. had to throw in a laugh.
great information nonphotosynt
 
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nonphotosynt

Guest
I didn't tried dendrophyllia (or menella), but
Duncanopsammia and Heteropsammia are zooxanthellate.
(link),
Dendrophylliidae
Only a few genera (Turbinaria and Duncanopsammia, and some species of Heteropsammia) contain zooxanthellae in their polyps and consequently manufacture large skeletons that contribute to shallow water reef structure. The remaining genera and species (approximately 149 of the 166 Recent species, 90%) are azooxanthellate.
(link).
Also, there are very many threads on Dendrophyllia, comparing to Tubastrea.
Some links, in no particular order, to the articles and posts, that I mentioned (you may need Google Language tools or other automatic translator, copy-paste text for pdf, and paste URL for html):
1. Daniela Stettler's tank, very big about of sun corals, together with sps, under MH:
in German: pdf presentation, 13MB link, article about details, 2 pages (link), article about her presentation (link).
In French:
More about filtration, but still not enough (link), more photos (link).
2. Article by S. Phillip about his tubastreas (link). I could be mistaken, but maybe StehanP at Matuta.com azoo forum is him. German too.
3. Upside down mounting of the sun corals, note clean water. Malayan forum (link). In English.
4. Stories of recovery of the most difficult and rare Tubastrea, micranthus (Sherri, evilervin, tank photo is on p3).
5. Different colors of Tubastrea (joanxavier in Spanish, Tubastrea color varieties thread, in English. Again, different tubastreas at the sides of Cladopsammia (link).
6. I was told, that lemon yellow, no orange shades at all, is Tubastrea aurea (reasonable). Then the similar coral, bur densely branching, was donated to me. Looks like this kind of denrophyllia. Link in French. As you see, it is very different from firecracker dendrophyllia, that is usually available in LFS, $150 few heads.
Or is it Dendrophillia fistula (some notes on colors, including the black suns, are here, in Spanish.
7. Worth to take a look here, but no automatic translation for this language.
8. In case, if somebody missed it, Tubastraea sp everything by evilervin. And humble mine, what I pulled together so far, 1, 2.
Note, that I'm not advocating keeping tubastrea, that requires some manual work on a regular basis and amount of food may affect water quality, if collection is big and filtration is inadequate. Merely providing links to available information from other first hands experiences.
Another way is get some specialized food, set automatic feeder and high flow, and keep gorgonians and, maybe, scleros and dendros. Take look at Jens Kallmeyer tank. And C. Stottlemire's article.
I can post more links about these corals, but now I have to go.
 

harlequin

Member
Hmm I had some red sea whips in my tank I caught while fishing in GA(yes i caught them and the shell it was attached to on hook and line while shark fishing(catch and release only)). Out of curiousity I put them in my reef tank under decent flow. Whenever I fed Kent phytoplankton(the dropper stuff) polyps would pop out all over the place and it would go from red to white and fuzzy. I had it for over a year and had some growth and no die off. I took my tank down to move here but it was in great shape when I left. I definately class it as easy to keep as long as you give it flow and food.
Next time you go to a seafood rest. ask for grilled Atlantic Lionfish. Lets get these non-native badboys on the menu.
 
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nonphotosynt

Guest
Harlequin:
Can you post photo of the easy sea sheep? Before and after even better, FTS, system description, all food that tank receives will be especially helpful. Lifetime of learning, you know, not just hmm....
It could be:
- different species,
- hand picked specimen in the best health and one, suffered from overheating during midsummer shipping,
- kept in natural seawater and artificial saltwater, made on fluoridated tap water,
- tank receives additional food, used by gorgonian, not just phytoplankton.
What relation has eating fish in restaurant with keeping non-photosynthetic corals, discussed here? Hmm...
 

petjunkie

Active Member
I would say dendros, rhizos and sun corals are the absolute easiest non photo corals. Just feed a few times a week with meaty foods. Gorgs it depends, some are fairly easy with lots of feeding and others no one can really keep still. How large do tube anemones get? I'm interested in them but they seem to have quite a reach with the tentacles. Also not sure if I would have enough sand for one to bury.
 

harlequin

Member
Easy sea sheep? Never heard of a sea sheep. What I had was a red sea whip, which if they are not gorgonians, they are very close to them. We find washed up ones on the beach all the time. They also come in yellow. My tank at the time was a 65 gal with some PCs. It was primarily a softy/LPS tank with a strong skimmer. I fed the fish high quality flake food once or twice a day and fed the corals a few drops of the Kent Phytoplankton. I kept the temp around 79 and the salignity 2.3ish.
As to the fish thing, since we are not allowed signatures anymore, I am putting that on my posts in order to start a campaign to make lionfish a food item so people will begin harvesting the invasive ones that are muliplying unchecked by the thousands off our coast. Therefore....
Next time you go to a seafood rest. ask for grilled Atlantic Lionfish. Lets get these non-native badboys on the menu.
 

coral keeper

Active Member
Originally Posted by Harlequin
http:///forum/post/2896491
Easy sea sheep? Never heard of a sea sheep. What I had was a red sea whip, which if they are not gorgonians, they are very close to them. We find washed up ones on the beach all the time. They also come in yellow. My tank at the time was a 65 gal with some PCs. It was primarily a softy/LPS tank with a strong skimmer. I fed the fish high quality flake food once or twice a day and fed the corals a few drops of the Kent Phytoplankton. I kept the temp around 79 and the salignity 2.3ish.
As to the fish thing, since we are not allowed signatures anymore, I am putting that on my posts in order to start a campaign to make lionfish a food item so people will begin harvesting the invasive ones that are muliplying unchecked by the thousands off our coast. Therefore....
Next time you go to a seafood rest. ask for grilled Atlantic Lionfish. Lets get these non-native badboys on the menu.
You find washed up gorgonians on the beach?? Do you think you can get me a few please? I'll pay shipping. lol
 
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