Is There One All-In-One Coral Food?

metweezer

metweezer

Active Member
Originally Posted by Tizzo
http:///forum/post/2665907
Well, that's good news!
The only thing you really need to tweak is your calcium!
Questions for you...
You have a 29 gallon tank, right?
How many lbs LR?
Do you have a sump?
I'm trying to get a feel of how many actual gallons of water you have.
Then buy a calcium additive, tell me what it is, and I will let you know aout how much to add.

Thanks for replying, I am relying on your every word. Yes, I have a 29 gal. 55 lbs of LR. No sump. I would rather you recommend a calcium supplement as I want to buy the right one.
 
T

tizzo

Guest
I like ESV B-ionic, but you hafta buy both parts (calcium and alk), even if you don't really need the alk.
 
metweezer

metweezer

Active Member
Fed the sun corls reef chili last night. Didn't see anything hopeful. Tonight I'll try DT's oyster eggs mixed with Rods reef. Front frag seems to only have one fully orange polyp left. Still some orange mouths though.
 
metweezer

metweezer

Active Member
Fed Rod's reef last night and didn't notice any sun coral polyp movement. The back frag looks a hell of a lot better than the front one, but they aren't close to opening. Might try to get a calcium supplement from my lfs today. I have some on order but I guess the sooner I address my calcium 350 problem, the better.
 
metweezer

metweezer

Active Member
Does this make sense? After I feed, the smaller polyps seem to be swelling up and closing. The bigger polyps arent, At least on the back frag. The front frag gets fed next. One good thing, as I look at the pic I posted, there are no more white ridges on the back frag. They seem to be completely orange. The front frag appears hopeless. Just one orange polyp on the whole frag. I am feeding frozen Rods again along with reef chili.
 
metweezer

metweezer

Active Member
I think I am going to give up on my sun corals
I have had them in my tank for almost 2 weeks and they never opened. Like I mentioned in an earlier post the front frag only has 1 orange polyp on the whole frag. After checking my earlier pics it seems that the back frag looks about the same as it did 2 weeks ago. It is a bit of a pain taking them out of the tank every night to feed them and not really see any results. I think I have been fooling myself thinking that this polyp appears more puffy, and another one appears to be closing with food inside, etc.
Thanks to all who tried to help, especially CandyCane and Tizzo. It is a beautiful coral when everything is right but it is a high maintenance coral to be sure.
 
kaybee

kaybee

New Member
Your sun corals are not unrecoverable until tissue recession is complete (e.g. there is no orange left on any of the polyps).
I recommend continuing with the attempt to get it to feed and keep it in the container (if that has been your method) for more than 10min (try 30-45min); or give it to a hobbyist in your area willing to take it.
Mine took about a week to 'come around'. 2 weeks (in my opinion) is too soon to throw in the towel.
 
metweezer

metweezer

Active Member
Originally Posted by kaybee
http:///forum/post/2671044
Your sun corals are not unrecoverable until tissue recession is complete (e.g. there is no orange left on any of the polyps).
I recommend continuing with the attempt to get it to feed and keep it in the container (if that has been your method) for more than 10min (try 30-45min); or give it to a hobbyist in your area willing to take it.
Mine took about a week to 'come around'. 2 weeks (in my opinion) is too soon to throw in the towel.
Don't you know it, the polyps opened for the first time last night. I can't believe it. So I will continue taking the frags out nightly to feed. The front frag still only has 1 orange polyp but hopefully it will come around. I wonder if I should add garlic or selcon to the food?
 
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tizzo

Guest
OK, I looked. Looks like my zoecon. I don't think it can hurt. Being that a suncoral is a meat eater, it would prolly benefit. Don't add it to your whole tank though, to much gets wasted. You can soak the food in it and still target feed in a separate container.
 
metweezer

metweezer

Active Member
That's what I did. I am seeing a lot of swelling of the polyps on the back frag. I didn't feed them yesterday and as I looked at the tank I saw, for the first time, the polyps opening.
 
metweezer

metweezer

Active Member
Okay, tonight I am taking my sun corals out of the tank to be fed, as usual. This time I have a mixture of Rod's Reef, Frozen Mysis, DT's Oyster Eggs, Selcon, Reef Chili and Cyclopeeze. I got to get these guys fully open and responding to a normal feeding schedule. I envy those who post pics of their sun corals with the tank lights on. Hopefully, I'll get there one day. Thanks to all who have tried to help me through this crisis. First pic is of the back frag & pic 2 is the front frag. As you can see it has really gone downhill since I got it. I am not giving up though.

 
T

tizzo

Guest
How is that one with only one polyp?
For it to have declined so quickly, from Puerto Rico to you, makes me wonder if something like "polyp bail out" has occured.
Or even RTN or STN, even though I've never seen that on a LPS.

Gonna research...
 
metweezer

metweezer

Active Member
As you can see in post 7 of this thread it looked a lot better when I placed it in my tank than it looks now. I don't know what happened
What about flow? Do they need a lot of flow? I don't think they are getting much by where they are placed in my tank. I don't have that much room in my 29 gal. I can't even place a cut-off 2 liter bottle over the frags to feed. I don't have space between my LR and the glass wall. I personally feel that I am not doing them any good removing them for feeding.
 
T

tizzo

Guest
They do like a lot of flow.
Removing them from the tank is not art all stressful on them if your using tank water, however if you simply do not want to remove it and the bottle thing isn't do-able then you can turn off all the powerheads and any other means of current, and feed that way.
A sentence I'm pulling from Borneman's book...
With this and all species of Tubastria, the required feedings must be done carefully so as not to overload the aquarium with nutrients and jeopardize water quality. These corals are best left to aquarists who have powerful protein skimmers and other means of efficient nutrient removal, including regular substantial water changes.
 
metweezer

metweezer

Active Member
Originally Posted by Tizzo
http:///forum/post/2678198
They do like a lot of flow.
Removing them from the tank is not art all stressful on them if your using tank water, however if you simply do not want to remove it and the bottle thing isn't do-able then you can turn off all the powerheads and any other means of current, and feed that way.
A sentence I'm pulling from Borneman's book...
I switched my filter, protein skimmer and 2 powerheads to one powerstrip. So when I feed tonight I will just kill the powerstrip and feed the sun corals. I guess 20 minutes is a long enough time
 
metweezer

metweezer

Active Member
Originally Posted by Tizzo
http:///forum/post/2678094
How is that one with only one polyp?
For it to have declined so quickly, from Puerto Rico to you, makes me wonder if something like "polyp bail out" has occured.
Or even RTN or STN, even though I've never seen that on a LPS.

Gonna research...
Tiz,
What is polyp bailout and RTN & STN
 
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tizzo

Guest
Polyp bail out is one symptom of extreme stress that can happen to SPS's or LPS's. The polyp literally leaves the skeleton in search of (assuming) a safer or less stressful home. Most of the time they die, some times they can rebuild their new skeleton on their own.
RTN-Rapid Tissue Neucrosis (google it)
Lot's of info.
But it's appearances are that the tissue of a coral literally peels off in a very short period of time. Usually the complete coral is dead with in 36 hours.
STN-Slow tissue neucrosis. Which is the same as the rapid only it happens much slower. Gives one time to frag and save what they can.
All stress related. What stressed them out of course varies from coral to coral.
 
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