new black sun polyps

[balibaby]

so i found a colony of black sun polyps today at a fish store for very cheap :cheer: (couldnt resist)...i have other orange sun polyps but i have a question for anyone that is really good at feeding theirs. does the coral mind being moved around? ive read a lot from a lot of people who put it in a bowl or cup or something to feed it. i have a carnation coral i feed with a cup over it, but i dont think i can get something big enough to feed the sun polyps and the carnation at once. the other problem is that there is a green mushroom on this colony. im trying to decide to take it off or leave it. i dont want it to grow and take over the polyps, but i dont want to completely kill it. any help would be great!

 

[nm reef]

Myself...I'd just feed the polyps individually with a turkey baster. If you have a lot of circulation/current maybe shut it down while feeding to insure they can latch on to the food.
As for the mushroom....they can become very invassive and there is a risk that the single mushroom could eventually overrun the black polyps.

 

[balibaby]

thanks..ill try to get that mushroom off...its splitting right now so maybe that will make it a little easier to entice off...

 

[auntkaren]

I am nursing a very sick Sun Coral back to health and have had good success by using the top of a plastic juice jug. I scalded the plastic jug (it's about 4" in diameter) and cut it off about 5 inches from the top. I drilled a hole in the plastic lid big enough to just slip the tip of a turkey baster in. At feeding time I feed the fish 1/2 their food, put the plastic dome over the sun coral and feed it the other half by inserting the turkey baster into the hole and squeezing the food all over inside the dome. I wait about 5 minutes then fill the turkey baster with tank water and squirt into the dome again, this makes the food float all around one more time. I wait about 10 or 15 minutes to give the coral a chance to finish eating then remove the dome. The fish get the rest of their dinner and I haven't overfed my tank. It's worked wonderfully and the sun coral is actually growing it's stalk coverings back!
It's worth a try and it sure saves time!

 

[jawfish101]

I have a bunch of black, yellow and orange polyped sun corals all over my tank. I feed each individual polyp with a turkey baster because I couldnt really find anything to cover all of the polyps to feed--espically because my black polyps are branching. It's not really hard, but definately time consuming.
I can't really answer your questions, but I thought i'd share some experience/ideas.
Good Luck, and congrats on the black sun polyps--their relatively rare!

 

[sinaloa213]

post pics

 

[balibaby]

sorry the pic isnt very good...my boyfriend has the good camera in europe right now

this is right before feeding so none of the heads are out. once i get the camera back ill put pix of both out feeding. ive made up a nice feeding contraption with a cup and holes in it, then using a syringe to feed. seems to work well so far.

 

[cyberbug]

We cut a 2 liter pop container in half....Put the turkey baster w/ food threw the top hole. Gave each what we could..... And then put the lid back on the bottle Worked out real well....Good-Luck! Do you have a pic of the them ?
Angie