spot feeding sun coral

[littleliza]

I have a new sun coral and would like to keep it happy. Does anyone have any advice for me? I spot fed it some brine shrimp last night with a tweezers. Is there a better food choice and method of delivery I should look into?

 

[mcsd22]

If you scroll thru the posts there are some great suggestions for feeding such as chopped shrimp or krill or feeding frozen cyclo and placing a small tupperware bowl over it with a few holes drilled in it then injecting the food into the bowl and let it open up then give them the rest. sounded good to me but i have yet to try it but plan to soon.

 

[rsd]

Congrats on the sun coral.
They can be absolutely awesome.
I use the top half of a 2 liter bottle.
Take the cap off and place it over the coral... use a turkey baster to feed the coral in there.
It keeps the coral isolated from other aggressive feaders and allows it to feed in piece.
Make sure any frozen or chilled food is fully up to temp and don't blast it with stuff that is TOO concetrated or that could have a lowered PH or Salinity.
This coral should do fine for you if you treat it well.
Good luck.

 

[sufunk2]

I agree, use the cup method. Ditch the brine and start with krill, mysis or frozen cyclopeeze(or all 3 mixed)soaked in selcon or zoecon. Use the cup method, i use a small tupperware bowl. Works awesome with a little syringe from a joes juice box. I have a few threads about them under the name sufunk. Check them out.
You have a pic of yours?? heres mine

 

[littleliza]

lol, I don't want to post a pic of mine after that! Beautiful. I actually got mine in a coral package I got from online and there is a lot of die off around the individual polyps, so if I can bring it back I'll be doing really well.
I've seen a lot of posts about cup methods or using a coke bottle. I actually have a little 12 gallon nano it's in right now, and I'm concerned about getting enough food into it without having a lot of excess spoiling in my tank. Any thoughts on that? I've heard of people taking them out of the tank and putting them in a seperate bowl to feed them, and then dumping the water. I could do that, but if I feed it every day that might affect the amount of water I'm going through (6 cups or so out of a 12 gallon tank daily) and I don't like to keep too much water stocked since I don't use a lot of it, generally (just a gallon or two every week-2 weeks for water changes). If you know of an alternative or if you think it'll eat enough of whatever I put in the cup with it to keep my tank from having an issue I'd appreciate the input. Thanks!

 

[sufunk2]

I dont like the idea of taking it out every day. That seems like a awful lot of stress even if it never leaves the water. Just too much handling and they are very delicate. I dont think anyone would advise picking up a elegant,or other delicate coral every single day. That said, people seem to have succes with it. Ive only had mine for a little over a month but in that time its gotten bigger and actually looks alot nicer than that pic. I use frozen cyclo soaked in selcon and zoecon every day and 1 time a week mix in minced krill and mysis. The sun eats most of the cyclo and the hermits and fish eat the rest. I just feed the fish a little less now since they get so much cyclo. Also, i think the excess cyclo is much less of a strain than a bunch of excess mysis, brine, krill, anything meaty.
Do you have hermits? what other fish?

 

[littleliza]

I've got a handful of hermits, a few snails, no fish, a cleaner shrimp and a coral banded shrimp.

 

[sufunk2]

A little extra cyclo shouldnt be that big of a deal. The hermits and cleaner will finish most of it off. With no fish, your system should be able to handle the extra food the sun requires without a problem.
Are you gonna add fish?

 

[littleliza]

eventually I'm thinking of a true perc or two, that or some kind of goby