what is this???

larrynews

Active Member
i bought this rock some time ago and i have no idea what this is on it it opens at night and this picture is when it open4ed during the day help
 

bigarn

Active Member

Originally posted by GreatfullReefer
A sun coral polyp (never seen one alone before) you need to feed it with meaty foods as they are not photosynthetic.

Agreed.....Tough to keep also. :D
 

larrynews

Active Member
the funny thing is i have had it for a while and it has done great...only 65x4 pc lighting and marine snow and thats about it....if i buy it a t a store just for it i'm sure i'd kill it but since i didn't it's going great
 

greatfullreefer

Active Member
As i said this coral is not photosynthetic so lighting does not matter. Believe me if you do not feed it with meaty foods it will die(i takes many months for a coral to starve but when you notice a decline in its health it is usually too late)
 

wrassecal

Active Member
WOW! sweet hitchhiker:D Good luck with it and definately feed it. If it stays happy where it is keep it there. If not move it into less light, or shade.
 

spline9

Member
Its not that difficult to keep, you just have to make sure it occasionally gets some meaty food. A few mysis/brine shrimp should do the job. If you keep feeding at the same time you can "train" it to open up at the same time of day. Mine used to open up every time I put my hands in the tank. It just seemed to know me after a while. That made it easy to feed.
You may notice it only opens at night. Thats normal but like I said above, you can train it to open at other times.
The only reason you may want to keep it from getting light is to prevent algae from growing on/next to it. As far as my experience, light has no other real effect. GreatfullReefer speaks the truth.
Your specimen looks pretty healthy. Starving sun corals (tubestra) look pretty bad, you'll know if its malnourished.
Enjoy it! Hopefully it will spread. Mine has. :)
 

sammiefish

Member
wow, thats really cool.... not a bad deal at all.. for a freebee...
spline9, you have some and they spread... do they spread right next to the parent or do they disperse themselves?
 

kpk

Active Member
Tubastrea (sun coral). Thats cool you just have 1 polyp. Alot easier. I hade one with 80 or so polyps and it was a pain in the a..
Kyle
 

spline9

Member
spline9, you have some and they spread... do they spread right next to the parent or do they disperse themselves?
I think you normally see them spread near the parents but I used to have this one shell in the back of my tank... I took it out and put it in another tank. Just last night I realized that there was a tiny polyp growing on it. I have no idea how long its been there but I know its new. Just to give you an idea of the distance travelled, I have a 29g tank, the colony is front/center of the tank. The shell was in the rear left corner of the tank. I'd guess they can travel wherever but most likely they will be close to the parent colony.
 
Top