candy cane question

[scubacane]

I got a 3 button candy cane frag acouple of weeks back and put it fairly high up in my water column- 5 watts / gallon CFB with moderate flow in my 14 G biocube ( upgraded)- SG1.025, pH8.2, nitrates always around 5-10, Calcium 400. The edges have never really "fleshed out"- you basically see a hard pinkish surrounding area. The center still floureceses (sp) very green under actinics with pink edges but overall under full light it looks "emaciated".
I dont see much in the way of sweeper tenticles at night either- are we dead, dying? any thoughts. The only other thing is I have some sort of crustaceans on the same live rock, looks like a copepod but bigger- that come out at night- could they be eating at it? I have in the tank a finger coral frag, a frog spawn, a pink acropora , a torch and a brain frag that appear to be thriving, as well as some xenias that I growing like weeds that grew off my original live rock from nothing

[Bifferwine]

I have three different colonies of candy canes in my tank. One, that I've had for 2 1/2 years (20+ heads), I've never seen any tentacles on, and I've never had to feed it, and it's done well and grown. The other two (1 head and 20+ heads) put their tentacles out nightly and I target feed them. Just because a candy cane isn't putting tentacles out doesn't mean it's lacking something or starving.

[Reefgyrl]

holy moley 20 heads! Wow that's awesome, and I got excited when mine split into three!!!

[daugherty]

my candy cane has its sweepers out every night. it is now a 23 head coral i got it in jan and it only had 13 heads. i think yours is fine scubacane

[dustin_P74]

so how fast do candy canes usually grow a new head

[daugherty]

it all depends two of the heads split into three seperate ones at the same time.

[Bifferwine]

I've had my blue candy cane (with 1 head) since September or so, and it still has one head... My brown/green ones have added a new head every month or so, and my pink ones have added two new heads in the last month. So it depends.

[Reefgyrl]

awesome

[Zoakeeper]

This, when purchased 3 years ago, was 3 heads. I've fragged over 75 off. And its well over 200 now. It's under T-5's at the top of my tank. And I do not feed it.

[Altohombre]

Can I use that as a tennis ball?