Candy coral

[simpleman]

They're really easy to keep and generally a nice looking coral. Congrats on the new frag.

[Piggy]

I have mine under T5's half way up the tank. It took them a few days to open. I do feed mine now and then. You really don't have to but I like watching them get really fat. Mine is starting to get a new head.

[Bifferwine]

They will extend their feeding tentacles at night, after you turn the lights off. They will eat meaty foods, not so much phyto, but stuff like krill, brine or mysis. I have three different colonies of candy canes in my tank, one that has 20+ heads of pink, one that has 1 head of blue, and another that has 30+ heads of brown/green. I never used to feed them, but once I started, they began to bud off a new head every other week or so. I now hand feed them after I turn the lights off every other day or so. I think that if you do this, you will see sooo much more growth from the candy canes. For example, I had the one solitary blue head for at least 6 months, and it never grew, never split. I started feeding it every other night, and within a few weeks it had started to split.

You also don't need to feed your zoas phyto. They will get enough nutrition from the lighting and I think that if you are adding phyto for your tank and all you have are zoanthids and candy canes, you are just adding nutrients (nitrates, phosphates) to your water and can end up with algae problems.

[cumminz]

Well, I bought the phyto mainly for my scallop


But how big do the pieces of mysys need to be?

[Bifferwine]

They will take full sized mysis. Mine take full sized pieces of krill. Once they grab ahold of it with their tentacles, it only take about 15 minutes for mine to "swallow" the whole piece.

[cumminz]

Damn, i guess i really need to start watching my tank at night. My lights are about to go in do u think their tentacles will still be out?

[Bifferwine]

Don't know. I have NEVER seen the tentacles on my brown/green candy canes. And I have had that colony for over two years. My pink and blue ones have their tentacles out like clockwork, every single night.

So, I have never been able to target feed my brown/green colony, but nonetheless they have still grown and split a lot.

[cumminz]

Well, i will go look at mine now and see if they are open. I Will also check tonight. Also, is there a specific calc. requirement for them or whatnot? Anything else u can tell me about them?

[Bifferwine]

Try to keep your calcium levels around 300 to 400 for a mixed reef tank. It shouldn't be hard to maintain, as candy canes don't take up a lot of calcium (well, compared to an SPS tank, for example).

Nothing much else to say about them, they are a great, hardy coral. One of my favorites.

[cumminz]

Well, I guess i need to go buy a calc test kit and some krill.