Training Sun coral

AdeptMrSniffles

AdeptMrSniffles

I have a Blue Thumb
Howdy folks!

I recently purchased a black/green sun coral and was wondering if anyone has any tips on training these guys I'd appreciat it. I'm guessing it'll include regularly trying to feed it at the same time each day, just wondeing if there are any tricks/food combos that work best. I have some freeze dried cyclopeeze that I feed all of my other corals.
 
In the beginning, it will open up after you feed your fish. It seems to "taste" food in the water and then takes a little while to open. If you feed your fish at the same time every day, you will be training it. Soon enough, it will open up whenever you feed your fish. Mine only took a week or two to get on this schedule. Now it's open whenever I feed my tank, as it automatically responds to the food in the water.
 
Bifferwine said:
In the beginning, it will open up after you feed your fish. It seems to "taste" food in the water and then takes a little while to open. If you feed your fish at the same time every day, you will be training it. Soon enough, it will open up whenever you feed your fish. Mine only took a week or two to get on this schedule. Now it's open whenever I feed my tank, as it automatically responds to the food in the water.
Click to expand...

Thats pretty much what I've seen em do at the LFS.
 
One or two days a week, I see my sun coral open during the day. The rest of the time, it's closed during the day. But it always seems to be open at night. If you are worried that your sun coral isn't adjusting to your schedule and may not be getting enough to eat, wait until the lights go out and shoot it some food.
 
Here are some more tips including what Biff mention

-try feeding your fish at the same time everyday.Wait 30 minutes and see if they respond by opening up.
-put them in a cave or a cove away from direct light.
-a pretty strong indirect flow helps

In the mean time they are still going to need to be fed.Check on them with the lights out and see if the polyps are open.I recommend turning all the pumps off and directly feed each polyp with mysis and cyclops.Personally,I think cyclops is too small to be fed alone.
 
Yeah, cyclopeeze is too small for sun corals. Mine happily take stuff as big as krill, but are just fine with mysis and fortified brine.
 
Well, just flicked some cyclops at it and about 5min later all the polyps opened up. Pretty cool forest green color. I TRIED feeding them nuts if krill but my shrimp and dwarf angel kept snagging the food :grumble: I'll wau until tonight to see if they're out an I'll try again. I plan on flicking cyclops in the water around 8 everyday for awhile until they're open at
night automatically.

Thx for the tips.
 
I just bought some sun corals today as well. Some advice from my LFS to keep the fish from snagging the food was to take half of a plastic soda bottle and put it over the corals. Should have enough room in the bottle neck to feed them using forceps or a turkey baster and you won't have to worry about fish getting in there.

Haven't tried it yet myself but it SEEMS like a good idea.
 
The soda bottle trick works, if your corals are located in an area where a bottle would fit. Mine aren't, so I keep a giant wooden spoon in the tank when I feed them, and I beat any fish that comes near them. My yellow tang is the worst.
 
Ya, I've done the bottle trick with other corals and it def. works but I've got the sun corals popped in the rocks, so the bottle trick. I think feeding them at night will work when the fish are asleep.
 
Now are Sun Corals intolerant of light? I'm unsure whether they NEED to be in a crevice/cave because they don't like light or if they just don't need light so people stick them in places you couldn't put most other corals. I have PCs so it's not a ridiculous amount of light in the first place but I've seen conflicting information.

And does each separate head need to be fed or just the majority of them that will feed the whole coral?


Not to hi-jack your thread, it just seemed relevant enough not to make more clutter with a new one :P
 
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I just bought some yesterday as well. Looks like Sun Corals are the new thing lol. I don't think it will hurt them to not be in total darkness kwsm. At the LFS where I picked mine up from they were in the same frag tank as everything else under direct light.
 
Same with mine, but I always look for more resources than the LFS. :P

I have no reason not to trust either of the ones I frequent but I still take their word with a grain of salt.
 
They just don't seem to open if they are in direct light. I don't know if it's necessarily "bad" for them to be in direct light, but I want to see them opened up, so I'm going to put them where they open up more -- and that's in a shaded spot.
 
Bifferwine said:
They just don't seem to open if they are in direct light. I don't know if it's necessarily "bad" for them to be in direct light, but I want to see them opened up, so I'm going to put them where they open up more -- and that's in a shaded spot.
Click to expand...


Works for me. I'd put them where they open as well. They're still acclimating so I haven't had the trial and error experience on where to put them. Thanks!
 
kwsm said:
Now are Sun Corals intolerant of light? I'm unsure whether they NEED to be in a crevice/cave because they don't like light or if they just don't need light so people stick them in places you couldn't put most other corals. I have PCs so it's not a ridiculous amount of light in the first place but I've seen conflicting information.

And does each separate head need to be fed or just the majority of them that will feed the whole coral?


Not to hi-jack your thread, it just seemed relevant enough not to make more clutter with a new one :P
Click to expand...

Light doesn't harm them.It's just easier to get them to open if they are in a shaded area.In the wild,they are usually found hanging upside down near the entrances of caves.Each polyp is an individual coral so no,feeding one polyp doesn't help the other ones.It's okay to miss a head during feeding time but you should try to make sure each head gets food.
 

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