Stork delivered a baby on Saturday! Tubastrea!

[BayBud]

Hello everyone

Well on saturday i decided that it's been a year since my tanks been running and there needs to be something else other than peppermint shrimps, blue legged hermits, ceriths and an almost illegal amount of sponges.

Over the past few months i've been giving alot of thought as to what i wanted to keep, with my nano and its standard lights i had to rule out alot of my fave SPS for the obvious reasons (dont have the mega cash right now for serious lighting lol)
So like many i came across the beauty Tubastrea, a beautiful coral that doesn't need strong light, is hardy and did i mention beautiful? lol

It seems the only issue with this species is that it is a demanding feeder, but as i work from home i thought i would be able to devote the time needed to care for this animal.

So on Saturday i went down to a fish shop a few miles away and they had one! All closed up but otherwise looked pretty healthy.

Took him home, acclimated him for about 3 hours, then placed him in his nice shady new home.

Of course the time right now is about 3pm, im itching to turn the lights out and see him ( something wrong there lol) but i wait until about 9 and turn the lights out.

From what i've been reading i have heard alot of peoples Tubs take a few days to open up and feel ready to eat, but they have almost always said routine is everything.
So i defrosted some mysid, mussels and a couple of dallies, turned all the powerheads off and squirted the juice around tubby.

I thought ok time to go into the garden (beautiful weather ATM) and have a cig, yes i know very bad .

When i came back 5 mins later the polyps were starting to open!
Such a fantastic sight, i was soo happy to see him wanting food.

To cut along story short lol, i spent the next hour feeding this little monster, i managed to get at least one dosing into all the polyps, amazing how they take their food in! ( it's my first coral you can't tell right? lol)

So tonight i have a new recipe, blended mysid, mussel, dallies, cyclop-eeze and a little bit of seachem reef plus.

Im hoping to take pics of Orangina as soon as he is looking nice and fat.

Thanks for reeding my totally pointless account, i just wanted to publicly air how wonderful ( if not demanding) these little guys are.

cya later

BayBud

[missionsix66]

I love tubastrea. I've never had it. While reading your thread all I could picture was gobs of food being fed. Just remember not to overfeed and watch nitrates. Cograts on the new coral. A very nice one indeed.

[BayBud]

Originally Posted by missionsix66

I love tubastrea. I've never had it. While reading your thread all I could picture was gobs of food being fed. Just remember not to overfeed and watch nitrates. Cograts on the new coral. A very nice one indeed.

lol gobs is pretty accurate! Yeah your right about the nitrates, i do a weekly water change but i may have to increase the amount changed each week.

Im trying to make a kind of buckety thing that i can put round him so i can try and limit the amount of waste food entering the system.

OOO so excited feeding time in t-2 hours lol

im also hoping to minimize the bioload (as much as possible) by having this as the sole coral in the tank, im thinking of going for a very heavilly algaed tank, i love algae! Which i dare say will help with the nutrient export.

[ReefSparky]

Yes. I'm a big fan of Sun Polyps too. They were on my "Corals That I Like" list, but I've not purchased one. I don't know if I ever will. I know of a few members here who find it easier to remove corals to spot feed, but in my tank it wouldn't be possible. It's a 55 and there's not really room to move stuff around.


Good luck, try to post some pics!

[BayBud]

i have a 24g nano, i think it would make the most sense for me to isolate the coral when feeding, im worried though that the constant moving it around might give it a bit of jip.

Anyway, i had a good feeding last night ( lol not me!) so i am going to try again tonight and see if i can do it a little less messily lol. Failing that ill try the margarine tub or the coke bottle trick.

They are lovely though arn't they? I figured it was kismet; afterall i was looking for a nice coral that didn't require the lighting i can't afford, at least with tubastrea all it's requirements are in it's feeding which working from home i can hopefully meet.

Well as soon as orangina has chubbed up a bit i'll photograph him and post a pic I imagine it will be a month or so because i dont think he was fed as much as he needed at the shop, but im working on getting him healthy lol.

[baugherb]

Awesome.... Congrats!!!

[BayBud]

just a quick update.

Boy, i knew feeding Tubastrea would be challenging but i perhaps didn't realize HOW challenging lol.

Alot of late nights recently, but in the end a happy tubastrea all fed! Tonight we had mussels! Tomorrow we are having dallies lol.

cya