Sun coral questions

Discussion in 'NPS Corals' started by Amethyst, Sep 3, 2014.

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  1. Amethyst

    Amethyst Astrea Snail

    Joined:
    Mar 28, 2014
    Messages:
    43
    Location:
    Seattle area
    Thanks. I'll make sure they are in a high flow place in the new tank. I'm going to have a couple of rotating deflectors operating when I'm done plumbing, so maybe I'll put it near one of those so it gets a blast of current with every rotation. They don't rotate very fast, so it would be intermittent.
     
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  3. Amethyst

    Amethyst Astrea Snail

    Joined:
    Mar 28, 2014
    Messages:
    43
    Location:
    Seattle area
    Well, folks, with your help and lots of close observation of my sun coral, I have come to the conclusion that the heads which never opened are dead, and most likely were when I got it. The person at the store pointed out three bright orange areas, one maybe 1/16" in diameter and two others that were even tinier. She said they were mouths, told me to spot feed those areas with "Fuel" and then, after polyps had opened up, feed the polyps. I now realize that those were tiny polyps, or at least the largest of the three is. It is just so small that until I looked really closely I wasn't aware of the tiny tentacles sticking out. They are 1mm or less in length, and had I not looked at it under magnification I wouldn't be sure that is what they are. I have seen it both open and closed when not feeding it, and it does open for food. It appears healthy, so I'm hopeful that it will grow big and strong and reproduce into lots of polyps.

    Unfortunately the smaller 2 spots, which I assume were even tinier baby polyps, have disappeared. Sigh. :(

    The white spots I mentioned earlier are only on the dead skeleton part of the sun coral, not on the polyp or orange tissue surrounding the base of polyp. They are growing on other hard surfaces in the tank also, and they look like tiny barnacles or something. They are very hard, about the size of a grain of sand, and are actually open in the middle like a donut or a C that is almost closed. Still don't know what they are, but I'm not worrying about them.