Dendro Owners

that is rad.

pic of it in relationship to the rest of your reef?

 

lights just popped on... wait til other lps open up a bit

 

I think I discovered the problem-LOL who knows

You ever have that situation where you are trying to figure out a problem and the solution turns to be the most obvious?

I have been trying to over think my scenario I think.

The short answer to my dilemma of it not opening-its hungry, or starving, or conserving energy.

I noticed all the baby heads open but not the main ones, I thought maybe the larger ones are staying closed and diverting whatever energy it has to growing the little guys- who knows, I can only guess.

Anyway after taking about 5 ml of oysterfeast and phytofeast, very diluted, I squirted it all around and into the Dendro heads, opened or not. This sparked a few small tentacles coming out of the main heads. I continued doing this for about 30 minutes, and then did the same about an hour later, but that time I added some spirulina brine.

It really started to open up but not stretched out like in the past. The next morning, I squirted it with the feast combo, fed it like 3/4 cube of brine and throughout the rest of the day I fed it at least a full cube.
I did just the brine on Sunday, twice for roughly a full cube.

Needless to say-its open 85% of the time AGAIN.

Coincidence perhaps, but my conclusion is it was not getting enough food. It will now get at least a half cube of brine daily.

For those that are not getting theirs to open, get a small bottle of oysterfeast, or phytofeast or DT's-just some filter feeding food, and dilute it down ALOT and squirt it right in those closed heads and my guess is you will start to see little tentacles poke out. This is given that you have placed your Dendro in a very shaded, indirect light. I had redid (again) some rock work and mine is 98% out of ANY direct light.

Time will tell if it was lack of feeding. But for now all looks good.
Its funny I had posted it for possible trade/sell on a local forum here, I got 3 replies within 15 minutes for people wanting it-LOL

 

Very nice!!

 

So how much light do Duncans like? Mine in a off place. Gets plenty. Don't know what is good.

Nice Dendro Tat. Been looking at some myself.

 

I think you are right about the feeding. My newest Dendro is in direct light at the bottom of the tank, and it's always open. Placement in different lighting didn't seem to make as much of a difference as the amount of food it gets. It can eat A LOT. Just yesterday I fed it about 3 times as much as usual, and it put it all down pretty fast, and then puffed up huge. I think that I was not feeding it quite enough based on what I was feeding the photo synthetic LPS. Makes sense because it gets all of it's energy from the food.

 

So you have to feed Dendros? I don't target feed anything in my tank.

 

This is odd. I do feed mine regularly, but I notice the more I feed it meat, the less it stays open for a spell. After a good feeding, it will stay closed for a couple days... these are some finicky corals!

 

I am really hoping to become a Dendro keeper this weekend. There is a frag swap going on about 2 hours from me and I am going to be heading down. A Dendro was the last thing on the must have list for my tank. Then maybe, just maybe I can be one of the cool kids.

 

Are they not photosynthetic? I feed Oyster eggs and rotties, do I have to target feed?