Re: Feeding of Tubastrea.. Follow up to Baby Tubastrea Timeline 8/7/07
Hi all...
<Hello again Debbie.>
Mich this is a follow up to your questions, hope this is helpful.
<Oh most definitely!>
Because my sun corals are housed in a 20g tank feeding them in the tank would most certainly cause major quality issues.
<Assuredly.>
So every other day I completely set up a 3 1/2 gallon plastic critter tank.
It is filled between 1/2 to 3/4 with fresh saltwater, a heater is added and a 5-10 internal filter. I let everything run until the water temp matches the temp in the tank. I check the pH. The lights have been off in the main tank a while so it has started to drop. If there's a significant difference I mix a bit of buffer in RO and add to the 3-gallon tank to bring it up a bit. I have two containers (Tupperware type) that have been cut to accommodate moving the corals. One small one for the smaller colonies and one large one for the large colony of mixed black and orange. They are never exposed to air during the process.
<Good technique.>
The water from their moving containers fills the rest of the 3-gallon tank and becomes part of my water change for the main tank. After they are placed inside I put the Whisper filter back in (it was removed to make room for moving the corals in) and turn it on without any filter media. I have cut the flaps on the impeller to slow down the movement as it is purely for circulating food in the water. I start with Sweetwater zooplankton to whet their appetite, but I have found that they apparently recognize my scent because anytime I place my hands in the tank they begin to open in anticipation of moving to feed.
<Interesting Pavlovian response.>
Anyway, I circulate zooplankton and maybe brine shrimp. In the mean time mini mysis are being thawed in another container. I do add Selcon but not every feeding.
<Very good.>
Taking the recipe for food from "The Conscientious Marine Aquarist"
<Fenner's Wonderful Marine Mash, is of course one of our favorites!>
I also vary their diet with a mix of seafood (snapper, grouper or dolphin,
<dolphin???><<Likely Coryphaena hippurus... Dorado, Mahi... RMF>>
oysters or mussels, shrimp then some frozen Formula One added blended and then frozen in egg crate to make cubes) The cubes are grated to make small pieces. I let the corals feed on floating food for a while and then turn off the filter. Using a homemade syringe made from rigid 1/4" tubing that I bent at the end and an ear syringe which I cut the end to accommodate the tubing, I draw the mysis shrimp into the tube and then start feeding each polyp. By the time I get to the last colony the first colony fed is ready for more. I try not to feed more food than appears to fill the polyp cavity as I find that even though they keep eating they will regurgitate. So giving them just enough food to fill their "tummy" keeps them from regurgitating.
<Very good instinct on your behalf.>
One colony (the orange in the top left of the picture) uses a slime coat to capture their food and are the slowest eaters. (This is my original colony purchased the beginning of the year and the parent colony to the babies.)
The whole feeding process (not including setup) can take about 3 hours.
<Very time consuming.>
But the last hour I pretty much have just left them to finish eating and then I start the filter again to recirculate any food on the bottom which they can capture and eat. To finish I put a piece of filter pad into the filter and begin siphoning out any food remaining with a baster. I do a bit of a water change because any phosphates from the food and the food itself will be transferred to the main tank when I move the corals back. I have two cleaner shrimp who know exactly what their job is when I put the corals back in the tank and that's to clean up any excess food between/around the polyps.
<You show tremendous dedication and have been rewarded with excellent growth and reproduction.>
Included is a picture of the corals in their tank ready to be fed and a picture of the three corals consisting of four separate colonies. The yellow were pretty much a rescue as they had not been fed regularly if at all and I lost 4 polyps before the end of the second day that I had them.
One polyp I almost lost as it lost a portion of its covering its white skeleton is showing, but it's eating and doing okay now and I'm hoping that its tissue will come back and cover the rest of the exposed skeleton.
<Has about as good as any in your excellent care!>
Regards, Debbie
<Debbie that you for sharing your amazing husbandry methods. You are quite dedicated. Might I encourage you to pen an article on your experiences here? I'm sure Bob would assist you in making contact with potential publishers. Mich>
<Yes. Please do consider putting all together in an article format. I will gladly aid you in rough editing and introduction to the print and on-line zines. BobF>

Re: Feeding of Tubastrea.. follow up to Baby Tubastrea Timeline   11/4/07
Robert,
<Deb>
I apologize for the delay in responding to this email... both because of my work schedule and thinking over if I could do something to this end.
<No worries>
My sun corals have spawned again and I have a new batch of babies. And the jury is still out on this one but I think my black sun corals may have spawned as well.
<Oooh, was watching a show re: Raja Ampat last night and though the spiel was a mix, there was the mention a few times of corals challenging/modifying species concepts, and the notion of super-species...>
They're tiny but their coloring is very much like Aiptasia yet their tentacles are very different, and they're scattered just like the orange sun corals. Anyway, this whole experience has been fascinating to say the least but especially informative as well. These colonies appear to take years to develop, have special feeding requirements and cannot be propagated easily. So I'm hoping by having this information out to hobbyists it will make them think twice about purchasing them. Because of this, on a personal note, I would love to see them stay in the ocean and no longer sold at LFS's.
<!? But how much progress could/would be made in understanding their biology... and the interest generated... might well have a multi-order of magnitude influence on humans... I am resistant to such regulation>
Workwise this is season for me and I'm pretty much loaded 7 days a week,
<You lazy bum! Only seven? Heeeee!>
but I think sometime the first of the year would be good for me to get an article out and give me some time to arrange info in the meantime . If you find this acceptable, please let me know guidelines, and possibly links to other articles written on subjects to get an idea of format, etc. and any other ideas you have for this as well.
Thanks again,
Debbie
<Crank the piece out as you see fit... length, format unimportant for now... And I'll help you place it mach schnell in the print press... and we'll figure out the e- placement and follow-ups later... and take pix! Cheers, Bob Fenner>

Balanophyllia Reproduction   1/19/07
Probably a dumb question - but if I start out with one single polyp of Balanophyllia, will it eventually produce baby polyps?
<Mmm, this Dendrophylliid can produce such asexually, yes...>
  I read they were "singular" in nature and couldn't find out much about their reproduction.
  Thanks,
  Doug
<See/search with the correction of your spelling above. Bob Fenner>