Sun Polyp Feeding Schedule and Technique?

[36]

I bought a Sun Polyp 10 days ago. Before I picked it up I read up on them and did a search to gather as much info on them as I could. I noticed some feed daily and some less often.

What is your schedule for feeding these? I would like to feed every three or four days when I feed my nonphotosynthetic gorgs but it appears most feed more often. I am currently feeding daily but only around half of the polyps are opening fully even after ten days. Is this unusual?

Also what is your feeding technique? I use a medicine measuring squeezer (for lack of the proper term). The fish line up like a school lunch line. I have to beat them on the head to keep them away.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Steve

[ScottC]

Have you tried to feed the fish a few seconds before you feen the Tubastrea? Try it on the opposite side of the tank, that way they are preoccupied.

I feed my Tubastreas with a turkey baster. Every night around 7 pm they all get a good blast of prime reef, brine plus, and zooplankton. The hermits, serent stars, and shrimp all come running and pick some of the polyps clean, but with the amount and frequency of feeding, I've had no problems. Remember, your waste products will increase with the extra food particles being introduced into your system!

Scott

[LiquidShaneo]

I try to feed mine daily if I can but I have gone as long as a week without feeding them once or twice (although I don't recommend this). The only food I've fed it to date is frozen brine shrimp soaked in selcon. They polyps seem to LOVE it. The one thing with a new specimen is that you have to train it to feed. The best thing to do is get on a schedule and feed it daily at the exact same time so that it gets used to being fed at that time. Not all of them may come out at the start but eventually they will all get the hint and they will be out and ready to feed as long as you keep to a schedule. All I do is take a quarter to 50 cent piece chunk of frozen brine, soak that with about 0.5 mL to 1.0 mL of selcon, let it maranade for 10 to 15 minutes, mix the entire mass with about 1 oz of tank water, and then feed that to my sun polyps using a turkey baster. Pretty straight forward for the most part. Once your tubastrea gets used to feeding you really won't have a problem with it.

I got one from the LFS that hadn't been fed for at least 6 weeks and it's recovering nicely with some new polyps growing on the fringe of the colony now. I did lose 2 to 3 of the polyps due to starvation, but those were already gone when I acquired the colony.

Oh and if you're having problems with your fish eating your tubastrea food, here's a couple suggestions:

1) Feed your fish first and at the opposite end of the tank. This will hopefully keep them away from the tubastrea when you feed it at the other end of the tank.

2) (which is how I started) I took a 2 liter pop jug and cut the top off so I had a sort of "funnel". I inverted this funnel over my tubastrea colony so that it was protected from the other fish by this inverted funnel. I then squirted my brine/selcon mixture thru the top of the 2 liter mouth onto the polyps. This protected the colony from fish picking at its lunch and it also held the food on the colony.

hth

liquid

[36]

Thanks for the replies.

I do feed the fish first at the other end of the tank, but when they see that orange and blue glove come into the tank they know it means food. I don't think it's enough of a problem that I can't deal with it.

I feed them at the same time every evening and some of the polyps do open just prior to feeding time. Pretty wierd.

liquid:
A twenty five to fifty cent piece size of brine seems like alot. I have about twenty polyps. What do you think?

[LiquidShaneo]

My colony's about the size of a baseball. Some may call that heavy feeding but I also have 2 Amphiprion ocellaris, 3 Chromis viridis, and a half dozen peppermint shrimp that clean up the mess afterwards along w/ a ton of bristleworms, pods, mysis shrimp, and a couple nassarius in and among the macroalgae in the tank that help as well. I've never really had a problem with it but every system is different...you can always feed less. [img]/ubb/biggrin.gif[/img]

liquid

[petpoor]

Check it when you first get out of bed in the morning,that is when I feed mine.The polyps are usually fully extended and the fish are still asleep,I just turn on the room lights so I can see and use a turkey baster(the most inexpensive piece of reef equipment one can own)and feed mine every other day a mix of pulverized flake food,brine,Daphnia and blood worms.I just use different foods every couple days.
Tom

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Toms Reef

[Aragorn]

I have 4 Tubastraea's. 2 that I've nursed back from the brink of death. They all have quite the appetite. I feed nightly w/ squid and/or brine. I target all the polyps w/ a baster. In order to keep the fish away I do feed on the other side of the tank to create a diversion. I've gotten quite adept at being able to feed a coral within 2 minutes. BTW, we have 3 gorgs as well. They should be fed daily as well. FWIW

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