Catalphylia Tips and hints

[Andy]

Hi all

I should be getting one of these very soon. I have read just about every FAQ I can on reefcentral, wet web media, reefkeeping.....

I will say what I have got prepared for when I get mine.

Seachem Reef dip- For the bacterial pathogen
Completely sandy area without any corals near, no crushed coral or rocks.
Very slight current.
Shaded area under my halides - Under my LR Egg Crate Suspension, light is alot more subdued.
Meaty food when acclimated- mussels, shrimp

I also know about selection etc.

Tank is very stable now, 0,0,10 on A,N,N 420 ppm C, 11 AK, 0 phos. Successfully keeping a BTA, so know about acclimation etc.

I don't want to open another can of worms offending people, I am buying one, please deal with it and help me best you can. I'm not an idiot and I know what I am getting myself into.

Does anyone who has kept these have any tips and hints they could share?

[mysticwave_2]

Leave them on the reef. JMHO

Good luck with it hope it does well. At least you have researched and thought about it before buying.

Jim

[pavlo]

I know of seven reefers who got these when Swallows had some in about a year ago. Only one of these still has his cataphylia. None of these reefers were novices and all but one had mature systems.

I wish you good luck and hope you are sucessful with your one.

[SPS Hoover]

My advice is unless you can buy one which has been in captivity for a while, wait for the maricultured ones

[jobr]

as above wait for the maricultured ones, i am led to believe the ones currently seen in shops are from very deep water so the chances of long term survival in the Home aquaria are not great IMHO.

[Reef bloke]

Its heart braking watching them recede,they are so beautiful.Sounds like you have everything in place although they seem to prefer nitrate of about 50ppm.That said the ones i have seen recede have been in some very beautiful tanks with the requirements in place that you have mentioned.
Personally i would refrain from purchasing one and wait on the maricultured specimens as already mentioned.

[Andy]

I've seen Maricultured ones but they are only in Australia at the moment. When will these maricultured ones be availiable.

It's hard you know, the way I see it someone else is going to buy it if I don't and what kind of home will they offer. I really love these corals.

I'm not going to let this one die though, if it does get to that stage I'm going to give it up to someone on here.

[SPS Hoover]

I was lend to beleive that they should have been in LFS before christmas but its going to be new year now.

Give Chris at STM a call he might be able to give you more info

[knott]

I have kept one before and had too get rid of it because it got so huge, back in those days they were bullet proof, but in recent years it has been hard to to get hold of them and then hard to keep them alive for a long period of time. I am personally not sure why, i don't believe it has anything to do with the enviroment they are kept in, but more a totally different enviroment from where they are now collected, doing some research, there was also thought to be a cataphyllia disease that affected them so check for these reults, it was carried out by Eric Borneman and Anthony Calfo i believe.

I do hear what you are saying, the LFS is going to stock them and somebody is going to buy them so it might as well be you, you have a passion for the cats and have done the research, more than a newbie with extra cash, so go for it and the best of luck my friend, I will be most happy to hear that you have succeeded.

Lets hope the maricultured ones arrive soon

[Tony B]

wait for the maricultured ones

Hello Si, how's the pulse settling in?

Question: Is the above statement in the hope that the corals will be hardier or collected in a kinder way that does not damage natural reef populations? Or both?

The maricultured farming...... how do they produce the said coral, A sexual farming takes too long; I doubt sexual reproduction would be possible either.......

[Andy]

no joy from STM, and as rightly said asexual reproduction will take ages.

I'm intrested to know people that have cats and what they dose in thier tanks.

There is some common theories I can see about the decline

1) Fungal/Parasitic Disease only related to these species
2) Dosing with stuff that trace amounts of iodine
3) Buying a poor looking species already on it's way out.

I've got 1 and 3 covered. I contacted Seachem in the US and spoke to them and they said reef dip is a full spectrum treatment that kills parasites and acts as an antibiotic. The two drugs commonly used for treating this Doxycycline or Nitrofurazone are now defunct and most advise a dip process.

3 is quite a selfish point, I am only going to select a healthy speciman if I can. However the pathogen can transfer from Cat to Cat so it's not a good idea keeping them together.

Point 2 is quite an interesting one. Seems like high iodine supplements can lead to early demise. Stuff like coral vibrance isnt great as it contains trace elements of this, which I why I will probably stop using this. Similar things are coral vite etc.

I'll try as hard as possible to document everything I do. Such a thing should really be admired in the best way possible.

[Tony B]

Point 2 is quite an interesting one. Seems like high iodine supplements can lead to early demise. .

IIRC, SPS Hoover has this coral - he doses with iodine

[SPS Hoover]

Pulse is fine thanks, you should have said about plating monti's i could have bought some along.

I hopefully they will be hardier as they should have been aclimatized to higher light levels by the mariculture process. They will be chopped up colonies probably done with a wood saw thats how they are fragged I am not brave enough to do it mine. But I am very gratefully someone else was or i wouldn't have a piece.

Regards mine I never feed it, but it does have a couple of clowns living in it. So could get food that way, but normally its advised not to let clowns live within them. Its placed slightly under over hang does not like strong flow. Mine is also milliputted to too a flat piece of rock to give better stability so it cant fall over and tissue be buried in sand.

Just read STM comment above but that is where I heard about maricultured Jez told me

[Tony B]

Pulse is fine thanks, you should have said about plating monti's i could bought some along..

Wish I had remembered, just did not think - must remember you're doing frags, some lovely bits on your website :)

[Tony B]

I hopefully they will be hardier as they should have been aclimatized to higher light levels by the mariculture process. They will be chopped up colonies probably done with a wood saw thats how they are fragged I am not brave enough to do it mine. But I am very gratefully someone else was or i wouldn't have a piece.

Regards mine I never feed it, but it does have a couple of clowns living in it. So could get food that way, but normally its advised not to let clowns live within them. Its placed slightly under over hang does not like strong flow. Mine is also milliputted to too a flat piece of rock to give better stability so it cant fall over and tissue be buried in sand.

Just read STM comment above but that is where I heard about maricultured Jez told me

Yes I hear what you’re saying re mariculture and light levels although it is hard to accurately say if it is the light that causes very high mortalities.

I wonder if there’s any correlation with data; example: Most Cats collected in yesteryear we’re hardier, why? I wonder if these specimens we’re from shallow water locations? Maybe certain oceans provided a tougher coral irrespective of water depth? It would be interesting to see if any coral collectors kept a log of where they obtained the animals (depth, oceans etc). We could then see if there was particular condition of natural habitat that repeated of late and that was not present previously in yesteryears bullet proof examples.

Of course I think it is ambitious to hope for this type of data to be held on record, but maybe speaking to the coral farmers, the old boys, they may recall how things were back in the day…..

[SPS Hoover]

They always grew is sea grass fields which tend to to be very shallow water but because of that were easy to harvest. So probably not so common any more in those areas

[SPS Hoover]

A few links

http://www.wetwebmedia.com/elegance.htm

http://www.tidalgardens.com/pages/coral/catalaphyllia.html

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-06/nftt/index.php

[Tony B]

Interesting links, thanks Si.

After reading those links, for the SERIOUS collector I would be inclined to suggest seting up a species tank for this coral, try and replicate the original environment, maybe no skimmer (they apprently like high nutrient levels), very gentle bulk water movement etc etc........

.......... Then slowly adjust conditions to that of a reef tank ???? Just an idea ;)

[Andy]

One thing I would be interested to see is the sucess of these in a skimmerless miracle mud system. I don't have access to this kind of system but I would be interested to know if anyone else has kept them sucessfully.

[pavlo]

Martin Lakin has a monster of a cat in his tank. I know he has had the cat for over 5 years during which time it has grown very well.

His system is heavily skimmed and has a huge fish load plus many different sps, lps and softies.

His cat is high up under MH lighting and it is sitting on rock in high flow.

If you read all the advice on these corals it would not recommend any of the conditions he has, yet it still thrives.

If you want to see a photo of it, look here http://www.homdens.co.uk/martinlakin/PICT0022.JPG

Be warned though, the photo is not compressed so you may have a bit of a wait if you are on dial-up

[dan-the-man]

One thing I would be interested to see is the sucess of these in a skimmerless miracle mud system. I don't have access to this kind of system but I would be interested to know if anyone else has kept them sucessfully.

If you fancy trying this idea I'll PM you my address :D ;)