Open brain not feeding

[Fungia]

Hey everyone.

A few weeks ago I picked up my first lobo and I can remember being able to feed it well at first but now when I drop mysis or brine onto it it doesnt open up at all. :(

Last night I saw that the tenticles were coming out a bit on one corner so I rushed to get some frozen mix, held the food up to the partially extended tentacles but they retracted because I think I may have touched them a little.

Generally it seems to be doing pretty well and looking back at the introductory pictures I took some of the tissue has grown nicely over the damaged parts.

Its in my Chromis under a 10kK 3 week old BLV bulb with 36W actinics in a low flow area. There is a favites pretty close by but after looking at the long sweepers they dont flow in the direction of the lobo.

All other corals are fine, which include; frogspawn, candycane, favites, acans, zoas, leather and mushies.

I dont have any other stats available but can do some tests tomorrow. Temperature is around 80 with 2 degree swing (trying to get bloody ATC800 working! :mad:) and water is at 35ppt.

Here are some pictures:
General shot showing the lovely coral (sadly the colour isnt quite this bright in real life):
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1071/582370067_983fca47e7.jpg

A little tissue damage:
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1405/582370279_0d3d5c82f2.jpg

Poor top down shot:
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1164/582693912_3cb8f76a05.jpg

Right, so this is another of my concerns. When not expanded, I can see in the tissue there is this little tube worm shaped hole and what looks like a hard shell like from a feather duster or one of those clear tenticle wormed thingys. I am slightly worried that it could be something that has bored its way in. :annoyed: (sorry again its not a good pic, I'll take another tomorrow)
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1190/582693682_4100e1c8e6.jpg

Thank you. :thumbsup:


Jeff.

[zimreef]

Looks like it could be a barnacle underneath the coral. As long as your water params etc are OK then I don't think it will do any harm - maybe if the coral is stressed in any way it would be cause for concern but looks healthy enough to me.

I wouldn't rush to feed it - perhaps put the alarm on and have a look at the coral well after lights out. Will probably be expanded out of all recognition so that's the time to feed if you're worried about it.

Some corals take a little while to become accustomed to the change in feeding procedure in captivity. After a few days/weeks will probably start to extend feeding tentacles as soon as you start to feed the fish.

John

[Fungia]

Thanks John. :D

Sadly though I'm usually up until about 1am and dont see it expanded fully for feeding. Hopefully its still settling in.



Jeff.

[wave ace]

I haven't seen my brain in feeding mode once but it's doing OK in fact it looks good and has grown

[Fungia]

:D Good to hear. Thanks for that WA.


Jeff.