moving sun coral

[banchee]

Hi

I have a large sun coral which i feed krill or mysis every other day the problem I have is my yellow tang and my copperband who keep trying to steal the food from the polyps.
I can't put a plastic bottle over it due to it's position on the rock.
So I was thinking about taking it out of this tank and putting it in my other tank with my seahorses. My main concern is that the water flow in that tank is miles more gentle and I thought that sun corals like to be in high flow areas.

[PawsReef]

Im no expert but i would have thought it would be fine with less flow as long as it is being fed regularly it will get used to the changes pretty quickly.

I have read some people saying they like high flow and some say low flow, i think the general idea of them liking lots of flow is because in their natural habitat they need food to be passing them to grab onto, where as in your tank they dont need to rely on that factor.

[kizkiz]

Flow just needs to be strong enough to stop detritus accumulating on the coral.
Handy to move food around it, but not essential

[evilervin]

Hi,

If it where me; I would move the coral to your seahorse tank and see how it gets on over a 4 day (or so) period.

If the polyps fail to expand within that time (i would expect a well nurished, carefully acclimitised coral to except food the sameday its moved); I would replace the coral in your 'main' tank and fend off the fish, when feeding, with an acrylic rod or simular.... or consider the 'out of tank' method of feeding.

IF the coral does expand (some wont if the flow is consistently 'slack'), and you do keep it in the 'seahorse' tank, you'll have to pay carefull attension to waste food, 'poo'*, and general detritus build up inbetween the corallites (the tubes), which if left under checked it will destroy the under laying coenosarc.
Basically, give the coral a few 'blows' with a turkey baster daily, whilst the coral is closed.

*water flow is used for the clearence of waste products as well as prey capture.(:whistling: sorry Paws, couldnt resist adding a little extra:o)

Also another consideration to take into account is;
Can your seahorse tank can handle the extra 'pollutants'?
A well nurished coral can add quite a NO3, PO4 and dissovled organics load to a tank.

HTH
Roger

[PawsReef]

*water flow is used for the clearence of waste products as well as prey capture.(:whistling: sorry Paws, couldnt resist adding a little extra:o)
Roger
Quite agree with you and kizkiz, just forgot about that too :rolleyes:

..just to be argumentative..:p Am i right in thinkin that I read somewhere that the majority of sun corals in the wild are upside down in caves mouths so waste settling on them wouldnt be so much of an issue? Or is that just a myth in general??

[evilervin]

Seeing as we're being argumentative;)

...the majority of sun corals in the wild are upside down in caves mouths...Sun corals are found anywhere the current carries suitalbe zooplankton concentrations for their needs:p, be it upside down, horizontal, or on their side.

a couple of pics that prove nothing... i just like them;
http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f46/evilervin/wildgog01.jpg

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f46/evilervin/wildgog02.jpg

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f46/evilervin/gogwild04.jpg


Roger

[banchee]

Hi

Thanks to you all for your thoughts about this, got me thinking the water volume in the sea horse tank is half that in reef tank and the additional food going in to feed the sun coral would be a strain on the system with no doubt.

Think I'd better leave where it is and continue puffing the fish away with the baster.

My seahorses are happy, breeding every other week so I wouldn't want to upset them.

Thanks for your advice.

Karen

[PawsReef]

Banchee that does sound like a sensible decision :)

Roger I stand corrected :p I though that may have been another sun coral myth :rolleyes:
Lovely pictures though :thumbsup: