dendronephthya sp. ( carnation coral )

[stokiereefer]

Picked up a free frag today from LFS, just wandered if anyone has successfully kept these or has any advise on feeding or upkeep of this coral. thanks D

[Cranners]

Keith Man and errr Shultz would be the best people among others to pm and have a chat about these

You may find that you need to spend a bit to kit up for the dendro though....


J

[KeithM]

stokiereefer, can you post up a photo of your carnation coral to firstly confirm that it is a Dendronephthya?

They are not easy corals to keep. You need excellent water quality (think better than SPS water quality), a large amount of highly nutritous foods fed throughout the day and high levels of dispersed flow. You need to feed a lot which WILL foul your water..and so you must have a system that can handle and process the foods.

Can I ask why your LFS gave you the free frag?

One of the key ingredients to success IMO, is being able to source healthy specimens that have not been with the dealers/wholesalers for long. Poor water quality and lack of feeding often leads to death with these corals.

Post some details of your system up and I can try to advise you on how to keep these corals.

[stokiereefer]

hi keith tanks for your reply, i went to the LFS last night just for a browse, they had a bright yellow coral in which i didn't recognise - to be honest it didn't look to healthy at all! a couple of bits had become detatched from the mother coral so i asked if i could have them as i like to try and pick bits of coral up on tha cheap and see if i can make a go of them! in my opinion they would only die off siting on the bottom of the tank! so anyway he said i could have the frags but they were difficult to keep, took them home aclimitised them and fragged onto rock. Studied my coral book last night but didn't really help so popped the thread onto here.

System details are here - http://www.ultimatereef.net/forums/showthread.php?t=205358

What other info do you want?

Will post pic when i get home!

[Shultz]

My bet is that its a Scleronephthya sp.

Would need as close up a pic as poss to be sure, does it look anythign like this one that STM have in atm?

http://www.s-t-m.co.uk/xmas/pages/PC192089%20(Medium).htm

Cheers, Shelton.

[stokiereefer]

Pictures for positive ID and helpfull advise, as you can see not doing brill although only been in for 2 days, not got any worse but be great if i could get this back to wonderfull polyp showning! very slight polyp extention on right hand frag to the right. damo

http://i218.photobucket.com/albums/cc23/damo94/DSC00065.jpg

http://i218.photobucket.com/albums/cc23/damo94/DSC00053.jpg

[yipkm]

I would try target feeding by cutting the bottom of a large pop bottle and sticking over the coral, use a funnelto put in phyto and cyclopeeze etc, stops food from dispersing so you won't use so much and pollute your water

[KeithM]

Thats a Scleronephthya. Some have found that they're easier than Dendronephthya because they are capable of taking larger particles (even cyclops). However, I personally have not had much success with them. One of the most important things is securing healthy specimens.

Have you ever seen it with all the polyps open? does it reactor when you feed it? What foods have you tried feeding it?

[stokiereefer]

keith- no not seen it with the polyps open other than whats in the pic, trird to target feed some phyto but couldn't really see any change, thanks for the id i'll look that one up. what are cyclopeeze, i have got some copeopods and some rotifeier are they the same sort of thing? thanks again damo

[KeithM]

they don't take phyto...try some particulate foods like ultraminF, Ultraseafan, reefroids, coralfrenzy, cyclops etc. If you can get the polyps to react and open, then you can try to target feeding...

Make sure you keep your water quality high throughout

[marshalls2007]

whats the one that likes (supposedly) coral slime??

[marshalls2007]

also what are the proper names for these?

http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee176/marshalls2007/SSL20992.jpg

[KeithM]

the bicolour coral on the left is a dendronephthya and the pinkish/orangey one on the right is a scleronephthya (i think - pic is unclear)

dendronephthya are the ones that respond more to bacteria/slime

[marshalls2007]

:thumbsup: cheers...

[Projekct]

I found my Dendron looked very sorry for itself, and took it back to the stockist. utted cos its was a stunner. Quite a toughie to keep well and looking tip top.

Good luck with it.

[dendro982RC]

stokiereefer:
I also trying these orange and yellow scleronephthya in different conditions, to see what will work.
What worked the best so far:
- high flow - see, how the green star polyps bend in the flow:
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g78/dendro982/Soft%20corals/Dec25_07sclero.jpg
even sclero slightly springs in the flow:
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g78/dendro982/Soft%20corals/Dec25_07sclero2.jpg
- another option for placement was at the side or rockwork, where the flow goes around; and 3rd - in the tunnel (arch), where the flow goes in one direction, reflected from the glass.

- food: rotifer and decapsulated brine shrimp eggs size - any zooplankton of this size should work too, and things like Fauna Marin products, HatchFry, Oyster eggs, Golden Pearls, and so on.

- amount of food and frequency of feeding: constant supply as an ideal, try to feed as frequently, as possible, for prolonged period. Manually or as in this thread (http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=1087891), this (http://www.marineaquarium.nl/februari-2006english.php), or this (http://www.reefpark.net/forums/lofiversion/index.php/t25468.html).

Amount: density of food is important, IMHE. It should be not a singular crustaceans, floating far apart from each other (as when one gives ZooPlex, it's too big anyway), but closer to a cloud, with flow still on. Try to keep food suspended as long, as possible. Some of the above are using wavemakers, others - recommend direct flow downward, some keep it at 50-60x tank volume per hour.

Good luck!

[Stottlemire]

I find my dendros like flow at 7inches per second. Then you have to have the right food or you won't trigger a feeding response. Dendros like phyto and ss strain rotis, they are really small. Scleros are small zoo feeders. In my system I find they all prefer laminer flow.

Chuck