new sun corals with tiny tentacles? or not opened? help!

[mchotdog]

hey!
i just picked up some sun corals from Rays wednesday.  for 35 bucks i thought it was a really good deal at the time.
until i brought them home...
i had never kept them before but i did quiet a bit of research on them to make sure i can keep them successfully.
i started target feeding them brine and baby brine shrimp since the first day.
at first i thought that they are just not used to my tank and are not coming out to feed. that's why when i feed them only tiny tentacles are shown. they look nothing like in the pictures of other sun corals online.
until tonight, when i started target feeding them, once again those tiny tentacles came out and i watched closely, they were indeed feeding! they catch everything they touch and feed the food particles in their mouth! that kind of shocked me. could it be that my sun corals are feeding and are fully extended, it's just that they are in such bad health their tentacles are tiny compared to normal sun corals?
please let me know! this picture is taken right after i fed them. this is the fullest opening i have seen them so far.  are they open and in bad shape or are they not open?

[az]

they take time getting used to the tank and your feeding schedule, looks perfectly ok.

[vonG]

I have sun polyps... it took almost 2 weeks for them to open.
one day... I fed the tank with blue lighting on low and they exploded. now I use a syringe to feed them.

[FocusFin]

Hi,

I think I was at Ray's when you bought them.

One thing you can do to concentrate your feeding is to make a lunar lander or feeding hat.

Cut a plastic bottle in half and stick some tubing through the top. You might want to glue some decorative rocks to it to help weigh it down. Guide the feeder over top of the coral and inject food using an ear bulb or syringe and leave it on for half an hour.

Here's a pic or two.

[beertech]

Hey!! That feeding setup is awesome!
I'm gonna steal your idea for all kinds of corals, zoos, mushrooms, elegance...

I agree, give the coral some time to adjust to your tanks water conditions. If after a week it still looks the same, I would investigate to see what water parameters may be out of whack.

[Thunda]

We have sun corals in two of our tanks.  They tend to take awhile to get comfortable

The wife took a coke bottle and we cut the bottom off.  We'd place this over the sun coral and inject the food into the bottle and put the lid on.  Seemed to be a easy way to spot feed them. 

[mchotdog]

hey thanks! that is exactly how im feeding them. with a cut out soda bottle top. they just dont open up like in pictures online. hopefully they will open bigger soon.
thanks everybody for helping. i feel a lot better now.
Merry Christmas/happy holidays everyone!

Hi,

I think I was at Ray's when you bought them.

One thing you can do to concentrate your feeding is to make a lunar lander or feeding hat.

Cut a plastic bottle in half and stick some tubing through the top. You might want to glue some decorative rocks to it to help weigh it down. Guide the feeder over top of the coral and inject food using an ear bulb or syringe and leave it on for half an hour.

Here's a pic or two.

[brotherluv]

That's a beautiful coral!  I'm getting one for sure!

[redbelly]

Here is a pic of mine:





Polyps are open 24/7

I feed the Fauna Marin LPS pellets once a week to about 75% of the polyps. I feed mine using a dropper and target feed the polyps directly.

If your suncoral or dendro is healthy then the polyp tentacles will be sticky and they will grab the food and close up on it right away.

When you first bring in a piece that has not been fed and is not extending it is a bit harder to get them to start eating pellets. You have to drop the pellets onto the closed mouths that are in a position where they will not roll off. Shutting off the flow usually helps as otherwise the flow may blow the food off.

You can also feed mysis or krill in the exact same manner if you do not have a pop bottle ready yet.

Here is a link to my azoox tank build.... although I have not been update in a long time....
http://ovas.ca/forum/index.php?topic=48622.0

[cn]

Here is a pic of mine:





Polyps are open 24/7

I feed the Fauna Marin LPS pellets once a week to about 75% of the polyps. I feed mine using a dropper and target feed the polyps directly.

If your suncoral or dendro is healthy then the polyp tentacles will be sticky and they will grab the food and close up on it right away.

When you first bring in a piece that has not been fed and is not extending it is a bit harder to get them to start eating pellets. You have to drop the pellets onto the closed mouths that are in a position where they will not roll off. Shutting off the flow usually helps as otherwise the flow may blow the food off.

You can also feed mysis or krill in the exact same manner if you do not have a pop bottle ready yet.

Here is a link to my azoox tank build.... although I have not been update in a long time....
http://ovas.ca/forum/index.php?topic=48622.0

Beautiful macro shots of the Sun coral Patrick. Thanks for posting.
I like this coral a lot but I find it too high maintenance for me. Had nursed  yellow one from one head to ~50 heads as the polype came hitch hike on the rock of toad stool coral I bought few years ago. I had it for about 3 years then went over sea for one month and it just perished since my brother in-law could not do the target feeding.