am I hallucinating????

[fender316]

I just called my sister in a panic, i need her to come confirm what my eyes are telling me.  she's too tired to drive from orleans though.  i believe i have hundreds of sun coral polyps in my tank floating around, attaching themselves too everything.  AHHHHHHHHH.  if this is true i think i struck gold!  i been trying to lower my nitrates.  10% WC wasnt doing it so i did 25% .  things were looking good.  i got my galaxea back from my sister cause i been wanting it for a while, had a nice little spot for it.  theres an 8 inch+ worm in it i decide to try and get rid of....he crawled all the way into my trap which is around 8 inchs, i yanked it out of the tank via fishing line, his still in the galaxea.  so i pulled the coral out of my tank and in the process decided to do another 25% WC.  (last night, a week after first big WC).  i cleaned out my protein skimmer, and also cleaned the one side of my tank which was completely covered in algea, mainly red.  that was floating around in my tank for a few minutes till the filters got it.  i dont feed the tank, however i been using mysid shrimp in the traps as bait for the worm, that really woke up the sun coral (middle of the day yesterday).  i still think im tripping

[nelson]

Need a ton of pictures if you can.

[gvv]

Sorry, but didn't understand what is floating - sun coral polyps? What do you mean - separate yellow polyps? This is more than strange   It is always not good when polyps are floating separate of coral itself
It happens that sun coral may start spawning, but in this case you will not be able to see them as they are microscopic. Untill they settle down to you rocks/glass.

[fender316]

my minolta sucks i took video with my optra50 i can at least focus with that....

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[az]

looks like baby sun polyps!

[Julie]

Its' releasing planula larvae, yes you hit the jackpot.

[fender316]

a mushroom stung my moon  and killed a corner of it, but now theres orange polyps in the skeleton, sweet.  i really have no clue what im doing i hope these guys survive. 

[gvv]

If this guys are larvae -  this is great . I never saw larvae itself! Check nitrates - they are very sensitive. According to existing info after 2-4 days larvae settles down and became new colony - if you have skimmer it should be "fully powered"!

Don't know what type of Sun polyps you have, mine were about 1-2 mm in diameter when settled on. And, BTW, some info on sun corals: http://www.ultimatereef.net/forums/showthread.php?t=176488

[az]

you have to feed them btw!

[gvv]

you have to feed them btw!

Only when they settle down

[fender316]

i isolated my urchin, and i dont want him touching any of these polyps, i hope the snails and hermits are safe too, especially that gigantic worm i hope he doesnt go near any of them.  Full protein skim? i dont even understand my skimmer its a seaclone 100, its huge and if i turn up the oxygen the tank just gets full of bubbles and i think it stress out some corals, specially gorgonians.  i dont know when it released the larvae but i see polyps on rocks.  i noticed a lot of stuff in the tank though the other day, i thought it was poo but my goby doesnt poo that much....maybe it wasnt the water change i did sat. night that spawned it then. this is a delicate situation though, i dont feed this sun coral much, im trying to bring the nitrates down.  im just assuming that if the suncoral was happy enough to do this then hopefully my water is good enough for the babies to survive.  try to feed a cube of rotifers about every week, maybe a few shrimp during the week.  i noticed after the rotifers last week most of it was closed for a few days, maybe it was full, some polyps were out huge though, maybe they didnt get as much.  the bait for the worm woke it up though and its been over a week since i gave it a big feeding (i find one cube of frozen rotifers almost too much).  i'll probably feed it tonight, i turn off all current so that the rotifers fall on my coral, but the food still ends up everywhere in the tank so hopefully the new polyps will get some of that cause they are everywhere....thats the only food i put in my tank, nitrates seem to be dropping.  it should be mentioned that i started using live phytoplankton from boosterman last monday.  what do you guys feed your sun corals? and how often if you dont mind me asking. 

[Julie]

Heard other positive input the other day concerning the sun polyps and this food,.

[fender316]

lol my big snail's got a polyp on him, so do my powerheads.  will i be able to remove them easily in the future so i dont kill them when i need to clean the head?

[fender316]

this is insane theres more polyps today than last night, and theres still larvae floating around, looks basically like guppy poo, but its actually orange just like the sun coral.

[az]

i feed mine mysis every 3/4 days, thats too big for a baby so adding some cyclopeze/reefroids/phytoplankton at this stage might help, good luck.

[fender316]

are reefroids the same as rotifers? i had cyclopeze in the tube but it was too hard to feed, my buddy let it thaw too.  the rotifers cubes go in my feeding tube easily.  i like the shrimp to but it takes forever to thaw and sink, and its hard to feed every polyp, one of em usually takes the whole chunk. 

[gvv]

will i be able to remove them easily in the future so i dont kill them when i need to clean the head?

No, it is not possible to detach them without hurting, especially when they are so small...

[az]

cyclopeze > powder or reefroids which is also in very fine powder form, just add a spoon with some tank water on a container....mix it well...pour it in your tank....thats it, you dont want to add too much and mixxing it b4 is the key!

[mdugly]

So what happened...Any updates ?

[fender316]

they're still alive, gonna have to get some more live phytoplankton cause i donna what else they eat.  i got some cyclopeze and reefroids, feed that every week.  you need a magnifying glass to really see the tentacles but heres some pics

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