blue cespitularia question

greystreet41 · Sep 23, 2007

I got a piece of this, but it's certainly not blue (brown). Looking at the Sprung book it certainly looks similar with structure. The pic in the book does not appear to be funny lighting or anything....just curious what your experiences are with it. It shipped well, which I was not expecting.

3mm3 · Sep 23, 2007

I have a nice colony of blue cespitularia and love it. One thing that my friends and I have found is that it is very sensitive to the temps of your tank. I would not keep tank temps in the 80's. With my experience anything 82 up was bad.
Mine is kept in med flow in the sand. My lighting is 250watt 20k hamilton with t5ho actinic. Hope this helps out.
Here is an old picture of a frag that I have

greystreet41 · Sep 23, 2007

3mm. those images are really small..can you post some larger ones?
thanks,
casey

and does yours pulse?

3mm3 · Sep 23, 2007

Sorry about the picture size.
Maybe this is a bit better.
No mine does not pulse.

alexpescado · Sep 23, 2007

I have had my Blue Cespitularia for about 9 months now. It has grown rather
well under T-5 lighting. It is growing on the sand bed. It started as a few stalks and has grown into a really nice colony. Here's an old pic.

mkman · Sep 24, 2007

Hey guys, I have some cesp as well.

I'm experimenting on how it does with intense light with less intense light.
Natural sunlight hitting the cesp will make it turn blue from what I have seen.

I also dose kalk everyday and not sure if its because of the kalk but my cesp shows its glitters very very well.

Also my cesp will pulse and few others on RC mentioned that theirs pulsed too. Not pulsing like a pom pom xenia, its a bit different. Mine will close its polyps and twist, then untwist and open its polyps. It doesn't do it constantly, I think I saw mine do it like 5-6 times in a minute and then stopped doing it and then a few minutes later it did it again.

I posted this on the big thread about cesp on RC's soft coral forum.

mkman · Sep 24, 2007

Here is a pic of mine at night with no lights on and just the flash on the camera.

FateX8 · Sep 24, 2007

sorry to hijack but was wondering if anyone is selling some of this?

gflat65 · Sep 24, 2007

Casey,

Check the stalks for the spicules you see shining in these pics. That is supposed to be the way to tell if you have a Cespitularia. I can't wait to come and raid your tanks again

. Regular ole jeans with rubber lined pockets won't work-I'm bringing in the hip waders

.

alexpescado · Sep 24, 2007

Greystreet here's another photo.

coralfarm123 · Sep 24, 2007

I think sometimes they can take a little while to get comfortable in a new tank and may look brown at first, especially if it was a wild colony. My frag took a little time to color up and I got it from a person in the local reef club. Here are a some pics of mine. The brownish colored photo is when it was first introduced into my tank, and the last few photos are a month or two after I got it and looking much healthier.
Newly acquired photo taken through the glass

Through the glass with flash

Top Down no flash

Top Down with Flash

revhtree · Sep 24, 2007

coralnutz said:
Wow, those last two shots are fantastic coralfarm... Love the contrast between the stalks and the pom poms.

No doubt very nice indeedy!

coralfarm123 · Sep 24, 2007

Thanks guys. I would love to see what kind of shots I could get with a camera like Rev's. His shots are always so crisp.

greystreet41 · Sep 24, 2007

wow, those are awesome coralfarm. I'll have to post a pic to show what brown really looks like. Some of these have me questioning classification, too.

mkman · Sep 24, 2007

Coralfarm, very nice cesp.

What kind of lights are you using and were is the cesp placed in your tank?

The person I got mine had his on the corner of the tank getting indrect lights under 400 watt 20ks. They look really clear light blue like your pics.

Mine are under 14k phoneix, 150 watts on the bottom of the sandbed and have a tealish blue color to them.

coralfarm123 · Sep 24, 2007

I have mine under 150 watt Phoenix bulbs as well and give them a decent bit of flow to keep them waving around but not blasted. I keep them about 12 inches or so directly below the bulb. I have noticed that they have a more clear light blue color when they really expand and stretch out and a darker blue when the tissue is more contracted. I have heard that they grow in pretty shallow water so would assume they like more intense types of lighting.