Branching Duncan Growth Tips?

eraserhead187 · Jan 23, 2020

Picked up a branching Duncan with 4 or 5 heads. Anybody have any tips on placement, flow, feeding, etc to get maximum growth? I want it to get big!

Relevant equipment:
32g Biocube w/ Steve's LED upgrade
MaxSpect Gyre 1k

Has anybody grabbed a small colony and seen it blow up? Also, how do they grow? Do new polyps come out at the base and slowly branch upwards? I've never seen one in person before.

Thanks!

T_BONE · Jan 23, 2020

Mine has had the most growth about middle ways to 3/4 ways up on the scape and in moderate flow. When it was in high flow it stayed retracted. Mine is in a 32 LED btw.

eraserhead187 · Jan 23, 2020

T_BONE said:
Mine has had the most growth about middle ways to 3/4 ways up on the scape and in moderate flow. When it was in high flow it stayed retracted. Mine is in a 32 LED btw.

Great, thanks! What type of LED system are you using?

Eagle_Steve · Jan 23, 2020

It also needs the water a little dirty or you can feed some reef chili or reef roids. My colony actually eats mysis once a week. Since feeding mysis it is growing like a weed.

T_BONE · Jan 23, 2020

My Biocube has the stock LEDs on it. Nothing else. All the coral in that tank grow really good. I have a hammer, Duncan, ricordia, plating monti, and some xenia. For some reason they grow as good if not better than my big tank with Radion XR30 Pros!

T_BONE · Jan 23, 2020

Eagle_Steve said:
It also needs the water a little dirty or you can feed some reef chili or reef roids. My colony actually eats mysis once a week. Since feeding mysis it is growing like a weed.

This too!

Crabby48 · Jan 23, 2020

My two head became over 12 within 4 months. Every mother day fed extra LRS or mysis

Eagle_Steve · Jan 23, 2020

One cool thing about feeding mysis is how big they get after eating. Mine swell up huge afterwards and extend themselves way out. Makes for some good pics.

I keep 2 colonies and have to frag once a month. I keep the big one to about 30 heads and the small one to about 15.

this is after feeding.

eraserhead187 · Jan 24, 2020

T_BONE said:
My Biocube has the stock LEDs on it. Nothing else. All the coral in that tank grow really good. I have a hammer, Duncan, ricordia, plating monti, and some xenia. For some reason they grow as good if not better than my big tank with Radion XR30 Pros!

It's so weird how that happens. I got the upgraded lighting so I could control it better and grow LPS and SPS. Well I have yet to dive into SPS out of fear, and frankly I just like LPS so much better anyway.

eraserhead187 · Jan 24, 2020

Eagle_Steve said:
One cool thing about feeding mysis is how big they get after eating. Mine swell up huge afterwards and extend themselves way out. Makes for some good pics.

I keep 2 colonies and have to frag once a month. I keep the big one to about 30 heads and the small one to about 15.

this is after feeding.

These are amazing. I hope mine end up getting awesome and growing like that some day. Just 4 heads right now. They do seem happy. I've got them planted in the sand but their stalks are probably 4 or 5 inches long. Thinking about jamming the plug in the live rock to get them up a little higher and into better flow. They do have a great feeding response. However my dottyback thinks they are silver platters of mysis just for him.