Feeding sun corals

LittleRed · Dec 16, 2014

I recently purchased a sun coral from my LFS, I did the research and have enough corals doing well that I thought I'd have a go. Today was the first day they've opened since I purchased them, so I went and got some frozen food to feed them. I tried my little dropper I use to feed everything else but it wasn't accurate enough, I ended up using tweezers to feed each polyp, which was still very difficult. How do you guys feed your sun corals so that each polyp gets fed?

zesty · Dec 17, 2014

I've heard of people taking the top of a 2 liter pop bottle and cutting the bottom off. Then putting the cun coral under the DOME and either putting food into the top opening or feeding right before putting it on. Then I would leave it for a while to let them digest.

I'm sure there's plenty of other ways to do it, this one just sounds cheap and easy.

Z06-Hec · Dec 17, 2014

i use the bottle method, and i dont worry about all polyps fed, i just keep circulating the water in there so the shrimp fall on each one.
At one point i stopped feeding it because i had an outbreak of amphipods/copepods and noticed the coral catching some on its own and eating at night.

then i bought a golden head goby and hes been throwing sand on everything !!!! i had to remove the sun coral to a smaller tank.

robertfish50 · Dec 18, 2014

I also use bottle method. I just use a turkey baster and shoot the brine shrimp in there and then give the baster a few soft pumps and it swirls the food pretty good.I fed like that every other day.

gtbarsi · Dec 18, 2014

Z06-Hec said:
i use the bottle method, and i dont worry about all polyps fed, i just keep circulating the water in there so the shrimp fall on each one.
At one point i stopped feeding it because i had an outbreak of amphipods/copepods and noticed the coral catching some on its own and eating at night.

then i bought a golden head goby and hes been throwing sand on everything !!!! i had to remove the sun coral to a smaller tank.

It all sounded good until the Goby entered the mix... Dam shame, since a pod population like that is something people usually strive for. I hope you found another way take advantage of them.

Vidofner · Dec 19, 2014

My sun coral is my favorite coral and it's far easier than i first believed. I use an aparatus that kind of works the same way as julians thing but a big dropper or a turkey baster would work to but then you'd need to get your arms wet. I feed mine a mix of either a cube of lobster eggs or red plancton and a cube of mysis. I then just spay the coral as best as i can or atleast til i see that all polyps have retracted abit.

Many people say that you should feed them every day but that not true. I feed mine 1-2 times a week and its growing great. I guess it all depends on how much you feed them. If you allow a polyp to feed on a whole mysis shrimp i can garantee that it will be enough for atleast a week but if you just throw the food into the tank without aiming it to your sun coral than you'd probably need to feed every day.