What to feed this guy?

[~Rookie Wookie~]

Couple days ago, I bought an elegant coral from my LFS because it was just so purrty. Now, I came home tonite and decided to feed my clown because it's been a couple of days now. So I chopped up some Formula One and dropped a few pieces into the tank. One of the bigger piece fell onto the coral and was stuck on the tentacles; I thought nothing of it and continued on. Thirty seconds later I noticed all the tentacles wrapping around the food and slowly bringing it closer to the center. I thought to myself, "WOWEE! THIS THING EATS!!!" Then immediately I felt pretty dopey... of course it does.

Anyway, upon my new discovery, I was wondering how I should properly feed it? How often? Is Formula One good enough nutrition-wise? And I don't have any tools for target feeding... So what would be the best thing to get for this application? Thanks.

[Pirate]

I saw everything in your profile except lighting ? Which is very important to these corals. At least PC's, preferably MH's if you hope to maintain the piece long. I believe that you can target feed any invert food, or the new cyclopeeze. Everything seems to love that stuff. The bad thing is that these are not known to be a real hardy coral, and do not seem to do well overall. Of course someone will come on and tell you that they have had one for years, and no problem. There are exceptions to every rule. At IMAC I listened to Julian Sprung speak and he is not a big fan of these corals being in the home aquarium. Good luck !

[~Rookie Wookie~]

Just updated my tank spec to include the lighting, thanks for the reminder... don't see how I could have missed that.

When I bought the elegant coral, the LFS owner told me it was an advanced coral and required strict parameters for survival. I told him my tank specs and he said it should do well in my tank. I hope I can keep it for years to come as it is a beautiful thing.

Has anyone had one of these? Is there anything I should be doing to prolong the survival rate?

[Pirate]

See if you can find any material by Julian Sprung. He seems to be the authority on these. He mentioned at IMAC that they seem to do better when Iron and Manganese are supplimented. The amounts I have no idea about. But to be safe see what you can find by him. Eric Borneman is another good one. Good luck and keep us posted.

[Geoff]

apparantly in the past 5 years they have been getting more and more difficult to keep. many people speculate that it could be our tanks are getting cleaner and cleaner. 10 years ago they were fairly easy to keep. they also looked a little different then the pic you have. it had more striations in colour in the center.

other people say it is overcollection. either way they like a lot of light, but not ridiculous amounts. i kept one for quite a while under a 175MH in a 55 prolly close to 10yrs ago. i have not tried one since, they started getting pretty expensive there for a while.

it would get what the rest of the tank got for food. i would though out a cube some frozen reef mix and sump it in near a PH. this would spread it out in the tank and some would settle on the coral.

hth,

G~

[Buddha]

Lighting does not matter. These corals are considered non-photosynthetic. They are found in mangrove swamps and live in very nutrient rich environments. They are sand dwellers. Thier success rate in tanks are almost 0%.

[Alice]

I like to feed LPS and anemones that are big eaters with small silversides or small pieces of whole, uncleaned shrimp (rinsed first if they are frozen.) Considering we don't know a whole lot about their nutritional requirements, I like the idea of giving them the skin and bones.

[Alice]

They are indeed photosynthetic and are one of the most likely corals to swap out species of zooxanthelle. I've seen people keep these under a variety of lighting but it's true, they have had a dismal survival rate for several years and the cause is still undecided. The tide may be turning on them though, as I've seen specimens come in healthy and survive within the last year. They do like to be down in the sand but can easily be irritated by sand blowing around in the aquarium. They are often found in turbid lagoonal waters, down in the mud, so direct exposure to high MH may not be necessary.

[~Rookie Wookie~]

How often should I be feeding it? Once a week? I think I will try the frozen shrimp swapped with Formula One...

[Alice]

Once a week, twice on special occasions lol, ought to be fine.

[~Rookie Wookie~]

Thanks for the tips guys.