New Chili Coral....

[ChilisREasy]

Originally Posted by Eriksmack

Not sure what info your looking for on the chilli so I'll give you the history
I received the chilli coral frag from Chuck probably a year ago. He has the parent colony for around 3-4 years I'd guess. It started out in his acro tank were I believe that the coral didn't get fed directly. He fed the tank a lot of nori mysis shrimp to my knowledge.
Right now its in my 360 tank and it gets light from a 250 xm10k bulb for 4 hours a day. It usually only opens at night but I have seen it open during the period were my t-5 light is the only light on.
I feed a good amount of food to my tank. Mainly Reef mariculture food. I personally haven't tried dt's since I went to nonphoto corals, but after seeing video of dendros sort of tasting the dt's then spiting it back out I think I'll stick with whats working. I also feed a homemade blend of mussles and oysters and prawn eggs every other day or so.
Erik

[Eriksmack]

Hope that helped?

[ChilisREasy]

sorry, the TRT reply was not working...what i was going to say is...

We need more information..like what your special food consist of, how often you feed, what type of filtration you have, how you keep cyano from growing, & anything & everything else about the tank the chili is in..& how you care for it..also..chuck has kept a chili for 3-4 years ? i have never heard of this..i have said this before & i'll say it agian..i need proof, if this man has kept these corals for years..he needs to release this data to the public !

no offense

also. nice corals. what other corals you have ? i really like that black sponge

[Eriksmack]

I'm sure you've seen his pictures of his chills right?

Theres a dvd of his reef (s) that has videos of his baskets stars probably 2 years ago it also shows the chili coral in his old sps tank. On the same dvd theres a real nice video of his tank taken sometime in the summer.

I feed my tank 2-3 times a day with shellfish diet probably around 40-60 mil a day
I also feed daily roti feast probably 20 ml
every other day my tank gets a chuck maybe 3/8 thick by a little over the size of a quarter round chuck of a home made mix. ( blended oysters and mussels with nutramar uva which is prawn eggs and some brine and baby brine also in the mix)
The next day I feed pe mysis. I currently don't directly feed anything in the tank I just add it to the water colum

My total water volume is something like 400 gals.

My skimmer is probably under rated for my tank, but its doing a fine job so far
ASM g4x

I had a diatom issue only for the first 2-3 weeks. Now its gone. In my previous tank I never had a issue with diatoms or anything else other then The evil bryopsis but thats another story. Once I got into the non photo stuff more I had already beat the bryopsis monster. Raise my mag levels for a month and that did the trick.

Havent had a cyano break out in years. probably 5 or more.

I use carbon in my sump, chuck does not though

I currently don't have a calcium reactor hooked up. Im using a home 2 part. Haven't decided if I will build a reactor or not.

fish load is low IMO
8 fire fish
2 ora cross bred dotty backs
1 splendid dotty back
1 neon dotty back
1 unusual hawk fish
1 picasso clown
1 small (still yellow) orange shoulder tang
1 large orange spot fox face that is got to go
1 lawn mower blenny
1 copperband that eats all kinds of food, flake included

future upgrades

24/7 drip feed that will run for 15 minutes every hour. I will fill it once in the morning and once at night

I'm looking into sulfur dinitrater now. I might build one in the next few months as a back up system on the tank

I'm also looking into sugar/vodka dosing. Chucks tank gets 9 ml of vodka a day and evyerthing looks great his way.

Chilireasy, not sure where your from but if your ever out the cleveland ohio way you could stop over and see the tanks, plus I might be able to get you a copy of chucks dvd.

His paper might get on to RC soon. I believe theres some issues with the editor over the paper as I believe said editor wants to be the one who publishes Dendro information first. But I think hes been beaten to the punch though

Charles Mathews is the guy to ask about the paper though, he might be able to get you a copy of it.
Erik

On a side note, Chucks not a computer guy. He rarely gets on the computer so thats why you don't see alot from him. You do see heis tank pics pop up a good deal though

Done with the book
Erik

[ChilisREasy]

thanks for the information, that sounds like a good feeding plan, if it works, hey it works..i never fed that stuff before,

sorry for asking so many questions, i hope you can understand why its so important,

[Eriksmack]

I do, and don't quote me on the article making it through. I no it was "block" a month ago. Is there a pm thing on this forum? if so I'll pass on a little more info on the block

[carym]

Thanks for the info Eriksmack, yours look great I wish mine would have opened in the main tank but who knows

[Eriksmack]

This is the stuff I feed


As for chili corals, my chili mainly comes out at night. I'd say 85% of the time it is open is during the no lights on the tank phase.

[Fly Guy]

Originally Posted by ChilisREasy

..but i have NEVER seen a chili expand in a MH tank, even if the coral was hidden from the light or not.

My chili opened up fairly often in my MH tank and it wasnt protected at all. Center of the sandbed. I killed it in about 8 months as I had no clue and didnt try to feed it ever, just thought it looked cool but up until the last couple months it opened fairly often.

Im pretty sure it was the fact that I starved it that killed though and nothing to do with the MH being toxic.

[ChilisREasy]

ok, just to clear this up, because what i said is starting to make me look like more of an idiot........ what i ment by the MH possibly being toxic (in some way) is that it might irritate the polyps or even cause some type of health problems to them & prevents them from expanding normally under intense light. not deadly to it 100%

BTW im glad to see that were getting more interest in these corals.

[ChilisREasy]

just a thought..maybe we can get a dedicated forum here on TRT for filter-feeding corals ?

[ChilisREasy]

well Cary, hows your Chili coral doing now ? your coral is 5 months old tommorrow, great job ! just thought i would give an additional information bit....my chili finally came out of hibernation last night..so i created a external feeding container to feed it in..i was actually able to handle the coral..remove it from the tank & into the other without making the polyps retract..i must have tamed the coral

[carym]

That's cool, mine has been doing great since the move to the Refugium. It opens pretty much every night, and I think I can actually see some new growth on it. I will try and take some pics this week when it is open and post them. I feed about once a week (or so) but probably should a little more and maybe I would get some more growth but for right now it seems to be doing much much better so I am very happy.

[XeniaGirl]

That's awesome, Cary! I'm jealous - I think that chilis are the coolest corals ever but I don't have the equipment or the time to take care of them the way they deserve.
Any pics for us?

[carym]

Well here is an updated Pic, remember this is in the refugium and I don't care that there are aptasia in there, they are suppose to help polish the water. And the glass isn't the cleanest.