[stunreefer]

Originally Posted by Joe Pusdesris

Though, I would like to add that over feeding is in fact possible.

Very true... all of the large polyp NPS coral can be overfed. Not only can what you experienced happen but I've seen a coral accept so much food at one time it could not sufficiently digest all of the food it had, and the food actually rotted away in the gut causing issues.

In my experience it's better to feed more frequent, smaller feedings, which in turn keeps their polyps open all the time For example, I'll feed a each polyp of one of my Dendrophyllia (Sp.) colonies a single P.E. Mysis shrimp (very large Mysis) every other day or so. It would surely accept more than that, but it grows rapidly and is "happy" all the time so there is no need for additional food.

Originally Posted by uhuru

How about some advice on flow requirements?

Generally speaking most large polyp NPS coral are very forgiving regarding the flow issue. In a "hobby term" I would say "low to medium" flow is required, but that means very different things to different people and systems. You want to make sure that detrius is not building up and sitting on the skeleton, but you also want to make sure that the polyps don't look like they're going through a hurricane. While feeding many times it's a good idea to turn all flow off to make feeding easier, however they can feed efficiently while flow is still on (assuming they're a healthy specimen). I spot feed directly to every polyp and rarely, if ever, do I turn any pumps off while feeding.

Specific exceptions I can think of are Tubastrea micrantha, Dendrophyllia cribrosa and any other "true" branching large polyp NPS coral as they are found in higher flow areas than other Species and require higher currents to keep them detrius free.

Originally Posted by aninjaatemyshoe

One thing we could add to this is pics of the various species we have, along with some effort to identify them. One thing I've had a particularly difficult time with is figuring out how to identify the various Tubastrea species.

Feel free to add any pics or info to this thread...

I will say that identifying some of these Species is like attempting to identify various Acropora Species, even differentiating Genuses can be difficult. So often I see people rattling off information regarding the difference between Dendrophyllia and Tubastrea which is simply not true, like Dendrophyllia always has larger polyps than Tubastrea and that Dendrophyllia opens during the day and Tubsatrea does not , etc., etc. Suffice to say it's simply not that simple. VERY generally speaking, the larger polyps are on Dendrophyllia (although there are Dendrophyllia Species with extremely small polyps), and the tentacles are more translucent on Dendrophylila making their nematocyst easier to see (the little dots; Their stinging cells).

The most common Species of Tubastrea we see in the hobby are T. faulkneri, T. coccenia and T. micrantha. Generally T. coccenia and T. faulkneri are either orange, yellow or pink, with variations of all of the above in a single colony sometimes. T. coccenia takes on more of a ball, and/or an ecrusting growth form with shorter coralites than T. faulkneri, which tends to branch out a bit more. T. micrantha is commonly called "black coral" or "black sun coral" and is found with black, brown or green tissue on the coralite and coenosteum (tissue between coralites), and can have green, black or brownish polyps as well as translucent or white polyps on rare occurences. T. micrantha is generally a broad, branching colony and resembles a tree in growth form. There is another "black sun coral" that is often mistaken for T. micrantha that develops more of a ball shape (not quite as branching) which is T. diaphana.



aninjaatemyshoe, that is no doubt one helluva Pseudocorynactis!

Mike, get thos damn gobies outta there! They sound peskier then freakin' clowns