Large purple and white barnacles that are alive?

[herring_fish]

Does anyone know where I can order any of those large purple and white barnacles that are alive? I think that I can keep them alive in my tank and would like to see them actively sweep the water for food particles.

[rowjimmy]

Sorry I don't know of any livestock supplier that offers those large barnacles for sale. I've actually never seen them offered alive at all. I've only seen them offered as a "dead" decoration in that large size. People usually use them to decorate fish only tanks...they make good homes for gobies, blennies, and the like.

I got one that is about an inch that came as a hitchhiker on some Carnation Coral. They are fun to watch when food is added to the water.

[herring_fish]

So is it a young purple one or a normal barnacle? I can't tell. If it is, is it doing well at normal reef temps? Anyway, the dendro looks like it is doing well. I also see a small orange coral ...yes?

[stunreefer]

Originally Posted by rowjimmy

I got one that is about an inch that came as a hitchhiker on some Carnation Coral.

FWIW, the pic appears to be a species of Stereonepthya, which is actually semi-photosynthetic and generally much easier to care for than Dendronepthya. Regardless it's a gorgeous coral

[rowjimmy]

Originally Posted by herring_fish

So is it a young purple one or a normal barnacle? I can't tell. If it is, is it doing well at normal reef temps? Anyway, the dendro looks like it is doing well. I also see a small orange coral ...yes?

I'm not sure if it a young purple one or not. I've had regular smaller white barnacles come in on pieces of rock, but this one is much larger then those. I keep my reef at 78 degrees F.

As stunreefer pointed out it is not Dendronepthea. It's a few colonies of Stereonepthya. Similar to Dendro in appearance, but like stunreeer said much easier to care for in a captive environment because it is photosynthetic. I still feed them regularly though and they are doing quite well.

The small orange corals you see are baby Tubastrea (Sun Coral) polyps. I have them all over my tank. The "mother" colony I have keeps "spitting" them out.

[herring_fish]

Wow!
Fantastic That second shot is a beautiful one. You are way ahead of me in your progress but that is the direction that I want to go in. ...such diversity.

(The 2 sentence)
I guess that you need to have at least the right two, to make baby purple barnacles. I am going to order some regular barnies and will put some of them in the splash zone. I hope that they will be happy enough to spread all over the tank. As I said, I like the activity that they display while feeding ...like pumping xenia.

Again beautiful! Keep up the good work!

[uhuru]

Did you get those from LA (captive grown)? How demanding of light are they? I'm wondering if they would do ok in a dimly lit tank with lots of food.

[rowjimmy]

Originally Posted by uhuru

Did you get those from LA (captive grown)? How demanding of light are they? I'm wondering if they would do ok in a dimly lit tank with lots of food.

No I got them at my LFS. I've seen the captive grown (1") ones offered by LA though. They look similar to what I have.

IME they are light demanding. I was actually quite shocked when I first got them because I was expecting them to expand a great deal at night like Dendronepthya does, but these are the exact opposite. They expand greatly when the lights are on. When my lights go off, or when I just have my moonlights/actinics on they "deflate" and shrivel up. When the halides kick on they expand at their greatest and look their best.

A point of interest ... I do keep a mixed reef tank and keep several non-photosynthetic corals in the same tank with these corals. I feed heavily at night after lights out and they still remain deflated. So I don't know if you could get away with keeping them in a dimly lit tank and trying to feed them heavily. I think they are somewhat light dependent...at least the ones I have seem to be.

[uhuru]

bummer. they are very beautiful!