View Full Version : My duncan needs help.
animalman
08-22-2008, 6:54 PM
Hello everybody. Its been awhile. Tank coming along great. Got a nice piece of duncan coral bout a month ago and all was well till wensday when I came home and noticed that the duncan was closed up. I thought this was unusaul because this coral stayed open the whole ride home, durning the drip, and after I placed it in. Until now! Levels all good. Ammo, ites, ates, phos all @ zero. Temp 78, salt .025, MH lighting 150watt on a 30 cube. Calc @ 480, ph@ 8, alk @ 8. I'm not feeding it as I've read you don't have to. Been doing weekly water changes of 5 gals. Don't know what happened. When I came home today @ 1:00 this afternoon it was open but now it closed up again. Help Please:cry: I'm not sure what to do.:huh:
By the way I seen the thread CPD started and thats how my duncan looked. Nice pics in there guys. thanx
Squawkbert
08-22-2008, 7:47 PM
Any changes in local flow?
animalman
08-22-2008, 7:53 PM
No changes in flow before hand, but I have changed the flow today. Thought maybe, just maybe its the flow cause they were blowing around a lil rough @ times. I do have to say that today they r a lil more open than they were wens and thus. They were completely closed but now open up very little.
Fishieness
08-23-2008, 12:05 AM
They can be a little picky to random things getting in the tank. The oils from your arm or anything else could cause them to close up. Depending on what it is and what you have to remove them, it could take a little bit for everything to get out and them to open up again. I would say it is most likely perfectly fine. Just watch them.
From my experience with my Duncans they can close up at any time for any or no reason at all. Can be scary the first time as they close up to the point of looking like sticks. Sometimes mine will stay open for days/weeks at a time then one day they will close up 2-3 times in a day.. they just have very odd behaviour compared to most other corals.
You don't have to target feed them, but they do respond very well when you do. If you want them to spread/grow quickly then target feeding will do that. What I do is use a small plastic cup, thaw some Rod's Food in it, then I put the entire cup in the water, flip the cup upside down quickly and place over my Duncans, that way the food falls on them and protects against the flow in the tank blowing all the food away. Just in 2 months I have gone from 8 heads on my ORA Duncans to over 30 heads, and I contribute that to target feeding once a week. They eat like little pigs and you could probably target feed them 2-3 times a day and they would happily eat it all.
AquariumFish
08-23-2008, 8:04 PM
Mine close up when they are eating ...
Don't you feed them any Mysis or some other small meaty food?
I feed mine almost every day - mine have about a dozen new blooms (babies)
http://www.thebasicsabout.com/Coral/DuncanCoral1.jpg
animalman
08-24-2008, 3:04 PM
Sup everyone. Well they have opened. I guess they do that every once in a while. I did move my flow and have been covering the tank while the lights are out so no light from the outside or the house lights will light the tank. I thought because I've been up till 2 a.m. every night this week with the living room light on that might have something to do with it. But I'm not sure if it did or not but they are open now. Here's a pic. I think I will feed them once or twice a week got some mysis so I'll try it out. Thanx to all. :thumbsup:
59407
AquariumFish
08-25-2008, 1:00 PM
nice! how many heads on it?
I see you got a bunch of babies too!
animalman
08-25-2008, 7:46 PM
nice! how many heads on it?
I see you got a bunch of babies too!
Thanx. It has 5 heads and there are 6 new ones coming in. paid $55 for it. Best coral in my tank by far. I fed them tonight too, and how cool is that.:cool-1: It was very interesting to watch them eat. They almost looked like they were hungry and how the mouth opens up so big looked like little teeth in there. Thats why I got into the salty side. There's always a new adventure in your SW tank.:grinyes:
Ace25
08-25-2008, 11:46 PM
Here are a couple pics of mine, open and after feeding. Paid $80 or 8 heads at a frag show up in the SF bay area.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3266/2791685420_c81ee6bfed.jpg http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3036/2718670118_b6e820475e.jpg
AquariumFish
08-27-2008, 8:07 AM
Thanx. It has 5 heads and there are 6 new ones coming in. paid $55 for it. Best coral in my tank by far. I fed them tonight too, and how cool is that.:cool-1: It was very interesting to watch them eat. They almost looked like they were hungry and how the mouth opens up so big looked like little teeth in there. Thats why I got into the salty side. There's always a new adventure in your SW tank.:grinyes:
I can relate :grinyes: You got that for CHEAP!
I suffer from C.R.S. so I asked the wife what we paid for ours - we paid $45.00 per head for this one.
If you want to try your hand at ANOTHER coral which is killer - check out Sun Coral ... the little fingers on the top are out when they are looking for food - they do not need any special light at all and they eat things like mysis too ... it's cool to watch them hold it and slowly see the shrimp disappear.