Encourage sun coral to come out?

[FishmanJosh]

So, my sun coral hardly ever comes out, even if I put coral / live food in there. Water params are all fine, none of the coral seems to have died yet, its just Ive only ever seen the actually polyps come out maybe 3 times in the couple of months I have had it. Anyway for it to come out more? Thanks

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

I find that when there is a lot of stuff floating around, that's when mine comes out. So if I'm fragging or blowing detritus off rock, in a few minutes it'll open up. Also it will open part way through feeding, usually full open after the food is all gone. That's when you target feed them.

Also they usually open up right after lights off. Contrary to the name, they do NOT like light. So if they are in direct light, that's part of the problem. Mine's at the bottom of the tank, in front, with a large rock wall blocking the light

Look really close, it's about 1/3 of the way from the lower right corner of the pic.

Also, the more you feed them, the more they'll stay open. I've seen them placed out in the light and opened up in an LFS but he feeds them 5x a day.

 

[pat8you]

I had this problem with mine when i first got it. If they have not been fed in a while or you just got it from the store recently they are really reluctant to open up.

I found the best way was to really pamper it for a couple weeks. I would get tuperware large enough to hold it and then put it in there with some tank water each night. Defrost some mysis or brine and put a bunch of it in there with the sun coral. The food will eventually settle and i would use a turkey baster to move the water and get the food going again. Took about a half hour or so but it would eventually open and grab some food. After you have done this for a little while it starts to open up much fast and will eventually just open in your tank all the time and you don't have to take it out anymore.

Once you have it opening in the tank some people will use a 2 liter soda bottle with the bottom cut off as a feeding dome to protect it from fish and target feed it more easily if you have problems. I never had to do this though.

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

I never target feed mine, but I feed the tank plenty...it does fine, contrary to what I would have expected and what I was told.

 

[pat8you]

They probably don't need to be target fed if your feed your tank heavily but if it is not opening up i would suggest target feeding until it is opening regularly when you put food in the tank.