coral questions

[MYTY1705]

I have a 55 gal. 24" deep tank with 220 watts of pc light. Would a candy cane and a brain coral be ok, and how high in the tank do they need to be? Any special problems with these being hard to keep or picky eaters. High flow low flow. Please help befor I decide which to get. TIA.

[IfoundNemo]

Candy cane coral is very hardy, easy to keep in low flow to medium light. Mine open a lot with just 10K day light. I didn't have good experience with brain coral. I had a green figure eight brain coral, and it died just after 2 weeks in the main tank. All my water parameters were good at the time. I had it high on the LR so there were plenty of lights there. Anyways, you may have better luck with it than i did.

[Phyl]

I also have candy cane and open brain. My candy cane is up high on my rockwork and what started out as 3 heads is now going on 7. It feeds with the rest of the fish in the tank and loves mysis. I think it would do well regardless of placement. My open brain the LFS recommended putting high on my rocks as well. The kind (and generally better educated) folks here told me that rockwork is not the appropriate place for a delicate animal like an open brain. The abrasive surface of the rock could easily injure the delicate flesh. So I moved him off the rock and onto the sand. He did well there for a while but about 2 weeks ago he started looking a little thin. Wasn't opening as much nor for as long. I was really worried about him so I started target feeding him. I put a plastic bown with holes in it over him. I put one large hole at the top for inserting the turkey baster and once covered (and weighted down with a rock) I feed him some krill through the hole. I leave him covered until morning. Since I started doing this he's making a great recovery. Last night he was the best looking he's been in since he started his decline so I'm hoping that I'm onto something with the feedings.

My biggest problem feeding the brain before the plastic container was that my clown and my yellow tang would pick at him and steal his food. He wasn't getting enough to eat that way. I'm running 4x65 on my 120. I run my new MH for 2 hours a day right now.

Good luck!

[IworkatPSP]

From what I was told brain corals do best when placed directly in the sand, but im unsure.....I've got my maze brain and open brain on the sand and they're doing great.

[electrikat]

phyl---Did your candy cane produce new branches or reinhabit old ones. We bought a candycane a few months ago and it had about 6 empty branches and about 5 or 6 live ones. Do you know if it will reinhabit the dead ones in time or if it will just produce new ones? Do I need to remove the dead branches? They look like crap.

[MYTY1705]

so sand is the best place for them. Will crushed coral be ok as substrate? I've been thinking about removing the cc and replacing with sand but love the look of cc.

[Phyl]

My existing head have been splitting. The heads form a second mouth in the fleshy circle and then the flesh begins to pinch in between the two heads until they are two separate heads. That's been the way they've all reproduced. I don't know if it will recover the two existing heads. I'd probably be inclined to cut them off, especially if they looked like crap!

In the photo in my gallery you can see the right most pair of heads. Those two were one that had recently split. The top one is forming a second mouth and you can see the pinch point starting. The leftmost one is the one most recently splitting and I don't think it had a second mouth when I took that picture.

[electrikat]

Yeah that sound like what I need to do. Maybe I'll put the cuttings in the filter for bacteria growing space.

[Smo]

You didn't say what type of brain: open or closed?
I have a very large (8" across) open brain. Had him for many years. They don't like bright light or medium/high flows. Mine is near the bottom of the reef, stuck in a cave inside the LR. My system is BB, so there isn't any sand or CC to stick him in.
They are very easy to care for and don't have to be target fed. Mine lived on ESV and 83w PC in a 29gal for the past 3 or 4 years. I just recently started target feeding him. Only due to the fact that the LFS sells you such huge portions of live food.
I call him my "garbage disposal". Gets all the left-overs and then some. He likes pellets, brine shrimp, and blood worms (fresh or frozen). That is all I have fed him so far.

He is my favorite coral.