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AndrewB's success with
Dendronephthya 2/16/08 Dear Bob, <Andy> I
meant to respond to your request for a write-up on what I'm doing
in respect of my Dendronephthya so as to educate others here about
keeping them healthy, but things got away from me. So I have some free
time and thought I would answer your questions. <Ahh!> As I
mentioned, I bought this coral in the Summer of 2007 (June or July)
from That Fish Place in Lancaster, PA. It was labeled as "Lemnalia
sp.", but as you pointed out, and as I have since confirmed by
comparing pictures, etc., it is actually a Dendronephthya. It's
very beautiful--cream colored stalks with small but bright yellow/blue
polyps--and it has 6 or 8 stalks of varying length (2" to
5"). New heads/stalks have dropped off/grown since I purchased it.
It is affixed to a piece of flat live rock, so I had a hard time
placing it in my aquarium--I didn't want to sit it on the bottom of
my tank. I ended up finding a place in the bottom third of my tank at
which I could lean the live rock piece at an angle on/against other
pieces of live rock. The coral is not upside down. My setup is a 110g
tank (48" x 30" x 18") with about 85-90 lbs of LR, 1/2
to 1" of fine-to-course aragonite substrate. I run a wet-dry
trickle filter with bio balls (I know . . . but this tank has been
running for almost 1 year and I have 0 nitrates). I run carbon in the
sump that I change out every 2 weeks or so. I skim aggressively with a
Coral Life Super Skimmer. Make-up water and change water are RO/DI. I
have a Tunze auto top-off unit (a wonderful and handy addition, by the
way). I also have an in-line 30 gallon refugium with a 4" DSB, 10
lbs of LR and a very large tuft of Chaeto, which is illuminated with 2
el cheapo 17W fluorescent grow lamps from Wal-Mart on a reverse
daylight cycle. I have been able to cultivate a good quantity of pods,
bristle worms, brittle stars, etc. in the fuge. I periodically
"feed" my fuge shrimp pellets. Until December, my lighting
was six 54W T-5 HO lamps (4 10,000K and 2 460nm actinics). In December,
I upgraded to 2x250W HQIs (20,000K), 4x65W actinic PCs and 8 LED moon
lamps. The lights are on timers--the actinics come on at 10:30 am and
go off at 10:30 pm; the HQIs come on at 11:30 am and go off at 9:30 pm.
The coral is out in the open, so it gets full illumination throughout
the day (again, though, it sits in the bottom third of my tank). My
maintenance is pretty simple. I do a 10% water change every Sunday with
water that I've heated, mixed and aerated for at least 48 hours
(most times, more like 3 or 4 days). I clean the skimmer at least once
per week. The only thing I dose is B-Ionic 2-part buffer, as needed
with testing. I test every week or so for the regulars--ammonia (always
0), nitrite (always 0), nitrate (always 0), pH (always 8.2-8.3),
alkalinity (always 3.5-4.0 meq/L), and SPG (1.024-1.026 depending on
salt creep any the extent of my efforts in returning creep to the
sump). My temperature is pretty constant at 79-80*F. I use 4 power
heads for circulation (Maxi-Jet 1200s placed 2 on each end of the tank,
pointed in various directions). I've thought about adding 1 more.
My return pump is a Little Giant 1325 gph, that returns through a
home-made PVC shaft that stands vertically down the height of my tank
(with several large holes drilled the length of the tube). As far as
feeding, I target feed the Dendro Cyclop-Eeze with a turkey baster
about 1-2 times per week, plus whatever the Dendro captures from the
fuge/LR inhabitants. My other animals are: Sailfin Tang, Gold Stripe
Maroon Clown, Brown Combtooth Blenny, Royal Gramma, and Copper Band
Butterfly; a Capnella tree coral, two colonies of Xenia, about 15
Corallimorphs of various types (Ricordea, Rhodactis, red, green hairy,
etc.), and a Pacific Rose Coral; two Lysmata shrimps, a number of
hermits and snails, a Sally Lightfoot Crab, and a Red Mithrax Crab that
came in on my first batch of LR (which has grown huge and has behaved
himself nicely). In December, I gave away my dying green BTA to someone
who wanted to work on reviving it and had the means/setup to do so, but
it was also in the tank since I purchased the Dendro. I feed the fish
once or twice per day (usually live black worms (the secret to keeping
a Copper Band Butterfly eating!) and Formula 1 flake (or a small sheet
of Nori)). I feed the Capnella as I do the Dendro. I feed the Pacific
Rose Coral once every week to 10 days (small pieces of silversides). I
let everything else fend for itself. I don't know if this will help
anyone as I don't think I'm doing anything magic, but for
whatever it's worth . . . Cheers, Andy Some tantalizing Red Sea Dendronephthya pix
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