Candy cane coral feeding?

[fandaga]

Does anyone feed their candy canes? I’ve had the one below for about a year, and this is the first time I noticed tentacles when the lights were low. I also happened to feed the tank with some Masstick. Anyways, this guy is still one polyp. Are they supposed to be very slow growing?

 

[Catawba_Valley_Reef]

Fairly slow growing in my opinion.

I would say yours is slower than normal for one year. Are you providing enough light?

I don’t feed mine directly and they do well.

Have two types in the pic below. A normal candy cane and then a teal one to the left of it.

 

[fandaga]

Fairly slow growing in my opinion.

I would say yours is slower than normal for one year. Are you providing enough light?

I don’t feed mine directly and they do well.

Have two types in the pic below. A normal candy cane and then a teal one to the left of it.

Thanks for the feedback! I thought they were faster growers like torches and hammers. My hammers have doubled in size in a year.

I did try different light levels. Originally I had the candy cane in the bottom of my tank at around 60 par and then moved up to 100-150 par to where the hammers are for about 6 months. It didn’t seem to respond any differently. Now it’s back around 60-100 par.

 

[Catawba_Valley_Reef]

In my experience torches grow faster than candy canes. I would give it 100 to 150 par. Mine are probably closer to 200.

LPS in general are slow growing compared to most softies and even a lot of SPS corals honestly.

Do you know your no3/po4 numbers?

 

[fandaga]

In my experience torches grow faster than candy canes. I would give it 100 to 150 par. Mine are probably closer to 200.

LPS in general are slow growing compared to most softies and even a lot of SPS corals honestly.

Do you know your no3/po4 numbers?

Wow, 200 is pretty high! Maybe I’ll move back up. I’d have to do some rearranging though since most of the stinging corals are high up.

My Nitrate is around 5-10 ppm and phosphate from 0.2 to 0.3 ppm. I had phosphate lower (like 0 to 0.05) for a long time but decided to try a higher ratio after seeing a video on these forums from Charles Delbeek where higher phosphate seemed to prevent SPS stn. I had some issues with that on some montis, and now it appears to have stopped.

 

[JayM]

That’s a slow grower for sure. Both of mine started with 2-3 heads about a year ago and they’re both around 8-10 now.

And I don’t feed them specifically.

 

[Catawba_Valley_Reef]

Wow, 200 is pretty high! Maybe I’ll move back up. I’d have to do some rearranging though since most of the stinging corals are high up.

My Nitrate is around 5-10 ppm and phosphate from 0.2 to 0.3 ppm. I had phosphate lower (like 0 to 0.05) for a long time but decided to try a higher ratio after seeing a video on these forums from Charles Delbeek where higher phosphate seemed to prevent SPS stn. I had some issues with that on some montis, and now it appears to have stopped.

I think your no3/po4 numbers are good. 200 was done over a period of time…so take it slow if you do increase the par.

You could feed it directly if you wanted, but sometimes that leads to excess nutrients in the tank.

Also, with higher no3/po4 numbers you can generally give a coral more light.

 

[dlemonz]

I typically feed my candy cane reef roids to the feeder tentacles. Grew from 2-8 heads in about 6 months

 

[Canned55]

I got a Kryptonite Candycane and I am glad to see everyone else's grows slowly as well.

 

[fandaga]

Thanks everyone for the tips!