Dendronephthya & Scleronephthya aquaculture

[Dr. Dendrostein]

For my children of the sea. Thanks Reef Nutrition

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

From beautiful Tonga



1 of 43 carnation corals aka dendronephthya sp

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

Here's how the frags are doing

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

Tonight's pictures, all one month old, except yellow, it's 11 days old in close system

 

[dough]

This is amazing. Beautiful colors. I've never kept these due to the difficulty in maintaining the feeding requirements.

Thanks for sharing.

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

Tonight's pictures, all one month old, except yellow, it's 11 days old in close

This is amazing. Beautiful colors. I've never kept these due to the difficulty in maintaining the feeding requirements.

Thanks for sharing.

That's why I buy in bulk or large quantities at least if possible three or more at a time, because you need to start with healthy specimen and then lastly Pacific oysters. The tank setup and Flow not much of an issue as long as you get them to open up, the Pacific oysters take it from there. My opening page has a lot of tips

Thanks for commenting

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

Today's video

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

For your eyes only, kinda

I frag these 12 days ago and they are attached to coral rubble.

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

Today's pictures, some different frags

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

Tomorrow pick up new tank. Pictures coming.

 

[Gaufl]

Tomorrow pick up new tank. Pictures coming.

Nice one!
Will it be a showtank or another one for aquaculture?
Greetings,
Flo

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

Nice one!
Will it be a showtank or another one for aquaculture?
Greetings,
Flo

115 gallons, so double the size. Need to build aquascape scape background. But for now may try dry rock, Which I have plenty see what happens.

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

Another tank build...

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

New addition

 

[User1]

115 gallons, so double the size. Need to build aquascape scape background. But for now may try dry rock, Which I have plenty see what happens.

I understand you may not have a choice but dry rock takes a long while to mature. 2 years in to 150 lbs of dry Pukani and it is still questionable. I mean it is nice and all but it takes a good long while to get growth in every nook and cranny. I can lift a rock, turn it 180 degrees, and it would look almost like I just put it in there. If I take that same 2 year old rock and split it besides looking brand new you can see the visible lack of bacteria and biological growth in the nooks and crannies due to their depth.

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

Some new children of the sea....

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

Tonight's video

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

Another frag attaching

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

Getting quotes
Double bullnose

 

[Jilly92]

all my secrets are here on this thread, I've not kept it a secret on making these corals thrive, and God willing if I sell them, what good would that be, because the customer or client would be killing them still.

08/03/2020 List of corals that enjoy living with Pacific oysters or oysters in general
All specimens healthy and non photo synthetic
1. All carnation corals
2. All silk/tree corals (scleronephthya)
3. Certain gorgonians, must experiment
4. All sponges and tunicates
5. Sun cup corals must experiment
More info coming. ......

We still have more work ahead of us.
As of 8/2020, we've seen growth and some success. From 0-10 we're at 9.5. What we notice we need to work on is being more discipline and making sure all water parameters are spot-on and all maintenance is done on time.


What have we learned and/or discovered by accident

In relation to NPS soft corals, we know they need proper food, proper flow, proper filtration.
After adding Pacific oysters, I'm of the opinion that these beautiful corals can thrive in almost any tank.

Foods
Thru the day, they're fed live phyto-feast 5-15ml when I remember as a treat. Also oyster feast same amount. Also, I feed the phytoplankton from @Thespammailaccount,
Seem like corals have adapted to only powder foods. Powder whole anchovies, Reef Roids, powder kelp,powder while, and powder Nannochloropsis Salina. I have a fish feeder that can feed powder Foods, and I modified to come on once every 3 hrs 24/7, amount of powder food is 1 gram serving, every 3 hours. Midnight to 8am every 2 hours

Filtration

I have approximately 20 lb of Marco Rock, canister filter 7 lbs activated carbon on discharge of return pump . No more DE filtration, since adding 30 Pacific oysters the corals seem to settle in, feel unstressed, different. 28 oysters hidden in DT.
34 Pacific oysters in sump.
As of 07/01/2020 add a large protein skimmer. On 24/7

As of 08/04/2020
NO3 10 mg/l
PO4. ?
CA 435
ALK 8.1
Temp. 74F
07/02/2020
Pacific oysters in sump. 34 of them. Every time I add Pacific oysters to a new tank setup, the non photosynthetic come alive

Flow
Since adding oysters it's been like day and night the benefits, weather the corals are in the sump or in the display tank which both have different flow patterns they open up and feed just the way they look in the ocean.The point is, if you can get them to open up and you have oysters in the tank they will thrive. I've come to this conclusion

Every tank setup is different and the key or the main key is to get the Carnation corals and any similar to them to open up as soon as possible, then having oysters in the system will keep them open. And thriving
So the flow can be whatever it is as long as a corals are open, that's the key, example, my sump flow is different from display and yet corals in sump open and thrive, same as DT.



There's more but for another time.

As of 05/20/2020

Since adding the Pacific oysters at this time we are at 62, 28 hidden in the display tank and the rest are in the sump. The transformation has been like day and night. Because my water conditions were not right I had a lot of corals starting to starve themselves and now the ones that are still alive are open or starting to open and doing the reverse getting healthy. If I could gauge it from 0 to 10, right now we are at like 9 .5. 10 would be thriving exactly like in the ocean and we're not there yet but very close now.

Here's an example, I have one Carnation Coral that was dying and since I started adding the Pacific oysters small polyps re emerging, this would not happen if the coral is starving and slowly dying.
08/16/2020
Okay here's something new, this information was provided to me from the diver that collected our specimens. Carnation corals from Tonga that are identified as red carnation corals, ideal position for them is either on the side glass of your tank or upside down and the flow doesn't need to be strong. Now the other ones that are like bright yellows solid Orange Carnation corals that we recently got, these prefer strong flow and they like to be upright or at a 45 degree angle upright some what, but not upside down or sideways on the glass, even though we've have them that way because of tank design

So, in about a year or sooner , God willing, will try be selling some assets and expanding the aquaculture of these corals and other similar ones. And our dream of doing a Go Fund to pay for first aquarium institution that will have a tank with almost thriving NPS soft corals and such is going to happen.



Purple Carnation Coral from Exclusive Corals

What a tip