Duncan Coral

[Dakippy]

Hello!
I went to the LFS yesterday and picked up a 5 headed Duncan coral. It has opened up and looks quite pretty and healthy. Anyone know what to feed it or how to care for it? I have reef roids, would that work? Thanks for any help!

 

[Dakippy]

its in my coralife biocube 32 gallon along with Xenia, a green mushroom, and a Ricordea

 

[ZipAdeeZoa]

Congrats on your new addition, they are awesome corals! I feed mine vitalis lps pellets, about 1-3 per head once a week and my duncan seems to be quite happy with that schedule. They have a really strong feeding response so it might be easier to give them pellets than the powdered food but I'm sure they would take both.

 

[35ppt]

It's best to research your potential inhabitants before you buy them. That said, duncans are very hardy, and excellent beginner corals. You don't need to feed it but it will eat just about anything, roids would be fine. Just take care to not overfeed. Once a week is plenty. It's a stony coral so you will need to monitor and keep stable Alk, Ca, and Mg if you're not already.

/You also want to have detecable levels of No3 (~10) and Po4 (~0.08).

 

[RudyvandenBerg]

I do feed mine reef roids. Just mix it up as a paste and use a coral feeder or syringe to put some on each head. They love it. I do that once a week.

Also likes mysis or some form of meaty food presented with some tweezers. Their tentacles are very "sticky" and their feeding response is very quick.

 

[lilgrounchuck]

They’ll eat anything that will in their mouths. Mine are pigs. Mysis, roe, shrimp chunks, krill, your first born - it doesn’t matter, the Duncan will eat it and sprout 4 new heads over night.
Kidding aside, you really can feed them along with the tank. I’ll broadcast feed frozen and save the end of the baster for the Duncan colony and anemone. It’ll grow fine without feeding, but it’ll grow much faster with feeding.

 

[35ppt]

They’ll eat anything that will in their mouths. Mine are pigs. Mysis, roe, shrimp chunks, krill, your first born - it doesn’t matter, the Duncan will eat it and sprout 4 new heads over night.
Kidding aside, you really can feed them along with the tank. I’ll broadcast feed frozen and save the end of the baster for the Duncan colony and anemone. It’ll grow fine without feeding, but it’ll grow much faster with feeding.

They'll even try to eat your finger if you stick it it!

 

[Dakippy]

Thanks for the advice! I've been looking at adding a Duncan for a while now and wanted to wait or my calcium and magnesium levels to be at a state to cope with one and I think I found the perfect one!

 

[lilgrounchuck]

They'll even try to eat your finger if you stick it it!

No kidding! Mine are basically an anemone colony with a skeleton! I had about a pinky nail sized cube of shrimp blow into it the other day and figured it’d let go. Nope. It went to the silver dollar sized head and that joker opened up and ate it! I just moved my tank yesterday and relocated the colony to the corner just so it catches anything blowing by before it has a chance to settle and rot. It’s apparently a great part of my CUC!

 

[SMSREEF]

I feed mine reef roids. That’s the only thing I’ve ever target fed it. It’s over 2 years old and grown from 2 heads to 30. It started really growing after target feeding 2 times per week.

 

[lilgrounchuck]

Thanks for the advice! I've been looking at adding a Duncan for a while now and wanted to wait or my calcium and magnesium levels to be at a state to cope with one and I think I found the perfect one!

It was part of my first coral order on a 3 month old tank. I had “bad” lights (current orbit marine), no skimmer, and three heads went to 10 in about 2 months. You’ll be fine.