Sun coral in need of rescue

[moe]

I have a sun coral that was nearly suffocated my a killer hair algae epidemic and want to bring it back. Help! any advice is appreciated.

[justahobby]

Continually brushing it off with a very soft brush, avoiding the actual heads as much as possible. For the long run you might consider removing it from algae prone spots. What I did was look at my tank to see where algae grew the best and then placed it else where.

If your tank is cycling through a case of algae, in which case EVERYthing has algae, you'll have to tough it out, figure out what's causing it, and incorporate some more algae eaters.

[moe]

Thx I've added turbo snails, but my sun coral really got hit hard by the algae. I'll try what u said.

[Captain Jack]

I use a toothbrush to scrub the hair algae off where i can. But i had some that was too close to the sun coral for the brush, so I actually used a narrow bladed knife (fishing knife) to carefully scrape some of the hair algae off the rock/dead-coral around the sun coral polyps. not a "cure" but sure kept it from overrunning the place.

[tcinaustin]

I rescued a couple of sun corals from a LFS and they were covered with hair algae. I do the same thing, I hit it with a toothbrush and get the algae short enough and then typically the hermits are in there cleaning up the rest. It does not ssem to bother the corals since they extend out every night looking for food and have quite a few new baby polyps in the last few months.

[MKCindy]

Another easy way to remove hair algae is with a bamboo skewer. Rest the tip on the rock close to the hairs (or between polyps as may be the case) and begin twisting in one direction. The barbs on the skewer will grab the hairs and once a few catch, they will pull the rest into a ball of algae attached to the skewer and easy to remove. Remember the hairs are weakest when your lights first come on in the morning, so it is easier to remove then. (this is true even if you are removing by hand or w/tweezers) Light makes it grow stronger.

[rocketeer]

Wow, bamboo, that sounds awesome. I'm going to try it.

I've been lurking for years and I still hear new stuff.

Jack

[moe]

how much light does the sun coral need?

[Captain Jack]

how much light does the sun coral need?

Zero.

[JimD]

Are you target feeding? They like low light and high flow so place it accordingly... Chum the general area of the coral with some clam juice or shimp juice, it wont be long til the polyps begin to open, then its time for some good mysis delivered from a turkey baster or a pipe feeder.. A few days of this and you should see a marked improvement if the coral wasnt a gonner from the git go.... Good luck!