Dendro Owners

Yeah, there's a lot of heads on that thing. It looks healthy.

 

So I've been cruising along beautifully, had my dendro for about 2 months. Everything has been so happy. Now, all of a sudden it has not opened in a full week! For the first time ever it won't respond to food. Most everything has stayed the same. A few weeks ago I had to use Aptasia x right next to it, the aptasia kept stealing food and stinging it. So that is gone, and I was EXTREMELY careful not go get it too close to the dendro.

Also, it has been in the sand on a plug this whole time, happy as can be. A few days after it stopped opening I glued it up onto the rocks. Also - my cleaner shrimp has been caught digging in the dendro all the time after it eats. It also digs all the food out of my BTA.

The dendro also looks like the small heads on it are growing bigger, longer stem and bigger around. Do these have to close up to grow?? My kenya tree shrinks up for days sometimes, and when it opens it's bigger than ever. Any thoughts on this?

One more thing - I feed the dendro rather heavily. I've been told that overfeeding may cause it to not open. Anyone have this experience? Thank you.

 

No exp. on the over feeding, I had the some issue with feeding it and my emrald crabs would steal the food, also steal it from my acans- Emerald Crabs no longer reside in my reef tank-
I am afraid it wont stop, they know its a concentrated source for feed-Bye Bye

Mine has also closed for a week, Triplemom mentioned they are fincky, which I hope. All my water params are great so we will wait and see on this one.

Good luck and post any update you may have

 

My cleaner shrimp also pounces on the dendro, duncan, and anything else that's target fed. If they're open, I try to target feed during regular feeding time so I can distract the shrimp, but that doesn't always happen.

I don't know about the overfeeding. I try to target feed mine about twice a week.

 

I have my duncan in mid tank with pretty high flow. Lights are 96 watts 50/50 flourescents.
Do you think they would perfer lower light and less flow? i'm asking this since they are closely related to the suncoral which likes low light.

 

Are these dendros also referred to as Firecrackers?
They look like some my LFS has for sale. Single heads are $65.00! Super expensive!!

 

Do NOT pay that much, cruise Ebay for a few weeks and you'll get a beter deal. $65/head sounds way overpriced. I'm doing my homeowrk on these guys a bit longer before buying mine but that sounds high.

 

That is REALLY high. I paid $36 dollars for an aussie dendro with 5 heads (3 large, 2 small) from my LFS.

When I was shopping for dendros, the cheapest I found was online for $40 a head..

A lot of fish stores and even online retailers are out of line on these prices for corals..

Anyone paying that much is a fool and is the reason they keep prices that high..

My LFS said he paid the distributor less then $20 for the aussie dendro he sold me..

 

Thats funny because I am always thinking something is wrong in my tank, it is only open about half the time in comparison to months past-
Im truly thinking it prefers a higher NO3.
Mine was always open when my NO3 was around 20, now my NO3 is less than or equal to .01 and it is rarely open compared to the past.


I don't care to get my NO3 "up"-Its not my most favorite coral anymore as a result of never being open-it better shape up or the land lord will deliver an eviction notice-LOL
Real estate is a premium in my tank-no room for non-conformists
Its a rough reef-

 

Hmm.. does it get much light? Mine closes as the day progresses ..especially when the main lights come on.
Lights go off it opens right up.