Porites Coral w/christmas tree worms

[Anonymous]

My girlfriend purchased a piece of porites with christmas tree worms. We've had the piece two months and it is doing fine. I know they need light and current. If anyone has any information or experiences with them I'd appreciate it. I've read that poor shipping practices have led to a high mortality rate. I've also read contradicting info.

Troy

 

[Anonymous]

Not a scientist but my live rock came with a very small (2-3)polyp porites and has grown almost 2" in less than six months. Looking at Julian Sprung's book, Corals a quick ref. guide, It lists the porites (scale of 1-10) as, lighting needs-5-10
water flow- 2-10
aggresivness- 2
hardiness- 7 (hardiness is based on how many aquarists out of ten would be likely to succeed in growing the coral)
Hope this helps, Lee

 

[Anonymous]

Green Lantern,

The good news, my experience has been that most Porites are easy to keep with normal decent reef tank lighting and water flow.

The bad news is that the worms will most likely slowly die off over many months until there are none left. I had one for about 4 months and slowly lost about 20% of the worms. It was a brown Porites that was clearly growing and in good health. I sold it back to a shop before all I had left was brown Porites. This was in a tank with many other filter feeders doing well. I think they just need more small particulate food than is usually in our tanks, and I did not have much luck spot feeding. I'd like to hear from anyone out there that has maintained 80-100% of the worms on their Porites worm rock for more than 1 year (and how they did it).

- Greg Hiller

 

[Anonymous]

Greg,
Do you add phytoplankton to your tank in any form? If not, possibly this would help worm longevity.

 

[Anonymous]

One last thought. You know it's possible that the lifespan of these guys is just not very long, maybe several months to a year or two, and the die off that we (I) are seeing is normal. In nature any empty tubes probably quickly become populated by another worm, but in our tanks there is no spawning or settlement of these critters. In any case, you eventually end up with a big chuck of Porites with no worms, you just 'feel' a bit better about it. ;-)

 

[Anonymous]

Well Greg and everyone thanks for the help. I think that without the worms Porites is kind of ugly. Mine only come out at night for the most part. Time will tell I suppose.

 

[Anonymous]

Rocker,

>Do you add phytoplankton to your tank in any form? If not, possibly this would help worm longevity.<

Tried adding all kinds of food, spot feeding, including home cultured microalgae. Nothing seemed to have much effect. I imagine these guys just need something that is not usually available in our tanks. I'd still like to hear from someone with REAL long term success with these guys.

- Greg Hiller