Crystal Coral closed//Turns out not to be a CC
 

I have a new coral that I just purchased 2 days ago. It's a crystal coral. It stays closed up all the time and won't fully open. It'll start to open but when I check later on it'll be closed again. It's not in direct flow. Does anyone know why this might happen? Here's a pic of it as it is now, all closed into a ball but when it's open it's tall and white with dark polyps. I can't seem to find any comparison pics on the net either.

It's in a 90g with 33g sump, 2 x Koralia #3 pumps, ASM G1-X skimmer & 6 bulb T5 fixture.
Params on Sept 12 were:
Temp. 80
Salinity 1.025
ph 8.3
nitrate 0
nitrite 0
ammonia 0
phosphate 0
calcium 360(I added a buffer to increase this afterwards)
carbonate hardness 200

Crystal= Galaxy Coral. I have never seen mine close. It lays in a high current path.

If it is a galaxy coral then it looks dead. Even when they are closed you can still see the coral in each of the individual stems

Yup mines in pulsing high flow,open day and night.It was very small and almost dead when i got it.You should see the holes where the polyps come out..tho...

http://www.canreef.com/photopost/dat...Sept_13_08.jpgI turned out the lights and went out for a few hours and upon my return it was almost completely open. here's the pic(with lights out) when I returned home.

Okay now I have no idea what it is....softie?

That is not a galaxy coral, a type of non photosynthetic coral maybe? that would explain why it opens at night

I agree, it's not like any cystal coral I've found in my book or the net. It was fully open at the store in the middle of the day.

Crystal coral my ass! I bought it as a crystal coral(not knowing what a crystal coral actually looked like.....newbie) but after searching the net since buying it I've finally figured out what this thing is. It's called a Dendronephthya. That'll teach me to buy on impulse :redface:

looks cool i want one now, too bad its not photo

Better get some good filter feeder food/phyto since dendros aren't exactly the easiest corals to keep - what filter feeders are?

I feed Phyto and reef roids daily. I'm going to try mounting it under an over hang in my tank to see how it does. I was reading that they're often found like that.

Christmas tree coral (studeriotes longiramosa) strong to moderate flow and require feeding to survive, book also says the base should be in the substrate.
stinky has had one in his skimmerless tank for quite a while and seems to be doing fine

they really arent big flow fans either

I have 2 of them in my tank, a pink and an orange one, and like others have said, they dont like light. they are certanly a need addition to the tank though. :)