Sun coral feeding setup??

[DoodleFish]

I've had a beautiful sun coral for a little over six months. I usually spot feed mysis or brine shrimp once a week, and then once a week I put some REEF ENERGY PLUS AB+ CORAL NUTRITION in the tank (I set the Hydros to just circulate the water via the wave pump at like 5% for 30 minutes to let the corals get that). For the past month or so, the sun coral has not been opening up when I spot feed. I does usually open up for the REEF ENERGY PLUS dosing though.

It is starting to retract some of the orangish flesh. I'm thinking I need to start spot feeding more often, but don't want to over pollute the tank.

I'm trying to figure out a way to isolate the sun coral to feed it every day, or every other day, until it starts looking better.

Does anyone else isolate corals when they feed them? If so, how?

I know I could simply fill a container with tank water, move the sun coral in there, put it on my desk and spot feed it - but they take so long to eat I'm kind of worried about the water cooling off while it eats. I'm think I need to figure out a way to make a small container float in the tank, so I can keep the pumps and heaters on ...

If anyone could share some thoughts, ideas or best yet photos, I would appreciate it!

 

[JayM]

Cut the bottom off of an appropriately sized plastic bottle, place it over the coral, and feed through the bottle top?

 

[DoodleFish]

Cut the bottom off of an appropriately sized plastic bottle, place it over the coral, and feed through the bottle top?

I've seen videos of people doing that to keep fish, crabs and shrimp away from a sun coral so they have time to eat, since they eat so slowly. I'm not looking to keep anything away from the coral while it eats, I'm looking to NOT dump a lot of extra waste into the system by feeding multiple times per week. Sun corals are really difficult to feed - there is always a lot of extra food laying around the base of the coral by the time you're done feeding them - really just trying to keep all of that extra waste out of the tank.

I figured something out this afternoon - I'm using a plastic food container wedged into an acclimation container with holes in the sides and bottom to allow water movement through the acclimation container. The sun coral has eaten very little over a 2+ hour time period. I'm wondering if I irritated it by moving it before trying to feed it.

 

[DoodleFish]

Found an acrylic fry hatchery container on Amazon - works like a charm! Super small holes in the bottom made out of stainless steel - suction cups in place. I put it so there is a little water lapping over the rim, put the sun coral in there around 4:30pm, then turn of the pumps and feed it around 7pm after the lights dim for the evening. Also using a set of tongs to feed individual heads on the coral - which eliminates a lot of waste too. Then I just leave the coral in there overnight before moving it back down to the sand in the morning. When I pull the container out - very little waste in the bottom, but the water drains out leaving the waste so I can just dump that out when done.