Dendronephthya软珊瑚s, better known as ‘carnation corals’, are some of the most beautiful and iconic members of natural reef communities. However, their captive care requirements have remained elusive and to date, no one has really been able to keep and growDendronephthya在家庭水族馆中。
Sure, there are the individual reports of ‘some guy your friend knows’ keeping a carnation coral for a year, and maybe even growing it a bit. But by and large, we still haven’t figured out how to truly make these corals happy, within the prescription for a typical home aquarium.
We’ve actively tried to be successful at keeping and growing carnation corals in the past, with limited success, and we closely followed the work of Tim Wijgerde to develop an实验系统专门针对这组珊瑚。这项协调的努力导致了几个月内所有珊瑚殖民地的最终丧失，尽管确实试图提供Dendronephthya我们认为这些珊瑚需要健康和成长。
Early this summer while in Fiji I selected a single small colony ofDendronephthya从沃尔特·史密斯·斐济（Walt Smith Fiji）出发，主要是在百灵鸟上，试图在我在独特的珊瑚上建立的实验性azoox系统中保持活力。实验水族馆是一个20加仑长的水族馆，以水平循环储罐设置为提供恒定的单向水流，并且与2000加仑的系统内联，该系统容纳了数千个SPS珊瑚碎片。
我利用了机会集中精力喂食阿祖克斯珊瑚，而不必担心营养成分，因为Azoox系统水经过缓慢的流动，将所有未食用的珊瑚食品都分配给了系统中的光合珊瑚。一个殖民地Dendronephthya被放置在这个坦克中，以表明喂养足够的微型和皮科普兰克顿，但我从来没有真正相信这种珊瑚会活这么长时间。
我非常坚信，这种珊瑚不会持续下去，以至于我什至不费力地拍照。但是，既然这种珊瑚已经在坦克上了四个多月，并且看起来比进来时更大，更明亮，更饱满，我踢自己没有正确记录这个健康的康乃馨珊瑚殖民地。
关于这个单一观察的令人困惑的事情Dendronephthyadoing well in captivity is that I can’t point to one single thing that is responsible for this preliminary success. At first I was only feeding about once or twice a week, and tried to wipe down the tank and stir up detritus in a sideways manner of offering some kind of aquarium equivalent of marine snow.
Most Carnation corals don’t outright die, if provided with proper flow and water quality, these corals will generally stay ‘alive’ but all the while degenerating while consuming its own tissue for nutrients. For the first month my sole specimen definitely began to ‘get skinny’, with branches thinning, no signs of growth and a homogenous pink color.
But then in the last six weeks, I’ve been feeding the azoox system a lot more deliberately, and a lot more often. Ever since I’ve definitely observed a much perkierDendronephthya这已经从全粉红色，在整个珊瑚的整个身体上开发小的橙色分支和分支尖端。
食物没有什么特别的或幻想的，它是相同的基本Reef Builders coral food recipewe wrote about several weeks ago. In that same time period we began doing more targetdosingof some supplements in the azoox tank including Nyos Absolute Aminos and Coral Nectar, as well as Prodibio Reef Booster & Coral Vits.
与这个小型Azoox系统和许多其他系统的最大不同之处在于，我本质上一直在为20加仑的系统喂食和给药，并使用足够的添加剂和食物来补充2000加仑的水族馆系统。新万博登录网址我不能指出任何一件事都导致了这一有限的成功，但不必担心过量服用或过量喂养肯定不会受到伤害。
Secondly, there is probably a great deal of benefit that comes from this small experimental tank being inline with a large and healthy reef aquarium system. There’s no telling how much planktonic foods is naturally produced in this combined system so that’s a big ‘black box’ of uncertainty which might be contributing to this moderate success.
At this point the carnation coral is over four months old in captivity, and it is looking healthier and fuller than it ever has. I believe the orange coloration is only present in areas of new growth of this coral, and this colony has changed to become practically half orange. ThisDendronephthya被安装到磁性基座上，一个小的小枝几乎没有碰到玻璃，现在已经在玻璃上生长，并且长达两英寸。
再次，我踢自己，因为我认为这种珊瑚只不过是现在的记忆，我什至没有费力地拿到一个好的快照来进行文档。我将仔细检查并仔细研究该储罐和系统上使用的所有方法，以尝试复制这种环境，以更加重视保持和增长Dendronephthya在将来。
