Goniopora Care.

[EMUReef]

A friend of mine bought a piece of Pink goni from a frag swap.

Well the first day it was ok in his tank, than it just declined, played it all around the tank to try to please the coral... started to bleach.

At that point we moved it to my tank to hopefully nurse it back to health.

Well lately the polyps have finally decided to come out, which i think is a good sign, the skeleton is still bleached.

Is is possible to feed this coral anything? or do i just give it time?

[EMUReef]

guess i stumped the LPS keepers here?

[klepto]

Yes, it is possible to feed Goniopora. I have read that people have good results with targetfeeding something like a silverside shake (crushed or blended up whole silversides). Other options would be small micron foods- my preference would be for Reef Nutrition's Oyster Feast.
Whatever you choose- feed effectively so that you aren't just polluting your tank with excess nutrients.

Gonis are notoriously sensitive- some moreso than others of course. Still, their tissue is thin and susceptible to damage and tearing which only leads to the loss of the animal. If your friend was moving it all around the tank, its likely that he/she irritated the coral further (unless the tissue wasn't handled).

You could try giving it a Revive dip.
Be sure that your goni isn't receiving too heavy/direct flow. How much light is it receiving?

[AquariumBiology]

Here's what i would do:
give it LOW light, even partial shade, and moderately low current.
Feed it well -- give it any fine meaty food. I've found that a QUALITY flake, crushed up and released "upstream" works quite well, but pureed mysis, silverside, squid, krill, etc will work just fine. It is easy to overfeed with these types of foods, so its best to dilute whatever you grind up by about 6:1 water to food.
As the situation improves i would move it to gradually brighter illumination.

[PaxRoma]

I would recommend not to move it around too much. I have never feed my goni anything directly and they're doing just fine. Here's a couple of threads I wrote on my gonis
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1875315
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1875383
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1786412

[potterjon]

I always had a hard time with gonipora. It was the first coral I bought and indirectly killed. Lol. I recently heard that bristleworms love to get inside of the tubes and irritate the coral. I have no idea why they go in the tubes, but a dip will get them if that is the problem. I have heard from about three people recently that were having gonipora problems. It is worth a shot.

[sfboarders]

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-10/nftt/index.php

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2005/10/aafeature2

[EMUReef]

I would like to update this saying that the goni has made a come back, polyp extension everyday, fuller and fuller polyps everytime i check.

What i did? nothing just let it sit, maybe medium light, medium/low flow.

[PaxRoma]

:thumbsup:

[EMUReef]

its funny this was a frag of my friends out of his tank that he bought, i almost dont want to give it back to him after all the care i've given it haha

[John Blaze]

Paxroma
can we have more info on your tank? What type of lighting, do you run a skimmer, size of tank, dsb? I've always wanted to try a goni but never have, the success you've had is an inspiration.:beer:

[PaxRoma]

Paxroma
can we have more info on your tank? What type of lighting, do you run a skimmer, size of tank, dsb? I've always wanted to try a goni but never have, the success you've had is an inspiration.:beer:

My tank is a 210G ( 30inches deep, 72 inches long) mixed coral system with roughly the same amount of sps, lps, and softies. For SPS I have:
-1 bird nest
-1 pink acro
-2 blue acro
- 1 purple with green eye acro
-1 green staghorn acro
-1 pink pocillopora
For LPS I have:
-1 brain coral
-1 brown euphyllia glabrescens
-1 purple euphyllia glabrescens
-1 frogspawn
-1 tongue coral
-1 hammer coral
-2 goniopora
-2 alveopora
-1 turbinaria
For softies:
1 yellow elegance, 1 kenya tree, 3 mushrooms colonies (1 purple, 1 pink, 1 green), 1 pulsing xenia, 2 clove polyps colonies, 2 organ pipe corals, 2 zoanthid colonies

Lighting
6 months ago was a Current USA model 1074 MH/T5 combo (3x150w MH + 8x39w T5)
currently I run 6 AI LED modules with T5 supplement.

Filtration
-I use the Ecosystem method (a mud filter in the sump with chaeto+caulerpa , a couple of snails). The sump is lit 24/7
-A Tunze protein skimmer that is set to 5% capacity and is only on for 3hrs/day
-a GFO reactor

Feeding
-normal fish feeding (once per day). On weekend I feed them with frozen food.
- occasional feeding a mix of plankton food Marinesnow+CoralFrenzy (maybe once a month)

Supplement
-Iodine (once/week)
-Iron & Manganese (4 caps, once per week)

Salt mix
- I use ReefCrystal
- water change once per month

My comments and opinion:
- I think supplement with iron&manganese along with keeping macro is important in keeping gonis. These factors helps keep the phytoplankton naturally available in the tank. There is evidence that gonis consume phytoplankton in a Reefkeeping article.
- I think aggressive protein skimming is not good. I tested it out by increasing the skimming from 3hrs to 6hrs per day for 1 month. One of the goni seems to close up more often than normal. I since then decrease the skimming back to 3hrs/day,and the gonis returns to its usual self.
- I am currently doing another experiment where I increase the light intensity from 30% to 40% from 12-1pm each day, simulating the intensity of the sun at noon. The gonis responded by closing its polyp at this same time of the day, and reopen its polyp at around 2pm everyday.

[John Blaze]

thank you for such a thorough response. that is the info we need to figure out why these corals thrive in your tank, while dying in others tanks. is your skimmer on a timer? do you have a deep sand bed? sorry for all the questions but this is fascinating stuff.

[scolylover]

i give mine really low light and direct feed it zooplex and its been alive for about 5 months now.

[John Blaze]

scolylover
any other similarity's between your tank and paxromas?

[PaxRoma]

thank you for such a thorough response. that is the info we need to figure out why these corals thrive in your tank, while dying in others tanks. is your skimmer on a timer? do you have a deep sand bed? sorry for all the questions but this is fascinating stuff.

My skimmer is on a timer from 9am-12pm. I avoid running skimmer at night because that is when plankton rise to the water column.
I don't use a deep sand bed; my sand bed in the display tank is only ~ 1/4 inch and is for decoration only.
I use a layer of mud in the sump that is 1.5 inch thick. I have a post where I posted in details the advantage of remote mud filter, remote DSB over DSB in DT somewhere.

[John Blaze]

thanks again PaxRoma.