Anyone have experience with goniopora?

[fonduecat]

Being the novice I am, I picked some corals out this weekend on the, "Oh pretty!" factor instead of the, "Is this a good addition?" one.

One of the frags I got was goniopora and was shocked to find many people giving it the stay away label. From what I'm finding, a lot of the problems come from the feeding requirements. Does anyone have any experience with this coral? I'd like to give it my best and see if it can thrive in my tank. I got some cyclopeeze to feed it. but was looking for any help to see if I can prevent becoming one of those people who can only keep it alive for 3-4 months.

Thank you!

 

[sethsolomon]

What color of goni is it and who did you purchase it from?

 

[fonduecat]

What color of goni is it and who did you purchase it from?

It's green goni which I got at Elite Reef. I can post a picture to verify the color once I get home tonight.

 

[cdrewferd]

I always had great luck with my goni's. They liked medium flow and a bit dirtier water. Also they don't like to much light.

Sent from space.

 

[sethsolomon]

I don't have any experience with green ones. The red ones are aquaculture and are a lot hardier than the green ones.

 

[jahmic]

That kinda depends...ORA does have an aquacultured green goniopora that are supposed to be hardy.

I'd give the coral some time to settle in. If it starts to look unhappy, go ahead and slowly start to target feed the coral some cyclopeeze or reef chili.

 

[fonduecat]

I always had great luck with my goni's. They liked medium flow and a bit dirtier water. Also they don't like to much light.

Sent from space.

I'll have to experiment with the light, lots of people said they liked a lot of light. I'll have to keep in mind if it's not happen that could be a factor. Thanks!

 

[fonduecat]

That kinda depends...ORA does have an aquacultured green goniopora that are supposed to be hardy.

I'd give the coral some time to settle in. If it starts to look unhappy, go ahead and slowly start to target feed the coral some cyclopeeze or reef chili.

Good to hear there have been some hardy aquacultured green goni's. I'll have to check to see how it's doing when I get home. My shrimp kept trying to walk on it this morning so it was retracted.

 

[fonduecat]

Here is a picture of the color. I believe it's a normal green. He's a but closed because my shrimp seems to like walking on it.

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[gajake]

My Goniporia

My favorite coral. Got it in March of this year and it looked like this from the time it hit the water. Sitting on bottom in well lit but not blasting light. I have 165Watt LED's above each side of mt 55G. The coral was a great eater and, for some reason I moved it to the other side of tank - a bit more light and a bit less flow. It went down hill from there and I lost it in November :-(( Moving it back did not help.

Advice: Good water flow to get extension of polyps. It needs light but not too much. Spot feed it - I had good luck with REEF-ROIDS. This was engineeded gor this coral.



[attachment=65665:name]

 

[kmcmurtry]

I've been told the same by people. That it lasts about six months and then croaks. It is always tempting me in some lfs tank so would love to hear success stories as well.

 

[gajake]

To be honest, I f I see a nice one again I will buy it. I think I lost that for a few reasons. 1st it was doing great and should never have been moved, 2nd. feeding them is important and I was disrteacted trying to get my sun coral to eat (also needs to be fed). I may have neglected feeding the Goni. Everything I see says that the red ones are much Hardier (but I like the green There are many varieties. Some have the long polyps like you saw in my pictures and some very short polyps. Can't say which is better but I did love seeing these extended. I bought it from salyunderground.com/ and am watching that site to see if they get them again.

 

[fonduecat]

To be honest, I f I see a nice one again I will buy it. I think I lost that for a few reasons. 1st it was doing great and should never have been moved, 2nd. feeding them is important and I was disrteacted trying to get my sun coral to eat (also needs to be fed). I may have neglected feeding the Goni. Everything I see says that the red ones are much Hardier (but I like the green There are many varieties. Some have the long polyps like you saw in my pictures and some very short polyps. Can't say which is better but I did love seeing these extended. I bought it from salyunderground.com/ and am watching that site to see if they get them again.

I don't blame you for wanting another, they are very amazing to watch. Mine has shorter polyps, but I don't mind. I fed it last night (at least I hope it ate a little) I also fed the sun coral I got and it was the first time it opened since adding it to the tank. Any hints for how to feed them? I heard you need to feed each polyp.

 

[sethsolomon]

I don't blame you for wanting another, they are very amazing to watch. Mine has shorter polyps, but I don't mind. I fed it last night (at least I hope it ate a little) I also fed the sun coral I got and it was the first time it opened since adding it to the tank. Any hints for how to feed them? I heard you need to feed each polyp.

Use the top of a 2 liter bottle and use it as a "food dome".

Pic:

 

[gajake]

The easiest way to feed the sun coral is out of the tank. That way the coral and not the fish get the food. The best time to feed is right after the tank had been fed so the polyps smell food and start to open. Find a small bowl big enough for the coral and fill it with tank water. Add the sun coral. Add Mysis shrimp. Swirl it around every 5 minutes or so until they are done eating. That way the food gets to all of the polyps.[attachment=65668:name]

 

[fonduecat]

Thanks everyone! Feeding corals was not something I considered when starting the hobby, but it's good to hear there are a few tricks!

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[gajake]

Feeding Sun Coral

Using the bottle to feed the sun coral can be made easier this way. Weight the bottom down by using silicone to attach marbles to the bottle. Put a tube through the lid so you can feed through the tube. The weights will make it sit better on the bottom and the tune makes feeding a lot easier. It was even easier for me to simply take the coral out and feed it in a tupperware container.





[attachment=65669:name]

 

[kutcha]

I just feed my tank at night i use chunky food and filter feeder food sometime my sun coral gets big chunks of mysis or something else other times it will jsut get filter food on its tentacles he seems to be doing fine

 

[fonduecat]

Using the bottle to feed the sun coral can be made easier this way. Weight the bottom down by using silicone to attach marbles to the bottle. Put a tube through the lid so you can feed through the tube. The weights will make it sit better on the bottom and the tune makes feeding a lot easier. It was even easier for me to simply take the coral out and feed it in a tupperware container.





View attachment 16878

I'm going to have to make one of these. I'd take kutcha's suggestion, but my little scarlet skunk shrimp likes to steal food from everything. He's always in my anemone stealing that food. Looks like I have a craft project.

 

[kutcha]

I'm going to have to make one of these. I'd take kutcha's suggestion, but my little scarlet skunk shrimp likes to steal food from everything. He's always in my anemone stealing that food. Looks like I have a craft project.

my trick is i feed the tank everyday so even if something gets little to nothing one or two days the likely hood of it not getting something atleast two or three times a week very unlikely