Anyone have luck w/ the Orange Pavona?

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15440846#post15440846 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by dreaminmel
My frag is now nothing but skeleton so I think it's toast but perhaps I will try again in the future. Next time though I'll be sure to start it out shaded on the sand bed and gradually work it up from there based on it's happiness. :)
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Sorry to hear that the frag has apparently expired...

From what I have seen nearly all of the Gold Pavona available comes from wild stock. You would most likely have better success if you could obtain a frag from someone who has kept this coral successfully in an aquarium or from a coral farmer who has cultured it for a good while. Besides the coral being conditioned to aquarium life you'll be able to get a much better idea of the amount of light and feeding the mother colony is getting.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15441043#post15441043 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by GMaquarium
a quick check at cites only showed p. cactus. I was mistaking about maldivensis
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The CITIES site is interesting. The quota for P. cactus in Indonesia is '0', but the species is found offshore in many other countries, some of which do not belong to CITIES.

Another good reference is EOL (Encyclopedia of Life). P. cactus is listed as 'VU' (Vulnerable) while P. maldivensis is listed as 'LC' (Least Concern).

CITIES has a picture of a large colony of P. maldivensis and its growth form looks a lot more finger-like (reminds me of Pocillopora) than the encrusting forms I've seen at my LFS and from online retailers. Digging a bit further I found this marine reference site: WoRMS (World Register of Marine Species) and a great description of P. maldivensis and the environments it is found in:

Colonies of Pavona maldivensis are usually part encrusting, part massive and often have a foliaceous perimeter. They may be large (colonies over 1.5 m diameter have been seen in the Straits of Tiran, northern Red Sea), but are more usually less than 30 cm across. They are distinguished by having markedly plocoid corallites which reach 2 to 3 mm diameter and 1 to 2 mm tall above the corallum surface. This is mostly a clear water, fore-reef slope species. It is fairly abundant between 5 and 25 m deep, and is always seen on outer reef slopes in particular (Sheppard, 1998). Colonies are columnar, or thin horizontal plates, or mixtures of these. Corallites are circular, plocoid, usually of irregular sizes. Those near plate margins may be aligned in parallel rows. Colour: pale or dark grey-brown or green, sometimes bright orange . Abundance: may be common on upper reef slopes and outer reef flats. The columnar form is usually found where wave action is strong (Veron, 1986).

Looking up conditions on a Fore-reef I found this description from 'eoearth.org:

The fore-reef, or the seaward slope, is the area of reef that is the farthest away from the shore. This is on the oceanic side of the reef crest and it slopes downward. The fore-reef is home to the largest corals on the reef, because it is the most hospitable environment with limited wave action

According to this information P. maldivensis is found in areas of fairly strong illumination at 5m (16.5 ft.) down to lower levels of 25m (82 ft.). However, I think its a safe to assume that the people collecting this coral will take it from where it is easiest to collect: relatively shallow water in areas with low to medium-low flow. I believe this is why my piece is responding well to placement in the brightest part of my tank, but with relatively low flow.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15439507#post15439507 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Gary Majchrzak
could you please elaborate on this?

I mean... the family Pavona encompasses several species that occur in many places.
Collection of Pavona should not necessarily shut down just because of Tonga... right?
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I should have been more specific, I apologize. P. Maldivensis (sp?) as far as I hear is (was) exclusively collected from Tonga, which closed its borders recently.

Please do not take this as fact, just what I have heard.
 
just swung by the TRS .their colony looks amazing( orange) it's at the top of the corner tank it's getting blasted by t5's. i've got both bright green and orange mid tank/moderate flow. the green is thriving and the orange is barely alive. the skeleton of both corals appear to be identical even though they appear to be two very different corals. i started mine on the sand where it rapidly tried to die. i moved mine up mid tank ,and left it for dead. it slowly has started to color back up.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15445689#post15445689 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by block head
just swung by the TRS .their colony looks amazing( orange) it's at the top of the corner tank it's getting blasted by t5's. i've got both bright green and orange mid tank/moderate flow. the green is thriving and the orange is barely alive. the skeleton of both corals appear to be identical even though they appear to be two very different corals. i started mine on the sand where it rapidly tried to die. i moved mine up mid tank ,and left it for dead. it slowly has started to color back up.
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I'd be really happy to find a small frag of the neon-green pavona, but no one that I know of in our reef club has it. I've seen it once in a LFS about two years ago.

Anyway, it is very interesting that, given the same light and flow, the green is doing better than the orange. I'd place my money on the orange needing more light to thrive.
 
Nano sapiens said:
What a difference a few months make:

07/24/09
GoldPavona092809.jpg


12/2/09
PavonaMaldivensis120209.jpg


Funny thing is it has no where to go since it is on a round rock. Just gets wider and wider...
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Gorgeous!

FWIW, I too have a frag of the orange pavona from Tom at The Reef Shoppe. When he fragged it, it broke off a little smaller than both of us had planned, so he gave it to us at no charge. It is placed high in the tank where it is getting pretty blasted with light from 1000w 14k MHs. Its been in there around 3 or 4 months now I think, and it has began to encrust and put on a little new growth. Certainly not growing fast, but still very vibrant and alive.

I also had a tiny tiny piece of green encrusting pavona come as a hitchhiker from the previous tank into the new tank. It ended up in the rock stack very low in the tank and shaded. It was all but dead when it went in, and in the last 10 months it has grown from the size of a pea, to cover an area the size of a baseball and has colored up nicely.
 
Pavona maldivensis can be especially sensitive to intense lighting IME.
This is a coral that often does better in less lighting. Cyphastrea is another.
 
Gary Majchrzak said:
Pavona maldivensis can be especially sensitive to intense lighting IME.
This is a coral that often does better in less lighting. Cyphastrea is another.
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By intense you mean MH or HO T5s with the coral placed fairly high up in the tank I take it.

With my modest 32W of 12" NO T5s I found the sweet spot around 10" from the light source. I also found the transition to failure at around 13" below my lights. Just a few inches up or down can really make a difference.
 
Gary Majchrzak said:
so can water turbidity
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Very true.

Bulb age (intensity and spectral output) can be an important factor, too. I stopped the practice of running my bulbs too long just to save a few bucks as its just not worth the potential problems. To ensure that intensity and spectrum are maintained at acceptable levels I replace bulbs every 6 months and my corals are much better for it.
 
museumguy said:
it has began to encrust and put on a little new growth. Certainly not growing fast, but still very vibrant and alive.
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Do you feed it anything? This coral is a surprisingly eager eater for being a smallish polyped species. I feed mine small pieces of mysis shrimp once a week. Its slow going as the individual polyps deal with these larger prey items, but they do eventually get them inside. If you have hermit crabs, shrimps or fish in the tank, then feeding P. maldivensis with larger foods just won't work well.

museumguy said:
I also had a tiny tiny piece of green encrusting pavona come as a hitchhiker from the previous tank into the new tank. It ended up in the rock stack very low in the tank and shaded. It was all but dead when it went in, and in the last 10 months it has grown from the size of a pea, to cover an area the size of a baseball and has colored up nicely.
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Always nice to grow something from next to nothing. Do you have a pic?

I picked up a piece of Neon-Green Pavona (unknown species) from a frag swap. It was one of the last pieces left on the table and looked like nothing special, but in a tank with good conditions these are a really nice coral. It is starting to grow the 'Potato Chip' ridges.

NeonGrrenPavonaRidges020309.jpg
 
I have a neon orange pavona maldivensis in one of my tanks for years and its growing really fast with almost zero light, 99% shaded. I also have a nice and healthy piece directly under a 250w HQI. Seems the one in lower light grows a little faster. I noticed they like to be spot feed with mysis, cyclop-eeze, etc.

You have to be careful with the wild orange pavona maldivensis, can suddenly die on you. Over the years I've lost a couple wild orange pavonas but still have the original aquacultured one. Got it from Randy 4 years ago and still going strong.

I also noticed they don't liked to be touched at all, very sensitive so careful when fragging.
 
I had a very nice one i got from TRS in rochester. I had it for two months under T5's half way down in my tank, with a mild-medium flow and it was thriving and growing,then i had to get out my purple spudochromis and then my wife wanted to rearange the rock(then again) but in the process of draining the water to get the Psudo out then filling it up and moving the rock i lost it,it got buried somehwere in my tank and it must be under the rocks in the sand as i have looked in all open spaces. It was about 6" long and 4" wide or more,nice bright green.... I want to tear my tank apart looking for it but my better half tells me its not worth it so does anyone have any frags of the neon green pavona? It is like that one at TRS two weeks ago but brighter,it really colored up under my lights!!!
If not i might be tearing it apart soon enought then!!!!! thanks
 
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