Anyone with Neospongodes Experience?

[aninjaatemyshoe]

Lately, I have just fallen in love with Neptheidae corals, specifically of the genus Neospongodes and Lemnalia. I recently bought a frag of purple Neospongodes and it is doing ok I guess. I know they require feeding, high flow, and medium to strong light. Has anyone here have any experience with these corals? I'm wondering if there are any specific care tips out there, like what's best to feed them.

 

[Lotus99]

I've had a Neospongodes for a few months now, which certainly doesn't make me an expert.

I haven't really noticed that it's a high-care coral. I have it in pretty good flow. It seems to catch food that's floating by, mostly smaller foods (cyclopeeze size), but also pieces of mysis, etc.

I haven't noticed a huge amount of growth, but it's hard to tell because it has so many branches. I'm not really sure how fast they're supposed to grow.

By the way, I saw a beautiful, aquacultured yellow Neospongodes on liveaquaria.com (new product).

 

[aninjaatemyshoe]

Yeah, I think liveaquaria is where I first noticed them. They're very nice, IMO the next best thing to keeping Dendronepthya's, which are extraordinarily difficult.

 

[atzak]

Any pic's? I've been interested in these for a while too, but I haven't been able to locate any

 

[aninjaatemyshoe]

I only have one at the moment and it is rather small. It seems to recoil when the lights are on (probably still adjusting). Once it starts coming out a bit more, I should be able to get a good pic and post it.

 

[Lotus99]

Here's a pic of my purple one:

 

[atzak]

thats nice, are those colors accurate?

 

[aninjaatemyshoe]

Very Very nice Lotus! Can you give a short description of the tank it is in (size, flow, light, etc.)? Are you feeding it? Directly/indirectly?

 

[Lotus99]

The color on the pic is reasonably accurate.

I have a 125g tank (60" long), with a sump/refuge with a Coralife Skimmer. I have 4 x 110 watt VHO lighting, with two actinic and two 10K bulbs. Flow is a Koralia 3 and a Koralia 4, along with flow from the sump. The coral is about 18" below the light in a medium flow area.

As for parameters, they're about average, with nitrates running about 2ppm, calc. at 420, alk. has been a little low, but I try to keep it at at least 3.5m/eq. and salinity is at 1.025. Temps are steady between 79 and 80F.

I don't usually directly feed it, but I do feed the tank mysis twice a day (most of which the fish get) some H2O Life coral food (frozen food, a mix of veg and cyclopeeze, mostly cyclops-sized pieces) about once a week, and some homemade food mix once a week (ground up seafood, with garlic, Selcon, etc.).

I've seen the coral capture whole mysis, but haven't stayed to watch if it eats the whole thing. It definitely does capture the frozen coral food.

I haven't really noticed that it suffers if it doesn't eat or if it does better when it does. I feed it anyway, and it seems to be doing fine. To be honest, it doesn't seem to be a very picky coral, and my tank is less than a year old (as is my saltwater experience), so I'd have to say it's fairly forgiving.

 

[aninjaatemyshoe]

Cool thanks. Where did you find it?

 

[Lotus99]

I got it at my LFS. At the time, they had the purple form and a yellow/tan form. This was definitely a nicer color than the straw colored one.

 

[seapug]

I picked up a nice sized purple one attached to a rock that broke into pieces on the way home so I ended up with a bunch of frags. I have them in all my tanks and they seem to be doing well under a lot of different conditions, but the ones in medium light and flow seem to be happiest. I've also noticed they really seem to like frozen Cyclopeez.