Blueberry Gorgonian

[ourmanflint]

Thought I should share my little experience with this fantastic gorgonian.

I bought mine about six weeks ago on impulse as it looked very healthy, just imported and all polyps present and correct. I soon regretted my impulse buy on reading its success rate in aquariums, but I had it now so I should try and look after it best I could. I placeed it in the undertow caused by my two vortechs and it seems to be doing very well so far, flow is an impressive 15-20cm/sec there and laminar. I stir up the sane every few days, and feed it BBS and anything else the fish get, also frozen rotifers and phyto at night. This is "tank" food not necessarily for the gorg.

This is it a few weeks back and new growth, I think this is a relatively slow grower compared to some gorgonians, but it is growing.

It's favourite food as can be seen in one of the pics is frozen cyclopeeze.

Rod

 

[seafloor09]

What part of the world is it from?

Very nice

 

[ourmanflint]

They're from Indonesia I believe.

 

[mew]

Wow, growth is always a good sign.
So the only specialized food for the blueberry is the BBS?

 

[aninjaatemyshoe]

Do you keep your tank dark or well-lighted? If you keep your tank well-lighted, have you had any issues with algae?

 

[ourmanflint]

Tank specs are as follows.

4x2x2, 2xVortech MP40w, Skimmerless with MM sump until a week ago now just started to use a Tunze 9005 DOC skimmer for about 12 hours per week to help water clarity mainly. Lighting is 8x39w T5 and whilst my tank has a lot of red algae especially , there have been no issues with the gorg being covered in algae.

As for food, yes, BBS and now cyclopeeze are the only things I regularly feed it, usually with a pipette, squirting in front so the current drags the food towards all those polyps.

 

[letzfly]

I would love to try one.....would one even work in a tank with SPS and if so I imagine low light high flow area of the tank would be best???? keep us updated with your progress. thanks

 

[LovenBama]

Just picked mine up today and hopefully it does well...my sister got hers a few weeks ago and it's doing great so far we are feeding spray dried phyto and hers seem to love it, she says when she feeds you can see it taking it in until the tubes are full....this I have not seen yet but hope I will have same results...no we didn't get them from the same place either so as with any new addition I add I'm always check on other peoples progress, therefore I'll be waiting to read more on your experience with this beautiful speciman and what you find that works well for you . Best of luck and keep the updates coming

 

[m12x13adass]

I've seen huge one at my LFS. They have it for a few months now. It seems to be detriorating every time I visit them. Kudos to you for the short term success. Hopefully, You'll have it for the long run.

 

[LovenBama]

update on the Blueberry? Heard some disturbing info today...don't know that it's true but somewhere on another forum my sister(whom has a Blueberry too) read that if it starts to turn blue at the base, it means it's dieing. Have you heard or read this somewhere? Just trying to find out the source of the info and if there is any truth to it.

 

[ourmanflint]

Mine is very definitely turning blue at the base, but it is definitely new tissue growing over the old base, and now there are polyps and small branchlets growing from it.
You usually take such things as a good sign not of impending doom, but as usual within this hobby there are so many people who inaccurately report things , that misinformation is a common occurrence.
The gorg has never looked healthier to be honest, I was even thinking of taking a few frags now it is growing so well.

 

[PSam]

It's favourite food as can be seen in one of the pics is frozen cyclopeeze.

Rod

Hi Rod, are you positive it is actually eating the cylops? IME, Acalycigorgia will grab most food out of the water column, but that doesn't imply that it is consuming it all, if any. I've watched the one I tried capture, hold & then release cyclops and pretty much all foods fed to the tank. That continued for a couple months and it just quickly wasted away. If it is eating them up, then that's fantastic and I hope to see more pics in the future - I definitely wouldn't fragment an Acalycigorgia in that case. Good luck!

 

[ourmanflint]

I can only say the polyps fully close around the prey item. I have not waited to see if they are dropped later I must admit. I will check next feeding time.

 

[Titeo]

That's a really beautiful gorg. Keep us update on the health of this beauty

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

good luck with it, Rod!

How long is "a long time"? If it is any less than ~2 yrs, I'd have to respectfully disagree

Also, the blue has nothing to do with an infection. At best, someone was just passing along misinformation. At worst, someone was inventing and excuse for why these corals keep dying, to shift the blame from our inadequate care (the real culprit).

I'm not sure of anyone that has had any sort of longterm success with these corals. After we find foods they will accept and a current speed that allows them to catch their food (one without the other is useless) it would probably be a matter of constant feeding to try to maintain them. The food available in nature is available for at least many hours per day and at a moderate concentration. Target feeding may not work because they can only eat so much at a time, and they may simply not get enough nutrition that way.

I'd avoid them, at least at this point.

x2

 

[LovenBama]

Thanks for the update and info....still kinda a newbie to the hobby but I don't buy anything that the lfs says I shouldn't try at this point, that being said I haven't asked him his thoughts on this so called blue base means death, but just thought I'd throw it out there and see what others thought about it. I too have noticed new growth in the area of the base where the color appears to be turning blue. Keep the us updated on your progress and hopefully I can learn some first hand things on what might or might not be beneficial to keeping this beautiful specimen happy and healthy

 

[cykenp]

Good luck. It is definitley IMHO top 3 prettiest coral out there. I tried it when I saw a nice colony for sale at a store that DEFINITELY would not take care of it's corals. They sell any colony for $40 so I thought I'd try it. I tried feeding all sorts of stuff and had to battle algae growing on it. Finally after 6 months of trying it started to fade. Wish you luck with yours and if yours does grow and thrive, PLEASE write a article about it and how you did it because you will be one of the lucky few and it would be great if all of us could be educated to how to keep this awesome coral alive!!!

 

[uhuru]

All the people that have tried and failed in the past... I would like to know if they were getting them to appear to eat and show growth. I couldn't even get mine to open, but it had been at the LFS for weeks. I basically took it home to let it die. Maybe there are better specimens coming in now that are spending less time starving in transport while waiting for someone to feed them.

 

[doorlady]

well I have had mine for about 2 months now and it is showing tiny signs of growth, it is open alot and loves cyclopeeze too. Here is a picture from tonight

 

[rowjimmy]

uhuru,

I tried to keep one a few years back. Much like you I got a starved specimen from my LFS, and basically took it home to die in my tank. It took some time, but I did coax the polyps to open up and feed.

Back then when I attempted to keep one we didn't have all the food choices we have today for NPC, so I was grinding up krill/flake/pellet foods into a powder and spot feeding it with a turkey baster.

The polyps looked like they were accepting food. The only growth I saw was minimal growth at the base. It was too little too late though. My specimen kept on deteriorating from the top of the branches down. Algae was not a problem because I kept it in the shade under an overhang. It just wasn't getting its nutritional needs met I guess.

Again this was years ago, and it was in pretty bad shape when I got it. The specimens I see for sale now look much healthier/fresher, and with the availability of foods for NPC we have now I would think one would have a better shot at keeping one.

I refuse to get another one though until I set up a dedicated NPC tank.