Blueberry Gorgonian

It's a shame. I even saw several at the Long Beach Aquarium of the Pacific. They looked good, but I wonder how long they had been kept there in captivity. They were in a tank with a couple other NPS corals.

Does anyone know any of the caretakers there? (long shot in the dark)
 
I have done a lot of reading and studing on the NPS world. I have found no one....I'll say that again...no one, that has been able to keep this animal for a year. It is frustrating as the polyps look big enough to catch most food items. Although tempted I have never tried to keep one myself. I believe some of the deeper water ones we may never be able to keep. We don't know what damage was done by the pressure change bringing them up or what they are eating down there. Could also be a temp. thing. Maybe they need colder water , I don't know. It just seems like we can't keep them. Someday we will though.
 
To keep one doing well for more than a couple of months, an auto feeder is required and even then, I don't know how long they can be maintained. Mike; Uhuru, here on rc, was in veterinary school here at Ohio State and did very well with many nps types but I haven't seen much from him since he moved back to San Diego. He had some Blueberries that he sold to our local saltwater only lfs, where they slowly faded away. They were incredible specimens when they got there, he did use an auto feeder which he describes here on rc; somewhere but I don't know how long he had them before moving. Hoping he gets back in this segment of the hobby some day. He has a wealth of knowledge and having him here in town was an nps keeper's dream!
 
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This is kind of a dumb question, but what does BBS stand for? I'm such a noob in acronyms and such lol, but I just ordered a blueberry gorg online and have heard they are hard to care for, so I want to have all the correct types of food.
 
Frankly, they are not hard to keep. They are impossible. Many be for you have tried everything including me. You are doing real good if you can keep them longer than 6 months. I had one in a system that auto fed a mixture of all the best fauna Marin foods, 25 different types of phyto and cyclopeeze every hour.i think mine lasted 5 months.
 
I've yet to see one in captivity that has survived long term. Almost every reefer I know has tried and failed to keep these. In a dedicated NPS heavy-feeding tank, it might stand a fighting chance.
 
At my store I worked at I got my boss to order me a large colony. I cut off a small piece to leave in my little Nps tank I'm running at the store. the colony quickly died out in my tank at home but that little piece is Getting close to 5 months at my the store. It's recently had some die off on the tips from algae but I got a blenny in their tiny BLH's to clean it up and it's still going decent regardless of the recent algae issue. I read somewhere a while back (possibly this same thread lol) about someone using fish milt based foods and I've mainly used oyster feast as the focus for it. the tank gets a slurrie of roti feast,phyto feast, sps max, cyclops, artic pods and oyster feast at least 3 times every day and many feedings on my days in, which I usually try to get some oyster feast on it directly. It's grown a tad (which was basically lost with the algae) and has kept it's color though
 
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