Blueberry Sea Fan

[slapshot]

Fauna Marin has come out with a Sea Fan food that I am having success with. I am getting a great feeding response with it. Not a Blue Berry but a Yellow one. I got it from Cherry Corals. Be ready with some Marcyn for some reason they are a magnet for cyno. It will kill them.

 

[dendro982]

RocknReefr: Post more information, please. Tank photo, feeding, flow, filtration. Maybe photos of feeding response and food inside polyps, if this possible. Mine didn't react on food at all, while yours did, would like to compare conditions.

slapshot: yellow, but the same shape and frosted pattern of sclerites on tissue, as blueberry has? I have the pink relative of blueberry gorgonian, smaller polyped, Muricella plectana, all is like blueberry, but at smaller scale. Or is yours Diodogorgia or Menella?

 

[slapshot]

This is mine after the intrduction of Fauna Marin Sea Fan food. It opened right up.

I am currently fighting a Cyno breakout on the Gorg. Hopefully it will survive.

 

[SolarEclipse]

Beautiful sea fan slapshot. Okay, so I didn't get the new phone yesturday, and I am going on Thursday to hopefully get it, so don't expect pictures till Thursday night, possibly Friday.

 

[dendro982]

This is Caribbean Diodogorgia nodulifera, red morph - completely different animal with own problems: possibly requiring iodine dosing (but it lives for me without that), and surely large amounts of food, frequent feeding and good water flow. Surviving shipping without water well. Gorgeous specimen you have!

You will likely do the whole tank treatment for cyano, but for a time being basting by pipette or small powerhead should help, or gentle rubbing by fingers - if everything else fails. Also a problem for me

 

[slapshot]

Thanks Dendro! It is actually the yellow one, just my camera was not cooperating. I am treating the whole tank. We shall see it is still opening up just not as big.

 

[RocknReefr]

I'll try...I've been battling with technical difficulties. The foods that I feed are: Reef Nutrition-Tigger pods, Oyster-eggs and their Phyto-Feast. I do this about three-times/week. I mostly have lps corals...Acans, Zoos., Cynarina, open brains, so all of these corals love that!

Slapshot...Nice photo!

 

[dendro982]

slapshot: If it is like this:

then this is also Diodogorgia nodulifera, only a yellow morph.

 

[slapshot]

Yep, Dendro that is it.

 

[SolarEclipse]

Okay, got my new phone, and took some new pictures. The pictues are kinda blurry and i couldn't get really close otherwise they would be extremely blurry so here they are:

[/IMG]

[/IMG]
Hope you like them = )

 

[dendro982]

I see some branches without polyps, maybe they were damaged.
I'll be particularly interested in this gorgonian progress, how recovery will be going. You see, most people are buying the healthy gorgeous blueberry gorgonian, but my was from mid-summer shipment, when most gorgonians came damaged and there were nothing else interesting to experiment with. It was damaged:

I got Swiftia in the same shape, from the same shipment:


Necrosis was fast for both:


Only swiftia was fragged very soon, and blueberry - much later.
Both had recovery after fragging, disinfection and tank treatment, only swiftia - permanent, and blueberry - very temporary. Here you can see new tissue regrowth:


Eventually, blueberry was smothered by bryopsis during bryopsis outbreak, while swiftia and diodogorgia were resistant. Quite interesting.

 

[dendro982]

Another case, close relatives: Muicella plectana, very similar to blueberry, only in miniature. Both belong to the same family: Acanthogorgiidae. Same surviving chances.

Same type of decline, only slower, 3 months (in the tank, where dendronephthya and other NPS corals were doing much better):

Also was fragged very late, when there was nothing to lose. All survived, already for 6 months, main colony still ragged looking, with quite active polyps:

But frags, if were cut down to the healthy tissue, didn't decline:

When damaged tissue was left, was some die off, then stopped and hair algae took hold - without killing the coral:

Both healthy and hair algae covered frags are within 2" from each other.

Is survival and type of declining genus specific, even within the same family?

Do you have other Acanthogorgiidae gorgonians, how are they doing?

 

[SolarEclipse]

This is my only gorgonian that I have. It seems to be growing through the algea that has grown on the dead parts. I have noticed that there are light blue polyps then dark blue polyps, the light blue polyps are what they looked like when i got it, but they new polyps are more of a dark blue.

 

[dendro982]

What kind of algae? It could be that only particular kinds, like bryopsis, are fatal.
Darker color may be a good sign - swiftia (different family) became more intense colored, when it recovered.

 

[SolarEclipse]

The color of algea is like a red algea that came off very easily.

 

[Elan L.]

I just got one and now i realized i should have researched it first (my brothers were begging me to get it), how many times a week do you feed them?

 

[SolarEclipse]

I feed mine about three times a week, but some people say that you need to feed them 24/7 to keep them alive.

 

[Elan L.]

ive been feeding mine alot and it is doing fine. I feed it marine snow every other day, and it eats little brine shrimp that fly into it when i feed the other tank inhabitants

 

[craab]

feed mine a few times a day with marine snow or esv bioplankton. I'm also fighting off a slow decline of tissue, but my case is not from malnourishment. I think mine is from some needed nutrient missing. I have been experimenting with different addictives, mainly iodine right now.

I've had good strong growth for about 6 monthes then a continued slow tissue recession, especially on the tips of branches.

 

[craab]

not a blueberry, but same scenario. Slow recession of tissue.