Blueberry Seafan success stories?

Mikefallen13

Mikefallen13

New member
Hello,
Well as the title of the thread states, does anybody have any success stories with these guys? My oldest is going on 3 years in my care and has survived 3 tank transfers/upgrades and I recently picked up a second from my LFS. My original had grown well but after the most recent transfer from my 37 gal to the 93 it experienced major tissue recession on the main stem and a few small side branches, due to a late ammonia spike after i had transferred livestock to the new tank. Luckily it is begining to recover and is showing new polyp growth and good extension. So far i have found them to be fairly easy, just target feed them several times a day and keep them in good flow. So, anybody else have success with these gorgs? I havent seen many in peoples tanks. Id love to hear any other success stories!
 
I have no stories being that I've never owned one but I'll be watching this thread because I want one REALLY bad. So a little encouragement from others success plus any tips will go a long way.
 
There is a promising (tentative) success story on wet web media in the sea fan 2 FAQ! The guy who wrote in about it included a rundown of his set up and his observations about its care, including what he did differently to help it survive that others did not. He hasn't had it for years, as OP has, but he has had 15% growth!
 
I registered but couldn't find it. I looked in FAQ and saw how to use type answers and a search that didn't work for me. I searched and navigated but no luck. How do I get there.
 
Hi Michael,

I have had a blueberry a little over 13 wks. It was very healthy and I had initial polyp growth when I first got it. It is in a shaded part of the tank, with good water flow. I have had polyp loss in the last couple of weeks and am at about 20% polyp loss. It still opens for feedings but has been declining with a little less polyps open for feeding. I was doing great up until a little over the 9th week with it opening really well and remaining open. I just read the post on wetweb and I have been target feeding it close which causes the polyps to close which might not be feeding so I will back it up a little. I feed it twice a day, would feed more but I was getting cyno.

How many times are you feeding it? With what food and how much?

Feedback would be appreciated.

Anna
 
Hello!
I usually feed 2-4 times a day depending on how busy I am and I target feed with a mixture of Aqua Tech AZOX coral food, Oyster Eggs, and Hikari BBS. I also will spray them with the excess "Juices" and tiny particulate matter (if you have thawed PE mysis, you know what I'm talking about) when I feed the fish. I always get a great feeding response and the polyps will remain open for a few hours after I feed.

A few other things I have observed since keeping them.

I have noticed that a huge problem for these gorgs is too little flow. I saw a lot of tissue recession when I got my first one as a gift and put it in a extremely low flow area of my old Biocube 28. After I moved it to a higher flow area of the tank, the recession stopped and it began to recover.

Light doesn't seem to matter as much since I have had them in both low and very high light with good success as long as they had good flow.

The one thing that I haven't had is great growth. The gorgs are by far my slowest growing corals in the tank. The one I have had for three years has put on maybe 2" of growth while I've owned it and would love to see faster growth.

The last thing I would like to know is are there more than one species labeled a Blueberry Sea fan? My old one has TINY polyps compared to my new one. I'll get some pictures tonight to show you what I mean.

I hope this helps and I'd love to hear any other success stories!
 
Micheal:

Do you keep your Blueberries in a dedicated NPS tank or a mixed reef with strong lights? If you run strong lights is algae or cyano a problem?
 
Reef Frog said:
Micheal:

Do you keep your Blueberries in a dedicated NPS tank or a mixed reef with strong lights? If you run strong lights is algae or cyano a problem?
Click to expand...

There in a mixed reef with Ecoxotic LED's. I've never had much of an nuisance algae problem, aside from the few small clumps of bubble algae that occasionally pop up and green coralline that is a constant pain to keep off the glass. Here's a FTS, the gorgs are toward the back of the tank on the left side. Sorry for the crappy phone pic...

 
This is one I must have but there survival rate and cost together keep me from trying. To pay 70 all the way on up for them with there poor survival rate has scared me. I also dont have any good lfs to get the foods you listed so thats a good thing I havent.
 
Bluberry Gorg Success

Bluberry Gorg Success

I'm the "guy" who's posted on Wet Web Media... approaching 6 moths with mine and going strong. Down to target feeding 3x /week... the key is lighting and flow. Post questions if needed.

Steve
 
I set up a dedicated azoox thank for these guys, with automated feeding hourly.

I was successful with most Azoox corals, and got them growing, and even fragged a bunch. Except this specie and also carnation tree.

what I found in my 2 year experiment with blueberry and the red gorgonians, is that 1. they only open their polyps in low po4., 2. they prefer the lower temps. , but all of the ones I tried died at the end, so my "findings" might not be correct, or at least not all the parameters they care for.

I really hope we can one day keep these guys.... FM claims they grow them and frag them too ! but ....
 
Here's my Specimen

Here's my Specimen

20140108_144317.jpg


The base is on the lower/middle right... All of the polyps on the base stem are new. It's cemented onto the rock, and the base is starting to encrust and grow it's own polyps.

The section in the bottom center has never received direct feeding but "faces" the MP40s.

The dense stalk in the center (aprtially obscured from this agle) is twice the diameter that is was when purchased.
 
Saw one one at my LFS. Told the guy it was beautiful. He tried to sell it to me but I wanted to find out more about it. I went back about a month later an it was still there, half dead. I was glad I didn't waste my money on it.
 
Well here is mine. I feed a lot during the day in small portions and also I target feed it once at the evening.
 

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Had this all of 2 days!
Squirting everything I got at it. I'm doing a gorgonian build and while this particular species was a little later in my planned acquisition schedule, I just couldn't turn down the specimen my LFS had - probably the most healthy I've seen locally.


gorgst1


IMG_1596

@galkito - that is a real nice specimen there!
 
Hope I'm not hi-jacking this thread (lmk - i'll start a new one) but found a couple of interesting thing about my blueberry sea fans.

1) They don't like frozen cyclopeez. Not too surprising given the size of the cyclopeez. Even when the polyps "captured" food - it all eventually released it. If you look at the mouth of the polyp - I highly suspect cyclopeez is just too big.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/lMKRb4Ir6O8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Compare this with a diodogorgia feed response
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/EYFWPxzm81A" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>


2) They don't like FM ultra sea fan either. This is a bit surprising. You will notice on the video there appears to be a feeding response initially but I noticed 15 minutes later - all the polyps seemed to be ejecting their food through release of a mucous. The "blue" video was due to the fact this was done at night to make sure there was already polyp extension prior to feeding.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/t1EMPMxuDuQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

working on other foods - will keep posting.
 
Last edited:
noy said:
Had this all of 2 days!
Squirting everything I got at it. I'm doing a gorgonian build and while this particular species was a little later in my planned acquisition schedule, I just couldn't turn down the specimen my LFS had - probably the most healthy I've seen locally.

@galkito - that is a real nice specimen there!
Click to expand...

Thanks man!

I'd love to have a camera like yours ( your skills also! :P)
 
Any updates on foods that work best. I have had mine about 2 weeks and have been target feeding reef chili. Too early to tell but the polyps are extended nicely.
 
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