Cirrhipathes spiralis (Spiral coral / spiral gongonian)- Non Photosynethic?

[vaporize]

when somebody said "black coral" is it the same kind that people use to make jewellery? (and over harvest)

 

[aninjaatemyshoe]

Yep, the exact same

 

[doorlady]

I ordered one today from Vivid, can't wait to get it. They won't be shipping again to Jan. 4 so I will have to wait a little while but will post pics as soon as it gets in the tank.

 

[Whalehead9]

so where would you put this coral? is it high laminar flow, or lower flow?

 

[doorlady]

vivid called today and I will receive mine tomorrow morning, I will post pics tomorrow night, I can't wait.

 

[vaporize]

did we reach a conclusion on whether this is photosynthetic or non-photosynthetic? The indonesia exporter told my LFS that it is actually photosynthetic also, can anybody confirm?

 

[doorlady]

Well I got this one today and I have not called to ask if it is non-photo or photo, but I have both types in our aquarium so hopefully we will not have any problems

 

[doorlady]

update, it is not photosyn., he loves to eat mysis shrimp and is more open after the lights go off. he has also shown growth already, if you will notice on my first post that his tip was broken when we removed him from the bag and placed him in the tank, he has repaired his tip and has new polyps in the previous broken area, I will post a new photo tomorrow

 

[doorlady]

Here is the new picture to show the repair of the broken tip. the fist pic is the day it was put in the aquarium and the second one is from today.

 

[uhuru]

That is fantastic. You got it from vivid? There are several varieties, you have the nice long polyp one. I have a short polyp version. It has small clear ones and I've seen it try to eat mysis but I doubt it can. Mostly I see it eating cyclopleeze and bbs.

 

[doorlady]

uhuru,
I did get it from vivid. He likes cyclopees and mysis, the photo last night was taken right after feeding so he was really open. I want to get another one, just got to wait to see how much I get from the frag swap in Nashville on the 23rd of this month.

 

[oldreefer76]

bumping this back up some good reading here

 

[uhuru]

did we reach a conclusion on whether this is photosynthetic or non-photosynthetic? The indonesia exporter told my LFS that it is actually photosynthetic also, can anybody confirm?

Yes there have been photosynthetic Cirrhipathes found in Indonesia. One species was found to host 1,000,000 zooxanthellae per mm3 of tissue. I've noticed a lot of the DD ones are labeled as non-photo in the notes but then moderate lighting is recommended in the description. The vast majority of black corals are definitely azoox though.

 

[vaporize]

Yes there have been photosynthetic Cirrhipathes found in Indonesia. One species was found to host 1,000,000 zooxanthellae per mm3 of tissue. I've noticed a lot of the DD ones are labeled as non-photo in the notes but then moderate lighting is recommended in the description. The vast majority of black corals are definitely azoox though.

any idea if the yellow one shown above by "doorlady" is photosynthetic or not? I have one and I rarely feed it, like once every 2 weeks but it's been doing good like when I first started this thread.

 

[uhuru]

I wouldn't know, but I imagine a true azoox coral would be starved with such minimal feeding. My LFS had some that they never specifically fed, but kept under MH lights, and they did fine. I had 2 that I fed like crazy, but kept under minimal lighting, and they withered away. Not surprisingly, the parts that lost tissue first were the parts completely covered in shade 24/7.

 

[Western_reefer]

I wouldn't know, but I imagine a true azoox coral would be starved with such minimal feeding. My LFS had some that they never specifically fed, but kept under MH lights, and they did fine. I had 2 that I fed like crazy, but kept under minimal lighting, and they withered away. Not surprisingly, the parts that lost tissue first were the parts completely covered in shade 24/7.

Do you think I could keep one right under a 40 watt actinic T-5 with a lot of feeding?

 

[CLINTOS]

any idea if the yellow one shown above by "doorlady" is photosynthetic or not? I have one and I rarely feed it, like once every 2 weeks but it's been doing good like when I first started this thread.

I just bought the exact one 3 week's ago and have feed him every day mysid but will switch to a mix of frozen cyclopeeze and mysid in order to feed every polyp

I have them in a 29G under 4-t5 h.o and medium/almost sps flow

I find that using mysid only feed's 1/3rd of the polyp'sa and they take 3 hour's to digest

the LFS specimen is dead and mine is thriving so far and I already fragged it

but when I got it the bottom half was turning slightly faded and see through so I fed every day and now he is coming along with big polyp's and yellowing up slowly

I'm still unsure thou regarding light?

how often/much to feed?

and

how long we can go between feeding's?

 

[slapshot]

Do you think I could keep one right under a 40 watt actinic T-5 with a lot of feeding?

Moses, I am pretty sure they are non-photo. Most are found in very deep water. I feed when I feed my sun corals.

 

[Western_reefer]

Moses, I am pretty sure they are non-photo. Most are found in very deep water. I feed when I feed my sun corals.

Oh, ok.

 

[CLINTOS]

Here's a pic of a piece of the skeleton that I fraged

I just need to polish it up