Goniopora work

[matttaylor]

I'm looking to do some research with Goniopora and Alveopora. If anyone has these in their tank could you post pics of the piece, and give a short summary of the time you've had it, if you feed it, any problems you've had.

These corals have a reputation of being hard to keep, if not impossible. I'd like to take a look and try to discover ways of keeping them long term, and see if it truly is possible to reverse their decline. There are several sites on the web that show ways of keeping them, but i think more work should be done to make life support easier than massive daily feedings, and super "puppy" nursing.

I have an Alveopora that i just picked up that is extremely healthy, which i am dead set on keeping that way. I also have a small receded Goniopora that i am going to try and save. I'm also on the look out for a healthy Goniopora that can be used as well, so if you see one in a local shop please let me know.

 

[MrMikeB]

Matt,

I have a sea green goniopora (flowerpot) that I recently purchased that was told to me to be 6 mos in a reef system. I can post some pics tonight, but its your typical bright green piece.

Some words of advice if you go down this road:
1) Place it on the sand bed - its flat bottom will do well for this type of placement
2) Provide moderate light - do not blast them with intense light. I partially shade mine and its polyp extends and sways in the current to get the light they need.
3) Place it towards the bottom of a circulation point (like under a powerhead). When you feed your fish, allow the food to swirl in that circulation point and the coral will be able to grab some food. I have seen this work rather well with brine/mysis and given I feed my fish twice a day already, it gets a nice helping.

Hope this helps!

BTW - If you are genuinely interested in one of these, I can give you mine for free. I like to look at it now, but would rather see it go to somebody who is really into learning how to make these things work well in tanks. Consider it a donation to furthering the good fight.

 

[Unarce]

I was able to raise a Goniopora in the early 90's. For me, care was about the same as the elegance. They like dirty and muddy tanks.

 

[bookfish]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9357945#post9357945 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Unarce
I was able to raise a Goniopora in the early 90's. For me, care was about the same as the elegance. They like dirty and muddy tanks.

Which is where you see many(all?) of the boulderesque/ stokesii like ones in the wild. Turgid, backreef and seaward lagoon edges.The encrusters, stuchberryii(sp?)etc... are more forereef located.

 

[JeffReef]

Re: Goniopora work

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9357212#post9357212 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by matttaylor
I'm looking to do some research with Goniopora and Alveopora. If anyone has these in their tank could you post pics of the piece, and give a short summary of the time you've had it, if you feed it, any problems you've had.

These corals have a reputation of being hard to keep, if not impossible. I'd like to take a look and try to discover ways of keeping them long term, and see if it truly is possible to reverse their decline. There are several sites on the web that show ways of keeping them, but i think more work should be done to make life support easier than massive daily feedings, and super "puppy" nursing.

I have an Alveopora that i just picked up that is extremely healthy, which i am dead set on keeping that way. I also have a small receded Goniopora that i am going to try and save. I'm also on the look out for a healthy Goniopora that can be used as well, so if you see one in a local shop please let me know.

It would be nice if someone could demystify the proper care of this coral. I had one many years ago and it was one of my first coral purchase. The polyps were fully extended in the beginning. And as the days past, the polyp extensions were getting shorter and shorter. It was sad to see it slowly perish.

How would you go about the study? Are you planning on setting up a few tanks to hold several experiments on different husbandry methods?

 

[matttaylor]

The basic idea is to eventually set up different tanks. However right now i am going to look at what different people have had success, failure with and start to develop methods that may work. In my current tank i will be placing the goni's in different lighting / flow conditions and see if a specific area begins to stand out as "ideal".

I've found a couple of sites on the net that provide some basic generic requirements, such as feeding and acclimation. However other than a few other ideas, nothing is stated about specific placement and water current conditions.

 

[bkmorris]

i have had an alveopora for the past 6 months or so... under pc's.. it was doing great until last week, when it started showing RTN. half of it is now gone. i am trying to save the rest of it.

 

[TNTREEF]

go to goniopora.org

 

[Marc Daniels]

Go check out John Kelly's site at www.goniopora.org and you will find a lot of very good information.

 

[shiveley]

Hey Matt, sorry man, if I could have gotten you a better gonio to work with I would have; I didn't know he'd be in such rough shape, which is one reason I brought him straight over from the source in EG. Hope you can save him.

I had one in the mid 90's that lasted about six months before it's eventual slow decline. can't believe we haven't figured out how to do any better with those guys since that time. curious.

By the way, how's the little leptastrea doing?

 

[matttaylor]

Both pieces are doing great so far. The leptastrea is looking great and the goni is opening well

 

[Mr. Ugly]

One of our BAR members, MangroveCoral/Piya, did very well with goniopora. He had a large variety of them for quite a while before he took down his 180. One of his goni even had babies. Some of us called him the Goni King after that

His ran his tank skimmerless with a mangrove fuge and a surge tank. He did add a skimmer toward the end, but it seemed that the goni didn't like it.

 

[matttaylor]

I seen goniopora.org, and it does have some great information. However, most of the information is geared towards each individual species, and there isn't a whole lot of information except that the water needs to be clean, and feed them a lot. I'm hearing more and more that the water should be "dirty" and people that have had the most success run skimmer less. And believe me, i will be contacting John directly and having a discussion with him.

 

[MrMikeB]

'Goni King' eh? Umm... was he ok with that/?

Seriously though, this is a great cause Matt, so however I can help, just let me know.

 

[shiveley]

the flower pot conundrum

the flower pot conundrum

don't know if this one was already mentioned, but it's a pretty good article relating to goniopora:
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/dec2002/invert.htm

 

[graveyardworm]

Here's a thread I started, I just purchased a couple baby ( G. Stokesii ? ). I've been waiting for some time to buy one and these little ones really fit the bill. Currently they are being housed in my seagrass/lagoon tank. I dont like crabs so there arent any in there, just a few small fish, one bristletooth tang, snails, cukes, conch's, and various corals soft and hard, including an orange suncoral, and a black suncoral, both get fed nightly and are doing very well. I also regularly add phyto, and DT's oyster eggs. Feeding of the suncorals consists of shaved frozen mysis cubes, frozen cyclopeeze, and frozen rotifiers.

Anthony Calfo also makes mention that Goniopora tend to do very well in seagrass aquaria in this article.

 

[matttaylor]

Thanks for adding. I'm off to read the article you posted right now. If anything developes, or changes please let me know.

 

[matttaylor]

So, a new goni has just been added to my study group. Thanks Mike for the donation. It has been in captivity for approximately 8 months now. It also has some recession, though not as bad as the other one i have. On top of that the alveopora has strated extending it's polyps finally. I have been adding Kent's Microvert to the tank on a daily basis and i do believe that has helped with polyp extension, i however cannot fully say that the microvert has had an impact since everything in my tank has been extending more than usual since the carpet anemone was removed yesterday, due to it's foot being attacked and destroyed by some unseen enemy in the sand.