gorgonians

[Moonstream]

I am getting two gorgs in a few days from a member (Krazy) who is tearing down his reef. I am getting a purple gorg as well as a yellow gorg, not sure on the sizes of either.

I know that they yellow is not a photosynthetic coral, and was wondering what was best to feed it with? I have plenty of marine snow currently in the fridge, but what else would it eat? would cyclo-freeze be good? I can get some of that... also, where in the tank should I put it? I can put it in high light and high flow, moderate light and moderate flow, I can make a place for it that has low light and low flow...

as for the purple gorg, I am assuming it is either a purple lace or purple tree gorg, both of which I believe are photosynthetic, but do they need to be fed?

thanks for any help!I have never kept these corals before, and a search on google didnt show me much.

 

[dendro982]

You can identify gorgonians, using photos from this site or Poppe Images (but check if it will conform with information from other sites).

Yellow gorgonian could be Diodogorgia nodulfera (thick branches with red warts, when open - polyps are white and large), Euplexaura crassa, unlikely Isis hippuris or Rumphella, likely Menella. Purple could be Paramuricea clavata or, if pale lavender color, photosynthetic Pseudopterogorgia. (Comments at this sire are in German, you can use Google language tools or BabelFish (sp?) for automatic translation).

Then you can find more information by search, using the found names.

I'll quote thread Non-photosynthetic gorgonians - ID and particular care:

Regarding the feeding, I feed a mix of different Fauna Marin Products (Ultramin S and F, Ultralive, UltraClam, UltraSeafan, UltraBooster) mixed with a lot of fine and coarse frozen food for the fishes (Cyclop eeze, Lobster Eggs, baby brine shrimp, adult brine shrimp, Mysis, Gammarus, Krill, etc). Everything is mixed together and fed in many small portions over the whole day.

Jens Kallmeyer, you can see the whole Jens tank in FTS of non-photosynthetic tank thread.

There is illustrated tutorial by joanxavier (translate from Spanish, or just take a look at pictures) here and here.

The bare minimum, that could be done, is to add the food several times a day to the tank (you may try target feeding too). Food should be of the size to fit the individual polyps mouth, in amount, enough for each (or most of) polyps get few pieces each time. Not only phytoplankton, zooplankton too, enriched and specialized food will add variety.

For large polyped diodogorgia (IMHO) the Cyclop-eeze is the largest food, small particles from washing mysis will work too or GARF's gorgonians' flake food recipe. For small polyped, from widely available foods Hikari First Bites (powdered fry food) and larger ZoPlan (dried crustaceans, smaller, than Cyclop Eeze) will work too. Frozen Reef Plankton, baby brine, rotifers, cyclops. Reef Roids, Rod's food, Golden Pearls - whatever is available for you. Fauna Marin is high end specialized food. You can find example of gorgonians system in sponsor's forums, Fauna Marin. Solely Marine Snow has too small particles.

If you have time and space, the culturing live food may help: rotifers, large and small, baby brine. Live food may have something, lacking in dried foods. But it takes time every day, just to service and harvest culture.

Be prepared to possible explosive growth of aiptasia. There is aiptasia control thread at this forum.

Good flow, but not bending polyps. In no flow areas gorgonians are at risk of dieing. Declining gorgonian could be saved by fragging, only cut to the healthy part, without necrotic tissue.
HTH

 

[Moonstream]

I have identifyed the yellow gorg as a yellow/green lace gorg, and I am fairy sure that the purple one is a purple tree gorg.

LA says that both of these corals are phtotsynthetic, so I have placed the lace gorg at the top of the tank in high light and high flow, and the purple gorg is more towards the bottom of the tank and is also in high flow. both have great polyp extension and look pretty darn happy.

what else should I know about these corals?

 

[dendro982]

Sorry, can't help much - my experience with photosynthetic gorgonians is limited to purple frilly gorgonian. Care was quite straightforward:
- at the top of the tank to have more light (if your tank is well lit, then - anywere),
- good flow without bending polyps too much,
- some additional feeding (in my tank it had NPS gorgonians food, basically mouth-sized zooplankton or frozen fish food particles), but well fed fish tank should provide sufficient amount of food),
- if it sheds skin, you can facilitate it by basting with turkey baster or weak powerhead,
- carbon, changed periodically.

There was thread at Soft Corals forum several months ago about them, you may try search for "yellow gorgonian" and photosynthetic.