How much flow for Gorgonian

[LOTUS50GOD]

I got a non photosynthetic gorgonian about a month ago....

LFS told me it was photo synthetic, but with the polyps extention, I thought otherwise... I feed my reef alot, so I thought even if it was not photosynthetic I thought I could keep it alive.

I have it at the bottom of the tank, about 36" under a 400W 20k MH. Is this proper lighting?

It gets minimal flow.

I feed plankton, baby brine shrimp and small roe on daily. (non target)...

Over the past couple of days, I noticed that the polyps were not extending like they once did and I there wasnt as many.

I really want this to survive... please help...

 

[LOTUS50GOD]

Here is a pic...

 

[wilawalo]

Nope not photosynthetic, I feel into the same trap months ago. From what I understand it is really hard to keep them heathy and alive. Hopefully someone with more experience can help you with the feeding requirements.

 

[yrema]

hi lotus,

I have no direct experience on NP gorgonians, but from my experience with rumphella, I think gorgonians would prefer stronger flow, and this may also help in removing debris.

Best of luck.

 

[malnurs]

very difficult

very difficult

I had a NP yellow gorgonian and target fed it daily with a mix of several different non-live feeds. sadly it has slowly died. the only thing keeping it alive now (very puny) is me putting it in my refugium right next to my return pump, so it can catch some live food, along with my feeding. no more death. just no growth. they do require alot of flow though. I had to research it alot after i found out that i had one. I hope this helps and all goes well with it.

just remember at least moderate flow and lots of food.

Chris

 

[dendro982]

This is blueberry gorgonian, the only non-photosynthetic gorgonian with very bad prognosis. Most, including me, didn't even see it feeding, despite the big polyps. Then it just dies.

If you have time, make a search for blueberry gorgonian, food and months or years, and there will be some helpful observations. Or Acalycigorgia, but mostly forums mention it as a blueberry.

I have now its relative, pink Muricella plectana, also with 3 months known life span in captivity, it feels better if positioned with fan across the flow, when each branch is washed well by the flow. Koralia 2 (600 gph, or ~2200l/h of very soft flow) powerhead is directed right above it, and is within 30 cm from it. From the opposite side, at trice more distance 2 Seio 620 powerheads (also soft flow, each of the same capacity as Koralia2), round the flow back.
I would say, the biggest flow you can get, but not concentrated (as Maxi-Jets give), but dispersed. You also can use rocks for dispersing the flow jets. Upper limit of flow - the polyps shouldn't be bent too much.

If you can, try to feed by different sizes of food, mostly zooplankton or food of animal origin, several times a day. If you have skimmer, it should be able to handle the increase in bioload. You may try to change carbon regularly, in case if blueberry gorgonian has adverse reaction on something in the tank.

As you understand, this is an educated guess, not more, because I wasn't able to keep mine blueberry alive, but its smaller polyped relative is still alive and kicking.

Some links, I have at the hand:
Blueberry Gorgonian Issues, mentioning extreme flow,
Acalycigorgia Sp. And Anthogorgia Sp Aka Blueberry Gorg , mentioning cyclop eeze, but it doesn't work without flow, tried,
another thread on the same topic ,
Feeding a Blueberry Gorgonian? , rotifer based diet. If you have some spare money and time, you may set the live rotifer culture, fed by frozen algae paste, as I did. L-type may be good for the blueberry (L=Large), my pink relative requires SS-type (super small).
Claude S. input on blueberry gorgonian , he is extremely knowledgeable in these matters.

There are many more threads, but it takes time to find the links.
HTH

 

[LOTUS50GOD]

I think I may have made it a little happier...

There is a local guy who has great success with the blueberry.
He shared his experience with the LFS, so the following is what I got third hand...

I moved the gorgonian to the corner of the tank. My tank has a circular current, so its getting a nice gentle wave of water...

I also started feeding Kent ZooPlex. I wasnt feeding zooplankton before. After just 12 hours after the move and the initial dosing of the zooplex, the polyps started opening.

In the tank its about the same depth as it was in the picture.

For the past week or so ALL polyps were closed. So the fact that I am seeing open polyps today is a good sign.

I have the zooplex hooked up to a spectrapure liter meter, dosing 200 mils a day.

The LFS says that constant 24x7 feeding is the only way to keep this gorgonian. His is so big that he is fragging it out to the LFS!

He uses the zooplex product and does a 24 hour drip on his..

 

[malnurs]

yeah that sounds about right. i was just taarget feeding and that just wasn't enough. the contsant supply of food is what they get in the wild and a drip is the only way we would be able to replicate that. Glad you got the info you needed and VERY glad the polyps are opoening again!

 

[LOTUS50GOD]

Well there are alot less polyps on the gorgonian than when I bought it. I just checked again.. and even more are open.

Will the gorgonian produce more polyps to replace the ones that died off?

 

[dendro982]

LOTUS50GOD:
Did I understand right: 200 ml of Zooplex a day? This will be CN$180/month...

Can you post picture of the tank, and how the gorgonian is oriented in relation to the flow (poweheads or other sources of flow)? How strong flow is? What is the total tank turnover, for example 40x tank volume/hr, what part of this goes through filtration?

What other non-photosynthetic corals or fine filter feeders you have?
Just curious: I'm always looking for the ways to improve my tank.

Will it grow back or not:
Hard to say, IMHE very few gorgonians do that, and the usual growth is at the base. My blueberry seems started to regenerate tissue on the branch (but I have to find photos, this is from memory), then it died in bryopsis outbreak.

---------
Sorry, checked again, you have 4x larger tank, than I have. This is a totally different animal. In this class is this tank: http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2008-02/feature/index.php

 

[LOTUS50GOD]

I lent my friend my SLR camera till Friday, so I cannot take a pic. He is on a trip to pick up his new corvette (lucky bastage).

The cost of zooplex is expensive but I found zooplex at Marine Depot for 30 bucks/ gallon. I may order 6-12 gallons at a time so I always have it. I do cut it 50% with RO/DI water so I'm really dosing 100ml of ZooPlex or about 1 gallon every 2 weeks.

I have a maxima clam and a bunch of SPS, but that is it for filter feeders. I would like to get some Dendros and some more NP Gorgonians.

Anyway.. back on topic...
The flow of my tank goes in a circular clock wise motion..
the return from the sump enters from top at 2 o'clock (back right corner) and the Blueberry is at the bottom at 8 o'clock (Front left corner). There is an oceansmotion 4 way on a Sequence Dart with a 3-1 drum in it assisting in pushing the water in this clockwise motion.
There is also 2 Seio 1500's on a controller again pushing water in the clock wise direction.

This creates a pulsing wave as it passes the blueberry.

I have a pretty heavily stocked tank and a big skimmer.

 

[LOTUS50GOD]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13059172#post13059172 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by dendro982
---------
Sorry, checked again, you have 4x larger tank, than I have. This is a totally different animal. In this class is this tank: http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2008-02/feature/index.php [/B]

That is a great article...
It would appear that NP corals are not affected by phosphates.
I may set up another pump on my litermeter and dose rotifeast & shellfish diet......

I also want to get a basketstar, but I have killed a couple in the past because of lack of food... but since I am dosing 24x7 now, I think I can keep one...

 

[dendro982]

Basket star

or feather star ?

Only the feather stars (crinoids) require smallest food, basket stars, as I had read, require pieces of meaty food.

Here is food of the size of ZooPlex (dried Cyclop-eeze) inside the feeding grove on the arm of feather star (red dots, pardon the quality).

A little too big, but one research paper published, that they readily accepted baby brine (smaller size).

Phosphates: my chili corals are closed, when phosphates are 1 ppm, until situation normalizes.

Sorry about asking about ZooPlex again - I'm learning - but if there will be 100 ml of it dosed during 2 weeks, it seems too little for me.

Thanks for the info on the water flow. I have Dart too (not connected yet, still thinking), but not Ocean Motion or controller.

And, just out of curiosity, there is link to the another large non-photosynthetic tank, only colder water (

link ). Its in German, but translation can be made through Google Language tools.