Is goniopora that tough

It is interesting that the goniopora likes dirty water, relative to SPS anyway. It seems like it would be a good addition to a softy lps tank if attention is paid to feeding it. The reds are maybe a bit more hardy. If my lfs gets one in that looks good for a few weeks, odds are at least it was collected well.

I might give it a try once I get my other parameters in line.

Why do so many fail with goniopora if water quality is not that big an issue? Is it just not being fed enough or are people buying poorly collected specimens that don't last long?
 
Water flow/light is also important in my opinion

Water flow/light is also important in my opinion

I purchased five of my gonioporas and my alveopora from Dr. F & S. A 4 1/2" Aussie purple/green goniopora, a 5" purple goiniopora, a two inch pink goniopora, a two inch orange goniopora, two inch reddish/orange goniopora, and a 5" pink alveopora.

I purchased the tennis ball size green, 3 1/2" maroon, and two inch purple from the LFS.

I watched the LFS gonioporas for weeks before finally buying as they remained healthy looking and were calling me to take them home. The Dr. F & S purchases were made with the quality of past purchase experiences in mind. I have not been disappointed.

My tank is just over three years old and has 150 pounds of live rock and phosphates around 1 ppt and nitrates around 20 ppm which is hardly dirty water although I do feed well and over filter. This may not be SPS quality although it seems to keep my gonioporas happy?

In addition, my two Koralia Hydor 8's keep the current of the top six inches of the water fairly strong and leave the gonioporas with a medium current to make their polyps sway with no "dead" spots. I keep them in good lighting with 644 watts of power compacts in a five foot 120 gallon tank.
 
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Do not have any ORA goniopora specimens and I have not ready anything about them.

My two inch short polyped purple goniopora from LFS is trying to be different. All the others are still showing there poyps all day long every day. The purple from the local fish store stopped showing its polyps a week ago and I have moved it from the right front bottom substrate to the upper middle on the live rock. It is day two with no polyps although it can take time for them to come around.
 
+1 on having my red goni for over 2 years. I started spot feeding back in the day but gave up after a while. Been healthy as and is constantly groomed by my clownfish. One of my faves for sure.

I agree, Red's are definitely easiest to take care of, I'm going on about 16 months or so with my red and 18 with my green. The green one is one of those encrusting species? I guess thats why its lasted so long. And my red started out as a puny frag. Both seem very very sturdy and can take almost anything. My green one's fallen over and been upside down in the sand for days and still recovers and grows back..
I dont do any feedings.

frag
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now-this is actually an old picture, it's grown a little bit more recently
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my green one
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Iron for gonioporas

Iron for gonioporas


No specific iron additive although I do have Kent Marine Essential Elements to dose every other week which contains Iron EDTA.

I have purchased C-Balance as I was convinced by the salt mixes thread a two part dosing system would stabilize my pH. My alkalinity is at 9.8 and I have yet to dose with the C-Balance.

I have also used Instant Ocean Reef Crystals synthetic salt for the last two years after using Instant Ocean synthetic salt until I started to fill my tank with more live rock, corals, anemones, along with fish and hermit crabs.

I was just starting to wonder whether my golf ball sized light purple goniopora which I had moved to the middle of the tank at the top of the rocks about 3/5 of the way to the surface about three days ago was dying.

It almost seems meant to be that I received an email notice from this thread about a day ago and today the light purple goniopora just starting to stick its tentacles out. Just enough to give me hope it may be on its way out of the woods.:fun4:
 
Thank you.

I just ordered more calibration fluid for my new Pinpoint Salinity Monitor as I was not sure of one of the batches I used to first calibrate it. I am getting a tank reading of a salinity of 36 ppt when I thought I had 35 ppt with my hydrometers. I supposed my tanks inhabitants can last at 36 ppt until my weekly water change this weekend.
 
Is there anything that can be done to save a gonipora once it has started to die off? I have a green goni that was doing well for 6-8 mos. then it started to die. Ive tried target feeding in the past without much sucess.
 
I have two greens and switched their locations which helped both. I moved the Aussie green encrusting one from the left front to the center front where the round tennis ball size green was located. I moved the tennis ball sized green one to the left front where the green encrusting one was located. I did it in time for both to recover before they were white bleached skeletons. Now they are both fuzzy polyp covered green gonioporas.

My short tentacled light purple goniopora I moved on top of the rocks in the center of the tank has yet to really come around. The polyps stopped coming out and I moved it some time around a week or less after its polyp recession. This leaves me with seven gonioporas(2 green, 1 maroon, 1 dark pink, 1 orange, 1 dark orange and 1 deep purple) and one white alveopora showing polyps really well each day. I will probably leave the light purple one up in the rocks until I am sure it is going to make a come back or not.
 
ORA Gonioporas

ORA Gonioporas

still have question about the ORA gonis. Does that mean they are hardy (fraggable)?

I just ordered a half purple, half green 2 1/2" ORAâ„¢ (Oceans Reefs and Aquariumsâ„¢) Marshall Island cultured flowerpot coral. This is an "aquacultured" coral which means they definitely are more hardy. As far as fragging the "frag" ORA goniopora, I do not know about fragging gonioporas.

04/22/09 Goniopora - orange/red
06/10/09 Gonipora - pink
07/31/09 Gonipora - orange
08/31/09 Goniopora - Aussie green/purple
09/16/09 Gonipora - maroon
10/16/09 Gonipora - dark purple
01/29/10 Purple with electric lime green eyes
02/02/10 Puple/Green (Oceans Reefs and Aquariumsâ„¢) Marshall Island cultured flowerpot coral.
 
I just ordered a half purple, half green 2 1/2" ORAâ„¢ (Oceans Reefs and Aquariumsâ„¢) Marshall Island cultured flowerpot coral. This is an "aquacultured" coral which means they definitely are more hardy. As far as fragging the "frag" ORA goniopora, I do not know about fragging gonioporas.

04/22/09 Goniopora - orange/red
06/10/09 Gonipora - pink
07/31/09 Gonipora - orange
08/31/09 Goniopora - Aussie green/purple
09/16/09 Gonipora - maroon
10/16/09 Gonipora - dark purple
01/29/10 Purple with electric lime green eyes
02/02/10 Puple/Green (Oceans Reefs and Aquariumsâ„¢) Marshall Island cultured flowerpot coral.

ah so you're the one who bought it. I was also eyeing it as well ^^
 
ORA Goniopora

ORA Goniopora

Yep, I am supposed to accept delivery tomorrow. This will be my first ORA. I will try to post some pictures.:)

I also just received a real nice 4 inch purple with electric lime green centers which has now fully opened and is one of the nicest looking gonioporas I have seen. I will also add I was at the LFS and they had an "all yellow" goniopora. I did not have room since the purple with electric lime green centers took the last place in my front substrate. The 2 1/2" ORA is going into a space in the center about ten inches up in the live rock.
 
Yep, I am supposed to accept delivery tomorrow. This will be my first ORA. I will try to post some pictures.:)

I also just received a real nice 4 inch purple with electric lime green centers which has now fully opened and is one of the nicest looking gonioporas I have seen. I will also add I was at the LFS and they had an "all yellow" goniopora. I did not have room since the purple with electric lime green centers took the last place in my front substrate. The 2 1/2" ORA is going into a space in the center about ten inches up in the live rock.

It's been awhile... What is the story with your gonis. Especially the ORA? I have a red ORA goni for three months or so and just picked up a lemon green goni (not ORA).
 
I've been keeping the encrusting gonis for awhile now in my 3 year old bow front. I have a metallic red, a blue/pink/green, and a regular green and all are growing very well. The only filtration I have is a vertical algea scrubber, gac/gfo reactor, and a dsb in the sump w/ crumbled LR. This setup works very well for me, I am keeping 36 different corals ranging from sps on down. I believe that using an ATS helps with the low nutient issue. Skimmers remove nutients before it breaks down in the water. ATS allow the nutrients to break down into the water where it still feeds corals and micro fauna before the nutrients are used up by the turf algea on the scrubber. My nitrates are 2-3ppm and my phosphate is undetectable, I do 30-40% water changes every 4-6 months using Seachem's Stability for 3-4 days. I add 1500 pods (cope/amphi) every 3-4 months. I go on the therory that the trick isnt to reduce nutrients, but to have enough life to utilize all of it so there is no exceses. I have 18yr old wild cultured rock that was out of the water for less than 7hrs out of the gulf for about 50% of my rock. have an indcredible amount of life and I am still finding new stuff. along with the ats and all of the life all of the nutrients are used up.
 
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