Keeping Fungia

[mwhite]

I haven't been able to keep fungia for more than a couple of months and have no idea why. My water parameters are all excellent and the other LPSs are doing very well. I have a few SPS frags and a few mushrooms too.

My latest try was with heliofungia. I had a beautiful green one that seemed to do well for two months. Then suddenly within a few days it shriveled up and died. It was on the sand about 26" from the lights (dual 250W MH). Water movement is moderate on the floor of the tank but its tentacles were in constant gentle movement. I acclimitized it slowly to both the water and the lights when I introduced it to my tank.

Any suggestions on how to best keep fungia would be much appreciated.

 

[72olds455]

Were you feeding it regularly?

 

[JRoweNole]

I believe heliofungia, although beautiful, are actually a little more finicky and are less likely to survive when compared to other fungia.

My pink/purple "plate" fungia was one of my original corals, has been in my tank for almost seven years, and has tripled in size.

I keep mine on the sand, 24 inches deep, under 250W MH and medium flow.

 

[mwhite]

Mine got some of the mysis that I fed the tank everyday. I also fed Cyclopeeze once a week. It fell apart so quickly that I didn't think that it would have been the feeding. It went from fully expanded to a white skeleton in about 4 days.

 

[dreamreefer]

did you experience tissue necrosis on the plate? how big was the fungid and what color was it when you got it?

 

[mwhite]

The tissue narcosis began on one side and spread rapidly across the body of the fungia, or rather in a circular fashion from one side. It was green in color, about 3" in diameter with fully extended tentacles of about 4".

 

[dreamreefer]

hmmm....doesn't sound like anything I can think of to kill it...it could be that it caught something too large for the gut (not through feeding) sometime at night, cut the guts and died form inside out, but that would cause the necrosis from the mouth, outwards...

was it under direct or indirect lights? did you photoacclimate? the green ones though tend to be more light-intensive...again, you've already had it for 2 months and it was doing good, I gather...things like that bothers the heck out of me...gotta think some more...

 

[mwhite]

It was on the substrate about 28" down (20" under water) and 16" to the side from the MH lights. I photo-acclimatized it for about a week using layers of window screen.

The only thing that I can think of that would bother it was the sand from my pair of sand sifting gobies. It never got covered but I had to blow it of with a turkey baster daily.

 

[dreamreefer]

that could be the problem, though corals have tissue layers to remove unwanted debris on themselves, it might be the gobies dumping sand on the plate for some reason. If you had to blow it out daily, that means the gobies might be doing that deliberately...for what i dunno...

 

[mwhite]

The gobies dump sand everywhere. One pair can move at least a few pounds per day. They are constantly taking mouthfuls and rise to the surface while expelling the sand from their gill slits.

 

[dreamreefer]

that's what they do...have you tried moving the plate around or away from them and still see sand on it? very likely your plate got choked with the sand and died.
i actually don't quite like those sand sifting gobies, they make a mess and cover things with sand all the time...tho its good to get the sand stirred up a little once in a while...sand sifting stars can do about the same thing.