My Corkscrew Gorgonian

[djneedledamage]

I just got this Corkscrew Gorgonian, but I have already got it to feed on mysis and some Tropic Marin SPS food. This is a picture from the site I bought it from, but it looks the same. I will post some pics later. I am totally excited about this buy.

 

[Rottilove]

I've been seeing more and more of these lately, whereas before I never heard of them. I think they are the neatest things.

 

[Rumplestilsken]

They sure are awesome. It was actually able to ingest full size mysis?

 

[djneedledamage]

Their polyps are fairly large. That one I got of a place that is on Michigan Reefers. They have some cheap I have seen some with smaller polyps, but I think that is from lack of feeding.

 

[Rottilove]

You need to get a photo of it eating!! I think it's cool to catch things in the act that you normally wouldn't think could handle the size.

 

[uhuru]

This is actually a black coral, not a gorgonian. You can tell by the polyps, and if you try to frag it you can tell by the skeleton.

 

[uhuru]

The Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology has now confirmed that black corals do indeed contain zooxanthellae. Even the ones that live in darkness. Whether or not the algae plays a significant role is still questionable, but IME it plays a significant role with some of these corkscrew ones.

Its an interesting thing to think about, because technically, it is incorrect to call them azooxanthellae, but possibly acceptable to call them non-photosynthetic! What a trip!

 

[calk me Q]

so what do these zooxanthellae do in their body? Really amazing

 

[Softreef]

I had to look these up as I wasn't 100% sure what they where,look very lovely,are these rare or fairly common in aquaculture not nature I mean?

 

[laga77]

Here is one of mine. I have four others, two are doing well and frags of these are hanging on but not thriving. That will come back. They need good flow and and daily feedings of any meaty right sized food. They are hard to find. I have told my LFS I will buy any he sees.

 

[Nemato]

Here is one of mine. I have four others, two are doing well and frags of these are hanging on but not thriving. That will come back. They need good flow and and daily feedings of any meaty right sized food. They are hard to find. I have told my LFS I will buy any he sees.

Yes, here in Europe difficult too. Some years ago it was easy from time to time to find as much as 5 or 6 in a shop. Now I rarely see them

 

[Ron Reefman]

Yes, here in Europe difficult too. Some years ago it was easy from time to time to find as much as 5 or 6 in a shop. Now I rarely see them

Well, as a person who has been in the hobby 10+ years, and only had to kill a 2 NPS corals (back in the beginning), I think the general hobby has shied away from NPS corals. It's very rare I see them in the local LFS. But I am interested in having a go at NPS again. I'm much more in tune with aquariums and coral now than I was 8 years ago and I have a 75g tank tied into a 400g system where I can control water turnover, flow and feeding.