New Gorgonia, What do you think?

[Sculp1n]

I recently purchased this gorgonia from a LFS. I did some research before I bought it and understand that this is quite and undertaking and wanted to get your advice. I placed it in my 235 near a Korilia 3 to give it optimal flow and I'm starting to dose live rotifers and phyto but I know there is much more I need to learn.

First off, what kind is this. It was labeled a Blueberry Sea Fan (like that means anything), I thought it was classed as a Diodogorgia but I'm not too sure. I really hope I'm not in over my head on this buy.

I would really just like some pointers so I can best serve this guy and get it to thrive if possible. I'm already accustomed to spot feeding coral and don't mind the effort but what to feed? Information that I've found has been limited (especially not knowing the proper ID) so any help is appreciated.

Heres are a few shots I took today-

Don't mind the easter basket, I'm trying to get my clown out of my elegance and into my RBTA

Thanks in advance


Sculp1n

 

[dendro982]

Unfortunately, this IS a blueberry gorgonian, either Acalycigorgia or Anthogorgia spp. You can find threads about it at this forum or searching web by name, here, this one can be translated from German using Google language tools, same author in English is here, others - here, here, here, and many others.

I lost mine in bryopsis outbreak, but its small polyped relative is alive (still less than year) in ~200 gph of reflected from walls rotating around it flow, with close to continued feeding, using all mouth-sized food I could find, mostly zooplankton based.
HTH

 

[SolarEclipse]

A product that I have a success with feeding a blueberry is Kent's Phytoplex. Just squirt some and let it drift over in the direction of the blueberry. The first few days the blueberry might not close up, as it might not be acustomed to your tank, but it will start to close up and take food. Mine declined then started new growth on some branches, unfortunatly life took over and sadly my tank took a downturn and so did the blueberry = ( it is gone now, but the tank looks good again = ), here is a link to those pictures: http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1493122&perpage=25&pagenumber=2

 

[Sculp1n]

What do you think the effectiveness of drip dosing live phyto and rotifers? I'm not planning on dosing 24/7 but maybe in a volume of 1 quart a day running for however long that takes.

I know this sounds strange but here is the plan. I built an auto doser for Kalk about 6 months ago but decided to switch to a Ca reactor (link to the auto doser- http://www.utahreefs.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=27986&KW=). With a few modifications and a stealer cleaning job I got it running as a rotifer doser but I'm building the colony right now so I haven't begun dosing yet. Also I am feeding the rotifers live phyto as well.

My hope is, by placing the a feed tube just ahead of the flow and allowing it to release a small amount of phyto/rotifers over the course of 2-3 hours it would feed the blueberry at a fairly consistent rate.

What do you think the chances are of this actually working?


Sculpin

 

[SolarEclipse]

That sounds like a great idea, I would watch your blueberry and see how it responds to the feeding for about a week (after you see it start accepting food), when I mean responds to food, look for signs of growth. Maybe on some of the "dead" branches, there aren't many dead branches, you picked a very healthy one . If you don't see any growth you can either wait a little (but that could be costly with this coral) or you could increase the amount of time that you feed it.

 

[Plankt0s]

Nice piece. I hope it does well... Keep us informed.

 

[tatoofr]

gorgeous , good luck. can you tell me what the cost was.
thanks,
frank

 

[Sculp1n]

I've read all the post you listed dendro982 and it seems like you are the local authority on these babies. I've started feeding mine Cyclopeez, rotifers, and phyto and it seems to react when I mess with some sponges I use in my sump too (probably tasting the ditritus). I have no problem getting the polyps out to feed but I'm not sure if they are actually feeding on the cyclopeez but they do close up for a bit when I feed them the phyto roto mix.

I'm waiting right now for my rotifer culture to gain some mass and then I'll start auto dosing. I plan on placing the dosing tubes straight into the current that goes to the blueberry so it has the best chance of getting most of the mix. I don't know if this will work or not but nobody has tried this (that I know of).

What I'm curious about is, will the fan begin to extend it's polyps at the time of day (or night) that I choose to dose? Ya know, like sun corals do?
Oh and I paid $90 for the blueberry.

Here is a shot of it that I took today after feeding

Thanks in advance.


Sculpin

 

[speer]

Great looking coral. Good luck with it.