Thinking about getting a gorgonian - advice please

[Crawdads57]

I don't see a gorgonian section on these forums, but I'll keep looking.

I started a 16 gallon tank with approx 20lbs of live pukani from TBS in April. Great stuff, I got a ton of cool hitchhikers. Among those hitchhickers were 20+ porcelain crabs! It took about a week for me to realize how many were actually in there. Within about the first 3 weeks I lost 3. Last night I sat down and really tried to count them after feeding some frozen mysis and reef-roids. I counted 18, and I wouldn't be surprised if I missed a few. They seem to be happy as can be.

I feed about 1/3rd of a cube of frozen mysis and a couple "dashes" of reef-roids (like a little less than 1/8 tsp) - and I do this twice weekly. I use a syinge with a 12" needle to spot feed various soft corals and acans and 80% of that is actually eaten by fish and porcelain crabs. I also feed a few different kinds of pellets everyday.

So here's my question, given that my water is now stable and I'm happy with the consistency of my Ca / Mg / Alk, and since I haven't lost anything in at least 6 weeks, do I have conditions for a photosynthetic (hardy / easier) gorgonian? Those 3 porcelain crabs are the only thing I've lost at all.

Do you feel I would need to up my feeding? I'm not really crazy about feeding more - tank is staying pretty clean and nitrates are testing 2-5ppm routinely.

If I were to get a gorgonian, what is the easiest / hardiest available?

Same questions regarding a sponge. Also, would a gorgonian or a sponge be hardier given what I am describing here?

Heck, I'm tempted to try both.

 

[GoingPostal]

Disclaimer-I'm not a gorg expert. But if you go for a photo gorg you don't really need to worry about feeding ime, I have a purple one that seems quite happy to live off the light currently and had others in the past the same way. I don't know the names of them as they were frags from fellow reefers though.

I see Fosters and Smith sells a purple and red plating sponge that are photosynthetic according to them, I haven't tried them but seen people with various colors of sponge that grow similarly and without extra care. However most sponges sold, like the yellow finger ones or red balls need a ton of very fine foods to survive at all. Kp aquatics sells a few nano sized gorgs that he claims are easy to keep but I don't have experience with them personally. To keep anything filter feeding will add a huge bioload and different foods then you are offering right now.

 

[bfrench]

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[GOSKN5]

I have and have had many of the photosynthetic gorgs.. they are fairly easy to keep.. good flow, plenty of light and make sure they aren't rubbing against rock or other objects.. no harder to keep than say a leather or similar..

A few pics

 

[GOSKN5]

I should also add.. make sure it's a photosynthetic one.. the NPS ones are significantly harder to keep

 

[Marty.H]

I had a stunning blue one for ages but my doser recently dumped everything in and it was one of the casualties.

I think gorgonians are often overlooked but make a stunning edition.

Here the one I just lost has been fine for weeks

This one survived it

 

[Bagabaga]

How can you tell if hey are photosynthetic?

I have a frag that's grown a bit in the last couple months but I can't tell if it's from feeding or light. I feed a pappone mix and the polyps grab some and close up for a bit.

 

[Marty.H]

Looks like an encrusting Gorgonian they are one of the easier ones to keep and will get food from both light and the water column and a very hardy and adapt well to aquarium life


Is that bryopsis to the right above it or just hair algae hard to make out.

 

[teemee]

I don't see a gorgonian section on these forums, but I'll keep looking.

I started a 16 gallon tank with approx 20lbs of live pukani from TBS in April. Great stuff, I got a ton of cool hitchhikers. Among those hitchhickers were 20+ porcelain crabs! It took about a week for me to realize how many were actually in there. Within about the first 3 weeks I lost 3. Last night I sat down and really tried to count them after feeding some frozen mysis and reef-roids. I counted 18, and I wouldn't be surprised if I missed a few. They seem to be happy as can be.

I feed about 1/3rd of a cube of frozen mysis and a couple "dashes" of reef-roids (like a little less than 1/8 tsp) - and I do this twice weekly. I use a syinge with a 12" needle to spot feed various soft corals and acans and 80% of that is actually eaten by fish and porcelain crabs. I also feed a few different kinds of pellets everyday.

So here's my question, given that my water is now stable and I'm happy with the consistency of my Ca / Mg / Alk, and since I haven't lost anything in at least 6 weeks, do I have conditions for a photosynthetic (hardy / easier) gorgonian? Those 3 porcelain crabs are the only thing I've lost at all.

Do you feel I would need to up my feeding? I'm not really crazy about feeding more - tank is staying pretty clean and nitrates are testing 2-5ppm routinely.

If I were to get a gorgonian, what is the easiest / hardiest available?

Same questions regarding a sponge. Also, would a gorgonian or a sponge be hardier given what I am describing here?

Heck, I'm tempted to try both.

It doesn't say where you're located in your handle, but if you're in the US, I would try any of the Florida photosynthetic gorgonians and a florida sponge (red tree, yellow tree, red ball, yellow ball, etc.) (the latter are more difficult).

Medium flow and medium light are enough for most of the photo gorgonians.
Once you've mastered that, you're ready to try a non-photo - Florida has some nice ones, but lots more nice ones are imported from the Indo pacific.

 

[Bagabaga]

It's just hair algae. I started feeding more food in my bare bottom tank and need to get some more scavengers for the detritus. Water column nutrients read extremely low on my basic api test kits. I've been considering adding rock rubble to my sump or seachem matrix to increase bio load and or running some bio pellets in my reactor macro is another option I've looked into and maybe even creating and algae reactor from my tlf 150.

 

[Marty.H]

I run a pellet reactor and have bio home media in my sump

 

[Reef Frog]

Great looking tank GOSKINS! How long have you been successful keeping those photosynthetic gorgs.

I've never seen any photosynthetic gorgs in any other color than tan/light brown. Are there really purple ones available - or any other colors for that matter?

 

[GOSKN5]

Great looking tank GOSKINS! How long have you been successful keeping those photosynthetic gorgs.

I've never seen any photosynthetic gorgs in any other color than tan/light brown. Are there really purple ones available - or any other colors for that matter?

Thanks... I have had a couple of these for several years... one of them has been in tanks for many many years before I got it...

There are several that are very purple, orangish, yellow etc...