this betta werk! lol

Hum... I was going to drive up north to pick up a tank I am buying off a reefer in the DVRC, but it seems he had to go out of town on biz. Will you be around tomorrow afternoon or night? Might be the only time I can get away for a while.
 
Typically that little bud will drop off the parent when it's ready. Make sure you get it onto a rock and protect it. I have always kept mine (only two in 20 years)close to the parent.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11177766#post11177766 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Gordonious
I've got a cup coral that is cutting huge. I want to just take a little tiny bit of it off so I can grow a second one to take cuttings from. That's about the only hard coral I have besides some candy canes and an acro which are way to small at this point.

Too many softies in too close a space to deal with many hard corals.

A good way to frag a cup cora is to take a dremmel and cut a ring out of the border of the main colony about 1" wide. That ring you then cut up into sections about 1"x1" and glue those frags down. Also once your mother colony heals, it still has its regular shape so thats one less thing to worry about.
 
scuba, you have done good to keep gonopora for 20 years. they seem to be a mystery to the hobby. mostly they dont last more than a year or two in tank.s although i had one for several years, what keeps them happy,?? I don't know.
 
Ken,
Sorry, I have not kept any one alive for 20 years, but I have a few that made 5 years. There is a website just on Goniopora husbandry. http://www.goniopora.org/index.htm.
What always ended up killing them was moving the tank. They couldn't handle it.

One trick I learned that did help longevity was never, never touch the membrane with your bare hands, and spot feed them a mixed menu.

Ron Hunsicker (from north central PA. -- he used to have a fish store up there) discovered this trick and was very successful with them as well. Ron had a "blue thumb", he could grow anything in a reef tank. T
I took a trip up to his store, with Anthony Calfo and Mike Paletta, several years ago, we were amazed at his success.
He had several goniopora, some over a foot in diameter (with expanded tenticles).
I'll see if I can find the pictures and post them.
He had the biggest sarcophyton I've ever seen. It literally filled a 120 tank from top to bottom, and was about 2 feet wide at the top. They tried to move it to the Carnegie Science Center, but the move did too much damage, and didn't survive.
Doug
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11186013#post11186013 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Gordonious
dremmel with what though? What bit, there are only about 1,000,000 bits you can buy, lol.

Most of the time for fragging I only use a stainless steel cutting wheel for everything.... most of the time that doesnt come off my dremmel unless im working on the 4-wheeler.
 
that is still great scuba, goniopora have always been a mystery to reef keeping. I had one that lasted 4 years plus in my tank, before a power outage wiped me out. it was at the top back of the tank near the overflow. so it must have gotten lots of by catch from fish food everyday. and lots of light at the surface. it had polyps that extended at least 4 inches long. the clowns hosted in it. it was cool. from an egg shaped rock, a bit bigger than an jumbo egg, it was about 9 inches across, extended. really cool. always waving in the breeze.
 
Ken,
I'm still looking for the pictures of my (now deceased) Goni's, they were just as you described, I'll post when I find them.

If you could see the native habitat for Goni's, you'd wonder why they are so difficult to keep in our tanks. The water can be turbid, and polluted in many cases, but they still thrive. Same for mushrooms, but they are easy to keep.
Doug
 
Define polluted water. Is it polluted because it has a massive amount of sediment and detritus passing by? Perhaps your tank is not polluted enough. For certain corals you can have a tank that is too clean and sterile for them to survive.

Could also be that the pollution changes the pH higher or lower then your tank, or there is a certain mineral or heavy metal they love. Could be a million different things.
 
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