Trying to revive a Goniopora

[Psychographic]

I was given a red Goni that came from a tank with inadequite lighting and was not being fed properly, It appeared that the tissue of the coral had receded to only being specks of the polyps in the coralites in the previous tank.

I have always stayed away from them because of their poor survival rate in captivity. I new this would surely die if left in the tank it was in, so I thought I would do my best to try to revive it. Upon putting it in my tank it started to "inflate" and there is much more tissue left than I expected to see.

The first pic is about an hour after I introduced it to my tank, the second is about 5 hours later. The next day it did'nt open as much as the second pic, but more like the first one.

I have it oof to the side of my tank to keep it from getting blasted with light and it gets medium flow, from a wavemaker, so it's not constant. I have been trying to feed target feed it, Cyclopeeze, crushed Flake (crushed to a powder), Dried Phtyo, Coral Frenzy and a homemade formula from a friend, I try to add a little Selcon to each food as it seems to stimulate my other corals to feed.

Am I wasting my time trying to feed it in the condition it is in? I'm thinking it might be able to capture some food even though it has shrunk so badly.

Any suggestions to help revive this coral would be greatly appreciated.

 

[ricks]

Sorry to say it doesn't look good. I have had ours for about 4 years it grew from the size of a golfball to over the size of a basketball... I don't understand why people always think you have to target feed them. I have never feed mine anything and it grows like crazy...

Good Luck

 

[jadeguppy]

From what I have read on the research is that they can benefit greatly from target feeding, but that a tank with a good size fuge and phyto dosing may provide that food for them. What was the poor lighting that it was under? I would not put it under the same light conditions as your clam, especially since it came from a low light home. Mine are on the bottom of the tank and to the side of the light. Although reds can take more light, this one needs to heal first. For target feeding, try crushing/blending together some cyclopeeze, phyto, mysis. I put it in a blender.

 

[Psychographic]

Right after i made this post, I was playing around with some of the aquascaping and cleared a spot on the bottom of the tank where it won't get direct light from the halide. I thought after the polyps did'nt extend at all the 2nd day it was getting too much light.

It was lit previously by 2 very small PC's, I don't know the wattage, but it could'nt have been much.

 

[ricks]

Here is a picture of ours, tank is 36" tall, and lighting is by (6) 400 watt 20K, (4) 96 watt PC's and (4) 160 watt VHO. I have never target fed anything in my system. Years ago I would spend time targeting feeding and had problems with some corals. The fish are fat and the coral happy...

Happy Reefing

 

[jadeguppy]

Yea, yours is awesome. I have read that certain species do well in sps tanks. His looks like it has a hint of red.