Green goniopora

Discussion in 'LPS Corals' started by lynnmw1208, Jul 24, 2011.

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  1. DBOSHIBBY

    DBOSHIBBY Sleeper Shark

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    that thing is sweeeeeet!
    i had one before (not that cool looking) and it was doing very good for about 9 months then slowly started to die. pretty common for this coral in home aquariums. i wish you the best success though! awesome peice you got there.
     
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  3. Reef-a-holic

    Reef-a-holic 3reef Sponsor

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    LOL! We get that variety in sometimes and I'm always amazed when they open up...a 2"-3" skeleton can easily yield a 6"-8" animal when they get "happy".
     
  4. dskyers

    dskyers Corkscrew Tentacle Anemone

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    Yea it's cool. I have one too. It gets huge sometimes. Good.luck.

    Sent from my Nexus S using Tapatalk
     
  5. elweshomayor

    elweshomayor Giant Squid

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    I agree. i have tried 2 of these and the longest i could keep one was for like a year before it began to deteriorate and die. It never really grew ( although it was pretty big anyways so i didnt care).

    I got the most polyp extention with a medium-low flow directed around it.. However, it didnt seem to mind if i added a bit more.

    I would feed marine snow close to the polyps almost daily. i dont know if it actually ate as it began to die though, maybe it was deprived of some other nutrient it needs.

    What works best IME is putting them in the sand, as it is where the water is the dirtiest.
    One of my gonioporas i had was a host to my clownfish for a good 5 months before it began to die. I doubt it was the clownfish that killed it though. I just know this was big enough to make both my clowns disappear in it!
     
  6. Reef-a-holic

    Reef-a-holic 3reef Sponsor

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    Some sp. of Goni do very well and others do not. I have one in my own display that is similar in shape to the one in this thread (ie. kind of a ball vs. branching or encrusting) that is doing very well. The coloration is a bit different with kind of mint green polyps with blue mouths/centers. I've only had it about 6mos. but I see new heads/growth which is encouraging.

    Most of what I see in researching Goni's talks about feeding...Reef-Roids was developed specifically for feeding Goni's and is probably a good choice for target feeding. I've also seen mention of the need for iron and manganese supplementation...but that generally is to encourage poor polyp extension, which does not seem to be an issue with the "ball" sp. we are dealing with in this thread.
     
  7. lynnmw1208

    lynnmw1208 Skunk Shrimp

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    Thanks for all the info guys! I got a great feeding response today from frozen baby brine shrimp! Yesterday I tried cyclopeeze with no luck. I will look into the reef roids and I was already contemplating coral snow.

    Another question, since you seem to know quite a bit about this kind of goniopora reefaholic, How does this grow? Does the skeleton get bigger? I know some are encrusting which this one is apparently not so I am just curious. I see some new polyps growing out of the middle and bottom as well so that is a good sign. My tank water is not sterile clean like some tanks either. I don't use filter socks, I skim dry, use GFO/carbon and cheato. I will just hope for the best and that it will do well in my tank; if not, well then I can say that I tried!
     
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  9. Reef-a-holic

    Reef-a-holic 3reef Sponsor

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    There are about 25 or so different sp. of Goni's...some encrust across flat/semi-flat surfaces...some actually grow branches almost like a hammer or frogspawn except the "heads" look like small Goni's...the other growth form (which is what I believe you have) grows in the wild into fairly massive colonies with hemispherical "lobes". I suspect your specimen is just one small lobe taken from one of these large colonies. Without examination of the coralites it's virtually impossible to make a positive ID.

    I suspect the baby brine is actually too large for the Goni to eat. Most research suggests they feed on very small phytoplankton type foods. Your "response" may have been stress induced rather than a feeding response. When target feeding Goni's you have to be very careful to not "blow" the food directly onto the coral...in most cases this will cause a stress reaction which can easily be misinterpreted as a feeding reaction. Instead you want to release the food just "upstream" and let the food "drift" across the coral. A typical feeding response in most Goni's is a kind of weird laying down/over of the polyps rather than the retraction of the polyps which is most likely a stress reaction. It's hard to explain, but once you see a true feeding reaction it will make perfect sense, LOL!

    Good luck.
     
  10. jdameli1

    jdameli1 Torch Coral

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    What does it mean if a goni blows up like a balloon? I can get a pic if you need mine likes to do it quite a bit
     
  11. lynnmw1208

    lynnmw1208 Skunk Shrimp

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    My goniopora eats Rod's food!

    I know it's hard to believe but here are a couple of pics of my goniopora eating rod's food that I target fed. I have seen this guy eat a NLS pellet the other day and figured what the heck. I couldn't believe it myself!

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    and here are some nice pics I got today of my goniopora. This thing opens up huge now!!
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