my first impules buy and apparently it was the worst

so after a horrible dentist trip, went to the LFS with my mom. Picked up 2 cardinal fish, a scarlet cleaner and wanted a coral also, (this was all graduation/birthday gift money so I didnt mind spending some). Saw this beautiful green goniopar, its hard skeleton is the size of a baseball and with polyps extended its probably a good 7" to 8" diameter. I saw it for $40 and thought what a steal this is. Picked it up after asking a few questions (the guy is fairly knowledgable. However now reading reviews, apparently this could have been the worst coral to pickup as I am reading they do not survive long. Any advice?

Kicking my self int he foot right now haha

 

Well, it's not a horrible thing. I too bought a goniopora when I first starting reefing, as it hypnotized me in the LFS with its amazing extension and vibrant green color. I was like "oh wow" but my LFS did say it was a "rent-a-coral" as they normally survive for about 6 months in the home tank. I had mine for about 5 months and ended up selling it, so it was def worth it to me.

A second one I bought, however, only survived a few months and then withered away from the base up after my tank upgrade.

It's such a beautiful coral though, I don't blame you, not a bad price either, mine were each around $60.

Advice on how to sustain them is a bit foggy, kinda like linkia stars, noone truly knows what they will flourish on. I had my first one under good T5 lighting, always on the sandbed. It did great always was out and I never target fed it, just my 2 cents. Also give it low to medium flow, it doesn't like violent flow, more balmy. I had to sell it because my Clowns started hosting it and aggravating it.

good luck, here's an old pic of mine:

 

See heres the thing, I will definately target feed and im fully aware of the difficult apparently this coral doesnt survive long. What i dont understand is that, most of these that i see have small bases. Look at my pics of it closed while being introduced to my tank...

Its a baseball size rock..... lol

Maybe as a more established larger colony it will do well? I can either 1) try to take it back for credit tomorrow or 2) sell it on craigslist for same price OBO or 3) give it some time and see how it does, its beautifuullll

 

figured id post a pic of the other new addition (scarlet cleaner), couldnt seem to get the new pair of pajama cardinals to come out for a photo

 

sorry your not quite right about the size making it easier. The larger the coral the more demand it will have for nutrients.

Secondly there are numerous articles on these and some people have kept them for years. I have had one for close to a year, it had a bad spell and now it is starting to come back to life again.

 

Try using foods designed for the feeding of NPS corals.

They can live for many years in systems not designed to be ULNS, or the use of extremely intense lighting and high flow like those systems designed around sps.

As years have gone by and research has been done regarding this coral it usually points to a nutritional deficit related to a lack of enough suspend particles of a certain food type. Not lack of lighting or flow.

In the wild they general occur where they are protected from strong was action. The specimens for the aquarium trade are commonly collected from turbid lagoons. The Reed Aquarium Volume I.

Different types have different success rates. Off the top of my head I can not remember which one does better in the home aquarium, but I will look for the link.

 

i read somewhere that the reds do better than the greens in captivity. So what do you think i should do based off my options i posted above.

If i do decide to keep it, should i just start making my own fish/coral food from seafood from the store and or spot feed it with my turkey baster?

I usually am super good about this and not making impulse buys, but this is a good LFS and usually provide real accurate information.....

 

My opinion only, I would give it go as long as you are not headed to a sps dominated system. The coral has already been harvested and chances are high that it will go to someone that has not done any research.

I guess you have to weigh the credit you will get for it versus the effort you may have to put into keeping it.

Hard choice. Personally I like a little bit of a challenge within reason.

 

They can be kept. Turn off the powerheads for 5 minutes every couple of days. Make a cloud around it of quality coral foods with a turkey baster.

At the store I made a huge concoction of freeze dried cyclopeeze, Oyster-Feast, Roti-Feast, TLF Zoplan, etc. This kept them healthy.

 

Definately wont be getting into small polyp stony dominated system, trying to keep care requirements medium and not a system of sps. I will probably give it a go for now...

I definately learned my lesson.... it just seemed so easy to buy it with what the worker told me.

We will see how it does, ill post a pic of it open and try to feed it some mysis or something tomorrow.