Sea Fan care tips?

so how the heck are you supposed to put them in your tank without letting them touch air? even the lfs cant do that!

 

I actually took my gorgonian out and crazy glued it to a piece of glass dowel to mount on my rocks. Its lasted so far. Supposedly they say to stick the bag under the water and put it in and stick the bag under the water and take it out. Who know maybe I am just lucky and its survived for 5 months. I think I read that sponges are more delicate with air.

 

I have had my yellow finger gorgonian for several months and it has been exposed to air several times. The first to times were while taking it out of the bag from the LFS to aclimate and then putting it in the tank. Then next few times were because i had a tough time keeping it glued to a rock so now i have a rubberband holding it on and it has grown over the band now. This one is not photosynthetic so i fee it zooplan and it gobbles it up.This pic is right after i put the band on. Oh and also this guy needs good curent to keep the waxy build up off of him but he still gets some alge on him so maybe every 2 weeks i grab him and let him get blasted by a power head to knock all the junk off. so far this guy has been very durable

 

mine's doing fine...

my wife and I have had a purple sea fan, not sure of exact name, for over three months. I can only assume that its doing fine, as it opens its polyps several times a day, and is creating some great branching already. we have not removed it from water, ever. maybe it was a water quality thing, differences from LFS tank to yours.

we are curious on propagation, if anyone has tips for us.

for anyone thinking of getting one, I'd say its a great addition that requires very little attention, outside of some spot feeding. we started with spot feeding, then weened that off. now its doing well on its own. we've placed it directly in the flow of the filter, (an Aquapro 110) in our 42 gallon hex.