Any ideas what's going on with my Goni

[BILLMELLO]

1.026
Kh 10
Ph 8.9
Nitrate o
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 50
Calcium 510

 

[Humblefish]

The immediate thing that caught my eye is the presence of nitrites. How long has your tank been setup and is it fully cycled?

Moved this into the LPS Discussion forum for more views. These can be difficult corals to keep.

 

[BILLMELLO]

Thanks for the feedback. Transposed my numbers 50 on Nitrate not Nitrite.

Tank established in March and finished cycling in May. This is my 1st salt water tank. It is 75G with a 24 gal (29 gal tank) sump, with wet/dry filtration (using a mesh sock as well), skimmer, UV, GFO & Carbon Reactor.

Just finished up with a Cyano outbreak about 4 weeks ago which I treated, wondering if that had an unintended consequence .

We are still wrestling with Phosphates a bit and having a tough time keeping it @ 0-25 even though running GFO. Likely overfeeding on my part still trying to get it stable, using Phosban to manage the level with water changes.

 

[Humblefish]

#reefsquad for help on Gonioporas

 

[steve&mari]

I've tried a couple times but never been successful in keeping them happy long-term unfortunately. Hopefully someone else with success can help.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Goni's can be tough. They are filter feeders. Mores than most corals. Quite often its better IMO to keep them in more mature tanks as there's a lot of stuff to eat. They need a lot of dissolved organics and foods like goni powder.
Im not a big fan of overfiltration,esp chem, and this would be one case.
Personally I dont think your parameters are that far out of whack. Im sure mine are worse. Its a pretty standard thing nowadays it seems to jump to try and "fix" ugly things. Cyano in a new tank during the ugly phase is a case in point. It may take a bit longer (not really) but a better fix to cyano and exess nutrints is for bolster the bio filter. And in truth exess is not really a known quantity. (i just talked to scientist about this)

If it were me trying to save the coral, Id pull the socks, pull the gfo, lower the flow or remove some in the carbon reactor(organics binder), get some goni food or coral frenzy and or phyto, dry skim, carbon dose with half or quarter dose of Nopox or vitamin c and maybe add a bacteria like Mb7. Let the biofilter do the nutrient reduction for you. Im huge on refugiums as a an exess nutrient export btw.

I havent had a goni in a few years as I lost it in the crash(chiller) and the price skyrocketed, so I went sps, but my scallop is 18 months old and my 5in indo muscle is 4 in my care and my chilicoral is 9 months and has grown. and they live in the same tank as my sps and xenia.

You may have heard that gonis are prone to things like brown jelly disease and weird slime diseases. Its because of the theory that some corals actually farm bacteria for food, or use it symbiotically. We clean the heck out of these guys before we put them in our tanks. So limiting a healthy bacterial pop can also be an issue, and a possible reason they don't do well in new tanks. And in funky tanks the bacterias just blow up.

 

[Humblefish]

I've tried a couple times but never been successful in keeping them happy long-term unfortunately. Hopefully someone else with success can help.

Same here. Those and Elegance are the only two corals I can't seem to keep no matter what I do.

 

[shred5]

Hard to tell from the picture, Can you get a better one?
Does it have brown jelly?
Gonis are very sensitive to light and flow and even if they are open for a while will eventually close up if the lighting is wrong or the flow is wrong. The other thing is once they do close up if things are not adjusted right away they may never open up again, they deteriorate fast.

Most require lots of food to survive and that is the hard part? what to feed them because they all feed on something different and I believe some to only feed on bacteria.

Those nitrates bother me because gonis are so sensitive of a coral and could be the issue, those are pretty high.

Some gonis just can not be kept yet too, no matter what you do.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Same here. Those and Elegance are the only two corals I can't seem to keep no matter what I do.

yea, you have to be willing to get dirty. They are really a much harder coral than the net and a lfs lets on. And both of those are high on my list too.
I just know this junk as my target corals have always been NPS.

 

[shred5]

I have found Elegance corals not to be to bad if you get a healthy one from Australia.
This one has gone from several inches to bigger than a football.

 

[jsker]

I have two goni's in my tank, I have placed at mid tank on the ends. I also have the goni's under two gyre's. the gyre flow is upward.
My Alk is 8.5 is
Mb 1340
Ca 450
and I feed the tank heavy

 

[Evan West]

So I was dumb and got a goni when my tank was a week old (after the cycle so total like 5-6 weeks old) and its actually thriving and growing. Here is what I do/did, First I did not dip the coral (happy accident) but this might go with the theory that cleaning the the living daylights out of them actually harms them, and I do not run GFO just mechanical and carbon in my filter. Next I target feed it once or twice a week with reef chili buy letting the current carry the particles to it. Im running a Kessil a360we on 30% power and 45% color on a custom ramp through the spectral controller and its probably sitting in a med light area (guess as I dont have a par meter) and a med flow area. I do a 25% weekly water change as I run no skimmer and do not dose anything and this is my main way to export nutrients and replace the good stuff, last here are my current params:

PH: 7.8
1.026 Sal
5 ppm NO3
1200 Mg
450 Ca
12.8 dKH
0 PO4
0 Ammonia
0 Nitrite

I know this was an info dump but im just trying to share what im doing as it seems to be working for my goni. From what I gather they seem to due better in a higher nutrients tank. One last thing, I have noticed mine is super skittish if you will. Any time I do any heavy work in the tank, mess with the lights so it causes a sudden change, or brush it it tucks up and stays that way for the rest of the day it seems.

 

[webbl19]

That's weird. My green goni looks the same way. I've seen other people posting about gonis lately also with the same problem. I think it's the moon.

 

[BILLMELLO]

What is brown jelly disease that does seem to be a ring or shell forming around the Goni

Assuming that is what is going on now what?

Thanks in advance for all the suggestions everybody

 

[Evan West]

What is brown jelly disease that does seem to be a ring or shell forming around the Goni

Assuming that is what is going on now what?

Thanks in advance for all the suggestions everybody

A ring or shell? Brow Jelly is well a brown soft jelly. Can you get a better picture?

 

[ReeferMadness80G]

I'll second that goniopora is very hard to keep happy, especially red ones, i used reef roids to keep mine healthy. I found that alveopora or flower pot, was pretty similar and much easier to take care of. Good luck!

 

[BILLMELLO]

I'm

Things seem to be "progressing really quickly and not in a great way here are a couple of pictures I think that might showing a bit better

 

[ReeferMadness80G]

I'm

Things seem to be "progressing really quickly and not in a great way here are a couple of pictures I think that might showing a bit better

I'm no expert by any means but here's my two sense. Sounds like RTN rapid tissue necrosis, sometimes it seems to happen for no reason, maybe one of the #reefsquad will chime in with this diagnosis and be able to provide you more info on why. I've used a product from Reef Grow called RTN Destroyer and it's helped.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

What is brown jelly disease that does seem to be a ring or shell forming around the Goni

Assuming that is what is going on now what?

Thanks in advance for all the suggestions everybody

No I believe it is starving or bleaching from too much light.

A ring or shell? Brow Jelly is well a brown soft jelly. Can you get a better picture?

yes brown jelly disease. if you had it youd know

 

[jsker]

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