Corky Sea Finger Gorgonian issues

JayFish4004 · Jun 3, 2022

Would love advice on this if anyone has experience with these sea finger gorgonians (i know not technically LPS but theres no gorg forum) - my corky finger gorgs just seem to get skinnier and skinnier.

This guy has been retracted for last couple of days, but was fine and full of polyps 2 days ago. Every other coral in the tank is doing great, and I thought these guys were supposed to grow like weeds. Any idea what might be happening? I ended up trimming down the one right beside it because it seemed he was losing a bit of flesh but not completely necrotic, just kind of a thinning/whitening scenario which seems to be happening to this guy now too.

Tank parameters are all stable - 25-30ppm nitrates, 1.025 salinity, calcium, mag, alk, ph all in good ranges.

blaxsun · Jun 4, 2022

Funny you mention this. I added a corky gorgonian a few weeks ago and I'm having the same issues. I've tried it in just about every spot imaginable in my tank. Low light, high light, low flow, high flow.

I'm not sure if this helps, but I caught my tangs and angels nipping at the polyps - which might explain why it's out some days and less on others.

monkeyCmonkeyDo · Jun 4, 2022

Tangs and angels nipping at it is really gonna be tuff to beat.
Lol.
My chunk of corky finger I placed center tank very bottom. Almost no flow but med to high light on the bottom.
It polyp'd out the best their.

Glenner’sreef · Jun 4, 2022

Good possibility from @blaxson. Also do you consider your tank “sterile”? Gorgs have twice the polyps of many corals (I have 2) they feeding constantly. Maybe bumping up the feeding a bit

blaxsun · Jun 4, 2022

monkeyCmonkeyDo said:
Tangs and angels nipping at it is really gonna be tuff to beat.
Lol.
My chunk of corky finger I placed center tank very bottom. Almost no flow but med to high light on the bottom.
It polyp'd out the best their.

That's where I moved mine and it did awesome for a few days. Then it retracted all the polyps without explanation. So I moved it over a foot and an hour later caught the tang, parrotfish and my two dwarf angels pecking at it (more curiosity than anything else I think).

JayFish4004 · Jun 6, 2022

blaxsun said:
That's where I moved mine and it did awesome for a few days. Then it retracted all the polyps without explanation. So I moved it over a foot and an hour later caught the tang, parrotfish and my two dwarf angels pecking at it (more curiosity than anything else I think).

Mine is back out now - I think he was in a shedding episode - I blasted him with a pipette and a ton of skin shedded off of him and he was out and about right after. This is pretty common in the year I’ve had ‘em, but it’s super odd they went from being fairly fat to much skinnier, not sure why that is but they’re still kicking

blaxsun · Jun 6, 2022

JayFish4004 said:
Mine is back out now - I think he was in a shedding episode - I blasted him with a pipette and a ton of skin shedded off of him and he was out and about right after. This is pretty common in the year I’ve had ‘em, but it’s super odd they went from being fairly fat to much skinnier, not sure why that is but they’re still kicking

I think mine is possibly toast (hasn't been out very much and it's still being picked on). I have a smaller one that actually encrusted a snail shell from the original colony and it seems to be doing better than the larger one.

It's something I always wanted to try in my tank but I probably wouldn't get another gorgonian.

Dburr1014 · Jun 6, 2022

Dirtier water and lots of flow keeps them happy.

blaxsun · Jun 6, 2022

Dburr1014 said:
Dirtier water and lots of flow keeps them happy.

Good to know. Those conditions are there - I just think the fish are harassing it too much.

dennis romano · Jun 6, 2022

I have about a dozen different gorgs in one of my tanks. Even though they are photosynthetic, they do well with being fed. Every day, I throw in a frozen cube of coral food or rotifers. The polyps will close when they catch food. What they do detest is being too close to soft corals. A Sinularia grew too big and got too close to one of the gorgs. The closest polyps died and I had to move the gorg.

JayFish4004 · Jun 8, 2022

blaxsun said:
I think mine is possibly toast (hasn't been out very much and it's still being picked on). I have a smaller one that actually encrusted a snail shell from the original colony and it seems to be doing better than the larger one.

It's something I always wanted to try in my tank but I probably wouldn't get another gorgonian.

I’ve had mine retract for a week or so and still come out okay - I dont think anything picking at a corky will kill it. They are still fine as long as you aren’t seeing tissue loss exposing the skeleton.

Uncle99 · Jun 8, 2022

Love “white” light.

blaxsun · Jun 8, 2022

Uncle99 said:
Love “white” light.

Increased my PAR and moved it around. "Corky" came out today.

HudsonReefer2.0 · Jun 8, 2022

I keep my gorgonians in good flow and par. Also add Seachem iodide few times a week.

JayFish4004 · Jun 8, 2022

HudsonReefer2.0 said:
I keep my gorgonians in good flow and par. Also add Seachem iodide few times a week.

Nice looking reef! What tank and how long have you been going on it?

JayFish4004 · Jun 8, 2022

blaxsun said:
Increased my PAR and moved it around. "Corky" came out today.

This is what you don’t want to see - it was my first time using coral glue and I botched it by getting it everywhere, also was way underlit as I was learning the light intensity the hard way - spread like that super quick. Ended up cutting each one right above where the good flesh meets the bad and didn’t happen again.

Now that I’ve spent a year with these corky’s - the impression I get is it is seemingly more important that they establish a health encrusting at their base in order to send up healthy shoots if that makes sense. Keep the specimen happy and don’t be afraid to cut off areas that start not looking so hot.

HudsonReefer2.0 · Jun 8, 2022

JayFish4004 said:
Nice looking reef! What tank and how long have you been going on it?

Ty. This system has been running since July of 20. Red Sea xl300. Factory sump w redsea300 skimmer 2x Nero 5 for flow and 2 x Xr15 g5 pros for light. No automation.

JayFish4004 · Jun 8, 2022

HudsonReefer2.0 said:
Ty. This system has been running since July of 20. Red Sea xl300. Factory sump w redsea300 skimmer 2x Nero 5 for flow and 2 x Xr15 g5 pros for light. No automation.

I have dreams of a bigger tank but need a house first, right now just rocking the Red Sea Max Nano in an apartment, just passing the year mark now. Been a good system to learn the hobby quick for sure, these Red Sea tanks are like art.

HudsonReefer2.0 · Jun 8, 2022

JayFish4004 said:
I have dreams of a bigger tank but need a house first, right now just rocking the Red Sea Max Nano in an apartment, just passing the year mark now. Been a good system to learn the hobby quick for sure, these Red Sea tanks are like art.

Great job. Moving in the right direction. Good to see how the tank revolves as you learn and gain confidence. Always learning.

Dburr1014 · Jun 9, 2022

JayFish4004 said:
This is what you don’t want to see - it was my first time using coral glue and I botched it by getting it everywhere, also was way underlit as I was learning the light intensity the hard way - spread like that super quick. Ended up cutting each one right above where the good flesh meets the bad and didn’t happen again.

Now that I’ve spent a year with these corky’s - the impression I get is it is seemingly more important that they establish a health encrusting at their base in order to send up healthy shoots if that makes sense. Keep the specimen happy and don’t be afraid to cut off areas that start not looking so hot.

Wire strippers.
Remove the bottom flesh with wire strippers and glue the hard stem in a hole. Be careful not to get any glue on the flesh.
Works every time.