Flowerpot coral

[Tammy Hayes]

I have a green flowerpot coral that has gotten smaller since I've gotten it. What could cause it to do this.

 

[sfin52]

They are extremely hard to take care of.

 

[DSC reef]

Feeding, lighting, chemistry, ect.....

 

[RyanCSGO]

I have a green flowerpot coral that has gotten smaller since I've gotten it. What could cause it to do this.

Hi Tammy

need a little bit more info on your tank to try and help.

what are your water parameters? and how long has the tank been running?

ammonia
nitrite
nitrate
phosphate
salinity

type of light and how long are they on?

 

[Tyler mikos]

you need a semi mature tank at least 6 months old. Try your best to feed it either Reef Chilli, Reef Roids, Goniopower or any dry blended varieties of zooplankton and phytoplankton. The tank doesnt have to be crystal clear but certainly low nitrates and 0 on ammo and nitrite. I always had good luck with keeping my alkilinity at 8.5- 10.0 DKH. And ofcourse theres the chance its in a weird spot in the tank. The 2 in my avatar are on the sand bed.

 

[Matthew Dambra]

I have been told by my LFS that the green flower pots do not tend to live in the aquarium nearly as well as the red/pink/purple ones they see much better success in long term keeping

 

[Lovemyreef2015]

Feeding, lighting, chemistry, ect.....

+1

 

[sfin52]

Has anybody had success in keeping a green flowerpot

 

[rich nyc]

I have been keeping them. Getting bigger with reef roids that I feed daily. I have them pretty high up in my tank but on the sides. I actually picked one that was at my lrs that was a pretty established frag.

 

[sfin52]

How long have you had it @rich nyc

 

[rich nyc]

about a year.

 

[Michael Cronmiller]

Had one fed goniopower...only lasted about a year, don't think my tank was mature enough at the time

 

[sfin52]

Had one that was adding new polyps than about at the year mark it went down hill.

 

[Elegance Coral]

Many of us have kept G. stokesi, the green goni, with success. Multiple years. Even had them bud off smaller colonies around the base. The one thing that every successful hobbyist, I've talked to, seems to agree on, is that they need food. Lots and lots of food. It's typical for them to slowly shrink over time as they suffer from malnutrition. Any small zooplankton type food will work. Large healthy stokesi can take foods as large as cyclops. Smaller, less healthy individuals may need smaller foods.
HTH
Peace
EC

 

[sfin52]

@Elegance Coral how to you keep water chemistry up with all the food your are adding.

 

[Elegance Coral]

Welcome to the wonderful world of reef keeping. That's the challenge we all face.
There are many ways to accomplish this. Me personally, I run BB with lots of flow across the bottom, flow across the surface towards the coast to coast overflow, 100 micron socks changed daily or every other day, a LARGE skimmer, One reactor for GFO, and one reactor for GAC. One quarter system volume water change once every few months. Food doesn't stay in the system long. Critters need to grab what they can before the filtration takes it out.