Goniopora care, placement, feeding, help ?

[e1v4n]

Hey guys,

i have a green goniopora with purple tips for about 1.5 months, it has been closing up and opening in some what wierd way, i had it in a great spot in the tank for a while, then it started getting cranky yet again.. i realised that i put it to close to my salarias and he was aggressive towards it so i decided to move it yet again.. after a short while it opened up fully and looked beautiful. then after a while it closed up again.. today it is opening but only 40% of the way.. i got another pink/purple goniopora 2 days ago and it just looks out during the day then gets closed up.. i cant figure out if its my flow or something else that makes them not fully thrive. Right now they are on the sandbed getting gentle flow and i would sa 50-100 par

My params are:

CA: 435 (salifert)
MG: 1420 (salifert)
KH: 9.6-9.9 during the day (salifert)
No3: 3-5 think its more 3 ish (salifert)
Po4:0.04 - 0.08 dosing every second day (hanna)
PH: 8.1 - 8.3 (salifert)
Salinity: 1.026

Im doing 7-10 days 14% water changes and my params are identical before and after the water change besides kh that goes up a bit 0.3 dkh.

Feed:
at the moment just feeding red sea a+b and adding aquaforest strontium, barium, kalium.

i got a mix of corals, 1 millepora, 7 sps montiporas and stylos, milka, all are doing great. 3 hammerheads, 2 zoanthids, 1 chalice and some gsp on and island.

 

[T-J]

I have a number of gonis in my system. They are all on the bottom, but not on the sand. I put them on rocks, as they seem to do better when off the sand. They get pretty good flow. I rarely feed them directly.

During the day they'll fully extend. At night they'll shrink up a bit. Every once in a great moon they may completely pull in for a day, then be back to normal.

I don't do water changes. I dose alk and All For Reef. My parameters are pretty similar to yours.

 

[e1v4n]

I have a number of gonis in my system. They are all on the bottom, but not on the sand. I put them on rocks, as they seem to do better when off the sand. They get pretty good flow. I rarely feed them directly.

During the day they'll fully extend. At night they'll shrink up a bit. Every once in a great moon they may completely pull in for a day, then be back to normal.

I don't do water changes. I dose alk and All For Reef. My parameters are pretty similar to yours.

I did put one green goni at a rock and then on Sandbed. They are not showing any signs of stress or negativity.. i hope they will bounce back and grow steadily.. i didn't mention that my tank is almost 3 months now.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

IMO it is one of the slowest corals to acclimate to a new tank. Medium flow and medium light. i have 2 of them, I try to feed them but they are never interested in food.

 

[tharbin]

I did put one green goni at a rock and then on Sandbed. They are not showing any signs of stress or negativity.. i hope they will bounce back and grow steadily.. i didn't mention that my tank is almost 3 months now.

Your tank is a little young for a goni so go very slowly and don't move them around much. Give them medium light and flow, usually better not directly on the sand and after a week or two try once or twice a week feedings of Reef Roids or GoniPower (they were both developed originally for feeding Gonis). I love gonis but my new tank is too young for them (it is only 5 months old). They seem hardy and supposedly are now with the new foods and captive breeding. Usually, way back when, they would look fine for a year or so and then fade away. The problem seems to have been food.

 

[e1v4n]

Your tank is a little young for a goni so go very slowly and don't move them around much. Give them medium light and flow, usually better not directly on the sand and after a week or two try once or twice a week feedings of Reef Roids or GoniPower (they were both developed originally for feeding Gonis). I love gonis but my new tank is too young for them (it is only 5 months old). They seem hardy and supposedly are now with the new foods and captive breeding. Usually, way back when, they would look fine for a year or so and then fade away. The problem seems to have been food.

Hmm it could be the feeding I'm not giving them anything besides amino acids, i only move them if they are closed up. Think your right About my tank being to young im sure that has something to do with it..
Maybe I can try to feed someday to see their reaction

 

[tharbin]

Hmm it could be the feeding I'm not giving them anything besides amino acids, i only move them if they are closed up. Think your right About my tank being to young im sure that has something to do with it..
Maybe I can try to feed someday to see their reaction

Target feed them a small amount of Reef Roids or GoniPower, they were developed specifically for feeding gonis. I've read that they don't show much of a feeding response even when they do feed so don't give up on them. They won't eat most of the "traditional" foods. I really don't know how much the aminos help with a goni but I'm sure it does. Seems to me I read somewhere that they also do better with a specifice trace element but don't remember for sure. When I last left the hobby gonis were still "difficult" and I haven't had another one since (although I will after the the tank is a year or so old) but I would assume the tank-raised frags are hardier than the old wild caught. They do need some food as do most LPS corals.

 

[Shufflepig]

Target feed them a small amount of Reef Roids or GoniPower, they were developed specifically for feeding gonis. I've read that they don't show much of a feeding response even when they do feed so don't give up on them. They won't eat most of the "traditional" foods. I really don't know how much the aminos help with a goni but I'm sure it does. Seems to me I read somewhere that they also do better with a specifice trace element but don't remember for sure. When I last left the hobby gonis were still "difficult" and I haven't had another one since (although I will after the the tank is a year or so old) but I would assume the tank-raised frags are hardier than the old wild caught. They do need some food as do most LPS corals.

Manganese is very important to long term Goni care.

 

[tharbin]

Manganese is very important to long term Goni care.

Thanks I believe that is what I read. I didn't know that back then.

 

[e1v4n]

Thanks I believe that is what I read. I didn't know that back then.

Never late to learn thanks

 

[PeterC99]

+1 on Mg. Keep mine around 1500.

 

[e1v4n]

+1 on Mg. Keep mine around 1500.

What are your other params?

 

[tharbin]

+1 on Mg. Keep mine around 1500.

This is important in general but we are talking about manganese (Mn) not magnesium (Mg). Easily confused even by very long time reefers (Randy Holmes-Farley had to correct another long timer that confused the two in the thread I used to verify that it was Mn we were talking about). I don't remember even hearing manganese discussed years ago. They just sound so similar. I do it all of the time. Only reason I got it right now is that I just looked it up again.

What I would suggest for anyone not really experienced with dosing is to keep up with your water changes if you have goniopora. Manganese is hard to read accurately except by ICP, gets absorbed into the rocks easily and is depleted quickly by algae and phytoplankton.

 

[TheDuude]

in my limited experience with Gonipora and Alveopora they need feeding with reef roids or similar to thrive. I broadcast feed roids twice a week with an occasional target feeding. Make sure your skimmer stays off for 6 to 8 hours after feeding to keep the roids in the water column. I would also suggest raising your nitrates a slight bit. I shoot for around 10 ppm and they seem to like it.

 

[tharbin]

+1 on Mg. Keep mine around 1500.

Forgot to add, beautiful tank those gonis look absolutely great. I don't know how important the Mn is to gonis but I have read it several places and I know that no matter what I did back 45 years ago, a goni would look fine for a year or even two and then suddenly crash. My understanding is that we now have foods that work well for gonis and that we know they need Mn for sustained health. I do not have personal experience with this as my new tank is far to young to house gonis but they were always my favorite coral.

Thanks for sharing this picture it really makes me want to keep this tank going.

 

[e1v4n]

This is important in general but we are talking about manganese (Mn) not magnesium (Mg). Easily confused even by very long time reefers. They just sound so similar. I do it all of the time. Only reason I got it right now is that I just looked it up again.

What I would suggest for anyone not really experienced with dosing is to keep up with your water changes if you have goniopora. Manganese is hard to read accurately except by ICP, gets absorbed into the rocks easily and is depleted quickly by algae and phytoplankton.

Well thank you for that information

 

[tharbin]

This whole business about my not knowing that manganese was important for gonis bothered me so I went back and checked the references I still have on the subject. Delbeek and Sprung do actually mention it in Volume Three (2005) in the section on manganese (Aargh--I have to keep correcting my post because I keep starting to type magnesium) they do mention that there was speculation that manganese may be important to some goni species but that more testing was needed. I guess the more testing happened or even anecdotal evidence has been amassed to make the recommendation.