Goniopora closed and slime coat

karsie · Oct 13, 2023

My Goniopora was doing great until I picked it up to check if it was overgrowing it's frag plate and placed it back at the same spot. It opened less each day until now it alrealdy stayed closed for almost two weeks. I moved it again to a spot with lower lighting and flow but that did not do anything. It did react to AB+ with Reefroids last sunday.

But what is somewhat weird is that in the morning a slime coat is covering the coral and this alreadly happend multiple times, is it fighting a disease?

Should I dip it in DipX?

FiveGallonSea · Oct 13, 2023

I recently had a Goniopora do this. It was doing great and then closed up and looked like hell. Turned out I had a Foxface picking at it. I gave my Foxface back and it took a good 2-3 weeks to make a comeback. It did all sorts of weird things while it was recovering including slime and the flesh was all puffed up. I was sure there was no way it would come back and it did. It's 100% again. If you had it somewhere doing well and nothing is messing with it, put it back where it was and let it be. Don't feed it or anything. They are very very slow corals to recover. I have a pink one that whenever I tick it off it takes 1-3 weeks to open again. I always think it's a goner and it comes back.

karsie · Oct 13, 2023

FiveGallonSea said:
I recently had a Goniopora do this. It was doing great and then closed up and looked like hell. Turned out I had a Foxface picking at it. I gave my Foxface back and it took a good 2-3 weeks to make a comeback. It did all sorts of weird things while it was recovering including slime and the flesh was all puffed up. I was sure there was no way it would come back and it did. It's 100% again. If you had it somewhere doing well and nothing is messing with it, put it back where it was and let it be. Don't feed it or anything. They are very very slow corals to recover. I have a pink one that whenever I tick it off it takes 1-3 weeks to open again. I always think it's a goner and it comes back.

Glad to hear that I'm not the only one, although I did not observe any fish irritating the coral. But it does behave the same, it's al puffed up and creating some slime.

Mr. Mojo Rising · Oct 13, 2023

is there enough flow? My goni's are under medium light and medium flow

karsie · Oct 13, 2023

It was under medium/high flow when it flourished, now it is in lower flow low/medium.

Mr. Mojo Rising · Oct 13, 2023

Low flow is not good, its tentacles should be waving around.
My very first goni stayed closed for about 4 months. Its a finicky coral, just leave it alone. Every time you move it you upset it. As long as its not turning white or melting, it will be fine.

MartinM · Oct 13, 2023

+1 for same spot and wait and make sure nothing is irritating it. Iodine dip can’t hurt either.

karsie · Oct 13, 2023

Mr. Mojo Rising said:
Low flow is not good, its tentacles should be waving around.
My very first goni stayed closed for about 4 months. Its a finicky coral, just leave it alone. Every time you move it you upset it. As long as its not turning white or melting, it will be fine.

Flow is still enough to move the tentacles. The spot where it was originally was moving the tentacles more aggressive though. I will just leave it for now and maybe place it back to the original spot after a few days.