Goniopora (flowerpot corals) impossible? | Care recipes

[zzyz]

Everyone knows that Goniopora are impossible to keep. They always die after a year or so. That’s the word on the street – but it’s not the whole truth. Personally, I took this statement as a challenge, and set out to change the way we looked at the care of this “impossible” coral. Until recently, I dare not say I have cracked the code on many Goniopora species. I have kept both Alveopora and Goniopora, and most of them have seen substantial growth in the past 18 months. I can now tell that it is possible to keep Goniopora alive, as long as you provide the proper care and feeding for the species in question. I'm really excited to share my failure and success stories with all of you fellow reefers. Any comments or suggestions are much appreciated. And I'm happy to answer questions if any. Thanks!

 

[StlSalt]

Beautiful tank and lots of good information. Thank You for posting your video. I've only tried a frag of goni, and that didn't go well. I've been toying with the idea of buying a larger piece since they are more prone to survive and I've started dosing my 75G with Phyto everyday.

 

[RC Corals]

Beautiful tank and lots of good information. Thank You for posting your video. I've only tried a frag of goni, and that didn't go well. I've been toying with the idea of buying a larger piece since they are more prone to survive and I've started dosing my 75G with Phyto everyday.

I've always had poor luck with the typical 3/4" small frags you see so many places, but have always had very good luck with large colonies.

 

[NeonRabbit221B]

Anyone else get that sinking feeling when you have been mispronouncing coral names?

Great video as my goni's come and go. Time to grab some phyto!

 

[paintman]

So after spending 7 minutes watching the video the big super secret is Brightwell's phyotoplankton? Hmmmmmmm

 

[John08007]

Anyone else get that sinking feeling when you have been mispronouncing coral names?

Great video as my goni's come and go. Time to grab some phyto!

Yea, I've always said gony-poor-a and a-leave-a-poor-a

 

[zzyz]

Beautiful tank and lots of good information. Thank You for posting your video. I've only tried a frag of goni, and that didn't go well. I've been toying with the idea of buying a larger piece since they are more prone to survive and I've started dosing my 75G with Phyto everyday.

Thank you! Most of my purchases were colonies except for one piece, the one I showed in the picture above, that came as a frag. The frag was a captive bred species and was pretty hardy. I wish you good luck with larger colonies.

 

[zzyz]

So after spending 7 minutes watching the video the big super secret is Brightwell's phyotoplankton? Hmmmmmmm

Thank you! Green water (live phyto), Brightwell Phyto Gold / Green, and Tropic Marin Phyton were the three types of phyto I tried. It is very likely that phyto of other brands work too. Let me know your favorite so that next time I can try it out.

 

[StlSalt]

I've been using OceanMagik, can you get that in HK? I do like the Brightwell products though and have used their phyto before.

 

[shred5]

I do not think Gonioporas are thought of impossible keep and have not for a while now.

I have had gonioporas that are maybe 10 years plus and have been doing so for a very long time.

That thought was when basically the only one imported was goniopora stokesi which is actually still very hard to keep.

The thing is there are so many different varieties and they are all different. People seem to like to generalize that they are all the same and have the same requirements but they do not. They come from different zones, depths etc.
This means different lighting, different flow, different food requirements etc. Goniopora have different growth forms some are branching, come encrusting, etc. They have different length polyps and different size polyps.

Some are still near impossible to keep while others are really not to bad. None are beginner.

As far as food I think bacteria is required for some of them. I feel phyto is pretty much useless for most corals because corals are mostly carnivores. Could some corals eat some phyto, possibly but I feel it maybe a little more accidental. I think phyto may be more useful for NPS corals. Most phyto that is found in the guts of corals is thought by some to come from the food they ate. To me phyto is useful in feeding some of the other critters are corals may eat like copepods. I feel zooplankton and bacteria are more useful feeds for most goniopora.

 

[zzyz]

I've been using OceanMagik, can you get that in HK? I do like the Brightwell products though and have used their phyto before.

Wow, that's super. I haven't seen any live phyto available in HK. My live culture was primarily from Taiwan and mainland China. But the product without nutrients was 10 times more expensive than the one with nutrients mixed. So I chose to use artificial products instead.

 

[zzyz]

I do not think Gonioporas are thought of impossible keep and have not for a while now.

I have gonioporas that are maybe 10 years plus and have been doing so for a very long time.

That thought was when basically the only one imported was goniopora stokesi which is actually still very hard to keep.

The thing is there are so many different varieties and they are all different. People seem to like to generalize that they are all the same and have the requirements but they do not. They come from different zones, depths etc.
This means different lighting, different flow, different food requirements etc. Goniopora have different growth forms some are branching, come encrusting, etc. They have different length polyps and different size polyps.

Some are still near impossible to keep while others are really not to bad. None are beginner.

As far as food I think bacteria is required for some of them. I feel phyto is pretty much useless because corals are most carnivores. Most phyto that is found in the guts of things like gorgonia is thought to come from the food they ate. To me phyto is useful in feeding some of the other critters are corals may eat like copepods.

Wow, 10 years! And goniopora stokesi has been very hard to keep indeed. So what's your secret of feeding? Although I observed very closely, I didn't see them capture copepods or rotifers.

 

[andrewkw]

This information is very out of date. Goniopora used to be very difficult to keep. That stopped being true probably about 10 years ago. Maybe longer. Sorta like how elegance used to be considered hard to keep. I did not watch the video but I have a similar red one that started on a standard frag plug that is about the size of a softball now (skeleton) and much much bigger when fully inflated.

There are many different species of Goniopora and I think it was only 1 type that was difficult to keep, or at least from one region where they were collected. Nowadays they come in all colours of the rainbow, short polyp (Bernardpora), long polyp, medium ect. Lots of the high end and some of the low end ones are now aquacultured and can get quite expensive, but generally speaking people are not afraid of them dying, like the big wild colonies in the past.

 

[zzyz]

This information is very out of date. Goniopora used to be very difficult to keep. That stopped being true probably about 10 years ago. Maybe longer. Sorta like how elegance used to be considered hard to keep. I did not watch the video but I have a similar red one that started on a standard frag plug that is about the size of a softball now (skeleton) and much much bigger when fully inflated.

There are many different species of Goniopora and I think it was only 1 type that was difficult to keep, or at least from one region where they were collected. Nowadays they come in all colours of the rainbow, short polyp (Bernardpora), long polyp, medium ect. Lots of the high end and some of the low end ones are now aquacultured and can get quite expensive, but generally speaking people are not afraid of them dying, like the big wild colonies in the past.

Thank you. I shall keep abreast of the developments in the hobby! Yes, that red one started from a captive bred frag too.

 

[GeoSquid]

This was from 2005

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-10/nftt/index.php

 

[X-37B]

Here is mine in my 120.
Its doing well at 3 months.
It has much longer polyps now than it did at the lfs.
I just took the second one last night.
It gets good random flow on the bottom.

 

[vanpire]

While I agree that Gonis are now not that difficult to keep, I like that zzyz shared his exact experience and method of raising these gonis. It is an additional data point in raising these beautiful corals.

 

[zzyz]

While I agree that Gonis are now not that difficult to keep, I like that zzyz shared his exact experience and method of raising these gonis. It is an additional data point in raising these beautiful corals.

Thank you vanpire.

 

[shred5]

Wow, 10 years! And goniopora stokesi has been very hard to keep indeed. So what's your secret of feeding? Although I observed very closely, I didn't see them capture copepods or rotifers.

I do not really have a secret because they are all different. Some I have no issues like the ORA Red goniopora while others are still a struggle. Gonis come from all different zones, different depths and have different sized polyps.

I just see so many post where people think they are all the same. No and the hard part is identifying what type you have too. I have had marine biology class and part of it was identifying coral and gonis are hard.



This means they also have different feeding requirement and it is hard to figure out what they feed on.
They have different feeding methods too. Some feed directly from the water column, some use slime nets to pull in food while others I believe have no feeding response and may be able to feed through absorption.

I do think food is a key to allot of them. Even the ones like the ORA that seems to be ok with no food still benefits from them. If you can get them to feed on food there is less need for zooxanthellae which are brown. If the coral has less zooxanthellae it will show more of its colorful pigments. This is the same for all corals and seems something we have got away from in the hobby is feeding.



The hard part is getting them to feed. I like to add something to the water first before feeding. I have been hearing polyp lab booster is nice for this but I have not tried it but plan too. I add a little food and amino acids for this a few minutes before feeding. As for foods I use allot of different things: a few I use are reef roids, gonipower, coral frenzy, coral dust, cyclopeese, amino acids and bacteria.

The one thing I will say is goni success is measured in years not months. If they receive partial nutrition in can take a while to starve to death. Polyp extension also can be a sign they are starving in my opinion. A coral stretches to create more surface area to get more light. So to me polyp extension is not always a sign of good health but it is also not always a sign of bad health either again it depends on the Goni. The hardest part is the first several weeks because gonis hate being moved. Then it seems the next hard part is a year plus. some seem to make it a year or longer and then just die. That is what goniopora stokesi does. It will live a year and sometime almost 2 years and then just receed. Another struggle is since they come from different places on the reef it can be a challenge to keep different varieties in our tank. Challenge with all corals really.

My point really is gonis are challenging and several can have completely different requirements.


The pic below is one I struggled with:
It is a branching goni.

Below is a ORA that I bought when they first released them and has been fragged a ton:
The one just behind the ORA is several years old and been fragged several times.
Matter of fact they were both just fragged about a week before this pic was taken.
The farthest back is a alveopora that grew hugeover a couple of years and then I almost lost it but now I have two frags of it and it is growing again.

 

[zzyz]

I do not really have a secret because they are all different. Some I have no issues like the ORA Red goniopora while others are still a struggle. Gonis come from all different zones, different depths and have different sized polyps.

I just see so many post where people think they are all the same. No and the hard part is identifying what type you have too. I have had marine biology class and part of it was identifying coral and gonis are hard.



This means they also have different feeding requirement and it is hard to figure out what they feed on.
They have different feeding methods too. Some feed directly from the water column, some use slime nets to pull in food while others I believe have no feeding response and may be able to feed through absorption.

I do think food is a key to allot of them. Even the ones like the ORA that seems to be ok with no food still benefits from them. If you can get them to feed on food there is less need for zooxanthellae which are brown. If the coral has less zooxanthellae it will show more of its colorful pigments. This is the same for all corals and seems something we have got away from in the hobby is feeding.



The hard part is getting them to feed. I like to add something to the water first before feeding. I have been hearing polyp lab booster is nice for this but I have not tried it but plan too. I add a little food and amino acids for this a few minutes before feeding. As for foods I use allot of different things: a few I use are reef roids, gonipower, coral frenzy, coral dust, cyclopeese, amino acids and bacteria.

The one thing I will say is goni success is measured in years not months. If they receive partial nutrition in can take a while to starve to death. Polyp extension also can be a sign they are starving in my opinion. A coral stretches to create more surface area to get more light. So to me polyp extension is not always a sign of good health but it is also not always a sign of bad health either again it depends on the Goni. The hardest part is the first several weeks because gonis hate being moved. Then it seems the next hard part is a year plus. some seem to make it a year or longer and then just die. That is what goniopora stokesi does. It will live a year and sometime almost 2 years and then just receed. Another struggle is since they come from different places on the reef it can be a challenge to keep different varieties in our tank. Challenge with all corals really.

My point really is gonis are challenging and several can have completely different requirements.


The pic below is one I struggled with:
It is a branching goni.

Below is a ORA that I bought when they first released them and has been fragged a ton:
The one just behind the ORA is several years old and been fragged several times.
Matter of fact they were both just fragged about a week before this pic was taken.
The farthest back is a alveopora that grew hugeover a couple of years and then I almost lost it but now I have two frags of it and it is growing again.

Thank you for sharing such comprehensive knowledge. The green goni looks really exquisite. Other reefers also mentioned Reef Roids and Goni Power. But very unfortunately they are not available in HK just yet.