Gorgonian declining

GuppyHJD · Jan 13, 2023

I have a purple sea plume / gorgonian that was doing very well until I had dinos. Some of the branches had dinos/algea on them and look to have lost the flesh. The whole plume seems skinnier. So, what can I do to help it? Should I prune the "dead" parts?
The other corals - duncans, birdsnest, torch, hammers, GSP, zoas all seem to be doing ok.
Water Params - ALK 9.3, Calc 440, Magn 1420, Nitrates 18, Phos 0.43

Aspect · Jan 13, 2023

GuppyHJD said:
I have a purple sea plume / gorgonian that was doing very well until I had dinos. Some of the branches had dinos/algea on them and look to have lost the flesh. The whole plume seems skinnier. So, what can I do to help it? Should I prune the "dead" parts?
The other corals - duncans, birdsnest, torch, hammers, GSP, zoas all seem to be doing ok.
Water Params - ALK 9.3, Calc 440, Magn 1420, Nitrates 18, Phos 0.43

How old is the tank? Phosphate is pretty high

GuppyHJD · Jan 13, 2023

Aspect said:
How old is the tank? Phosphate is pretty high

Tank is 2 yrs old.
The phosphates had bottomed out, and when fighting dinos, I did not do water changes, and the nutrients got high. The phosphates were showing 1.2 and I have been bringing them down with Phosphate-E and NoPox

Aspect · Jan 13, 2023

GuppyHJD said:
Tank is 2 yrs old.
The phosphates had bottomed out, and when fighting dinos, I did not do water changes, and the nutrients got high. The phosphates were showing 1.2 and I have been bringing them down with Phosphate-E and NoPox

The parameter swings could have stressed it out. Gorgonians are very sensitive ime.

GuppyHJD · Jan 13, 2023

Aspect said:
The parameter swings could have stressed it out. Gorgonians are very sensitive ime.

Any suggestions on helping it back to life?

MyFirstCar · Jan 13, 2023

With stressed gorgs, I've had success with making sure there's strong indirect flow, keeping good water parameters, and leaving it alone. Not the most actionable advice I know but it's helped me recover mine. Some feeding can help too.

GuppyHJD · Jan 13, 2023

tstor said:
With stressed gorgs, I've had success with making sure there's strong indirect flow, keeping good water parameters, and leaving it alone. Not the most actionable advice I know but it's helped me recover mine. Some feeding can help too.

I have been dosing phytoplankton. Should I add Marine Snow or ??

MyFirstCar · Jan 13, 2023

Without knowing your tank it's hard to say, but I would do spot feedings of something like reef roids or coral pellets once every 3-4 days. Feeding can take a lot of energy for corals, so don't spot feed it too often while it's recovering.

MyFirstCar · Jan 13, 2023

tstor said:
Without knowing your tank it's hard to say, but I would do spot feedings of something like reef roids or coral pellets once every 3-4 days. Feeding can take a lot of energy for corals, so don't spot feed it too often while it's recovering.

But I want to say this is less important than stability. Stability is #1 especially for gorgonians.

GuppyHJD · Mar 18, 2023

Hello all,
It's been a few months and the nutrients are low - Nitrate 9.6 and phosphate is .03 (dosing daily and trying to get up to .09 - 0.10.
The tank is looking much better but now the gorgonian has green algae growing in tuffs on the tips of some of the branches. I have tried to manually remove but it will not pull off. The starry blenny even munches on it from time to time.
Any suggestions on how to clean the algae off ? The snails, hermits, and urchin can really clean the gorgonian as it moves in the flow.

Thanks - Henry

Grsfish · Mar 25, 2023

GuppyHJD said:
Hello all,
It's been a few months and the nutrients are low - Nitrate 9.6 and phosphate is .03 (dosing daily and trying to get up to .09 - 0.10.
The tank is looking much better but now the gorgonian has green algae growing in tuffs on the tips of some of the branches. I have tried to manually remove but it will not pull off. The starry blenny even munches on it from time to time.
Any suggestions on how to clean the algae off ? The snails, hermits, and urchin can really clean the gorgonian as it moves in the flow.

Thanks - Henry

It sounds like it is not getting enough flow if that algae is growing on it. Are the parts it’s growing on have flesh on it. If not then cut those parts off

GuppyHJD · Mar 27, 2023

Grsfish said:
It sounds like it is not getting enough flow if that algae is growing on it. Are the parts it’s growing on have flesh on it. If not then cut those parts off

It has a fairly strong flow - bending in the flow about 45 degrees. Will cut of the big blobs of algae.
Thank you