Help Me I'm Dying !!! (Goniopora coral)

cjrudy · Sep 4, 2014

Well after 3 1/2 years my beloved Red Goniopora may be dying.

It went from a tiny frag.

To a thriving growing colony.

[video=youtube_share;YMe1jEzDUz8]http://youtu.be/YMe1jEzDUz8[/video]

And now this.

This has happened very slowly over the past month or so, the polyps slowly opening less and less each day until what you see above. Some polyps actually popping off. I know the first thing everyone will ask, what are your parameters and what has changed. Well literally nothing has change, there was no traumatic event and parameters have remained stable.

Alk 10.0
CA 475
Mg 1300
No3 2.5
Po4 . 009
PH 8.2
Salinity 1.026
Temp 78.5

I am at a loss, don't know what to do. There is no way to remove it because it has encrusted onto a large rock, additionally the rock cannot be removed as it id very large and home to other coral. I did also look for brown jelly, which does not appear to be present.

Any help or advice would be appreciated.

ReeferRookie · Sep 4, 2014

Possible maybe its just lived its day

Rob&Gab · Sep 4, 2014

Time to frag a piece and hope to keep a piece alive . May be an infection. That's a beautiful piece and one heck of a time it's lived. Hope all goes well for you!

cjrudy · Sep 4, 2014

Not even sure how I would frag it, can put a dremel under water .....lol

Rob&Gab · Sep 4, 2014

The rock it's attached too is it remove able. Also make sure you don't interrupt. Anything with the sand too much if the rockl is butted in the sand

-Logzor · Sep 4, 2014

Get a large flathead screwdriver, then use it to pry the coral from the rock. Just wedge the screwdriver under the base of the coral and it should be surprisingly easy to pop off. I've popped off massive acro colonies which had appeared to be so encrusted you could never remove them, I've always be amazed how easy they come off in their entirety using a screwdriver

Then you can dip the coral or frag it. I would recommend a dip then seeing how that goes. You could use something like CoralRx or Revive.

cjrudy · Sep 4, 2014

Definitely cannot remove the rock, I could try to fragor remove but I dont want to make things worse

Marquiseo · Sep 4, 2014

Did you change your lights or water pump? That spot is pretty precise. Look at all the other sides of it.

cjrudy · Sep 4, 2014

Marquiseo said:
Did you change your lights or water pump? That spot is pretty precise. Look at all the other sides of it.

Nope, running T5's, not change, two Jebao powerheads, no change, same flow.

Eienna · Sep 4, 2014

Do you feed it? They need very very tiny foods. Justin Credabel developed some stuff called Goniopower that should work well. My research onine tells me that the main problem with these guys is that they slowly starve to death; some good food may be just what it needs.

cjrudy · Sep 4, 2014

Over the past three and a half years I have never directly fed this coral. I could try.

mrcoffee2 · Sep 4, 2014

I want to start by saying I know nothing about goni's.

However, it looks like you have some algae on your back wall. That leads me to believe that there must be something off as far as parameters go.

Also to the first comment I had no idea corals had a shelf life?

cjrudy · Sep 4, 2014

That's Coralline algae which is common in healthy tanks

mrcoffee2 · Sep 4, 2014

Oh I see that too. I am talking about the brown algae on the middle back wall. I get it in one of my tanks too, probably because I am not skimming… its an 8G

I might also be blind and there may just be coraline algae.

Roty · Sep 5, 2014

If the rest of the goni is thriving and it's just that spot research dinoflagellates and how to battle them it's clearly an infection also do you have any phosphates if so how much?

Roty · Sep 5, 2014

Yeah and to the first comment I also did not know coral had a shelf life!

greg1786 · Sep 5, 2014

I had the same issue with my pink goni. It was never as big as yours but it continuously receded to 1 polyp with no explanation. After much research I came across an article julian sprung wrote on gonis. The gist of the reading was that he thought gonioporas needed higher levels of iron and manganese than most other corals. Being minor trace elements that most of us do not test for or dose, it is depleted rather quickly and only replenished during water changes. I bought red sea coral colors a,b,c, and d. Bottle C contains iron and manganese. Once I started dosing it every other day, the goni stopped receding and has slowly grown 14 new polyps. I cant say for certain it is definitely what helped but it was the ONLY change I made during that time. Good luck!!