Knobby sea rod gorgonian showing skeleton

[Rizzle30]

Hi, I purchased 5 photosynthetic gorgonians about 2 weeks ago and 4 of the 5 are doing great. All 5 have open polyps.



The knobby sea rod gorgonian has has had some of its flesh recede and has began to show some of its black skeleton underneath, although polyps are still out.



What could be causing this and is there any way to stop it?



All other gorges are doing fantastic!



Let me know your thoughts?



- Ryan

 

[Rizzle30]

Forgot to include pictures

 

[elorablue]

Just fyi Gorgonians aren't considered sps. Gorgs can be very moody. Polyps out and bushy one day bare sticks the next day.. They also take a bit of time to settle in. IME they like good flow and good light and to be left alone.

 

[Rizzle30]

Thanks for the reply, what category of coral are gorgonians?

 

[elorablue]

Thanks for the reply, what category of coral are gorgonians?

A lot of people lump them in with soft corals but that doesn’t really work for me. They’re sort of their own category I would say.

 

[Rizzle30]

I kind of thought they were in thier own category but didn't know what section of reef2reef to post in so I just picked one.

Thanks!

 

[Rizzle30]

Well, my purple sea whips flesh melted off the base overnight. It was looking great before I went to bed.

Only thing i can think of causing this on multiple gorgonians is I've been having fluctuations in temperature in my tank.

It was 81.1 degrees this morning and has been usually hovering around 80 degrees However it has gone from 76-80 in a day.

I just installed a chill solutions thermoelectric aquarium chiller on my tank last night so either its not working or it needs a day or so to adjust temperature.

I'm thinking the only way to try to save the sea whip is to frag it into a couple pieces and reattach to rockwork.

Please let me know your thoughts on this?

 

[Rizzle30]

I did also put a new pre-filter on the intake of my canister filter and released i didn't rinse it off like I usually do. I was tired last night when I put it on and forgot about rinsing it.

Could this have contributed to melting flesh on the sea whip?

 

[ReefNewbie12]

Sorry to kind of necropost but as far as I’ve heard, yes, fragging the gorgonian‘s healthy tips off and leaving the base would be the best option here if you haven’t figured out another solution. Hey, best case scenario is the base survives and you have even more gorgonian frags then before!

 

[Rizzle30]

The purple knobby sea rod gorgonians flesh has started growing back over the exposed skeleton.

I had a purple feather gorgonian loose flesh by its base so I fragged it into 3 pieces and its doing great now.