View Full Version : Saving Goni
Well i had a little trip to STM and having fragged and rescued my sun coral Chris kindly offered me a new rescue project... and of course, I couldnt resist :D
So this topic is to see the development of and hopefully for you guys to give me advice on saving my new lil Goniopora :wub:
Now before you get excited too.. (Come on, I know you are)
Shes not in a good way :unsure: and receding badly.
Im obviously no coral expert, however, Im doing my homework and determined to do my best on this one and Id apprechiate any advice you guys have.
I realise my efforts may be in vain but if your only coments are 'it'll never work' please just stick to lookin at the pretty pictures ;)
If nothing else I should learn something from this and be able to share my findings with others :)
So here she is on arrival & you can see the challange im dealing with :wacko:
http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s253/Pawsreef/Goni1.jpg
Now I could be really really wrong here but I decided to attach additional rock up next to the polyps that were still doing well on the edges. I figured that if it cant grow across the dead skeleton and was running out of rock that its on Id just extend the rock and give it room to grow.
http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s253/Pawsreef/Goni2.jpg
This also gives the rock 'feet' to keep the growing edges from resting on the rock/sand.
Will it work.. I dunno, seemed logical at the time :ponder:
About half an hour in the tank
http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s253/Pawsreef/Goni3.jpg
Started to open up again as in the shop
http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s253/Pawsreef/Goni4.jpg
After a feed of cyclopeeze 'mist'
http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s253/Pawsreef/Goni5.jpg
As i say, still reading on this but so far my plans are good varied feeding and a close eye on it.
I think she has a chance so any help would be appreciated, will update when I know how its going.
Seems to be making progress - good work there!! As long as it doesn't bring any disease into the tank, can't see a problem with what you are doing (but keep a careful eye out just in case....)
I think this is a Goniopora cf. somaliensis .. any one know for sure?
Glowing under Actinics
http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s253/Pawsreef/ActiGoni.jpg
Ben the crab hiding under Goni
http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s253/Pawsreef/BenGoni.jpg
Yellow centers
http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s253/Pawsreef/GoniYellow.jpg
If it's of any help to you i have fed mine on Coral frenzy direct, goni's really take to this food
I picked up the red goni from a shop too that had receded a bit, it's now huge
also feed my stokesi on it and thats over a year old now
Good luck with it i think you may need it, keep the updates coming good or bad.
Paws
you sure like a challenge thats for sure.
Would suggest direct feeding three times a week with a combination of
cyclopeeze, microvert amd live phyto mixed in about 30 mls of tank water.
Feed the tank first in an attempt to stop any shrimps or crabs that you have from crawling over the Goni as this will only stress it.
Medium light and moderate flow would be my suggestions and observe daily to see if the polyps start to extend.
Now i stress my next comment is only a thought, but if things dont improve over the next four weeks i would consider splitting the goni into two, from looking at your photos i would have thought that you could do this without any damage to the healthy tissue, and it would then give you two bites of the cherry. Again i stress its only a thought.
On the plus side its a red Goni and these are reputed be be more hardy than the greens.
www.goniopra.org is a great site and well worth a read.
I wish you all the luck.
Paul
www.goniopra.org (http://www.goniopra.org) is a great site and well worth a read.
Typo on your link - should read www.goniopora.org (http://www.goniopora.org) :thumbsup:
If it's of any help to you i have fed mine on Coral frenzy direct, goni's really take to this food.
Good luck with it i think you may need it, keep the updates coming good or bad.
Thanks Sigster,
Ive been looking into the best things to feed it and not heard of that so i will have a look. The polyps are tiny like pin heads but seemed to respond to the cyclopeeze mist so far so I will try as long as it will :)
Paws
you sure like a challenge thats for sure.
Yup, thats me :tongueout:
Would suggest direct feeding three times a week with a combination of
cyclopeeze, microvert amd live phyto mixed in about 30 mls of tank water.
Feed the tank first in an attempt to stop any shrimps or crabs that you have from crawling over the Goni as this will only stress it.
Medium light and moderate flow would be my suggestions and observe daily to see if the polyps start to extend.
Now i stress my next comment is only a thought, but if things dont improve over the next four weeks i would consider splitting the goni into two, from looking at your photos i would have thought that you could do this without any damage to the healthy tissue, and it would then give you two bites of the cherry. Again i stress its only a thought.
On the plus side its a red Goni and these are reputed be be more hardy than the greens.
www.goniopra.org is a great site and well worth a read.
I wish you all the luck.
Paul
Thanks Paul, I was thinking more like feeding everyday.. if not twice.. can you feed a coral too much :confused: :o
Luckily so far my inverts are very well behaved with my corals and even my shrimp feed off the syringe instead of pinching from my sun corals so shouldnt be a problem keeping them at bay.
Your thought on splitting the coral was my thought exactly too :rolleyes:
(Worked a treat for the sun corals so figured it may be worth a shot) but like you say, im going to wait to see which way it goes first.
I did have a look on the Goniopora site last night acctually, some very helpful info :thumbsup:
Goniopora cf. somaliensis
think your id is spot on, heres an article about the care of goniopora http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/dec2002/invert.htm , about half way down theres a pic of the somaliensis which is clickable for a bigger pic, and it looks exactly like what you've got. Its a beautiful coral, i wish you every success in restoring it
Tim Parkinson
16-06-07, 11:08
This article is one of the most informative I've personally read.
http://www.reefs.org/library/article/r_toonen20.html/view?searchterm=goniopora%20feeding
This is an extract from the above article
"Feeding attempts with newly hatched brine shrimp were unsuccessful, and despite repeated contact with the tentacles, these prey were far too large for the animals to actually ingest. In fact, repeated contact with the tentacles led to the tentacles retracting and therefore an end to feeding rather than the animals actually being fed. Gut content analyses of polyps excised from wild colonies revealed that the majority of the prey were microcrustaceans (copepods and their larvae, juvenile mysids, barnacle cyprids and such) but much of the diet appeared to consist of a mixture of phytoplankton and other tiny non-crustacean plankton (such as polychaete and mollusc larvae, ciliates, and rotifers) of the same size range. Turns out that phytoplankton was found in the guts of every animal examined and probably accounts for a significant proportion of the nutrient uptake by these corals, and was the only prey type that showed significant variation in capture rate by tidal regime or day versus night-time sampling."
Phytoplankton dosing is by far your best bet, it will have positive effects on your entire tank as well. It has worked for myself to rescue a few varieties in the past.
Yeh this is why coral frenzy is so good for them it contains natural phytoplankton aswell as zooplankton & copepods 10 food stuffs in all.... not a cheap coral food but the waste also feeds the rest of the tank and is designed for sps/lps.
Tim Parkinson
16-06-07, 13:18
Never used coral frenzy myself so can't comment or recommend something i haven't tried.
:dontknow:
Have read of this and maybe drop the thread starter a pm, he will be happy to help you.
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=767467
This guy has a goni dominated tank and some of em are almost 5 years old, he's very knowledgable on the subject of goni's.
Stunning coral btw, saw it on stm's stock list and instantly wanted it :)
Thanks for the articles guys! Much appreciated
Keep them comin if you see any of interest :thumbsup:
Edited to say thanks WhOOps ill give him a pm! I saw this tiny Goni a while ago and wanted it then too lol
They did have several other helathier Gonis in stock at the weekend too though :)
Well.. made some drastic decisions :wacko:
Could have been a good idea and saved the colony, could have been a very very bad idea... but I split the rock :fear:
We shall see what happens, wasnt the easiest thing in the world but have ended up with 8 sections.
2 larger frags, 2 dubious attempts, and some tiny tiny bits that im not expecting any long term life from.
Taken immediately after returning to the tank so not at full potential but..
Recon this is probably my best bet although smaller than my thumb nail
http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s253/Pawsreef/5thFrag.jpg
Second best bet
http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s253/Pawsreef/7thFrag.jpg
Doubtful but theyre certainly trying
http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s253/Pawsreef/8thFrag.jpg
Pretty damaged, opening up today but not holding much hope for this one
http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s253/Pawsreef/BuggeredFrag.jpg
And four teeny tiny bits.. well i thought it was worth seeing what happens rather than giving up on them at the first stage
http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s253/Pawsreef/4GoniFrags.jpg
Now to get them fed...
Is cutting up corals one of your favourite past times or something Sarah?! :p
Only joking, I'm not familiar with Gonis so dont know what the best thing would have been to do but I really hope that it (they?) returns to its former glory since they're such stunners! :D
Jeff.
:fear:
Well.. i figured the center was doing so well and having been told it couldnt regrow over the old skeleton (although some say otherwise) it dint really stand a chance long term.
Happy to say that all pieces are putting the effort in today though even the tiny ones and the half dead one, although i dont think that one is winning.
The 2 main ones are looking great though, ive put them in different areas of the tank to see if one does better than the other.
Very interesting Sarah. I didn't realize they are so small :o
Yeah the whole thing was about the size of a babies fist :rolleyes:
Well I cant update with pics as my laptop blew up yesterday but I can tell you that all the pieces are doing better than the above pics so far.
Im not sure the smaller ones will continue to do well but the larger pieces are certainly looking nice and healthy, so far so good. :D
Paws
one thing that might give you a helping hand is "amino life" from Korallen...got mine from STM.
Dose it in my Daughters 12g nano at a rate of 0.5 ml every other day, and am sure it is a contributing factor as to why the goni and dendros are doing so well.
Thought it might be worth a mention.
Good luck
Paul
Well ive lost 2 of the smaller pieces which was expected really
(the one I wasnt holding much hope for and one of the 4 together)
However the 2 larger pieces are doing fantastically well even in 2 different areas of the tank they are thriving and extending :D
The other 3 together are still making a good effort but i 'think' they will die out before they have a chance to grow, the piece in the 3rd pic down that I said was doubtful also seems to be doing well, extending and looking pretty darn healthy :)
..Would post pics but my lappy blew up and new one hasnt arrived yet.. few more days and I will update with pics. :thumbsup:
vBulletin® v3.8.7, Copyright ©2000-2012, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.