Paul B
NJRC Member
A gonopora is a coral that most people, Including me, have problems keeping for more than a year or two. I am really determined to find out why because it just annoys me. These things should live forever.
I have read all sorts of things about them and it seems that it is all incorrect.
I personally have not observed them much in the sea although I have seen them.
Even if I did, I would not be able to look at it long enough to watch it eat, if it even does eat.
The literature says they eat a variety of foods and in a tank will eat brine shrimp. I have not found that to be the case. I don't feed adult brine shrimp but I have been feeding them new born shrimp for a couple of months and I got to say that even while watching very close with a jewerer's loupe and squirting live shrimp all over them many times, I have yet to see them swallow one shrimp. I will stare at one polyp, very close up and using a pipette place shrimp right on it's tentacles and they just swim away. The tentacles are not at all sticky like an anemone and any food just falls off.
I know they live in water with a lot of detritus but they don't seem to consume that either.
I did however get a few polyp's to eat a small piece of live blackworm.
I will put a piece of a worm on a tentacle but it has to be a tentacle that is upright because the worms will just slide off. Then, if the worm stays there for a minute or two, the polyp will wrap it's arms around it like an octopus and in 15 or 20 minutes it will swallow it.
Yeah I know, you really got to be nuts to kneel in front of a tank with your face against the glass while wearing a jeweler's loupe squirting pieces of worm at a stupid animal that does not want to eat anyway.
So in an hour, I got two tentacles to eat an eight of an inch of worm.
I am not even 100% sure the thing is eating it or just being annoyed by it.
It seems to eat it but it is very hard to tell because after it wraps it's arms around the worm, the tentacle shrinks and gets covered by other polyps.
Of course this is just a test and I am not getting a full time job trying to feed this thing. Eventually it's going to have to eat pizza like the rest of us.
I have read all sorts of things about them and it seems that it is all incorrect.
I personally have not observed them much in the sea although I have seen them.
Even if I did, I would not be able to look at it long enough to watch it eat, if it even does eat.
The literature says they eat a variety of foods and in a tank will eat brine shrimp. I have not found that to be the case. I don't feed adult brine shrimp but I have been feeding them new born shrimp for a couple of months and I got to say that even while watching very close with a jewerer's loupe and squirting live shrimp all over them many times, I have yet to see them swallow one shrimp. I will stare at one polyp, very close up and using a pipette place shrimp right on it's tentacles and they just swim away. The tentacles are not at all sticky like an anemone and any food just falls off.
I know they live in water with a lot of detritus but they don't seem to consume that either.
I did however get a few polyp's to eat a small piece of live blackworm.
I will put a piece of a worm on a tentacle but it has to be a tentacle that is upright because the worms will just slide off. Then, if the worm stays there for a minute or two, the polyp will wrap it's arms around it like an octopus and in 15 or 20 minutes it will swallow it.
Yeah I know, you really got to be nuts to kneel in front of a tank with your face against the glass while wearing a jeweler's loupe squirting pieces of worm at a stupid animal that does not want to eat anyway.
So in an hour, I got two tentacles to eat an eight of an inch of worm.
I am not even 100% sure the thing is eating it or just being annoyed by it.
It seems to eat it but it is very hard to tell because after it wraps it's arms around the worm, the tentacle shrinks and gets covered by other polyps.
Of course this is just a test and I am not getting a full time job trying to feed this thing. Eventually it's going to have to eat pizza like the rest of us.