gonopora

[Paul B]

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.

 

[Nickjr000]

You hit the nail on the head......, Real annoying is right! Twice this happened... I kept one for about a 14 months and it looked the same everyday, fully open with lots of extension. Don't think it grew at all while I had it, maybe the color just changed a few shades. Then one day only about half of it opened and a couple weeks later almost none of it would open. It just looked dead and I tossed it shortly after that

 

[Paul B]

Yep, thats about they go

 

[radiata]

Re: goniopora

Here's a story I heard from a well-known aquarist at the MACNA3 cocktail party...

Gonioporas are a great coral for retailers to carry. The hobbyist buys one, it does really really well for six or eight months, and then suddenly dies. The hobbyist blames the loss on something he did wrong, because the goniopopra had been doing so well. So the hobbyist goes out and buys another one. And six months later, yet another one... etcetera...

Well, maybe we've come a long way in the last 18 years - used to be 6 to 8 months, and now we're hitting 1 or 2 years. :-\

 

[Paul B]

Radiata, thats why I keep them. That is also why I kept a moorish Idol. I think I have figured out moorish Idols but that was because I did quite a few dives with them.
I have seen gonopora in the sea but I never stood around them long enough to get some incite. I have seen them in shallow fast moving water in smaller canals.
Maybe they do better with something washing from shore on them. I don't know yet but I won't just write off an animal because I don't know what makes it tick. That is part of my hobby. That is also why I like unusual animals rather than anglefish or tangs. We know all about them and there is no challenge.

 

[radiata]

Radiata, thats why I keep them. That is also why I kept a moorish Idol. I think I have figured out moorish Idols but that was because I did quite a few dives with them.
I have seen gonopora in the sea but I never stood around them long enough to get some incite. I have seen them in shallow fast moving water in smaller canals.
Maybe they do better with something washing from shore on them. I don't know yet but I won't just write off an animal because I don't know what makes it tick. That is part of my hobby. That is also why I like unusual animals rather than anglefish or tangs. We know all about them and there is no challenge.

I get that way about some things in the hobby too. But I prefer less open-ended targets. When do you declare success? After you've kept one for 10 years? After you've kept 10 for 10 years each? And, if you succeed at either, will you even know why? The person telling the story I repeated actually had a friend who had kept a goniopora for something like 14 years, but nobody could figure out why. I wish you luck...

 

[Paul B]

When do you declare success?

When the thing lives longer than I do

 

[Henrye718]

Try the red ones they are supposed to actually live :-\

 

[Nickjr000]

Try the red ones they are supposed to actually live :-\

Never heard that before

 

[Paul B]

Try the red ones they are supposed to actually live

Anyone can keep an animal if it is considered easy. You need to keep something that no one can keep. Thats the challenge. :

 

[mgonz]

I personally have had two. I started off with a blue one I picked up from OG2. It had slight recession when I bought it, more of a challenge for me to try and save. I feed it a mix of phyto rotifers, cylopeeze and rods food. I took a soda bottle 2 litter and cut the bottle in half and use it to feed the coral. I had the coral repairing tissue and doing well. I lost it along with most of my live stock due to a power failure of about 8 hours. I currently own the red ORA gonopora. I purchased it from OG2 as well. I removed it from the plug and put it on a reef disk. It is now encrusting onto the reef disk so I would assume it is doing well. I do not target feed it. I actually broadcast feed my tank using elos omega acids and elos pro skimmer. I am running an ULNS and have been using tropic marin reef actif. I started using prodibio three weeks ago and must say all my corals have never looked better!!!

When I originally started with gonoporas I read a really good article on their diets. If I can come across it I will post the link. they can be kept they are just very tempermental.

 

[Henrye718]

Try the red ones they are supposed to actually live :-\

Never heard that before

Its a "internet" fact that the reds are more hardy. How true it is, is in the eyes of the surfer


Gonos are supposed to come from and like dirty water. I find it odd that we would try to keep it in our pristine reef water and expect it to live. Like the posts above about it being a great item for stores to carry, we fight ourselves trying to keep this if the dirty thing is indeed true.