Care of Daisy Coral

[gka]

I have a daisy coral (goniopora lobata). It is doing OK but I think it should be doing better. I have it mid-way in my 58 gallon tank under 4-95W VHOs (2 actinic, 1 50/50, on aquasun). It appears to be bleaching on the top, looks like to much light? My water parameters are 1.024SG, Nitrates 12-15, temp 76-78, CA 400, ALK 2.5, all else O. I do not feed. Does anyone have this coral and what are the conditions that do well for you?

 

[MattM]

It's not you, it's your LFS who should have known better than to sell it to you.

Goniopora do not survive in captivity for more than 6-10 months. A responsible LFS will not carry them.

 

[dbman]

Bottom of the tank, in the corner, relatively low light (60 gallon tank with center-mounted 400W 6500K) low current, just enough to slightly wave the polyps; mine has survived nearly 2 years and shows no signs of deteriorating, and has in fact grown slightly larger in my tank, though not a spectacular increase.

One thing though: I don't skim most of the time; I've heard that goniopora do better with high organics in the water, so that may be why I'm doing better, or I may just have a stubborn goniopora that refuses to die.

 

[gka]

dbman - thanks, I have had it for about a year. It is a nice specimen with 4 distinct heads. I think your comment about skimming may be the key. I just recently upgraded my skimmer. The previous skimmer did very little - the new skimmer pulls a tremendous amount of junk from the water. Now that I think back I believe that the start of the "bleaching" coincided with the new skimmer - could be coincidence but... I will try to move the coral lower. The bottom polyps (less light) look healthy and are in fact growing (slowly). I am worried that MattM maybe correct and this is not a coral that can be kept long-term under general conditions. I will find out.

 

[davelin315]

Goniopora are very sensitive and any slight damage to it's membrane will cause it to die off. It's not something that you can generally control in captivity, as it will have been bumped around multiple times before you get it. Inevitably, they all die. The only success I've ever had with them long term is 2 small pieces that were attached to a chunk of rock for a large sinularia. I had them for a few years and then broke down my tank and gave them to a friend, but he damaged them in moving them from my tank to his, and they ended up dying. Goniopora is "fragged" from the mother colony, and typically, this will also injure the mother colony so that it does not survive either (or so I've been told). I agree with Matt Marulla, it shouldn't be carried in LFS, as it will never survive in your tank for long. It's sickening to see stores that are selling goniopora that you can see abandoned skeleton on, as those are already dead, yet they still sell them to uninformed people, and tell them it will recover.