gorgonians and sponges

[fishome25]

I'm looking for photosynthetic gorgonians and sponges and was hoping you could recommend a few. I don't know that many but here are a few genus maybe you know more. I have atlantic types so I'm really looking for pacific.
Briareum stechei, Acalycigorgia, Echinogorgia, Guaiagorgia, Junceella fragilis, Menella, Pseudopterogorgia, Rumphella aggregata, Acanthella cavernosa , Axinyssa, Clathria rugosa

[Anthony Calfo]

Hmmm... there is so much to say here that canot be covered in the brevity of a post/e-mail.

The rub is the difference between what exists and what can be obtained through collectors/shippers/LFS outlets.

My advice is to focus on a niche that you want to replicate (I would never recommend mixing most any organisms from drastically different locales let alone oceans).

Then, once you have determinded a preference for Indonesian species, Fijian, etc... you can then proceed to research what candidates exist in a given locale to provide a supplier with pics/info to try to find some of these for you.

It would be a yeomans chore for me to research and then recite all of the photosynthetic sponges or gorgonians I could find for you ;)

Begin your search with some excellent field guides and natural history books from cool booksellers like seachallengers.com and from hobby sources like Steve Tyree's Dynamic Ecomorpholgy.com (an intensive book authored on Porifera).

As you suspect, Atlantic species with be your best bet for number and availability (especially among gorgonians... see Paul Humann's dive series: Reef Creature, Reef Coral, Reef Fishes)

bets regards,

Anthony

[fishome25]

hmm not an easy answer huh. okay with out asking you to go shuffling through all your books can you recommend any that I listed. I know from your book you recommend briarium and from what I've looked up Rumphella shouldn't be too hard. but off the top off your head are any of the others a good choice.
o btw I have your new invert book coming this week and I can't wait!

[Anthony Calfo]

All good :)

Regarding the sponges... Phyllospongia (lamellosa, for example) are phototrophic and a candidate... Clathria and Haliclona have also proven to be excellent aquarium candidates. Mind you... not all of the hardy aquarium species are phototrophic with BGA, some simply are hardy azooxanthellate species (like Sycon, eg.).

For gorgonia, there really is a very long list from the Atlantic alone. Hardy, inexpensive and reasonably good shippers too. Well worth the price of Paul Humann's Reef Corals book (get Reef Creatures too for corallimorphs and many other nifty inverts seen in our hobby). Please avoid most all Pacific gorgonians at this point. They generally ship poorly and are represented overwhelmingly by poorly selected/collected azooxanthellate species. Unless you live in LA and can cherry pick them... do avoid altogether.

be chatting :)

Anthony