Gorgonians for my seagrass tank

[Samala]

Hi all, glad to see the new soft coral forum up and running. I'm hoping there is enough combined experience pooled here to really give a thorough breakdown for gorgonian husbandry.

To start with, I know there are photo and non-photo types. I'm interested in the photosynthetic species, particularly the Caribbean ones such as those I see referred to commonly as purple fringe or purple stick. If someone would like to school me in gorgonian proper ID and genus names, I welcome the info. :)

Light?

I have a 20 gallon (long, with lights suspended 11" from the substrate) seagrass tank that creates a lot of zooplankton and some phytoplankton that I'd like to try the gorgs out in. Currently it has 130w of 6700K lighting.. is that going to be enough to support gorgonians? Natural food supplies are likely to help out, but I'm of course willing to target feed.

Feeding?

Do gorgonians, as a group, eat both phyto and zooplankton? Or just zooplankton? Would target feeding cyclopeeze be a good food? What about MarineSnow or other powdered/liquid concoctions?

Placement?

I see many many references to gorgonians becoming cyano magnets, and need strong water movement to discourage this in most tanks. Is this still the general consensus? Also, I'm interested in non-encrusting gorgs, the more free flowing ones.. can they be placed practically anywhere? (I dont have other coral, and dont plan on them.) If the frags are sent loose, attachment with typical frag glue is okay, yes?

Finally.. I got started on this a few weeks back and discovered the aforementioned 'purple stick gorg' collected from the Keys today in a LFS. It had a light coating of cyano, and definitely some tissue necrosis and loss at the tops of the 'branches'. Probably a 1/2 - 1" worth of loss actually. A decent 4" with various branches was still intact, but no polyps were extended. What are the chances for a gorg in such a state? Is it simply a matter of shearing off bad tissue and providing proper conditions (particularly flow) to help the remaining parts to heal?

Any help greatly appreciated.. if there are old threads I should see, or perhaps an article feel free to post some links. Love to hear the softy forum experts weigh in.

Thanks!
>Sarah

[graveyardworm]

I can try to help, first there are alot of different gorgonians. I'll go with what I believe to be the three most commonly found in the hobby.

The first one, Briareum, aka. corky sea fingers, caribean species, zooxanthellate, tolerant of most lighting, prefers high flow, and high lighting, do not feed on zooplankton to any degree. edit: some species are encrusting.

Second Diodogorgia these are the brightly colored ( usually yellow with red lumps) Aposymbiotic, require strong flow and frequent feeding of planktonlike food.

Third Pterogorgia, aka. purple sea blade, photosynthetic, predominantly shallow-water inshore corals, often become covered in microalgae,after awhile refuse to open and wither away, prefer strong currents, regular feeding, and strong illumination.

I dont believe these would suit your purpose, it seems most if not all feed primarily on zooplankton, not phyto. Once your pod population recovers, with the low skimming in your tank it may be a great environment for one if you have enough flow. I tried diodogorgia, and my success was relatively short lived, so for now I'm staying away. I gathered this info from Bornemans Aquarium Corals and Shimeks Marine Invertebrates. Any other questions I'll be happy to help, hopefully someone with actual experience can help out here as well.

[graveyardworm]

I was just browsing another thread in this forum, and it appears PaulB has quite a selection of gorgonians he may be able to offer some great advice.

[Samala]

Hey David! I think the Pterogorgia are the ones I'm most interested in. It would be great to find something that feeds on phyto for the short term, given the current problems, but long term copepod feeding coral would be more than fine. I culture phyto as well, so I was curious to see if dosing concentrated bursts of that would help out any gorgonians in the future.

A lot of the seahorse keepers report that their gorg's do terribly in full blown reefs and perk right up and grow very fast in macroalgae dominated SH tanks. Interesting, hmm? I think so. :) I'd just really like to get a coral or two into the tank for some extra points of interest.

>Sarah

[graveyardworm]

Yes Pterogorgia are the ones you're talking about. Just be careful once you start it can lead to harder and more dangerous stuff. :) Unless you're up for the challenge, and ready for disappointment you might want to stay away from the one you're looking at, but then again given the right conditions and someone who cares you might be successful. I make mercy purchases all the time and about 50% make it. The folks at GARF (http://garf.org/) have some good info on gorgonian propagation, go to there site open "all about corals" ( in the left menu ) gorgonians is on the list. They make keeping them sound easy. Dont be fooled, it takes the right person to keep them healthy.

[Fat Surgeon]

I'll agree with Grave in that you have to definitely take care of them. I have a purple Gorgonian that I have succesfully kept for 6 months now and is doing well. When I made the purchase, it looked healthy, but had no polyp extension. I actually visited the LFS 4 times before I bought it to see if the polyps were coming out or not, and to my amazement, they didnt. I took the plunge anyhow and I am glad I did! When I brought it home, it looked nice and purple (which is why I bought it), but had no Polyps for nearly 10 days. During this time I noticed Cyano building up on it and I thought for sure it was doomed (as the LFS owner told happens more often than not). Not being one to give up easily, I moved the Gorg from middle of the tank-mid tank level(standard 125) to lower level -close to the front of glass with more flow(no, I do not have a BB tank). This did the trick as my Cyano disappeared in 2 days and 2 days after that I had the most beautiful tiny yellow polyps extending from it. It is a Cool piece in the tank and I am so glad I bought it! It has grown about an inch upwards on 3 branches and is doing extremely well. I also have it under power compacts, and as I said, lower level with mid-high flow.

Flow;
I have 2 flow directors not aimed directly at the Gorg. I have one positioned on the rear top of the tank aimed right at the front of the glass and another to the left (1 foot away) and 4 inches down into the tank aiming up. What this does is creates a bit of turbulence against the glass and pushes the water flow down and to the right, making the Gorg sway to the right. I hope this makes sense:rolleyes:

My advice. Take the plunge and buy it. Watch it carefully everyday for 2-3 weeks for signs of cyano and adjust flow accordingly(should sway). BTW, at the time I bought my gorg, the LFS said it would most likely die , as his have never lasted more than 6 weeks. He had 2 other larger ones that slowly died after I purchased mine as I watched them every time I went to his store. I told him he needed more flow, but insisted he was doing it all right. My response was " oh well." I had ZIP experience with Gorgonians and he had 20 years. Go figure.

Feeding;
You are right on with target feeding Cyclopeeze. I Feed all my corals Cyclop every other day and either DT's or Phytofeast on alternate days.

Any more questions, I'd be more than happy to help! I'll also try to get a pic up of the gorgonian soon. My wacky business schedule makes it hard sometimes!

Take care and good luck:)

[crrichey]

To be honest I don't think any besides the encrusing species will fit well into your setup. They simply grow too tall. You can keep them cut down however this exposes the coral to a ton of diseases.

[Paul B]

Although I do not have any pterogorgia I do keep a few other types. The "purple stick" as you call it is what I think I have that does very well in my reef. I have a few of them for a few years and they grow well and even reproduce on their own as I found out by accident. Oc course you could just cut them and glue the frag to a rock but you could also just lean a piece of it on a rock and if it is there for a couple of months it will start to grow a branch there. This happened twice in my tank with no help from me. I tried to move a specimin and realized that it had grown a branch connected to a rock. I cut it free and it has kept growing as has the "parent". I do not think you have to feed them as I do not usually directly feed them. I do feed my fish all sorts of things along with Selcon and live new born brine shrimp but although gorgonians will close their polyps on anything that is no indication that they are actually eating it. I believe one of my pieces is muriceopsis flavida or muriceopsis but I can't be sure.
I also have very good luck with (I think is) "plexaurella" also from the Caribbean. (I will post a picture) I find it hard to identify gorgonians because a lot of them are very similar and you can't be sure unless you know where it is from.
In 40 years of diving I have seen a lot of gorgonians and they all live in fast flowing water. The ones that grow flat like sea fans grow in very fast water, water that is too fast to SCUBA in. These always grow perpendicular to the water flow and vibrate because the flow is so fast. That is probably why we really can't keep sea fans in a tank. The rounder gorgs live in less turbulent water but still moving fairly fast. You will do better with photosynthetic gorgs as the feeding type will not last long at all. Whatever you are feeding them, you will not duplicate the current or the dietary needs. A year or two is not success for an animal that may well live forever. ;)
There are many types that I can't get to live well at all and I do not buy them any more. The common yellow gorgs I have no luck with or the very thin wispy purple ones that look like feathers.
The encrusting gorgs are by far the easiest as they grow on anything like weeds. They are all over my tank.
If the specimin you see is losing tissue and the tips are bare, leave it in the store, I doubt it will live. To attach gorgs, scrape off the tissue at the bottom of the stem unless it comes with a holdfast. Drill a small hole in a rock with a carbide drill and stick it in there. In time it will grow to the rock and cover it somewhat.
Good luck.
Gorgs, gorgs, gorgs
http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/13094Gorgonians_2006.jpg

All of these grow very well especially the purple one on the right and the other purple one on the left. There is a frag of it near the top slightly to the left, it grew there on it's own.
http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/13094PVC_rock_001.jpg

The gorg to the left of the purple one on the right side of the picture is the oldest. Maybe 8 or 10 years old.
http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/13094Feb_10-4.JPG
The purple one in the center grew there by itself, the one on the bottle had a holdfast so I glued it to the bottle and the thicker one on the right is very old.
http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/13094DSC01322.JPG

[Paul B]

I should say the picture with the moorish Idol the larger brown gorg near the center of the picture has kind of flat branches, it does not do well. It is still living but it becomes completely covered in cyano and diatoms. I have to clean it once in a while with a soft brush which I am sure is not the best thing for it. It probably needs very strong flowing nutrient free water.
It was cheap and big and I knew nothing about it so I bought it but it was a mistake and I will not get any more. But whenever I see one of those purple ones like the one above under the fire clown I grab it. I have never had a problem with these even when abused like being buried under something for a while or being stung by another coral. In my opinion (in my reef anyway) the hardiest coral of any type. Not bad looking too.
Have a great day.
Paul

[Fat Surgeon]

Wow Paul, that's a real nice tank! Have you noticed that your Gorgonians are slow growers or do you tend to frag tham quite often to keep them "pruned" back? Thanks for the info on them as well.

[Paul B]

I find mine to grow slow. The one that I said was the oldest only trippled it's size in about 9 years. The purple ones grow about 1/2" a year. That could be only my tank, they may grow faster somewhere else but I don't know of anyone who has old ones although they are out there somwhere.
Paul

[Samala]

Thank you so much Paul (and everyone else!) for the excellent advice and the fantastic pictures. The 'purple stick' from the LFS is closest to your purple at right in the second pic. Really gorgeous, a Caribbean shipment specimen. Anywho, I passed on the one actually in the store and have put it on my checklist for species to look for while doing inventory in seagrass beds later this summer. If I find it interspersed with turtle grass at depth its something I'd like to put into a future tank. At 1/2" added each year or so, as Paul reports, I'm not sure if these will or wont outgrow the tank I have in mind.

Again.. thanks for the help everyone! :)

>Sarah

[technoshaman]

I have kept Pterogorgia for several years in my main reef. In my experience they are easy to keep provided you give them ample light and high, high current - to the point where the coral is visibly moving. The triangular stalks seem to adjust/reorient to the flow patterns and orient themselves over time somewhat and are constantly polyped out. I did not do much supplemental feeding but they had slow but noticable growth.

From what you are describing I would say more flow might be in order based on my experience (want to say it was P.guadalupensis I have in my tanks).