yellow gorgonian

[todd_nano]

Hello,

I'm looking to buy a yellow gorgonian. I realize that these are non photosynthetic and I was wondering if anybody had any tips on keeping these. I was figuring on keeping it in a high flow area and feeding with DT's. Any help appreciated.

Thanks,
Todd

[bajathree]

I personally have had no luck. I don't really know of any people that have had long term sucess.

[BurnNSpy]

I believe they need animal protien to survive and DT's is not it. Maybe Marine Snow will do okay.

BurnNSpy

[coraladdict]

Hi,
I had two and lost both .They were fed phytoplankton but, I guess the most important factor is they don't need strong lighting ,MH will kill them unless they are opposite from those lights.Anyway that's what happen to mine.
I heard that a good food source are rotifers and of course phytoplankton.
Good luck

[jsfakianos]

I have seen several posts regarding good survival of gorgonians, yellow, purple, and brown.

I recently experienced the hardest part of getting a gorgonia... The shipping will kill them. The purple I just received has beautiful white polyps coming out on some branches and rotten skeleton showing on others. The polyps are getting bigger, but so is the rot.

If you reecive one in good shape, will you e-mail me. I would like to know where you bought the gorgonia and what shape it arrives in.

Good luck.

[Blithe]

Hi jsfakianos,
I've been pretty lucky with the purple gorgonian's and killed the yellows. I brought a few back from near death by doing the following: Blew off rot daily and cut dead sections off. Placed gorgonian just off center of halides or in the brightest place you have. Directed water flow so that water is constantly moving around it, even directly on it periodically. Also doubled iodine dose for about a week. Good Luck!

[jadavis01]

I've had a beautiful yellow gorg for about 5 months now. It was opening and doing well for about 2 months. for the last month or so it hasn't opened and is not rotting away. I had it directly in front of a powerhead output and medium lighting.

[Staceon]

Hi Todd,

Listen to the words of the people before me very closly. You are going up aganist some heavy odds here. I have a yellow and a red gorg now for about 18 months that do show signs of new growth. But boy what a chore to get them there. Last summer my tank was full of a whole range of corals, from SPS, LPS, softies, to aposymbiotic corals. At about that same time I was having troubles with all my SPS, but non-phyto were doing well. It was at that time I decided to dedicate the tank to them. I lost every single one of my SPS, and 2 of the LPS that I had for a few years pulled polyp bailouts on me and thus were gone too. I suspect the high phosphate from the all the input food was the culprit.

What I am trying to get at is inless you are willing to dedicate the tank to the gorgs than I would shy away from them. They will eat massed up frozen foods, the phytoplankton will just help the rest of the tank become more balanced and thus able to handle better the large amount of input foods. To give a general idea of how much these guys eat I feed 3 times a day on average a total of 4 to 6 cubes of Formula I and II. Thats with no skimmer.

There is the other theory that you can heavy feed and heavy export(i.e use a skimmer), but personally never tried that method. Without the ability to gain excess energy from the light these corals require a lot of food. Anybody that has ever tried to keep a sun coral will quickly tell you how much they eat. The problem is the tank itself has to be able to harbor all this energy. Are you sure your tank can handle all the extra food? If you feed to much you run into algae and phosphate problems, which will also cause the coral not to open along with other tank mates will not be too happy either.

Current is a major factor too. They need a lot of current. I used 4 maxijet 1200's on a wavestrip and a mag 7 as return in a 54G corner tank(thats about 40X turnover). There is stil only 2 places in the tank that provide enough current. Other corals, such as LPS, dont like this much movement. The current needs to be random, and from direct directions. Unless you have a wavemaker or surge dont even think about it. They use cues to enact behaviors, and water movement is a large cue.