It's been a while since I posted an update on the gorgonians, time to fix that I think. The Pinnigorgia sp. has grown into a monster and has to be fragged on a regular basis to keep it from taking over the tank, it also sticks out of the water whenever I perform a water change. I don't do anything special to maintain it, it just grows and grows. The Plexaurella sp. is somewhat frustrating. When I first transferred it to this tank it looked fantastic, as fluffy and healthy looking as I had ever seen it. But then a while ago, a year ago maybe, it started spending a fair chunk of time each month with the polyps retracted. It would stay like this for 4 or 5 days before sloughing off a layer of mucus/algae and springing back to life once again. I know this is all pretty normal for gorgonians but it never did it this much when it was first added or even much at all in my old tank. More worrying is that every time it goes through this cycle it loses flesh at some of the branch tips. I suspect it's probably flow related and or silicate related. As far back as I can remember the diatom growth has been abundant in this tank, (another gift from the TMC Ecoreef rock perhaps?). It seems better controlled since I started being more aggressive with Rowaphos but still closes up on a regular basis. I would like to ramp up the flow but the Crocea clam sits right in front of it and I unwilling to muck around with it any more than I already have. This gorgonian will just have to muddle through, recently it has another issue to contend with aswell. The Oxypora sp. growing in front does not play nicely. I whipped out the coral cutters right after I took the photo below. This is how the Plexaurella looks after the most recent round of mucus/algae shedding, note the couple of stripped branches at the top. I don't talk about the Muricea sp. very much, it's tucked away at the back of the tank and is quite hard to photograph. It grows slowly but steadily, again I don't do anything special to maintain it. Moving on to the non-photosynthetic gorgonians, growth has been a mixed bag with these to say the least which is not exactly unexpected. The Menella sp. is my favourite, the yellow polyps contrasting against the red base is just gorgeous. It has grown but considering I've had it for over 2 years it's not that much really, still growth is growth so I'll take that. At this rate though it's going to be 20 or so more years before I have a colony really worth looking at. The small red and white gorgonian frag I picked up from a fellow reefer is still with me. It extends its polyps almost all of the time but has done nothing much to speak of in the last 16 months. It's shown no recession but no growth either, well maybe there was a little growth at one point but that seems to have since stopped. I guess there's not enough of the right kind of food to be able to grow. The purple polyp gorgonian has been the most disappointing to date. After a really encouraging start where some stripped areas regrew it's been pretty much downhill ever since. The branches began receding at the tips and some flesh was lost at the base too. I tried adding more particulate food but still the recession continued. As the polyps slowly vanished the remaining stalk became a magnet for algae, to be honest after a while the whole thing looked a bit of a state. At 9 months I decided to take action and frag it, I kept a single branch so that I could really focus on target feeding it more. I'd love to be able to report that I've been successful but sadly that's not been the case. The frag is still hanging on in there after 16 months and although the recession has slowed it's still happening all be it very slowly, this is all I have left of it now. Clearly this is one species that I cannot make happy in my current set up.
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Time for a coral update. I picked up this gorgonian nine months ago as two small frags set on the same frag plug. They settled in OK but didn't appear to grow much, they did both 'fatten' up a bit though. At the end of January I started to notice some odd looking polyps developing, they were mainly on the front frag but I also noticed some on the the rear one too. The tentacles elongated and I thought that they looked suspiciously like sweeper tentacles. There were no corals particularly near to the frags, perhaps it was something floating around in the water? A few more months passed by and rear frag began extending less and less, I assumed that maybe it was a lack of food which is always my fear with non-photosynthetic corals. The direction of flow mainly goes from front to back so perhaps the front frag was capturing the lions share of food depriving the rear frag of any. I tried target feeding more but it didn't seem to make any difference. Eventually I decided to cut the rear frag off and stick it down somewhere else. Unfortunately I made a really poor job of fixing the frag because the next day the it had totally vanished, no doubt knocked off by a snail or hermit crab never to be seen again. What an idiot I am.
So now I have just the one frag. Interestingly since its sibling was removed it's been looking a better. The strange sweeper like tentacles have gone and I am wondering if the two frags were trying to fight each other. They were cut from the same gorgonian, so they were exactly the same species. Maybe they didn't like being so close to one another? It's a strange one that's for sure. A couple of months after I moved and 'killed' the rear frag I had to relocate the remaining one to make room for another coral. The Chilli coral needed a new location asap (that's a story for another update). I like the new position much better, it's not far from where it was and I rotated the frag plug so it's much easier to observe any growth. Come on lil frag, groooow now please. Before placing my previous coral order I had expressed an interest in purchasing a frag of a different gorgonian from a fellow reefer. Unfortunately I was a little too slow off the mark and the frag sold to someone else. The very next day I discovered the purple gorgonian online so I ordered that instead but before it had even been delivered the kindly reefer contacted me and asked if I still wanted a frag of his gorgonian. He could take a small cutting just for me, naturally I said yes, I can always find a spot for something small lol. In addition he also offered to take a frag of his Chilli coral which was another species I'd always wanted to keep and had been searching for. Here is the gorgonian settling in on the frag rack, 3 days after delivery. I'm not sure of the species, it could possibly be Leptogorgia chilensis. Here it is fixed in position with the Coco worm for size reference behind. It seems to be doing OK so far, the polyps are extended for most of the day but I am yet to notice any growth or encrustation at the base. Here it is again 11 days later (you can see the Coco worm has been busy at the back). As for the Chilli coral, Nephthyigorgia sp. It's not much to look at when closed up but is really lovely when the polyps extend, here is how it looked after introduction with some hermit crabs giving it the once over. These corals are non photosynthetic and need to be kept out of the light, hanging upside down in caves. I chose the best spot I had available, semi shaded but still able to be viewed. Hanging any coral upside down is not the easiest thing to accomplish. I had to use a fair bit of putty and it's not an attractive look but hopefully it will be hidden by coralline algae eventually. Thank fully the coral hasn't fallen down... yet!
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AuthorHi, my name is Lisa and I live in Derby, UK. I am a self-confessed reefaholic! Archives
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