Help! New Goniopora is dying!

[Uncle99]

Update. The goni has lost all of its polyps and is only skeleton now.... Super unfortunate. I know now that this is a much harder coral to keep. I will certainly be waiting a while before I give this a shot again, with more knowledge next time. Also, I got my calibration fluid today and calibrated my refractometer, it was .002+ SG off, so it's at 1.027 SG. I'm going to work to lower that with RODI replacement over the next couple of days. My new mag tester gets here tomorrow, so I'll test and dose appropriately.

I appreciate everyone's suggestions and tips, this was certainly a learning experience. I just wish it wasn't a case of "finding out the hard way".

We ALL find out that way.
Sorry for your loss.

I no longer subscribe to the difficult or almost impossible list.

Anything that dies is never replaced.

So far that includes Gonipora, Tracs, elegance and any star fish except brittle stars.

 

[SueAubu]

I'm really hoping it can bounce back. It's crazy how fast it went from fine to polyp loss in a matter of a day. I'm going to do my best to save it.

Polyps retracted is different than polyps peeled away. Keep the faith.
You've gotten advice saying hight light, low light, raise your parameters, reduce your flow. I have 28 Gonis. Some are retracted and some are fully bushy.
Right now I'm experimenting with killing the T5 light, right over them, and they seem to be responding well. Unfortunately, it's learning, experimenting, losing and retrying.

You can see from my mountain, I have Gonis in all kinds of stages. The yellow arrows are retracted, but come out, now and then. The blue ones are improving daily. The green one? I found in the same the other day after MONTHS, facedown in the sand, and his polyps are peeking out more, each day.

 

[SueAubu]

So I’m not a fan of most dips to be honest

They tend to be harsh

Iodine kills the critters you don’t want

You could also use a KCL dip to kill more critters but it’s also not harsh

But your problem probably wasn't critters.... (Although it's all I use to dip new corals because it DOES get the bugs.) Iodine also acts as an antibacterial, like on people, and helps heal infections.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Hello all,

I'm hoping someone here can point me in the right direction to save a new Goniopora frag I got about 6 days ago. On the first couple of days the polyps were extending and it seemed happy. Now it's completely withdrawn and polyps look like they are peeling off! The flesh looks super pale where it's lost polyps. It's on a rock near the bottom of the tank and not in direct flow.

The coral was dipped in CoralRX when I got it as well, so I'm not sure if it needs another dip or what.

My DT is about 3 months old, cycled already with rock from last tank which was 3 years old.
It's a Waterbox MarineX90.3, the tank section is about 60 gallons. I have 2 AI prime 16hds that are running the BRS AB+ light schedule at about 58% intensity (it's in acclimation mode moving to 100% over 30 days.

Nothing else in the tank looks bad, just the Goniopora.

My parameters are:
pH: 8.1
Mag: 1260
Calc: 500
Alk: 9.2
Ammonia: 0
NO2: 0
NO3: 2.5
PO4: 0.05
Temp: ~77.5F
Salinity: 1.025 SG


I would really appreciate any advice to save this!

They like flow and need it to keep waste and sediment off of them. Often, they get angry when phosphate is elevated, salinity is low, too much light and lack of trace elements. Mine are happy when I add aminos which they need and occasional manganese

 

[Oninova]

Yikes! That's a big jump in the deep end for your first one. Have you been in touch with WWC for advice on what light and flow they had it at?

Yes, it was. It did not have a care level. But other goni on their site is listed as "easy" care. I contacted them and they said my nitrates were low.

 

[Oninova]

Polyps retracted is different than polyps peeled away. Keep the faith.
You've gotten advice saying hight light, low light, raise your parameters, reduce your flow. I have 28 Gonis. Some are retracted and some are fully bushy.
Right now I'm experimenting with killing the T5 light, right over them, and they seem to be responding well. Unfortunately, it's learning, experimenting, losing and retrying.

You can see from my mountain, I have Gonis in all kinds of stages. The yellow arrows are retracted, but come out, now and then. The blue ones are improving daily. The green one? I found in the same the other day after MONTHS, facedown in the sand, and his polyps are peeking out more, each day.

Beautiful tank! I'm certainly going to wait a long time before I try gonis again.

 

[SueAubu]

Beautiful tank! I'm certainly going to wait a long time before I try gonis again.

Oh, it's not beautiful, but thank you. It's filthy. It's crawling with hair algae, the canister filter is broken. The flow is all off. It's alk and pH are too low. I'm just trying to isolate 1 reason at a time what's ticking off some and not the others.

 

[SueAubu]

Yes, it was. It did not have a care level. But other goni on their site is listed as "easy" care. I contacted them and they said my nitrates were low.

Yes, they were. I go for 20-40. Around 1500 mg. Phos stays at .3, for some reason... And like many have said, here, I saw a HUGE improvement women I started dosing aminos and trace elements. (On all corals)

Everything I'm learning about Gonis came from @Reefing_addiction. I can't keep track of where the post fell, but back a couple pages, she made a great summary.