Gonipora has seemingly become nocturnal

[Max Rackstraw]

So I've had this pink Goniopora for about 2 and a half months now. It had great polyp extension during the day for the first month and a half, being fully open when lights were on and closing when they went off.

Then one day suddenly it decided it wanted to be fully closed during the day, and half open at night. Nothing had changed with water parameters at any point during this transition. This was a very fast change, and I knew of the difficulty keeping these at the time so thought the worst.

However, it appears as though the coral is not only fine, but has started growing a couple new heads. Only it is completely closed during the day, and still half opens at night.

So I'm not entirely sure whats going on here... a while back i moved it into shade thinking it was in too high PAR, but no change, so moved it back to where it was.

I believe flow is adequate for the goniopora, and it is placed on its frag plug on the sand bed not directly under the light.

Anyone know why this is? Polyp extension is fine from other corals in the tank.

Parameters:
(Tank has been running around 8 or 9 months and is a 100L nano.)
Temp: 26c
Salinity: 1.026
Nitrate: 0ppm
Phosphate: between 0 and 0.1ppm (red sea marine care test kit, need to get one with better resolution)
Alkalinty: 7.2 dKH
Calcium: 435ppm
Magnesium: 1275ppm

No dosing required as of present.
(No coral food or supplements being dosed.)

Bioload: 2x medium clownfish

Other corals: 1x hammer (single head),1x small galaxia (on its own in the corner), 1x stylophora (large frag), a few montipora digitata frags, 1x pocillopora

Filtration: Protein skimmer (added 3 weeks ago), 2x bacteria media blocks, filter floss (changed weekly), activated carbon (in media bag), weekly 10% water change

Lighting: Single Ai prime 16hd 8 inches from water (have not measured PAR)

I have had algae issues in this tank (cyanobacteria on sand and some green hair algae on rocks) in the past, skimmer seems to have tidied that up, no more cyano, although some GHA remains (not enough to cause concern).
(Attached picture of how it looks during the day now)

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

it looks very receded, it could still be acclimating. It is a bit of a touchy coral, my first one stayed closed for about 5 months. I have 6 of them, under medium lights (on the sand bed under metal hallides) and good random flow. I would suggest to put it where you want and leave it alone.

 

[Max Rackstraw]

I would say that picture does make it look rather receded, although it does look better than when i first bought it still. It has grown a couple new heads on the side recently. Is it normal for them to be fully open for a couple months and then suddenly completely close in the day but other than that not decline in health? It just seems strange as I haven't had anything like that happen before, although as everyone knows, this is a particularly sensitive coral I suppose, and this is my first time keeping a goni.


I thought maybe it had something to do with feeding, as I have heard that can be a factor. Apparently feeding in the day could help encourage it out? I've never fed any coral food in this tank due to always having some algae growth in this tank (even though no matter what it sits at zero nitrate), but I've added a skimmer recently that pulls a considerable amount out so I would be open to start coral feeding in the future.

I thought maybe it was either a feeding or lighting issue as it does extend at night...

 

[Max Rackstraw]

Here it is, just starting to come out now after lights off 50 minutes ago.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

Hey that looks good lol. Thats so weird, I don't know, it does look healthy in that pic.

 

[ryanjohn1]

Nitrates are zero. That’s bad

 

[Max Rackstraw]

Nitrates are zero. That’s bad

Well thats a can of worms

 

[Max Rackstraw]

Nitrates are zero. That’s bad

I would agree with you, but nitrates are stuck as zero on this tank. It has been zero from day one. But i had lots of GHA and cyanobacteria for a couple months that has only been fully gotten rid of by the addition of a skimmer. This skimmer pulls tons of brown mud that stinks. So i dont really know why nitrates where zero when all that was in there?

 

[Max Rackstraw]

Hey that looks good lol. Thats so weird, I don't know, it does look healthy in that pic.

It is awfully strange!

 

[Max Rackstraw]

I would agree with you, but nitrates are stuck as zero on this tank. It has been zero from day one. But i had lots of GHA and cyanobacteria for a couple months that has only been fully gotten rid of by the addition of a skimmer. This skimmer pulls tons of brown mud that stinks. So i dont really know why nitrates where zero when all that was in there?

I feed frozen food to the two clowns once daily. They eat all of it (sometimes not quite 100% but its only a very small amount that gets away from them). And there is a cleanup crew of something like 10 nassarius snails, 2 babylonian snails and theres a herbivorous one there somewhere…

I tried increasing the amount of frozen i fed to increase the nitrate level once (the 2 clowns still ate it all). I saw no change in the nitrate number, but i saw a large increase in cyano growth at the time. Now with the cyano gone and having a skimmer i could try again maybe.

I never felt like dosing nitrate because for this reason i felt it would just feed the algae and therefore there would be no increase in nitrate.

 

[ryanjohn1]

I feed frozen food to the two clowns once daily. They eat all of it (sometimes not quite 100% but its only a very small amount that gets away from them). And there is a cleanup crew of something like 10 nassarius snails, 2 babylonian snails and theres a herbivorous one there somewhere…

I tried increasing the amount of frozen i fed to increase the nitrate level once (the 2 clowns still ate it all). I saw no change in the nitrate number, but i saw a large increase in cyano growth at the time. Now with the cyano gone and having a skimmer i could try again maybe.

I never felt like dosing nitrate because for this reason i felt it would just feed the algae and therefore there would be no increase in nitrate.

I had to dose nitrate till the tank could start making it own. Nyos nitrate worked with.

 

[Max Rackstraw]

I had to dose nitrate till the tank could start making it own. Nyos nitrate worked with.

Did it cause much algae growth whilst you where dosing nitrate?

 

[ryanjohn1]

Did it cause much algae growth whilst you where dosing nitrate?

No

 

[vetteguy53081]

So I've had this pink Goniopora for about 2 and a half months now. It had great polyp extension during the day for the first month and a half, being fully open when lights were on and closing when they went off.

Then one day suddenly it decided it wanted to be fully closed during the day, and half open at night. Nothing had changed with water parameters at any point during this transition. This was a very fast change, and I knew of the difficulty keeping these at the time so thought the worst.

However, it appears as though the coral is not only fine, but has started growing a couple new heads. Only it is completely closed during the day, and still half opens at night.

So I'm not entirely sure whats going on here... a while back i moved it into shade thinking it was in too high PAR, but no change, so moved it back to where it was.

I believe flow is adequate for the goniopora, and it is placed on its frag plug on the sand bed not directly under the light.

Anyone know why this is? Polyp extension is fine from other corals in the tank.

Parameters:
(Tank has been running around 8 or 9 months and is a 100L nano.)
Temp: 26c
Salinity: 1.026
Nitrate: 0ppm
Phosphate: between 0 and 0.1ppm (red sea marine care test kit, need to get one with better resolution)
Alkalinty: 7.2 dKH
Calcium: 435ppm
Magnesium: 1275ppm

No dosing required as of present.
(No coral food or supplements being dosed.)

Bioload: 2x medium clownfish

Other corals: 1x hammer (single head),1x small galaxia (on its own in the corner), 1x stylophora (large frag), a few montipora digitata frags, 1x pocillopora

Filtration: Protein skimmer (added 3 weeks ago), 2x bacteria media blocks, filter floss (changed weekly), activated carbon (in media bag), weekly 10% water change

Lighting: Single Ai prime 16hd 8 inches from water (have not measured PAR)

I have had algae issues in this tank (cyanobacteria on sand and some green hair algae on rocks) in the past, skimmer seems to have tidied that up, no more cyano, although some GHA remains (not enough to cause concern).
(Attached picture of how it looks during the day now)

Give it moderate lighting and elevate a little off the sand which can irritate it
Assure also phos level not elevated as well as salinity

 

[Max Rackstraw]

Give it moderate lighting and elevate a little off the sand which can irritate it
Assure also phos level not elevated as well as salinity

Ill check the phos with a higher res test kit soon. The one i have seems to say its between 0 and 0.1ppm. I have infact raised it slightly off the sand yesterday so hopefully that should help

 

[Max Rackstraw]

So is this common? And can the coral stay like this without dieing? Is it definitely not a feeding thing?

 

[gbroadbridge]

So is this common? And can the coral stay like this without dieing? Is it definitely not a feeding thing?

I had one that did the exact same thing for a couple of months, and then went back to normal. No idea why, I thought it was dying.

Re your zero nitrate, have you tested with a different test kit?

 

[Max Rackstraw]

I had one that did the exact same thing for a couple of months, and then went back to normal. No idea why, I thought it was dying.

Re your zero nitrate, have you tested with a different test kit?

No i have not, i should do really. Always used this test kit and got normal readings on tanks i had in the past… but you know how this can be…

 

[Max Rackstraw]

Alright so here is an update after a while.

The goni is still doing the same thing. Ive moved it around a few times and it doesn’t seem to behave any differently.

I dose nitrate now keeping it around 0.5ppm. No change.

I replaced my di stage and tds of my weekly 10% water change went down from around 3ppm to 0ppm. No change.

I actually have no idea what this coral is doing. It makes no sense. Surely it should be dead! Its literally like its gone non photosynthetic…