Rammess
Community Member
Ive only had it for about 2 weeks it showed everyday polyps until 3-4 days ago.Not dead but must extend to survive. How long continuously has it shown polyps before the last three days?
MaxTremors
2500 Club Member
What are your parameters, lighting and flow situation, tank age, what type of rock, basically need as much info about your tank as possible to even begin to try to troubleshot.
Narideth
Fishaholic
I only have the experience of my own purple whip gorgonian, but so far it's proven tougher than expected. It was closed for several weeks, grew dynos and then algae as the tank went through some rough patches, and I blasted and -scrubbed- the algae off with a soft toothbrush outside of the water as a last ditch effort to get it clean so it could take in food and light.
It's now happier than it's ever been with incredible polyp extension now that the tank is in healthy shape once more.
One of the indicators of dying is blackened, decaying tissue. A small piece of mine died at one of the tips, and I snipped it back to healthy purple tissue. Follow the advice above - provide parameters and it's definitely not dead!
It's now happier than it's ever been with incredible polyp extension now that the tank is in healthy shape once more.
One of the indicators of dying is blackened, decaying tissue. A small piece of mine died at one of the tips, and I snipped it back to healthy purple tissue. Follow the advice above - provide parameters and it's definitely not dead!
Rammess
Community Member
1.025
77 degrees
0 amm
0 trite
0 trate
(or bare minimum for each of these as the color looks the most like 0 in test kit)
AI prime 16 HD 8 inches above the water set to the SPS AB+ light spectrum from the bulk reef supply dude on youtube
Lights on starting at 0% at 1PM scaling to Max power at 4pm. Max power from 4pm to 11pm and then fully off at 1am.
Nero3 pointed at the back rocks from 3%-20% randomized with medium variance for random flow pattern with return pump
The tank was filled in March and I used DR tims cycling stuff for about 3 months and added livestock about 3 weeks ago. About 5-6 days ago started getting this green algae covering my dry rock. It does not scrape off. About 3 days after I noticed the algae all the sudden the Gorgonian was all upset.
I also have a skimmer that I would imagine is still in the Break IN period, and still produces a decent amount of micro bubbles in the display tank since I use a 15g waterbox and the sump is small the micro bubbles make it through the return pump.
I am all open for suggestions, so let me know what you would do. I sort of did a panic water change too with fresh water just because I was uncertain, but it was also about time for one anyway.
Narideth
Fishaholic
I don't think you should do that at this point. The algae growing on mine was a thick mat of GHA. Gorgonians shed their outer layer periodically to get rid of the thin skimming algae otherwise.
Rammess
Community Member
MaxTremors
2500 Club Member
I’ve found blowing them off with a turkey baster to be just as effective without causing any abrasions. Do you know what your phosphates and alkalinity are? I would also recommend increasing the flow, you want roughly 75 gph in total, so with the Nero 3, you’d set it to vary between 30 and 50% (in my 28g, I’m at around 110gph and I could probably use more (people vastly underestimate how much flow they need, and gorgs need lots of flow, it should be in constant mildly turbulent flow). You may see some sand get blown around, if it does, slowly ramp it up over a couple weeks. Once they get established, most photosynthetic gorgs are very hardy. One other thing is that gorgs shed a lot (similar to leathers but more frequent), so when they’re getting ready to shed they’ll often get some algae growing on them (again, the turkey baster will help blow off the shed).
jkcoral
Valuable Member
They like high light and high flow. High levels of flow are important because it helps them shed their waxy skin every few days. I’d recommend trying to increase your flow, or position it so that the gorg is receiving a lot more flow.
Also, they are photosynthetic and want/need more light than you think. But you should still feed them once or twice a week with something like benereef or reef roids.
Uncle99
10K Club member
Your almost zero or zero nitrate is going to starve everyone in time, it should be stable and running somewhere in the 5-15ppm range.
I didn’t see any post of phosphate which is equally important and must run in the .1ppm area.
If your seeing green algae, it may indicate that phosphate is to high.
I didn’t see any posting of Alk, fluctuating Alk daily more than say .5dkh creates unstable water chemistry and outside the 8-12 range amplifies problems.
The Gorg is really resilient, while you can blow flow on it, I would not touch it at all or move it.
Water chemistry (and/or) it’s stability is the number one creator of unhappiness for some corals more than others.
I’d rule that out first.
Rammess
Community Member
I know it’s not fully happy yet, but this is the first time i’ve seen some extension in the past week. So it’s not dead. I put the lights on acclimation mode 50% for 30 days. I think I was just baking them in light maybe.
Reef Psychology
Active Member
I have several types and this particular one will retract all it’s polyps for a few days. They need to slough off irritants like cyano, algae and diatoms like leather corals do. I wouldn’t worry about it much unless it lasts more than 5-6 days.Is my gorgonian dead? Hasn’t shown polyps in 3 days.
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