Clown & Goniopora Coral?

[si nyc salty]

I have a clown for about 2 months. He usually hangs out with a sailfin tang in my tank. 29Gallon Bio Cube. Well...we bought a Goniopora (green colored) coral about 3 days ago. After having the coral in the tank for about 1/2 hour, the clown made the new coral his playground. I don't have any other "living coral or aneome"-spelling?-
I was worried that the clown would stress or kill the coral. He smooges all over and in it, but does not peck at or try to eat it that I have noticed. At first the coral would shrink up small in the areas he was rubbing but for the past day or so, it seems more comfortable with him playing around it. The clown has become over protective of the coral and will peck at my hand if I am cleaning the alge off the glass or near the coral. I was just worried that the coral would not do well, but it seems to be opening and doing well.... any comments or suggestions on this? I wanted another clown, but now don't think it is a good idea, because two clowns smooging all over coral may not work well....
I am also afraid to get an aneome because the tank is not huge and heard that the aneome can travel and may sting the coral. Thanks in advance for all of your help and also is there any special food or liquid I should be giving to the Goniopora to maintain it?
SI NYC Salty- Linda

 

[anadliv]

I have a green gonipora for about 5 months. I would think that the clown would bother it but maybe the coral will get use to it. From what I can tell mine doesnt like to be touched at all. I have read these corals are difficult to keep in the long run as it is anyways. ALso make sure you spot feed the coral a few times a week with like cyclopeeze. The coral relies alot on spot feeding not just lighting. Apparently if you spot feed it often the coral wil thrive. If you watch closely the small tentacles will capture food and move it to the center to their mouth, very interesting.

 

[si nyc salty]

Hmmm the pet store didn't mention this. I will take your advise and pick it up. Also I have been feeding the "guys" mixture of flakes- they hand feed- and the multi frozen pack of variety food. The coral appears to sleep at night, it closes up like a tight little golf ball- and during the day a variety of things happen.... the arms get really long and inner parts stay tight, or even the inner area appears to swell large...It does not seem to be annoyed by the clown, I hope the coral does well because I love the clown and once I have something in a tank I dont have the heart to get rid of it. Thanks for your advise.
I didnt mention earlier my "full set up"
29 Gallon Bio Cube
40 lbs of live sand
30ish lbs of live rock
Sailfin tang
Clown fish
3 Peppermint Shrimp- no more apstasia... hahahah
Lawnmower Blenny
Scooter Blenny
Spotted Snail
*new addition*
3-4" Goniopora Green Coral
Blue powder nose tang- that is a chicken butt and gettin scared of the sailfin bully.
I also started to get a thick dark red furry alge that is all over the sand. I started to add some Purple out meds last night.... It seems like everytime everything in the tank is happy, something goes weird and causes an off balance, causing more $$$$ to be spent.

 

[nycbob]

tangs in a 29 gallon is very bad. they wont live and survive in ur tank longterm. tangs need at least a 4-5 feet long tank to thrive. geniopora will get stressed out eventually and die bc of ur clownfish. i am sorry i sounded so pessimistic, but thats the truth. ur tank is way overcrowded. i read somewhere ur tank is only 2 months old? the red algae growth is caused by too much bioload when ur tank has not stablized yet. u r going way too fast.

 

[anadliv]

its normal for the gonipopora to close up at night. I have read they can take a couple weeks to act normal meaning it should have tencalces coming out . I hope not to valiate in board rules but go to this site www.goniopora.org they are not a competitor of saltwaterfish.com so i think its ok. This where i got all my info on that coral

 

[lexluethar]

Your clown will kill your goniopora if it doesn't get used to the agressive grooming/hosting. I too had a green flowerpot coral and my clown eventually killed it. I had my flowerpot coral for about three months and it was extremely healthy, opening up every day and looked great. Then i bought my clowns and one started hosting the coral, within about two months the coral had lost 95% of its polyps and was about dead.
I'm not saying this is what will happen to your coral, i'm just saying that is what happen to mine. It is possible the coral will get used to the hosting, but it is unlikely. This is why people don't like clowns hosting corals, because although corals don't require as prestine of water quality, they are more fragile to things like hosting/grooming. While anemones need that prestine water quality, they can withstand the hosting.
Good luck man.

 

[tangwhispr]

BAD BAD BAD, that that tank is WAY to small for a tang, also a goni hosting clowns is bad.

 

[si nyc salty]

Oh boy... reading all of your replys to my tank issues is great, yet scary. You know, it's sad that when you ask "professionals" for their guidance and it falls short, and you are the one to suffer in the end- as I am slowly learning. When I started to add all the extra little guys to the tank, I keep getting green lights... now I realize I have been blowing through the red lights! I hate to hurt any of the little guys, they seem to be doing ok for now... I just hate to get rid of any of them, as they are all so beautiful and we have become attached to all of them.
Yes the tank is in the run going on 3 months now....
I know its a little to late to ask now but, what would you recommend for a 29Gallon cube?
What kind of creatures?
Plant life?
Rock?
I wish we could have gone HUGE on the tank, however we are limited on space and now getting into all this - $. I can only imagine the cost of setting up a mini ocean in your home if my little set up was as pricey as it was.
Thanks all.. I will run with the future and see where we go

 

[perfectdark]

Not to add insult to injury here but your scooter blenny is most likley doomed too... sorry.
They dont do well in small systems either because of their diet. You cannot supply the pods needed for it to survive long term. Some eat frozen and do ok for a while some eat frozen and still die. Their diet consists of microfauna.

 

[lexluethar]

I'm not saying you have to return the flowerpot coral, or the clowns. But if you keep both in your tank with the clowns hosting the coral, it will die. As for what you can hold in the tank, Tangs need at least 55 gallons or more to move around. There are two reasons for this, first tangs are graizers and require a lot of rockwork to pick food off of. The second is swimming room, if you see them in the wild they swim A LOT, and keeping them in such a small confined space is torture. You can keep thi8ngs like golbies, clowns, damsels, etc in a tank like that because they usually stick to one small area and claim it as their territory.

 

[kerriann]

SI NYC, don't panic just yet - but definitely get the tangs out. talk to your local LFS and they should give you store credit. the other guys should be ok and you could probably look into getting another clown fish - JUST DON'T MIX BREEDS. if you have a perc, you could probably get another perc, assuming the first one is pretty young. that way when he loses his sailfin buddy he'll have a new buddy to play with. in the meantime, while your tank is establishing itself, load up on cleaners (hermits, crabs, etc)
i have a 24gal nano and i have 2 percs, a purple firefish goby(crazy little fish) a yellow clown goby and an orange diamond goby that sifts the sand. I have about 4 nassarius snails, a pin cushion urchin (although once he drops my zoas he's going to a NEW home), 2 emerald crabs, a pink sea cucumber, 8 hermits and i THINK i have 8-10 snails
in the future, ALWAYS read before buying. most LFS' will tell you what you want to hear b/c they need the sale. we've all made that mistake just take your time and don't rush! rushing leads to disaster and costs you a LOT more money in the long run

 

[anadliv]

ANother thing you could that that worked for me but may not work for everyone is just move the coral the clown is hosting to another place in the aquarium. I had a clown host a brain coral once and when i moved it, he had no interest.

 

[nycbob]

definitely return the 2 tangs.

 

[florida joe]

Hang in there as was said the tangs must go but live on these boards for a while and ask ask ask and don’t worry about the spelling I still say VZ bridge because I cant spell the name