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tattooedlife
Guest
I bought a very healthy looking Gorgonian yesterday. But its not opened up since then. Is this normal? Do I need to move the coral? (Its on the bottom of the tank, sitting on my substrate.)
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tattooedlife
Guest
I have a 55 with CPR Bak Pak II, Skilter 250(used as power filter only), 4 power heads, and 2 50/50 40 watts, 1 actinic 40 watt, 1 full spectrum 40 watt. Water condition, every thing is in check. He started to open up today when I turned on my actinic and full spectrum. Then when I turned on my 50/50s He closed back up. This can't be too much light. My lighting is week compared to the pc and halides. Any ideas or suggestions?
clayton
Member
Most Gorgonians (I am presuming you are refering to Sea Fans)are deep water corals that are somewhere between the true reef building corals (hard corals) and the soft corals. Because they are deep water animals they need a lot of light only in the blue range of the spectrum (possibly more than you have). I have seen many of these sea fans when diving. I dont recall seeing any shallower than 15m and they seemed to be growing in areas that had strong current running through their branches. These are notoriously dificult to keep as their natural conditions are very difficult to replicate in the aquarium. I tried keeping a completely intact small specimen many years ago - it died. I have been keeping fish for 20 years and am I marine biologist. Sorry, I would not recomend gorgonians to anyone but the most expert of invert keepers.
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tattooedlife
Guest
I've never heard of a Gorgonian being a sea fan. A gorgonian is more of a rock shaped coral covered with flesh with hundreds-thousands of star polyps popping out when fully opened.
clayton
Member
Gorgonians come in many different forms, one of which is the fan-like morphology of Gorgonia Ventalina and Gorgonia Flabellum (the most commonly available Sea Fan in the U.K). I have never seen any 'rock shaped' Gorgonians (See AIMS classification for coral shapes) are you sure it's not a Zooanthid? Gorgonians do come in many forms from the Fans to the Whips to finger-like growths. Gorgonians are not true hard corals, although they do contain some calcium they do not utilise it in the same manner as true reef building corals. They have calcareous spicules that are used to give the animal some rigidity. The different shaped spicules are used to classify each animal (same as the sponges). I also believe that a gorgonian, although made up of many polyps is a single organism, the nutrition obtained from one of the polyps is shared throughout them all. Check the web pages for more information on different forms, I have also seen a site that deals with attempts to propogate.
kass
Member
What color is this gorgonian? I never heard of a rock shaped one either. I've kept the purple branching ones for yrs. They seem to like the light but the red or yellow are harder to keep and from deeper water. They need to be fed alot and don't do well. If you get 1 the purples do better and you should make sure they have a good base on them preferably attached to a rock. They also like good water flow.