flower pot [branch]

[blackstrips85]

i have two kinds of flower pot corals i have the branh one and i have a small super lime green regular flower pot oky the problem is that it the polyps open but they do not extend when i bought them they were extend and and waving in the water flow but now in my tank the dont . they have been like that for a while . they are in good flow and in good lighting. does any one have an idea what is going on.

[C.Mydas]

flower pots are one of the hardest corals to keep alive in captivity..they are probably just withering away. the branching one might be an alevepora and the ball is goniopora (my spelling is probably wrong...lol...but Im too lazy to google it right now). Put them next to each other, in the wild they tend to be found in groups..that might help. Sorry to hear they aren't doing well, but dont take it personally, they are just hard keeps.

[alton]

According to Richard at CB pets he has been able to keep his alive by using the Coral Stimulator product that they sell. I would never try again, I had one for about six monthes before it crashed and almost crashed my 29 six or seven years ago.

[GaryP]

Make sure they are well fed. That may help. Target feeding them with something like Cyclopeeze may help out. These gys are sort of hit or miss. My theory is that it depends on where they come from. Some of the old resources say they are easy to care for. I think that may have been because they were from a different source back then. As the shallow water specimens were all collected, they started collecting them from another reef, or from deeper waters. I know we have a couple of members that have had success in keeping them alive, but unfortunately that seems to be pretty rare. I have been told the Alveopora is easier then the Gonipora, but I personally don't have any experience with either to back that up. I have always stayed away from these corals. They are definitely gorgeous, and many folks that do not know the whle story are lured into purchasing them.

I have been told by a couple of LFS owners that they never order them, but they get thrown in as a "bonus" coral in shipments from wholesalers. Apparently the wholesalers have a hard time getting rid of them too and use this tactic to get them out of their tanks before they die. The only real solution is to do something about the collection of these corals on the local level. Why that has not happened is beyond me, except that there has been no feedback to the collectors from the wholesalers.

[blueboy]

i believe the alveopora has 12 "petals", and the goni has 24, or is it the other way around? anyways that's how you can tell the diff

[GaryP]

Here is a good article on both.

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/dec2002/invert.htm

[blackstrips85]

oky hey are some pic of them

[blackstrips85]

i cant up load the other 2 pics i always have a hard time up loading pics

[blackstrips85]

but both are in the pic the branch flower pot is in the forground and the half ball floer pot is in the background

[weizer896]

Brian put his in our fuge for a while under pc lights. After about a week, it was looking better so he put it back in the main tank,but kinda tucked away so the light wasn't boring down on it and it is doing good. Just a suggestion.

[Ram_Puppy]

there was a couple on a reefcentral a while back drawing serious fire because they were talking about how successful their goni's were doing.

let me see if I can find the link... (probably not because the reefcentral search SUCKS.)

[Ram_Puppy]

nope... as I feared, reef centrals famous 'search is disabled' page... I hate that.

Anyhow, they had awesmoe water quality and were feeding some product that was like a mix of DT's and cyclopzeeze, and had incredible polyp extension.

[brewercm]

Hey, what's wrong with a Goni? JK, but I've had my purple one that's in my tank now for about 10 months and the guy I got it from "said" he had it for about a year before I picked it up from him when he moved.

Here's a link to it with the clowns in it, the smaller of the two clowns has since died.
http://www.maast.org/modules.php?set_albumName=brewercm&id=Flower_Pot_C lown&op=modload&name=gallery&file=index&include=vi ew_photo.php

[Richard]

I have 2 goniopora. One will grab small particulate food and one does not (just gets organics from the water column I believe). I think one of the keys to keeping them is to provide plenty of organics/food to them yet still keep water quality high. This is where coral stim seems to help out, although you could achieve the same without using coral stimulator. I don't remember where I read it but somewhere I read that goniopora are one of the species that tend to dominate reefs in areas close to sewage discharge due to the increased levels of organics in the water.

That is an alveopora in the pic. Usually much hardier than goniopora but the care is similar. The article below, the guy is seeing good results from feeding them DT's oyster eggs. I have never seen alveopora take items as large as cyclopeeze/daphnia/baby brine etc.

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-10/nftt/index.php

[brewercm]

Ahhhh, this guy will wrap up around just about anything that touches them to eat. Maybe that's why it's doing so good, it's the good one to have.

[brewercm]

I read that goniopora are one of the species that tend to dominate reefs in areas close to sewage discharge due to the increased levels of organics in the water.

All along I thought this was the case above when it was really just a lacking of math skills. Just call me Rainman.

[Richard]

blackstrips85 - The alveopora in your pics does not look at all happy to me. When we have "happy" alveopora at the store they will extend at least 4-6 inches. Even small ones. Also, is that the super lime green flowerpot behind it in the pic? I could be wrong but that color usually indicates a bleached coral.

[Pacman]

I had heard that alveopora was easier to keep than gonipora too, but I still think they are very difficult corals. I was able to get a small alveopora frag about 5 months ago, and unfortunately it seems to have bleached since getting it. Surprisingly, it still inflates very nicely and has at least doubled in base size and number of polyps in that 5 months.

Anyway, yours still seems to have a good amount of color so although it may not be extremely happy, at least it hasn't bleached and there may be some time to find a good spot in the aquarium for it, and find some sort of food it will eat.