Sea Fans & Gorgonians

[Reefyone]

Continue: swiftia and blue gorgonians.
Swiftia at arrival, Jun30_07, from the tank with dinoflagellates, red cyano and acoel worms (I know, I know...):

Fragged on arrival, easier, then finger gorgonians - they have skin, like potatoes, and these (swiftia and blue gorgonians) - thin an easily stripping, just like described in tutorials for photosynthetic gorgonians.


Had something like rapid tissue necrosis (could be as well aspergillosis or immune response on contact with other species, characteristic for swiftia), tissue loss more than half of inch/day. Carbon didn't helped.


Removed affected parts and attached to them, to be on the safe side,

disinfected - but it was national holiday, and all I had in the house - fresh water and permanganate (5% KMnO4, SweapClean by Wardley). Diluted permanganate to usual dark pink concentration (like for humans, BTW, treat these gorgonians as having the infant skin), local application, worked better, than 30 sec FW dip - swiftia reacts bad, discoloration to yellow for a long time.
Necrosis continued, but at slower rate. Treated tank with Melafix and Primafix (caution! remove clams, snails and lemnalia, or , better, have a quarantine tank - I was lucky before that, and wanted these gorgonians to benefit from established filter feeders system), who died - died, the rest improved, healed

and started to drop babies from the bottom:

[Reefyone]

same frag, as above with necrosis and healing:

other frags:

Seems, that this is a usual way of asexual self-propagation.

The good thing is that the tissue is able to regrow, and fast (at least for a Swiftia koffoidi), and intensity of the color in this coral is incredible - it like fluorescences in the tank (not a good shot, counter-light):

Now the main problems - finding space for them, keeping food suspended for a long time (without basting), filtration (now with skimmer, and they are too loud for a living room, impossible to concentrate).

Later with blue non-photosynthetic gorgonians, basically all the same.

As always, would like to see your tips and tricks, including bumps, illustrated.

[Reefyone]

how old are they now ? how long you had them ?

Swifia? 2 months only - since June 30, 07.
Red finger gorgonian in the old post - little more, than year, siphonogorgia #1 - 6 months, other two red fingers - new too, 2 months, June 16.

Note, that I didn't claim anything - nor long-term success, not teaching others how to do that. I'm half-dead from attacks on the other forums on any non-photosynthetic corals keeping posts, by people, who do nothing to solve the problem, but always ready to silence the others by glittering generalities and assumed position of authority. Here the thread so far is free from this, and I just posted, what worked for me, long or short term, expecting others to do the same, so I can learn something useful too.

If anybody knows the active thread on the web, other than New Deondronephthya study group, where the questions are answered and experience is shared, without excluding nano-reef keepers - post the link or full name of the thread, please. Really need this help. So far I'm posting the same information on different forums, with not much of the other peoples sharing their experience down to the nuts and bolts.

Sorry for general tonality of the post, still looking for a constructive place.

[ChilisREasy]

there is no constructive place anywhere, belive me, i finally got my LFS guy into a little bit of filter feeding keeping, but it took years ill never accuse you of being cruel to corals, cause were trying to save the species, NOT kill them. . keep on posting any new findings that are in ways different from other peoples,. I really appreciate it, others do too, they just dont show there selfs, i have over 2,000 views on my chili coral thread here alone so theres interest somewhere good luck, any new feeding methods you can think of is another new way for the hobby !

[tims]

Originally Posted by Reefyone

Note, that I didn't claim anything - nor long-term success, not teaching others how to do that. I'm half-dead from attacks on the other forums on any non-photosynthetic corals keeping posts, by people, who do nothing to solve the problem, but always ready to silence the others by glittering generalities and assumed position of authority. Here the thread so far is free from this, and I just posted, what worked for me, long or short term, expecting others to do the same, so I can learn something useful too.

If anybody knows the active thread on the web, other than New Deondronephthya study group, where the questions are answered and experience is shared, without excluding nano-reef keepers - post the link or full name of the thread, please. Really need this help. So far I'm posting the same information on different forums, with not much of the other peoples sharing their experience down to the nuts and bolts.

Sorry for general tonality of the post, still looking for a constructive place.

make this a constructive place. the thread so far is for of great knowledge on corals that are a lot more care then most are willing to do.
i watch over this thread closely..

Originally Posted by ChilisREasy

there is no constructive place anywhere, belive me, i finally got my LFS guy into a little bit of filter feeding keeping, but it took years ill never accuse you of being cruel to corals, cause were trying to save the species, NOT kill them. . keep on posting any new findings that are in ways different from other peoples,. I really appreciate it, others do too, they just dont show there selfs, i have over 2,000 views on my chili coral thread here alone so theres interest somewhere good luck, any new feeding methods you can think of is another new way for the hobby !

your thread and this thread are in an area that is in the gray area ( if you will )

[Reefyone]

Most kind of you both, thanks!
If anybody else have information to share - post, please, I'm really interested.

[tims]

since this is a learning thread ( are not all)
how do you mount your frags of the fans and gorgs.?

[Fly Guy]

Originally Posted by tims

since this is a learning thread ( are not all)
how do you mount your frags of the fans and gorgs.?

Drill a hole in a rock and fill it with glue, take a razor blade and cut the meat off the stalk and stick it in the glue

[Reefyone]

Almost the same, cut the piece off (all mine were exposed to air during this ), remove the skin to make the central rod, or the darker part inside red or yellow finger gorgonians, I'm using new utility knife blade.

Drilling the rock may be the best way, because using shells for mounting - with epoxy putty mound or just supergluing the end - was not so good, shell is lightweight and multibranched frag "sails" in the flow. OK for single branch. Dr.Ron in his blog used drilled acrylic cubes.

Ended by using the drop of gel super glue (any is good, from dollar or hardware store), one on exposed center rod of the frag, second - on the shell, place frag onto shell, hold vertically until glues solidifies.
Be gentle when holding the thin skinned species, swiftia and blueberry, you may use the second hand to drip aquarium water onto the frag. Finger gorgonianas will be fine without these precautions.

Tried to use the piece of epoxy putty, attached to shell, for the big frags - to give them vertical support - make a hole and let the putty start to cure (frag during this time is in water), then insert the frag, and add a drop of superglue in the hole to hold better.

Be careful, when siphoning around frags - the they snap easily, breaking the rod (small red finger, mounted in epoxy putty) or just disconnect from the glue dot (swiftia and blueberry). Somehow no problems with the gorgonian with very fine blue polyps - thick ventral rod?
Swiftia:

Place of handling was yellow for a while, then restored normal appearance.

Blueberry:

The last photo - just for polyps comparison, side by side.

Finger gorgonians, glued both - red and yellow, have a thick skin, and were unseparable from the center, which is not a hard rod, but slightly darker and slightly harder tissue, fused with the skin. I would compare with peeling the potato - watch, what you are cutting, almost no difference.
Big photos on different image host, sorry:

Will continue, imgs limit.

[Reefyone]

2 days later:


Yellow diodogorgia, bought cheap as unmounted, this time made a hole in the soft Fiji rock by the knife:


The last shot - week later in the tank with others.

[Reefyone]

The last one, thin, rarely branched non-photosynthetic gorgonian with the fine, intense blue polyps, possibly Guaiagorgia. The names Guaiagorgia and Acalycigorgia are used interchangeable on the web for both - this and the blueberry gorgonian.

Why frag at all:
Bought damages for a reduced price, as any other of my gorgonians, except red fingers, only the end of one branch had opening polyps. And - from the same tank as swiftia - with dinoflagellates and acoel worms, it was covered by red slime.
Here are the first two days, without fragging, no progress. As I said, only this branch looks alive:

No changes.
Fragged to save what was left (unfragged blueberry did the worst, couldn't risk).
In process: the branches were stripped by dollar store fine scissors, just like thin wire, and glued to the heavy shell this time, close to each other - not much space is left in the tank and move the whole group is easier, than a myriad of the small frags, moved all day long by snails. This gorgonian was most gratifying from all of them: thick sturdy central rod:

easily removable and not so sensitive to handling skin, if starts to open - always open, even when was beaten by the food and debris, with any drastic water parameters changes, that caused the most of the swiftia and blueberris to close. Only water it during gluing - it dries fast.

Stripped branches are ready to glue:

Result and closeup:

And I rubbed slightly the branches before fragging to remove that I thought was red cyano - it was like thin dried crust.
Next day more polyps were open, maintrunk is still looking dead:

Two weeks later, even the main trunk started to show polyps:

The same picture is two months later, only with bryopsis on one branch - this is well lit tank, will move to another, dark tank soon.

And, you know, that it requires the frequent feeding by the very small food, that will fit the mouthes.

Summary: the only one of damaged gorgonians wasn't fragged soon - the blueberry, and was placed in secluded place, it declined within days, had another kind of what looked like the rapid tissue necrosis, but different from what swiftia had. Were treated together.

This last gorgonian looks not so bright and good looking, as swiftia. Any other really good looking non-photosynthetic gorgonians, that you know (photos will be appreciated)?

[ChilisREasy]

sorry, i have been unable to aquire my gorgs yet, ( i dont know when he's gonna be ready to sell them to me )

very nice blue ones, 2 months aint bad, how much growth ? have you measured ?

[Reefyone]

No noticeable growth, only started to open more polyps after fragging

[Sndwave80]

Great pics!