Goniopora dying

[brycen17]

My goniopora that I’ve had for almost a year just started dying out of no where! I target feed reef roids once a week and cast feed my tank 3 times a week. All of my parameters are the same they’ve been for over a year and nothing new to the tank recently. Within the last couple days it’s started showing a skeleton (on the left)

 

[Lavey29]

What are your parameters?

 

[brycen17]

Salinity 1.025
Ph 8.3
Alk 9
Cal 420
Mag 1350
Phosphate 0.05
Nitrate 5

 

[brycen17]

What are your parameters?

 

[Lavey29]

Salinity 1.025
Ph 8.3
Alk 9
Cal 420
Mag 1350
Phosphate 0.05
Nitrate 5

Numbers are good and lighting has not changed? Have you dipped for pests? LPS can get bacterial infections also which I have treated with ciprofloaxin.

 

[Uncle99]

My goniopora that I’ve had for almost a year just started dying out of no where! I target feed reef roids once a week and cast feed my tank 3 times a week. All of my parameters are the same they’ve been for over a year and nothing new to the tank recently. Within the last couple days it’s started showing a skeleton (on the left)

Not uncommon for this coral.
can just “let go” for no apparent reason.
A bit like Helio-Fungia.

 

[vetteguy53081]

My goniopora that I’ve had for almost a year just started dying out of no where! I target feed reef roids once a week and cast feed my tank 3 times a week. All of my parameters are the same they’ve been for over a year and nothing new to the tank recently. Within the last couple days it’s started showing a skeleton (on the left)

Understand you are not alone. This is a coral that will challenge the most experienced hobbyist as it can be picky and even get upset from a water change. Goniopora is photosynthetic and gets some of its nutrition from light building zooxanthellae which live in the flesh of the coral which is usually brown in color and regulates the population living in its flesh. Too little light will cause this coral to brown out as in case of yours.
I would not recommend blasting this coral with a lot of light. If you start to see your Goni as in your pic starting to receed , its likely from light intensity being too high and same principle applies to too much flow. If you had a powerhead blowing right at this flowerpot from short range, it may have killed off some of the tissue which caused a domino effect to the rest of the coral piece.
Goni does best in low to medium flow, with some random flow as mentioned above. This will allow a waving motion which helps keep the coral clean and brings food past the colony. If you see its' tentacles thrashing around, there is probably too much flow and reocation to a more calm section of the tank would be best.
Lack of food is a big issue with these coral and there are two types of food you can give them . . . . . Amino acids are one as they play a major role in building proteins as well as other biological functions which corals regularly take in for growth and color. The second type of food is planktonic plankton such as reef chili and reef roids.
The general consensus is to keep Phosphate levels around .05 ppm and Nitrate levels between 10-20 ppm for these guys. This is a safe range for these coral and others especially in a mixed reef.

 

[brycen17]

Numbers are good and lighting has not changed? Have you dipped for pests? LPS can get bacterial infections also which I have treated with ciprofloaxin.

I haven’t dipped it since I got it but it has been doing really good latley.

 

[brycen17]

Understand you are not alone. This is a coral that will challenge the most experienced hobbyist as it can be picky and even get upset from a water change. Goniopora is photosynthetic and gets some of its nutrition from light building zooxanthellae which live in the flesh of the coral which is usually brown in color and regulates the population living in its flesh. Too little light will cause this coral to brown out as in case of yours.
I would not recommend blasting this coral with a lot of light. If you start to see your Goni as in your pic starting to receed , its likely from light intensity being too high and same principle applies to too much flow. If you had a powerhead blowing right at this flowerpot from short range, it may have killed off some of the tissue which caused a domino effect to the rest of the coral piece.
Goni does best in low to medium flow, with some random flow as mentioned above. This will allow a waving motion which helps keep the coral clean and brings food past the colony. If you see its' tentacles thrashing around, there is probably too much flow and reocation to a more calm section of the tank would be best.
Lack of food is a big issue with these coral and there are two types of food you can give them . . . . . Amino acids are one as they play a major role in building proteins as well as other biological functions which corals regularly take in for growth and color. The second type of food is planktonic plankton such as reef chili and reef roids.
The general consensus is to keep Phosphate levels around .05 ppm and Nitrate levels between 10-20 ppm for these guys. This is a safe range for these coral and others especially in a mixed reef.

I haven’t changed my lighting in 6+ months

 

[Coinzmans Reef]

I have treated my two Gonis with H2O2 many times with great success from algae and brown jelly. (3 min dip 3 parts H2o2 7 parts tank water light indirect basting) After two years both are battling what seems to be a bacterial infection (brown jelly) and I also am loosing the battle. I have cut one into a frag with the healthiest flesh and discarded the rest, now its wait and see.
I am not willing to treat entire tank with Antibiotics.
I had beaten the jelly back one other time with H2O2 straight from the bottle poured into dead area and made a 1/4" bead with coral glue, half on live tissue and half covering the dead side, that Goni went a year with no issue until now.
With the cutting and H2O2 treatment I can not see any brown jelly but both are still retracted to the core for a month now. I even moved both to my other tank just for S. and Giggles, no change. (both tanks are almost identical in parameters) and yes parameters are solid Apex and ICP tested on both.
Strange thing I have a third Goni in the tank for six months and he is not effected at all.

 

[vetteguy53081]

I haven’t changed my lighting in 6+ months

Good. Gave you some possibilities

 

[mdb_talon]

I find phyto dosing makes a huge difference in health and growth of my goni/alve

 

[Eienna]

Check your manganese levels. According to my reading, it's a very important trace for them. Is Reef Roids a powdered food? They can only eat tiny particles.

 

[wellen2002]

Fuel

 

[jat148]

Understand you are not alone. This is a coral that will challenge the most experienced hobbyist as it can be picky and even get upset from a water change. Goniopora is photosynthetic and gets some of its nutrition from light building zooxanthellae which live in the flesh of the coral which is usually brown in color and regulates the population living in its flesh. Too little light will cause this coral to brown out as in case of yours.
I would not recommend blasting this coral with a lot of light. If you start to see your Goni as in your pic starting to receed , its likely from light intensity being too high and same principle applies to too much flow. If you had a powerhead blowing right at this flowerpot from short range, it may have killed off some of the tissue which caused a domino effect to the rest of the coral piece.
Goni does best in low to medium flow, with some random flow as mentioned above. This will allow a waving motion which helps keep the coral clean and brings food past the colony. If you see its' tentacles thrashing around, there is probably too much flow and reocation to a more calm section of the tank would be best.
Lack of food is a big issue with these coral and there are two types of food you can give them . . . . . Amino acids are one as they play a major role in building proteins as well as other biological functions which corals regularly take in for growth and color. The second type of food is planktonic plankton such as reef chili and reef roids.
The general consensus is to keep Phosphate levels around .05 ppm and Nitrate levels between 10-20 ppm for these guys. This is a safe range for these coral and others especially in a mixed reef.

I'd agree fully on the position of this coral. Mine was really happy looking at first, and then began to recede.
The flow that it was experiencing was just too fast, and it was getting tossed around too much.
Once I'd moved it to a more sheltered position (also slightly lower down with less light) it came back within a couple of days. It's doing really well now.
The postioning of new coral is usually something I do based on how I like the look of it. I'm going to try to only place them where they most like the conditions from now on - even if that doesn mean some extra moving around in the short term.

 

[vetteguy53081]

I'd agree fully on the position of this coral. Mine was really happy looking at first, and then began to recede.
The flow that it was experiencing was just too fast, and it was getting tossed around too much.
Once I'd moved it to a more sheltered position (also slightly lower down with less light) it came back within a couple of days. It's doing really well now.
The postioning of new coral is usually something I do based on how I like the look of it. I'm going to try to only place them where they most like the conditions from now on - even if that doesn mean some extra moving around in the short term.

Great to hear