Hey NPS Keepers!
- Thread starter dyno
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dyno
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Gorgonians are interesting in the fact that some days they don’t come out. For example mine don’t like water changes or me taking a turkey baster to the sand. Sometimes they shed a bunch of slime coating and the polyps hide during that too. But in short, no they should come out to feed most days. Use oyster feast, other powder coral foods, liquid coral foods, to convince the polyps to come out. Check out my pictures above. Heres a big part my luck other than foods: use a pipet or baster to shoot high pressure water at the gorgs on each “arm” to get rid of detritus and algae growing on them. This detritus and algae prevents them from opening and doing well!
OP
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dyno
Active Member
Beautiful gorgonian! It is amazing how much flow gorgonians need! Try other low phosphate foods than reef roids. Benepets and oysterfeast. I have to do weekly water changes.
I have NPS Gorgonians. I have yellow and red ones. They aren't directly under my lights. They are kinda off to the right a little but they love flow. They also will eat reef roids whenever broadcast into the tank. Feeding them actually raised my nitrates too much. I have cut back feeding them some. I feel like flow and feeding is important for my NPS. High lighting or less lighting hasn't seemed to bother them. They used to be on frag racks near the light and did fine then too. It's just the flow that's important.
CrimsonTide
Valuable Member
Thanks! The flow seems super important. I dont think mine would come out if they weren't in high flow. I was thinking of trying benepets benereef. I might look into oysterfeast too. I like feeding them but don't want to do more than a weekly or bi weekly water change. I had to do two 75% changes last week to get everything back in order. Only the gorgonians and the mushrooms were happy with that high of nitrates.
m0nkie
Active Member
Here's my sun coral and dendros. I have them in the shaded part of an arc. I broad feed the tank and they open all the time. Sun coral more than dendro. I feed mostly live food for them so no need to worry about fouling the water. starting to see new polyps of sun coral popping out
SauceyReef
Valuable Member
Lovely! For those of you with healthy Gorgs - do they always stay open? Or just small portions each day and that is when you take photos?
m0nkie
Active Member
I think alot depends on the food source in your tank. When I'm home and i feed 4-5 times frozen food, 2 times live phyto, 2 times live rotifier and several times live bacteria, i can keep the gorg, spider sponge and sun corals open all day.
When i only feed in morning and night, i tend to see the polyp extension 10min after feeding for an hour or two.
When i only feed in morning and night, i tend to see the polyp extension 10min after feeding for an hour or two.
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SauceyReef
Valuable Member
Wow that is a lot of feeding! No wonder they stay open that much. Mine are lucky to get spot fed once every day or two, but live phyto is being broadcasted every day.
OP
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dyno
Active Member
Awesome! Do you hatch live brine shrimp?Here's my sun coral and dendros. I have them in the shaded part of an arc. I broad feed the tank and they open all the time. Sun coral more than dendro. I feed mostly live food for them so no need to worry about fouling the water. starting to see new polyps of sun coral popping out
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dyno
Active Member
They stay open when happy. But it takes time for them to be happy. Moody lil bugers
SauceyReef
Valuable Member
Mine hve been in the tank for about a week now and barely opened. I would be worried but it took my normal photosynthetic gorg like a month to start opening everyday.
SauceyReef
Valuable Member
A few polyps open this morning on both the red and orange! I wonder if they’re opening up fully at night and I’m just missing it.
CrimsonTide
Valuable Member
First off they love love love flow. They will open and close throughout the day. I feed mine when they are open on feeding days. If something touches them they will definitely close. I would say mine are open about 70% of the time just depends on if an emerald crab is using them as a jungle gym or not.
CrimsonTide
Valuable Member
They look fine. They should open as long as they have flow. I have both the ones you do mine are just about 7inches tall.A few polyps open this morning on both the red and orange! I wonder if they’re opening up fully at night and I’m just missing it.
SauceyReef
Valuable Member
Lovely! Good to know. Hopefully mine start to look like yours soon. I have a good amount of flow in my tank and they are out in the open, so I think they are in a good spot.
CrimsonTide
Valuable Member
Yeah I have the yellow and the red ones. I saw an orange the other day I might try to aquire. If I see mine not extended today I'll try to take a pic. Obviously people want to take pics when they are open but they do close. I find that when they close they will slowly start to open one or two polyps at a time like yours is in the pic. I have other gorgs and they aren't really anything like the NPS ones. The other gorgs don't seem to retract during the day at all bc they are photosynthetic. I had a small piece of yellow probably the size of yours and it took a little while to adjust. I dint think a week maybe two days but every tank is different. They also seem to like nitrates. At least in my tank. I dont run a super low nitrate system. Not sure what yours are at.
SauceyReef
Valuable Member
I run high nutrients also. 10ppm NO3 .30ppm PO4. They got fragged right before I bought them from my local reefer friend and they didn't like his tank a ton from what I saw (most were closed when I picked them up), so I am hoping they are just taking some time. He runs lower nutrients so that makes sense.
CrimsonTide
Valuable Member
This is for you to see some is open and the other is closed my lights are off I just turned the room lights on to show you.
Theres maybe 3 polyps open on the back side on the big red one. The like 3 and a half inch yellow has all of its polyps extended.
m0nkie
Active Member
I have the BRS bbs hatch. But i just do it for fun. My tank is 600gal and i cant hatch enough.
I feed:
Reef Legend 11 phyto blend
Reef Legend live rotifier
PNS ProBio
PNS YellowSno
Benereef
Mega Amino
SauceyReef
Valuable Member
Benereef is Benepets, right? That is good for NPS livestock?
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