what you describe is going on at this point aswell. I recall hearing the former director of the wikiki aquarium in HI talk about him and Charles Dibeck working on trying to figure out how to keep Dendronephthya. He talked about how they had set up several experiments with different flow patterns and differnt flow intensities and differnt feeding levels, etc and still where unsuccessful in finding the correct combonation of elements to keep them in captive care. Im sure the same is being done or has in the past been done on goniopora.
Shoot some people have clamed to be able to keep it alive for years in captive care yet others following the exact same care procedures fail mersiably.