Golfball Coral Closed?!

[flanque]

Hi,

My golfball coral has been going downhill for about a month now. I am not sure what is wrong. My levels are:

Amonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 0
pH: 8.3
Temp: 29C
KH: 180
CA: 330

I think I might have a phosphate problem as I am getting this purple algae on my sand, but I have put in phosphate pads to absorb that (about a week ago).

I have good water flow, two anenomes and another coral which are all doing fine.

I have two lights (35W each), one blue, one white.

I have attached a picture. Anyone got any ideas?

 

[reefrunner69]

Search this forum for posts regarding gonipora, you'll find they have a dismal survival rate and your problem with them is pretty common before they die.

 

[flanque]

Okay I measured my phosphates today and they are at 0.25 which is "ideal" according to the test kit.

Either way, what's the deal with these corals? It has been going great for about 5 months, then started to close. I then got whitespot and the darn thing came out like it was back to normal. The whitespot is gone and now the darn thing is closing over again.

It's really disapointing as it's such a fantastic looking coral. What about this iron and magnesium theory? Is there any substance to this? I don't add any trace element supliments but do water changes about once a month to keep the trace elements up. Besides I have read that adding these do nothing as they do not disolve in the water and can potentially poison the water. This was from www.marineland.com by the scientist on there.

Anyways back to my problem. What can I do??

 

[CBRGuy]

Gonipora usually live for about 6 months then they die. There is a guy in my reef club that has had one for years and it drops off babies all of the time. It was even the sole survivor of at tank crash... but that is very unusually for a gonipora.

There are a lot of theories about what they are missing, but none of the prove to be true. If you want something that look like gonipora, but lives much longer checkout a avalepora.

 

[flanque]

Go any pictures for that? Google doesn't know about it..

 

[reefrunner69]

Try alveopora

spelling counts with google, it should be noted though, alveopora is considered easier than gonis, but they still have a tendency to suffer the same fate and should be considered a coral for the advanced reefer.

 

[flanque]

Yeah but hold on, check my gallery. Isn't the Golf Ball coral there what you are suggesting to get? The images on google seem very similar.

In fact that golf ball in my gallery is the same as the one above.....

?

 

[reefrunner69]

The picture you posted is gonipora

The only way to tell the difference between the two is to count the tentacles on the polyps (which was why it was suggested). Gonis have 24 tentacles and alveopora have 12

 

[flanque]

Can you recommend some more intermediate corals? I have found frogspawn to thrive in my aquarium for instance.