Tell me about gorgonian coral
 

Have recently become a fan of these corals and would like to know a bit more about them. Are they easy to care for and what kind of system do they need? Any feedback appreciated.
Thx

My rusty gorgonian seems to be doing well with medium high flow. I have had it for 3+ years and has been growing well.

I had a purple brush at one time and they seemed to be a lot more high maintenance and picking about flow/water quality. I like easy stuff :)

All of my photosynthetic gorgonians are doing well in fairly low flow and low light. I think they are easy to keep and will adapt to a variety of conditions.

Tell me about gorgonian coral
 

I've been thinking about getting one too.....
From what I've read I don't hear much long term success with them. Although seems as though some ppl here (above) are having success keeping them.... Would like to hear from more ppl!
Are you looking for a NPS type?


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In general, photosynthetic gorgs are the only ones that are reasonably easy to keep. Good flow, good light & they're happy. They are mostly tan or yellowish in colour though.

The more colourful gorgs like blueberry and the really nice red or purple ones are non-photosynthetic and need to get some sort of coral food. A lot more maintenance & time and much lower success cause you almost have to pollute your tank and overfeed in order to keep some of them happy.

I've had some of my photosynthetic gorgs for a year or three and some I got from my buddy Daniel that he had for a number of years too.

Mostly tans and yellowish photo. gorgs though.

Anthony

gorgs
 

i have a number of them.blue,purple,light blue,yellow,yellow and purple,,blue and green corkscrew.they need a good flow over them so algae doesn't accumulate on them.i also feed rotifers,live arminia and phytoplankton

I LOVE gorgs and I have kept a few of them before calpura took over my tank and killed everything. I was never truly successful until I found in one place that lighting for gorgs had to be high like SPS lighting. Well I increased the lighting over my 28 gal from 2 36" 2x39watt T5HO to 4x39watt T5HO and they did so much better I mean WOW what a change.
High flow so they can shed when need be and feed them a nice dusty food like coral frenzy and reef roids. :)

RSM-seeing yours got me thinking about them again, and with radions too! Plus seeing them in a seahorse tank, they are simply awesome. Ive never been successful with sps, but I think going with the non photosynthetic ones would be ok.

Thanks for the replies!

IME/IMO nonphotosynthetic gorgs are far more difficult to keep alive than photosynthetic ones. Most of the time they wither and eventually disappear.

Generally speaking feeding them just once or twice a day is not sufficient for long-term success because they really need to feed continuously. The most successful setups I have seen that did well with these involved a drip type autofeeder that is on 24/7. If you're really into gearing out then it can be a fun project but if what you're after is an easy coral you don't need to worry about then what you really want to focus on are the photosynthetic gorgs. Light and flow and a good solid base (glue them to a heavy rock) and really they'll just take care of the rest.

The other problem with feeding the non-PS ones is nutrient control/management.

The best way to tell the two apart is the colour of the polyps. Zooxanthellae is typically brown; so if the polyps are brown the coral is very likely photosynthetic. Brightly coloured polyps, or pure white polyps, are those without zooxanthellae will require feeding and what they feed on will vary from species to species (and is generally related to the size of food they're after).