Please tell me more about this pink goniopora

[KyleAwesome]

I picked up this bright pink goniopora over the weekend at a local swap and I'm hoping someone can help me identify it. I've heard these are fairly difficult to keep going long term, I'd like to get as granular as possible to try and make it work.

 

Its color is fairly consistent bright pink with no discernable difference between tentacles and mouth. The base flesh is a pastel purple color. The polyps extend 1/2 inch to about an inch, they dont seem to be as long as some of goni species I've been reading about.

 

Thanks

 

[Mikeymikemike]

you should feed it goni power or reef roids. turn off your pumps and spray it in the direction of flow to cast over the coral. It will stretch out when happy

[Elizabeth94]

I certainly wouldnt be able to trace where it came from based on looks. However, I do believe that yours probably has short polyps because of its location. The one I had in my old tank was placed in random low- medium indirect flow, and medium light. It was always fully extended. Well, atleast until my frogspawn got to it.

 

Maybe it needs more light or less flow?

[metrokat]

I have 2 gonioporas. One looks like yours, probably has more blue on the mouth so I was told it has an ORA lineage. The other is a short tentacle uncommon orange goniopora. I was expecting to kill both but the red one like yours has grown from a 1 inch frag to a bigger than golf ball sized coral. The orange one is holding steady.

[KyleAwesome]

Thanks everyone. The seller informed me the parent colony came from Tonga. I've moved him around a few times and he's seeming to like the latest spot the most (more indirect flow.) I've had almost all polyps extended for the duration of the daylight hours since I placed him on saturday, however he does close up at night.

 

I have reef roids and have tried spot feeding with the pumps turned off, it appeared to elicit a feeding response, I have two false percs and feed them frozen/thawed mega-marine and the "broth" also seems to generate a response but I'm not able to tell if its actually feeding.

 

Right now I'm thinking its probably

 

Goniopora palmensis

Goniopora eclipsensis

possibly

Goniopora pandoraensis

 

however the corallites dont really match up with what I've seen of palmensis

[KyleAwesome]

After doing some more research, I'm 90% sure its Goniopora palmensis I have gotten what I believe to be a successful feeding response to reef roids.

 

Now can anyone tell me if these are encrusting or able to build skeleton? I was intending to keep it on the sandbed, now I'm not so sure where I should place it.