Gorgonian troubleshooting

[sublunary]

My spiny orange gorg is losing flesh alarmingly quickly.  

 

I got it early last week, short 3 day QT because nothing from the shipment was opening up and I got nervous.  Moved everything to DT and it opened up beautifully. 

 

Tuesday morning it started to lose flesh. 

 

Did a quick iodine dip and directed some flow away from it, since that was all I had time for before work.

 

This morning it's only gotten worse.

 

Temp 76 at night to 78 during the day.

Salinity 1.026 before top off

dKh 8 

Ammonia badge says safe

Haven't been home long enough to test anything else. 

 

Hermits climb on it, but haven't caught any picking at it. No other critters seem to go near it.  All of the other gorgs and corals look great.

 

 Tonight I will have time to mess around in the tank. I plan to dip again and move it to an even lower flow area.   Do WC.  

 

What else should I try/test for? Any theories on what causes this or how to slow it down?

 

Thanks in advance.

[Clown79]

They need feeding, need decent flow.

 

The dead parts need cutting off to save the rest.

[sublunary]

Thank. I'll kick up my feeding schedule and keep trying to find flow it likes. I was debating trimming, will follow through with that.

[jambon]

What depths do these come from in the ocean? Does it require higher or lower light situations? Is it photosynthetic? I have not had much luck with gorgonians... mine tended to catch any algae filaments which caused enough irritation  to make a dead spot. Some of the non photo types don't do well because of the ammount of food they need would foul the tank. Check out some videos of coral reefs close up stuff and note the ammout of plankton floating around that qould be 24/7 and that is what they eat as it flows past. l M O a lot of the things we see in the lfs should be left in the ocean.

  That being said I would consider taking a frag of one arm and put it in a different location and compare the reaction of the two.

[Cintax]

I have had photosynthetic gorgonians for years. I find once they start loosing flesh there is no recovery for that part. I'd trim the dead parts off. I don't usually feed mine much but they take small stuff if you gently squirt it at them.

[sublunary]

55 minutes ago, jambon said:

What depths do these come from in the ocean? Does it require higher or lower light situations? Is it photosynthetic? I have not had much luck with gorgonians... mine tended to catch any algae filaments which caused enough irritation  to make a dead spot. Some of the non photo types don't do well because of the ammount of food they need would foul the tank. Check out some videos of coral reefs close up stuff and note the ammout of plankton floating around that qould be 24/7 and that is what they eat as it flows past. l M O a lot of the things we see in the lfs should be left in the ocean.

  That being said I would consider taking a frag of one arm and put it in a different location and compare the reaction of the two.

Shallow water, photosynthetic.  Here's a link to what I bought: https://www.kpaquatics.com/product/spiny-orange-sea-rod-gorgonia/

 

33 minutes ago, Cintax said:

I have had photosynthetic gorgonians for years. I find once they start loosing flesh there is no recovery for that part. I'd trim the dead parts off. I don't usually feed mine much but they take small stuff if you gently squirt it at them.

Thanks.  I had a purple one for years that I never had this happen to.  I wasn't sure if they could regrow over old skeletons the way some stonies do.  Good to know they don't.

[banasophia]

@sublunary I am having the same problem with this same gorgonian... I have three other types from the same seller, and they are all doing great, but the orange spiney is not doing well. 😞 I’ve had it for maybe a month and it’s in moderate flow and moderate to high light. Did you have any luck saving any of yours?

[dpoltsdsu]

I too have this same Gorgonian from the same vendor. Mine did a very similar thing. I fragged off the dying parts and the rest seems to be doing a lot better now. It's been about a month now. 

[dpoltsdsu]

1 hour ago, banasophia said:

@sublunary I am having the same problem with this same gorgonian... I have three other types from the same seller, and they are all doing great, but the orange spiney is not doing well. 😞 I’ve had it for maybe a month and it’s in moderate flow and moderate to high light. Did you have any luck saving any of yours?

Which ones have been doing well for you? The quality of the Gorgs from KP is generally pretty great

[banasophia]

10 hours ago, dpoltsdsu said:

Which ones have been doing well for you? The quality of the Gorgs from KP is generally pretty great

Yes, I love KP Aquatics! I have a purple sea rod, a purple angular whip, and a yellow whip... all beautiful and doing well. (Also have a red tree sponge and numerous ricordea floridas from them.)