Alveopora not happy?

[Alexraptor]

Alveopora, an LPS that has been found to like nutrient rich waters and low lighting, ive had one for seveal months, the smal frag i first got has increased in mass to twice its size, until a few weeks ago all the polyps were fully extended, but now recently the polyps barley extend at all, and today i went up and found that the polyps were compleatly withdrawn into the skeleton.

PH is fine, Nitrates are lower than i checked a few months ago, magnesium and calcium levels are good, and every other coral and tank inhabitant is healthy as can be, so whats up with my Avleopora?

[er1c_the_reefer]

alveopora is closely related to goniopora, known as flowerpot coral. both species are supposed to be hard to keep; most don't make it past 1.5 years.

 

most success is found in jaubert type systems which tend to have light or no skimming, which is supposed to mean theres a good amount of free floating nutrients for them to feed on. they are also said to do better in groups. in normal systems, they can go for months until eventually they run out of food and begin to starve to death.

 

are you supplementing regularly with phyto? are you checking your calcium levels? (goniopora are supposed to like higher levels of Ca, so alveopora may too...) also, are you keeping the bacterial fauna diverse by exchanging live sand/rock with other reefers? sometimes this could help...

 

correct me if i'm wrong...

[Alexraptor]

Yes calcium levels are in check, phyto yes. no i dont exchange materials with others.

 

The strange thing is the polyps are simply withdrawing, no bleaching either.

[proraptor]

This may sound really off the wall but the best thing you can do with an aleveopora is turn off all flow and feed it with skimate that your protein skimmer pulls out. They love the skimate!

[CrazyAggie05]

check your current in your tank.... mine did the same thing untill i moved it to an area with a little less flow and sure enough it popped up again like normal...

[Alexraptor]

I moved him in closer to the corner under the powerhead about 2 days ago, i also started with dosing Phytoplankton a bit extra, he seems to be perking up again weather it is because of moving him or increased phyto dosage im not quite shure.

[Snoop]

They like to be beside another alapova or goniopora and if you have a red ont they are alot eisier.

[Alexraptor]

They like to be beside another alapova or goniopora and if you have a red ont they are alot eisier.

 

Thats intreasting, does anyone else concur with this?

[Snoop]

http://www.melevsreef.com/id/kritter1.html

 

from the website

 

Photo by Marc Levenson

 

 

Due to the location of these corals in my tank, I had to take this shot from above. To the left, you can see a Green Goniopora. To the right, a purple Alveopora. Both of these corals are extremely difficult to care for, even with the most experience reef keeper. Putting two gonioporas side by side can benefit these corals for some reason, and that is what I'm attempting to do. Target feeding can benefit them, and running skimmerless is also considered beneficial.

[frag]

Gonies do better side by side? I might have to cry BS on that one. I think the mysterious nature of this coral could lead to some off the wall anecdotal advice such as this. What evidence is there to support this conclusion (scientific not anecdotal)? The alveapora in question semms to be pretty normal in the sense that they do well for about 1 to 2 years and then crash.

[Alexraptor]

Gonies do better side by side? I might have to cry BS on that one. I think the mysterious nature of this coral could lead to some off the wall anecdotal advice such as this. What evidence is there to support this conclusion (scientific not anecdotal)? The alveapora in question semms to be pretty normal in the sense that they do well for about 1 to 2 years and then crash.

 

Yes, but alveopora die, because of the requirements not being adequete, there have been some instances of long year success,

 

anyway that is not alveopora on the image, alveopora have 12 tentacles on each polyp.

[Snoop]

on the pic is one of each

[puppypr]

http://www.melevsreef.com/id/kritter1.html

 

from the website

 

Photo by Marc Levenson

Due to the location of these corals in my tank, I had to take this shot from above. To the left, you can see a Green Goniopora. To the right, a purple Alveopora. Both of these corals are extremely difficult to care for, even with the most experience reef keeper. Putting two gonioporas side by side can benefit these corals for some reason, and that is what I'm attempting to do. Target feeding can benefit them, and running skimmerless is also considered beneficial.

Hey thanks, great information, I have a flower pot (green goniopora) and a pink/violet goniopora (could be a alveopora?). I'm gonna move them close on the day.

I feed all my corals daily with coctail of freeze dried cyclop-eeze, 2 drops of algae paste (from brine shrimp direct), a drop of Phytomax, a pinch of Combo Vital (mixture of Spectra Vital and BlackPowder), Chromamax and every other day I add a little bit of mysis and brine shrimp.

Hey are you sure on the slimmate stuff, they realy like that?

 

Here are some photos of the gonioporas, the pink one is hidden in some spots due to my cleaning crew, they crawl on everything.

 

[Snoop]

Im not sure they like skimate but they do like the tank skimmerless and with a plenum ,so I guess they do like a little skimate.