gorgonians to avoid? pacific gorgonians?

[fungia]

since most say it is okay to mix atlantic gorgonians with my pacific corals, which ones should i avoid? are the bright red and orange ones from the atlantic or pacific? and is there good pacific gorgonians to try?

 

[Anonymous]

I have had very good luck with a "purple plume" gorgonian. I don't know the name of it, sorry.

The photosynthetic gorgs are much easier, look for the tan colored polyps, they usually have a purple or cream colored "skin".

I believe most of the bright red or orange ones are non photosynthetic, and much harder to care for as they require direct feeding.

 

[Anonymous]

There are a couple of brightly colored atlantic, or caribbean ones you might see, but as Laura mentioned, they are all fairly difficult to maintain. The tan ones are all pretty easy.

 

[Anonymous]

I believe most of the bright red or orange ones are non photosynthetic, and much harder to care for as they require direct feeding.

I think youre right...from any reading ive done..nonphotosynthetics are a PITA cuz they need to be fed by hand..

 

[shellshocked]

I tried orange gorgonian a couple of years ago. It eventually died. It required feeding and the feeding was beyond what I could keep up with. Also pumping enough food to feed it into the tank even with targeted feeding was quite a bio-load on the tank. They are pretty but beyond what I can sustain. I would like to try a photosynthetic version....

 

[Anonymous]

Muricea laxa and Pseudopterogorgia bipinnata (the sea plume Laura referred to) both do very well in most well lit reef aquariums.

 

[dougc]

I have a pseudopterogorgia bipinnata and it is doing well, but it definitely prefers a lot of water flow. After it had been in an open area of the tank for a few months, I decided to move it to the other end of the tank. In the new location, there was less flow because of the rockwork. After a couple of weeks, the polyps had not fully extended, so I moved it to the middle of the tank and it immediately responded by fluffing out. Where it is now, it waves around like a palm tree in a hurricane and it is happy as a clam.

That begs the question "How happy are clams, anyway?"

 

[abozoki]

GARF has a bunch of stuff on maintaining gorgonains here: http://www.garf.org/TREVORHOME.html I have had success with the purple whip with tan polyps and an orange with red polyps (though the polyps turned orange). I posted about the red polyps turning orange but got no responses - I'm still looking for an answer on what I might do to restore the color.

I have had poor luck with Diodogorgia - Red Finger gorgonian and Diodogorgia - Yellow Finger gorgonian (both pictured here http://www.garf.org/36/gorgallabout/allaboutgorgs.html - though I did not see or follow their instructions on how to feed them - located on the same page).