[Coral-List] Goniopora Stokesi: have you grown them?

[info]

Hey Damien,

We had grown G. stokes for 3-5 years.   it was a freakish contaminant in our
refugiums - couldn't get rid of it.  We also grew them for couple of years
in our holding tanks.  We used them as a model for newbies to do coral
tissue explanting - First Xenia, then Goniopora, then Fungia, then "real
coral."  We had "neighbors" complain about their Goniopora bleaching, going
pink, then dying.  They did have a lot of boring algae, more than what we
did, but then they also had fish.

We did learn how to quickly get rid of them.  We were doing an experiment
with Clown Fish, and some got sucked into the refugium.  The Clown Fish tore
them to shreds.  No idea why.

We make up our own seawater, and in our holding tanks, we have higher than
normal levels of calcium and magnesium.

Two people who definitely know more than me on this is Justin Credable and
Julian Sprung.  I think Julian ran some formal experiments with Goniopora,
like 10 years ago.  There was also a grad student (10 years ago or more) at
IUI in Israel who was doing some work on the Genus as it related to the Red
Sea.  Perhaps Yossi or Zvi might know who the person was and their work.

I still have some of Justin's Goniopora food, which was pretty good (high
iron and sulfur content).  We fed them every day in the holding tanks.  The
feral ones in the refugium, not sure why they did so well and lasted so
long.

Craig
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Message: 3
Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2017 20:36:30 -0400
From: Damien Beri <beridl at g.cofc.edu>
Subject: [Coral-List] Goniopora Stokesi: have you grown them?
To: coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
Message-ID: <3DAB1816-163F-411D-931B-ED407124DFCA at g.cofc.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain;	charset=us-ascii

Hello Coral-Listers,

Thank you for your time.  I am curious to hear from anyone who has worked
with Goniopora stokesi and has grown them in aquaria settings.

Historically this coral has had roughly a 10% survival rate in captivity.
It has however, been showing some promising results from certain Aquaculture
sources though.  I have unsuccessfully located substantial science as to
what leads to successful husbandry of this coral.  I hypothesize that since
most Goniopora stokesi die, and do so in a similar fashion there must be a
common ailment across most specimens.  Their are many rumors of causation,
but it would be beneficial to hear first hand from people who have worked
with them and can provide some solid data.

Thanks,

Damien Beri





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End of Coral-List Digest, Vol 106, Issue 13
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