Coralkin honest saltwater & reef care

🌸 Coral Trouble Card

Goniopora (Flowerpot) Coral Trouble Card

The one page to have ready when a coral starts to slip. Corals almost never need a vet — recovery is a water-chemistry, light/flow, or pest fix. This walks you through the checks in order. Print it, keep it by the tank.

Black & white saves ink and prints cleanly on any printer.

Not sure it's serious yet? Run the symptom checker or the water-test checker first — many worries turn out to be a husbandry fix.

Coralkin honest saltwater & reef care · coralkin.com
Goniopora (Flowerpot) — Coral Trouble Card

🔬 There's no vet for corals — diagnose the water & environment

Corals almost never need (or have) a vet. A struggling colony is a chemistry, lighting/flow, or pest problem you fix yourself. Work these Coralkin tools:

📇 Fill this in now

My system
What I'm seeing
Recent changes

🚨 Trouble signs now?

  • Polyps extending less over days or weeks — the classic early warning of the slow decline; review light (too much?), feeding (enough?) and nutrients (too low?).
  • Tissue receding from the base — often the point of no return; frag healthy heads if possible and fix the cause.
  • Not extending at all in strong or direct flow — move it to gentler, random flow.

🚗 First things to check

✅ Do

  • Test the full parameter set — salinity, alkalinity, calcium, magnesium, nitrate, phosphate and temperature — and compare to targets.
  • Check the lighting and flow at this coral's exact spot.
  • Look for pests and for irritation from aggressive neighbours.
  • Check for recent changes — new livestock, a dosing change, a big water change.

⛔ Don't

  • Don't reach for OTC “cures” or dose blindly.
  • Don't change everything at once — stability matters more than any single number.
  • Don't keep a badly-failing colony next to healthy ones without isolating it or fragging off the healthy tissue.

📋 This coral's targets

Colony / form
A rounded base sprouting long, extended flower-like polyps that sway constantly.
Lighting
MODERATE — not intense. It comes from shaded lagoons and turbid water; too much light is a classic killer.
Water flow
Gentle and random — not strong or direct (which stops the polyps extending).
Placement
Sand or lower rock in a moderate-light, gentle-flow spot; give the long polyps room.
Temperature
75–82°F (24–28°C).
pH
8.1–8.4.
Specific gravity
1.023–1.026 (reef-standard ≈35 ppt).
Other targets
LPS build a stony skeleton — keep alkalinity (≈8–11 dKH), calcium (≈400–450 ppm) and magnesium (≈1300–1450 ppm) stable — but unlike most corals, goniopora also needs some NUTRIENTS (not an ultra-low-nutrient tank).
Feeding
MUST be fed — it's an animal. Fine meaty and planktonic foods; feeding is central to long-term survival.
Growth & spread
Slow to moderate when thriving; historically prone to slow decline.
Natural range
Indo-Pacific.

🌸 A struggling coral is almost always telling you about its water, light, flow, or a pest — not an infection a vet can treat. Stabilise your parameters to target, confirm the light and flow suit this coral, and rule out pests and aggressive neighbours before changing anything drastic. Sudden swings are themselves a stressor.

❓ Work through

  • Is a parameter off-target?
  • Is the light or flow wrong for this coral?
  • Any pests, or aggressive neighbours?
  • What changed recently?