gorgonias are HARD to impossible...
Nahhhh... it is just that everyone wants the colorful ones, which incidentally, are the ones you will never keep alive. Basically any of the ones from the indo-pacific are impossible to keep, as very few are hermatypic (containing zoanthellae). The Caribbean species are predominantly hermatypic, with only a few lacking symbiots. The yellow one you have (I am not yelling at you or getting on the podium or anything) is one of the most irresponsibly collected animals in the trade. I literally see thousands of them go through my wholesalers, and I can guarantee that not a one will be alive in two years. They require very direct weekly (if not bi-weekly) feedings of small stuff, brine shrimp nauplii etc. or they will slowly die of starvation over the course of maybe six months to a year.
The photosynthetic gorgonians can fare pretty well in a diverse (mature) reef aquarium, even without supplemental feeding since there is always plankton in the water and that is enough to supplement the energy from their zoanthellae. They tend to be grey or brown or yellow, with brown polyps.
Next time I come over Bill, I will bring you a spring of Pseudoplexaurella sp. that will grow like wildfire. I think it is called a chocolate sea rod. Its got a really fat axis and a calcium carbonate skeleton on top of it. Its grey with brown polyps and loves being in insane - like, bent in half - current.
