Acropora spathulata

[Adamantium]

Wow, super interesting to hear people say these are difficult. I bought a 4 pack of acros when my tank was only a few months old, and the spathulata is the only one still kicking. It’s actually encrusting pretty well now a few months later. Started as a 1” frag in maybe April. Now it looks like this. It’s also hands down the fuzziest acro in the tank. You can barely tell it’s a spath, but when it closes up you can tell it is.

 

[X-37B]

I just added this one 4 weeks ago.
Doing well in high flow and under my 250 watt MH.
Not the best pick. Its very blue.

 

[lemonade]

Wow, super interesting to hear people say these are difficult. I bought a 4 pack of acros when my tank was only a few months old, and the spathulata is the only one still kicking. It’s actually encrusting pretty well now a few months later. Started as a 1” frag in maybe April. Now it looks like this. It’s also hands down the fuzziest acro in the tank. You can barely tell it’s a spath, but when it closes up you can tell it is.

I don’t think that’s a spath, maybe a milli or something else

 

[Adamantium]

I don’t think that’s a spath, maybe a milli or something else

I figured someone would say this haha You’d have to see it without the polyps extended. Looks just like a spathulata, and that’s what it was sold as.

 

[Adamantium]

Here’s a really really really terrible picture of it from when I first got it and it wasn’t extended. Sorry about the quality. It’s zoomed in from a FTS.

 

[Steve H]

The lime green variety grows like a weed under 1000w halides. Really electric colors in person.

 

[drawman]

The lime green variety grows like a weed under 1000w halides. Really electric colors in person.

Nice setup. Curious what tank that is.

 

[sculpin01]

I believe that's one of the grow-out tanks at the Georgia Aquarium.

 

[Steve H]

Nice setup. Curious what tank that is.

It is a fiberglass aquarium that holds just over a thousand gallons. It is used to propagate corals for a large public display.

 

[nick0206]

A week ago I bought 2 frags of Spathulata.
Before that, I never had this coral. Somewhere I read that the conditions of keeping of the spathulata are similar to those close to her Millepora and Pistillata.
I did not find the conditions of detention in this thread and what level of PAR is recommended.
I have attached frags at the top with strong flow and PAR 450. What will those who have experience with them say?

 

[Ocelaris]

Mine just encrusted forever at the top of my rock scape getting around that same par. I hacked two of three out because they were just fluorescent green body, but brown polyp. Got a nicer yellow body one from Battlecorals, and time will tell. Pic is of one I hacked out in the middle top. The two actual spikes were the original growth from the frags, not what I was expecting. I didn't want to give up prime real estate for something bland.

 

[jda]

They ought to do OK in tanks with other acropora. If you want them to keep she sheen and ultimate multiple colors, then they need a TON on daylight like maybe 750+ PAR of 10k, or so. They usually drift to one or two colors and still are really cool as they grow. They can struggle at colony size like millepora do and they need plenty of indirect flow and lights from many angles.

 

[lemonade]

They can definitely take a ton of light, ime. I’ve never seen one show signs of too much light even in 700+ par range. This is one of my old mini colonies I had going in 675-700ish par. For me the metallic sheen is what makes this coral special and it won’t have that in lower light.

 

[jda]

I have one that came in blue, green, pink and purple all with sheen. It is now just blue and green still with the sheen. It is under a lot of PAR from 14k Halide. If I wanted to even try and get all of those colors back, I would need 400w halides instead of the 250w, or maybe even more. 6500k bulbs would help too. Every once in a while, I can see some purple sheen, but I might be imagining it too.

In the end, it should live and grow, but if it goes monochrome, don't sweat it since it happens to many.

 

[Big E]

I had a colony for about 4 years that over time went brown on me and then slowly died off the last year I had it. It grew very slow if at all.

It had heavy flow so I believe I never gave it high enough par or the right spectrum.

Even with my 14k whiter light setup it was too blue for a coral like this. This is one that will probably thrive under 6500k iwasakis or a heavy dose of 65k T5.
It also makes sense as to why modern reefers fail most of the time in getting this acro to thrive.

My colony from LA( back in 2016 when they were still running MH and also waiting till colonies were thriving before they put them up for sale.

Best I ever got this to look........a low level monochrome blue/purple color with brown polyps Combined with slow growth it was basically a dud.

Low zeo type nutrient levels would seem in order too for this acro

Vincent gives a good rundown here---

Acropora spathulata is the iconic Australian Staghorn Coral | Reef Builders | The Reef and Saltwater Aquarium Blog

Last week, we reported about probably the most popular staghorn coral from Australia, Acropora microclados, a.k.a the Strawberry Shortcake. This time, we will tell you about another iconic Australian…

reefbuilders.com

 

[jda]

I will say that I do keep my water pretty close to NSW... not ultra low or anything, but NSW with P about 1-3 (sometimes up to 5) ppb, N at about .1 that you need ICP to test, alk neary 7 and calcium 420-425. While I find that all acropora do best with this, some need it and some don't... and this one does seem to need it more than others. Thanks, Ed, for the water parameter reminder.

 

[drawman]

I will say that I do keep my water pretty close to NSW... not ultra low or anything, but NSW with P about 1-3 (sometimes up to 5) ppb, N at about .1 that you need ICP to test, alk neary 7 and calcium 420-425. While I find that all acropora do best with this, some need it and some don't... and this one does seem to need it more than others. Thanks, Ed, for the water parameter reminder.

I wonder how much of this is due to not a ton of aquacultured options. Obviously you could make the point that they don't survive for a lot of ppl hence the lack of aquacultured options. I know WWC had a couple varieties they were selling a couple years ago. Not sure how long they had been in culture at the time but it would be interesting to see how those are faring.

 

[jda]

They used to always be available wild with Assuie shipments and were almost as common as Microclados (shortcakes). Second, most mari stuff is made to do well for the windex crowd, chop shops and instant success type of hobbyists - need repeat buyers. Neither of these are good for AQ options. I have a few friends who have nice pieces that they will trade, but they are high wattage MH and stuff and have not been online for a long time.

WWC pretty much just imports, chops, name and sells. They have a few named pieces that have stood the test of time, but they are not a great barometer, IMO. I don't think that they culture as much as the let on...at least for acropora.

 

[Ocelaris]

I consider these more failures than successes, but the two with the arrows were sold to me as spaths. The first from UC, second from an LFS. Essentially all they did was encrust up at the top for almost 2 years, so I hacked them out. I don't have the space or patience. The first picture is fairly acurate, the blue on the right is an Oregon torn for reference. The bottom one, well, it was great when I got it half dead from the LFS, but it basically is just a fluorescent green with brown polyps. I was T5, now mostly LED with T5 supplement, no room for MH these days.

 

[Ocelaris]

And you can see where they were at the top of the rock work. The garbage "Rainbow Hyacinth" on the left is the same, big promise from a chop shop came out brown with green edge, worse than the spaths. Maybe the spaths are my fault, but I confirmed that hyacinth was a brown dud from another local member who got the same piece from UC. I just got a yellowish spath and green from Battle Corals, and crossing my fingers they'll do anything but just encrust. I would have been ok with the color had they put up a single branch.