EASIEST ACRO: Is there such a thing as an "easy" acro?

[Cook]

For all the others that have commented on Walt Disney being very forgiving, that has been my experience as well. I had some massive alk swings due to equipment failure and WD never even died back. Pretty much all the other SPS I had went down during that time though. JF Fox Flame is an interesting one to me, I can't keep a frag of that alive for anything even now that most other SPS grow well in my tank. To me it reinforces what others have said there are a lot of variables from tank to tank that go into being successful.

 

[ninjamyst]

Thats probably on of the only highly sought after designer tenuis that is pretty much bullet proof lol.

Now that you are local,Imma need a piece of that WD. You make growing ANY coral easy though so that says a lot.

If you ever by universal area, hit me up. Have we met before?

 

[Steven Garland]

I'm in Sanford,about 25 minutes north of Orlando but work at Disney and drive thru there every day. Not in personal,but its Reefkid88 from NR.

 

[rd62rdstr]

pocillopora if it spawns
German Blue digi (not an acro) is so prolific in the St. Louis area stores refuse to take it now.

If you are in St. Louis and you want some let me know.

I’d love a piece of that. I current have a red digi that’s just starting out.

 

[Duffybubbleboy]

Generally, staghorns (slimers included) are easier for most ppl to keep and that's why they are recommended.

Pocci, Stylo and bird's-nest are not Acros but many start with them as a baby step into Acros.

Stags are also less popular bc with the exception of the battlestag/Ultimate stag, Hugo's rainbow stag and Richard's rainbow stag, they are a little boring looking as frags (nobody really growa colonies anymore).

For this reason, IME, when ppl ask this question, what they normally mean is:. "what popular, high end, named, rainbow type acro is easy to keep?"

And

When they say "easy to keep", they typically mean:. "what popular, high end, named, rainbow type acro is easy to grow fast with vendor level colors maintained from fresh out of the box frag to fraggable mini colony".

And

That is as much harder question to ask bc strains like this end up saturating the market since everyone can grow them well and produce well colored frags.

Examples:. PC rainbow (although some struggle with this one), TSA Bill Murray, TGC Orange Creamsicle, Red Dragon,

i think that hit’s the nail on the head , I would like more of the examples because I love my pc rainbow and bill Murray and like to know more of the easier designer corals.

 

[stephj03]

i think that hit’s the nail on the head , I would like more of the examples because I love my pc rainbow and bill Murray and like to know more of the easier designer corals.

Pink Cadillac
Fox Flame
UC Strawberry Shortcake

 

[kdx7214]

pocillopora if it spawns
German Blue digi (not an acro) is so prolific in the St. Louis area stores refuse to take it now.

If you are in St. Louis and you want some let me know.

I'm in Columbia and would love a frag. Not sure when I'll be in St. Louis though

 

[zeeGGee]

I got this 1” frag 2 yrs ago. Now it’s around 9” diameter. Has been thriving with 100+ nitrates.

 

[i cant think]

I will also say, often these high end acros that we see that are named and everything… they’re often just normal acropora that have been named and coloured up under highly intense lighting.
Over here in the UK, we don’t really name them by their designer names, we just look at the ones we like and go for it. Acropora are more expensive depending on colour or hardiness, nobody really goes by their names.

 

[bryanh16]

I would say Acro pora and SPS are easier than what people make them out to be. I was terrified to try them until someone gave me a couple frags and they just took off like weeds. I thought I was crazy for not trying them sooner. However... Just as fast as they grew... They also die just as fast.... I come to realize extreme changes in water quality can kill them faster than anything else. So, for every successful Acropora I've grown, I've killed much larger colonies in their place...

Even something as simple as montipora, I've killed. I should write a book, but the secrets to growing acropora is not calcium or alkalinity or chemistry (well a little of it is). After I lost a bunch of montipora, a large ball of a stylapora and noticed recession in my acropora at the same time, I sent my water for ICP test. I thought something drastic must have happened. OD of alk, or a rusty nail fell in the sump or something. . . No, my trace elements and alkalinity, calcium, magnesium were all fine, in check.. What was it? Phosphates. They had hit .55 ppm.

I lowered them SLOWLY! Over the course of 3 months and the acropora and montipora regrew. The stylapora was lost.

This year, I noticed my hammers all dieing, so monitored my phosphates more closely, they had hit .4 ppm. So, started, lowering them again. My last test came back .03 ppm. Nitrates at 23 ppm. My acropora was receeding because my phosphates got too low. I'm letting them slowly rise back up and although I lost parts of one colony, the rest of it is growing back over the dead skeleton now that there's some phosphates.

What's the secret to acropora. I was told the complete opposite of what I'm going to say now. So many reefers claimed ultra low nutrients to grow SPS. I don't know why other than they didn't want other hobbiests selling SPS? Maybe that was the case. .

The secret, in my very humble opinion and experience is to have phosphates!!! But not too many. The sweet spot I've found is .05 to .2. My Acropora grew like weeds in that range. My best growth for nitrates was between 10 and 25 ppm.

Below 10 nitrates and it'll die from what I've seen. Literally starve to death. What's funny is that now that I've lowered my phosphates, my xenia is dieing off.. (I'm o.k. with this) but goes to show that more corals than we realize need phosphates to survive both hard and soft corals.

The only coral that is looking amazingly better than it ever has in the last 3 years of having it is my acans. I'm thinking Acros like phosphates being higher, and Acans of all corals need ultra low phosphates and nitrates to grow...

I would argue a SPS grow out tank will require water conditions that LPS cannot thrive in. But softies would and do. I've got orange zuma mushroom corals coming out of my ears from just one frag. I now have close to 20 in under a year. It's all about the phoshates for softies and SPS. Who knew! And something that Coral companies don't want you to know...

That said, I actually like LPS more than SPS. However I've killed more LPS over the years than SPS. . . Go figure... That LPS are much more sensitive to water conditions than SPS.

Curious how you slowly lowered your phosphates? Mine seems to stay in the .4 range.

 

[MikeyG]

Finishing up acro topics for the week so let's keep it simple....simple acros that is!

Is there such a thing as an "easy" acro? Do tell.

In your opinion what is the easiest acropora there is to keep alive and healthy?

image via @gws3

I find Cyphastrea to be extremely easy to take care of and grows super fast.
This one has literally taken over my aquarium in 4 years even after multiple pruning

 

[Tim92G]

My Bali green and blue slimers are the hardiest and fastest growing acros I have. When I was in the hospital for a month and and my tank crashed, they were the only sps to survive. Stylos, birdsnests, and pocillaporas were wiped out.

 

[Txoutlaw]

Finishing up acro topics for the week so let's keep it simple....simple acros that is!

Is there such a thing as an "easy" acro? Do tell.

In your opinion what is the easiest acropora there is to keep alive and healthy?

image via @gws3

What is the name of this acro?

 

[i cant think]

What is the name of this acro?

Looks like a Paletta pink tip or possibly a mature PC rainbow variant.

 

[merkmerk73]

Unpopular opinion but I think SPS just isn’t worth the hassle to me. I’m more of a fish fan than a coral fan, so I could totally be content just keeping easy softies and letting the rest of my focus be on the fish.

Interesting viewpoint

I think the challenge is the appeal

When it’s hard it keeps us engaged

Things that are easy get boring and then maintenance suffers etc