Getting Acros Very Soon! Any tips or things to look out for?

[smhray]

Hi everyone, I am about to get a few acros for my tank and I was just looking if anyone had any tips to share or stuff that I should look out for or add to my routine in order to have great success. I am getting a great deal on a package of acro frags containing green slimer, little red ferrari, rr pink cadillac, needle in the haystack, grape milli, and sunset milli. If you have any of these acros please share your colonies because i'd love to see how they have grown in each tank. BTW I have kept other sps like montipora, birdsnest, and digis (yes i know they are also monti but I put them in their own group). It isn't like I'm jumping straight into acros.

 

[NitrateKillah]

I don't have any tips, but I got a pink stlyo doing very well, but I got a blue tip stag that withered away. My nitrates were at zero during that time, maybe it starved to death?

I been doing some serious feeding since, my nitrates are back up now. Trying to pick up another, hopefully its not a finicky one.

I do know a guy that sold me a rainbow mille for super cheap, I will hit him up this weekend to give it another shot.

 

[NitrateKillah]

Didn't mean to interrupt your thread, like to get some info too.

 

[Crustaceon]

Hi everyone, I am about to get a few acros for my tank and I was just looking if anyone had any tips to share or stuff that I should look out for or add to my routine in order to have great success. I am getting a great deal on a package of acro frags containing green slimer, little red ferrari, rr pink cadillac, needle in the haystack, grape milli, and sunset milli. If you have any of these acros please share your colonies because i'd love to see how they have grown in each tank. BTW I have kept other sps like montipora, birdsnest, and digis (yes i know they are also monti but I put them in their own group). It isn't like I'm jumping straight into acros.

I’d say acros are a step beyond most sps like montis and birdsnest from a sensitivity perspective. The most important thing to keep in mind is not changing things too much or too fast. When I say this, I mean not increasing you alk even by .3dkh at once. Secondly, DO NOT let your tank get too “clean”. I’d much rather have 10ppm nitrates and .08ppm phosphates than 2ppm nitrates and .03ppm phosphates. A dip below the low end usually results in STN the next day and takes months of recovery time.

 

[92Miata]

Just keep your alkalinity in control, and give them plenty of flow.


I find acros much easier than birdsnest, and about the same as most montipora.

 

[PatW]

I find montipora pretty easy.

The main thing about acropora is that they like stability.

Most acropora like high light intensities and I hear PAR levels from 250-500.
They like high flow. World Wide Corals says they run a 100X turnover so it is hard to over do it.
They like lower nutrient levels. I run Nitrates at 1 ppm and phosphates at about .04 ppm. You want more than 0 in both. Many people don’t worry about measurable nutrient levels. They put a fair number of fish in the tank and feed them a bunch and figure that the acro do fine on the poo.
You want the salinity from 1.025 to 1.027.
Calcium over 400.
Magnesium about 1300-1450.
Alkalinity 7.5-9 but you want it as steady as possible. Most professionals measure ALK daily and many people run dosers for ALK.
I would suggest starting with birds nests and montipora. If you have success with those than try acropora.

A good source is to get a pack from Adam at Battlecorals.

I would suggest getting acropora from a good source because of acro eating flatworms. They are easy to introduce and once they are in the system, they are hard to get rid of.

 

[monti mike]

This is more preventative advice but dip your corals. Yes it’s a pain, but you’ll wish you did if you end up getting red bugs black bugs or acropora eating flatworms. I didn’t dip because I was lazy and I ended up with AEFW and black bugs. I had to rip the corals off the rocks and dip them weekly for 2 months to get rid of the pests. I wish I just took the 5-10 min and dipped before they went in my display tank!

 

[BlennyTime]

Good luck! Like others have said, stability is the key. You may want to invest in an automated doser, to micro dose every hour and keep the parameters stable.