How do you determine what an acro frags needs?

[92Miata]

I bought a couple cheap acro frags the other day, and failed to get IDs on most of them - I'd love IDs, but that's not my main goal here.

My main goal is to discuss how you go about looking at an unknown acro and figuring out where to put it - IE, what it needs for light and flow - if there's any general morphology trends/etc.

Anyways, here are the specific frags - the one on the left is a Red Dragon, which I know is a deep water and wants good flow with low to medium light. The one on the right ( the really light one) is supposedly another deep water.

The other 3, I don't know.

 

[andrewey]

It's a really good question. I'm sure there are some great stick heads out there that have fined tuned their placement, but mine is pretty hands off. If I know what par the coral was being grown under, I will usually try and match that. If not, I have rough estimates based on the type of SPS it is, but it's not exact, and to be honest, I'm usually more focused on trying to find space for the coral and predicting the ultimate shape. Ultimately, once they are acclimatized, I will place them in a spot and leave them for 2-3 months to watch their coloring. If they start to brown out, I'll move them before that, but if I was expecting more colors, I sometimes will move them slightly lower. I let PE dictate flow.

 

[Picasso Clown]

I just err on the side of caution and start in medium light with moderate-high flow. If I notice that the polyps seem to be blowing around excessively or are having difficulty opening then less flow. If the coral starts browning, I move it up, if it shows bleaching then I move it down. I highly recommend reefroids for acros, and I noticed great improvements especially in my purple bonsai and red dragon after I started using them. Hopefully this helps you! Here’s my red dragon :)