How to successfully keep SPS Corals!

[mcarroll]

MattL22, Alk has been my biggest issue to the point that I was concerned about the structure of the corals being weak.

Curious issue to me...was there something in the tank to give you cause for this concern (e.g. corals apparently breaking for no reason) or do you just mean your Alk numbers were low for a while?

The corals are healthy and hard as stone when I frag which is constant at this point.

Can you give at least a rough definition for "constant"?

For reference (esp. for SPS newbs, but for me too!), since you are fragging so often do you attempt to sell all the frags made?

If not all, could you guestimate what percentage of the frags you make from your regular pruning activities actually go for sale? What do you do with the rest of the frags that don't end up being sold?


In the grand scheme of things almost none of my frags get sold, or even get posted for sale. Some of my extras go to a shady area in my frag tank. Once they are bare skeleton they make great "frag plugs". Can't have too many of these "slowly dying" frags around in the system tho....so most of my "extra" frags sadly go to the garbage.



Thanks in advance!

-Matt

 

[Grant W]

Matt, the way I've come to see the health of stony corals is divided into two areas, one is the Nitrate/phos area which if kept in the proper range will yield healthy corals with good color and appropriate polyp ext. Of course light and flow are in there too.The second area is alk, ca and mag.If these numbers are low, which mine were, then the skeletal structure of the corals will be compromised. A good example of this would be one of my monti caps, I no longer have the piece(they grow too fast and shade too large of an area) but I noticed when my alk had been low for quite some time rather than being crisp when broken or fragged like a potato chip it was almost mushy internally.

Re fragging or pruning, I have a separate frag and prop system that I keep cloned to my main system with water transfees so as I cut, I mount, dip and drop the cuttings into the frag tank. In regards to frequency, I treat it like bonsai and will study the piece a bit to find the right cut that will yield a good result regarding shape and clearance to surrounding corals. Also cutting deeply enough so as not have to trim again for a while.

I'm not big on selling corals and give most of them away. This is one of my favorite parts of the "hobby". I'm also the VP of my local reef club so the raffles gobble up most of my frags. We had a frag swap recently and I brought over 60 nice pieces. Aftersetting up for the swap I realized I had gone through over 300 frag plug in the past 6 months.

 

[darryl_v]

Swannyson 7thanks, The tank has been up for a little over 8 years but got my first sps about 2 years ago.

2yrs...you must of quickly added a ton of high end frags to get that tank to that stage in 2yrs.....that and amazing growth. That is assuming you started most as frags.

 

[Grant W]

Yep, I've never bought a colony. I like watching them grow and I think Im too cheap to buy a full colonies. LoL It may be 2 1/2 years now.

 

[mcarroll]

Matt, the way I've come to see the health of stony corals is divided into two areas, one is the Nitrate/phos area which if kept in the proper range will yield healthy corals with good color and appropriate polyp ext. Of course light and flow are in there too.The second area is alk, ca and mag.If these numbers are low, which mine were, then the skeletal structure of the corals will be compromised. A good example of this would be one of my monti caps, I no longer have the piece(they grow too fast and shade too large of an area) but I noticed when my alk had been low for quite some time rather than being crisp when broken or fragged like a potato chip it was almost mushy internally.

Re fragging or pruning, I have a separate frag and prop system that I keep cloned to my main system with water transfees so as I cut, I mount, dip and drop the cuttings into the frag tank. In regards to frequency, I treat it like bonsai and will study the piece a bit to find the right cut that will yield a good result regarding shape and clearance to surrounding corals. Also cutting deeply enough so as not have to trim again for a while.

I'm not big on selling corals and give most of them away. This is one of my favorite parts of the "hobby". I'm also the VP of my local reef club so the raffles gobble up most of my frags. We had a frag swap recently and I brought over 60 nice pieces. Aftersetting up for the swap I realized I had gone through over 300 frag plug in the past 6 months.

Excellent info! A few more questions/comments tho. :)

Something like mushy when fragging a plate-type Monti. is definitely weird/interesting! Any idea what your alkalinity numbers might have been on average at that time? (Mine has been pretty low before, but never for an extended period of time I guess.)

I guess "give away" could be charachterized as "selling for free", since most of the same activities/resource requirements on you are there. :) (Good karma, paying all those frags forward too!) So are you saying nothing goes to the dustbin?? (You indicated the Monti. cap was banned due to speedy growth.....have to ditched all/most of the other hyper-fast growers too?)

Thanks again for sharing!

-Matt

 

[REEFKEEPER10]

very nice tank.

 

[Grant W]

Matt the alk would bounce around 6 or even a bit lower and I was hand dosing up to 60 ml of b ionic a day and didnt have time to do more than one dose a day and was afraid of adding more than that at one time. Ive since added dosing pumps and Im up to around 150 ml of supps a day spread into 4 doses a day by the controller. Even with this much my alk still is only a touch over 7, Ca is 420 or so and my mag is around 1350. Grant

 

[mcarroll]

Matt the alk would bounce around 6 or even a bit lower and I was hand dosing up to 60 ml of b ionic a day and didnt have time to do more than one dose a day and was afraid of adding more than that at one time. Ive since added dosing pumps and Im up to around 150 ml of supps a day spread into 4 doses a day by the controller. Even with this much my alk still is only a touch over 7, Ca is 420 or so and my mag is around 1350. Grant

Interesting! I'd be surprised if you weren't seeing issues beyond just the skeletal changes with that low an alk. I was close to 200mL per day when I finally switched to dosers* (just a month or so ago, in fact....been rough)....highly recommended by me now to do it you way and switch when you're around 50 (<100 for sure) mL per day. Smart!

-Matt

* I did start dripping instead of dumping when I was around 100 mL per day. Just used an old orange juice container though....I don't count that as a doser.

 

[Grant W]

Matt love the oj drip I assume with a knotted airline tube. Regarding the fast growing stuff, I still have some but as with most people in the hobby as you go along your tastes change and now that I know a bit more about the corals shapes and growth patterns I tend to do color, shape and form mixing. I am a sucker for torts and millis so they are prominant in my main display with a lot of other "smooth skinned" corals filling out the mix. LoL

 

[billwill]

Awesome thread and just what I was in need of!!! Thanks Revtree! This is why I prefer this site over the others.

 

[mcarroll]

Matt love the oj drip I assume with a knotted airline tube. Regarding the fast growing stuff, I still have some but as with most people in the hobby as you go along your tastes change and now that I know a bit more about the corals shapes and growth patterns I tend to do color, shape and form mixing. I am a sucker for torts and millis so they are prominant in my main display with a lot of other "smooth skinned" corals filling out the mix. LoL

Unfortunately, a knot in a vinyl tube is a definitive no-go. Outside of very short term use, the tubing always loses its integrity and collapses toward 100% closed. Causes all kinds of issues, including clogging up faster.

Used a Two Little Fishies micro ball valve (aka drip irrigation ball valve) for most of the time. Came in a multipack for not-that-much-money. :)

Later I found someone local that carried Lee brand airline valves - cheaper, more adjustable like a gate valve, and formed a 90° Ell, which was convenient for me.

Later after that got the ideal valve for this role: a "Flow Control Needle Pinch Valve" from US Plastics. (Still haven't figured out who actually makes them.) Double check the sizing before you click Buy, but I think mine is Item# 44560. Abt $6/ea. This part is designed for this role and to work with this tubing. Unless you're so broke you can't come up with the extra $5, this is the only thing I'd really recommend.

Anything would better than using a knot though. ;)

-Matt

 

[BigJohnWoody]

Is this what you are talking about?
U.S. Plastic Corp.
I was wondering if you could give me more links on what tubing to buy as well. I am currently using the two little fishes on my effluent drip line out of my calcium reactor. It just doesn't seem to be very accurate, so if this is better I'm very interested. Thanks for your time

Unfortunately, a knot in a vinyl tube is a definitive no-go. Outside of very short term use, the tubing always loses its integrity and collapses toward 100% closed. Causes all kinds of issues, including clogging up faster.

Used a Two Little Fishies micro ball valve (aka drip irrigation ball valve) for most of the time. Came in a multipack for not-that-much-money. :)

Later I found someone local that carried Lee brand airline valves - cheaper, more adjustable like a gate valve, and formed a 90° Ell, which was convenient for me.

Later after that got the ideal valve for this role: a "Flow Control Needle Pinch Valve" from US Plastics. (Still haven't figured out who actually makes them.) Double check the sizing before you click Buy, but I think mine is Item# 44560. Abt $6/ea. This part is designed for this role and to work with this tubing. Unless you're so broke you can't come up with the extra $5, this is the only thing I'd really recommend.

Anything would better than using a knot though. ;)

-Matt

 

[mcarroll]

[…]Regarding the fast growing stuff, I still have some but as with most people in the hobby as you go along your tastes change and now that I know a bit more about the corals shapes and growth patterns I tend to do color, shape and form mixing. I am a sucker for torts and millis so they are prominant in my main display with a lot of other "smooth skinned" corals filling out the mix. LoL

Awesome thread and just what I was in need of!!! Thanks Revtree! This is why I prefer this site over the others.

grantW, more great insight and I'll second billwill's sentiment. 14 pages of goodness and counting! :)

Further, I think it'd be awesome if there were a husbandry forum where people didn't focus on the equipment and animals so much (pretty sure that's covered :horse:), but more on the care activites that surround them, especially in later years. I kid of course, but there is a serious lack of people talking about their successes and failures in this arena. Too many new builds, equipment or photo coral/fish fantasies, etc. (Which all have many sites and many, many forums dedicated already.) That's a fine and dandy, but I believe this overfocus (if you will) creates a certain lack of wisdom in our hobby and seems to encourage what I'll call "bling thinking" when people set up new tanks. [/soapbox] LOL

Anyone else have thoughts on using fast/slow growing corals strategically, or other thoughts that relate to management of them?

Anyone else getting rid of "excess coral" by means other than trading/selling/giving away?

And one more question: if you had over 500 square inches of Montipora cap. (70/20/10 in green/purple/red) residing in about 300 sq in of space, what would your fragging strategy be? (That's gonna be a lot of frags!) When the day comes, my plan is to dumpster 98% of it....seems like a better plan (that can't possibly involve enough buyrs/traders, can it?) must be possible so I'm not getting in a hurry about it.

-Matt

 

[mcarroll]

Is this what you are talking about?
U.S. Plastic Corp.
I was wondering if you could give me more links on what tubing to buy as well. I am currently using the two little fishes on my effluent drip line out of my calcium reactor. It just doesn't seem to be very accurate, so if this is better I'm very interested. Thanks for your time

That's the correct valve...I'm just not 100% sure which size I got....think it was the small though.

Regular airline tubing is fine with any of the valves I mentioned - nothing special used on this front. :)

-Matt

 

[Grant W]

Matt and Billwill, Same here re:the info rather than selling and such. Its a shame some of the "other" forums have basically become a reefers Craigs list. Its a nice change to actually talk reef like it used to be on most of the forums. About the giant monti that one would be a candidate for the LFS lol.

I actually have a bright green Formosa stag I use to keep a tabled out Hyacinthas and a really aggressive efflo away from each other LOL. Poor thing is being overgrown by the red table but still holding its own. Its a really tough coral. I will actually give this coral to newer guys to give them some success to encourage them as they get started. Kinda like having chromies to start your fish list.

 

[creefer]

grantW, more great insight and I'll second billwill's sentiment. 14 pages of goodness and counting! :)

Further, I think it'd be awesome if there were a husbandry forum where people didn't focus on the equipment and animals so much (pretty sure that's covered :horse:), but more on the care activites that surround them, especially in later years. I kid of course, but there is a serious lack of people talking about their successes and failures in this arena. Too many new builds, equipment or photo coral/fish fantasies, etc. (Which all have many sites and many, many forums dedicated already.) That's a fine and dandy, but I believe this overfocus (if you will) creates a certain lack of wisdom in our hobby and seems to encourage what I'll call "bling thinking" when people set up new tanks. [/soapbox] LOL

Anyone else have thoughts on using fast/slow growing corals strategically, or other thoughts that relate to management of them?

Anyone else getting rid of "excess coral" by means other than trading/selling/giving away?

And one more question: if you had over 500 square inches of Montipora cap. (70/20/10 in green/purple/red) residing in about 300 sq in of space, what would your fragging strategy be? (That's gonna be a lot of frags!) When the day comes, my plan is to dumpster 98% of it....seems like a better plan (that can't possibly involve enough buyrs/traders, can it?) must be possible so I'm not getting in a hurry about it.

-Matt

Very well stated, Matt. I agree. As a relative new reefer (1.5 years) I find husbandry discussions more fruitful than equipment discussions. Don't get me wrong, I like the build threads....it's interesting to see what propel come up with but I would prefer more husbandry discussions that are beneficialn to a thriving environment in the home reef aquaria. Again, well stated.

 

[mcarroll]

About the giant monti that one would be a candidate for the LFS lol.

Seems hard to believe in 2012 even as I type it, but my LFS (for all their positives) takes a semi-rational anti-frags-from-customers position...especially on anything that's remotely common like M. cap. Puts me in the position I'm in I guess... Even Craigslist will only soak up so much of this stuff and I'm in a large metro area (D.C.).

May have to take a page from your book and next time offer freebie cap's ($5 is as low as I've gone) - maybe with purchase of something else (that's also inexpensive) so it's a little worth my trouble of selling (if not the trouble of growing ;)) - and see if I can move more that way.

-Matt

 

[Grant W]

Maybe you should join a reef club in your area. The guys in mine are always happy to take frags plus its fun to meetup with people that actually know what your talking about when you talk about corals and such.

 

[wooddestine]

great pictures and great advice, thanks

 

[Dre59]

So much great info and some amazing tanks... Keep the info coming ;)