If build to Acro colonies in 1yr is your expectation...

[stephj03]

Please please please take the following quote to heart and understand it is more realistic than your pipe dream

my po4 is down to .22 so I will put the 1st tenuis frag in today. It's been a long time over 1 year cycling and getting the parameters in check... will post soon with updates- thank to everybody who is interested in reading this!

 

[stephj03]

I don't know Shane other than lurking his threads, but he's been selling a decent amount of high dollar corals out of a farm of colonies and he just wrote this about a new system.


Anyone out there that thinks it is common to grow wall to wall acropora in 1-2yrs of water being in the tank, I'm sorry but it is not.

For those in yr 1 or early yr 2 that are frustrated that stuff dies or doesn't grow or isn't coloring well, that's what acropora do in most tanks at that age.

There are outliers but they are not the norm and it is unlikely any of us are one of them.

 

[stephj03]

It's not really the popular path anymore, but reef aquaria are in fact a multi yr type hobby.

And within that, it is overwhelmingly common for Acropora to be a several yr type hobby from build to fully colored, fast growing colonies.

Alright, off my soapbox and back into the background I go.

 

[jhOU]

I agree! ditto to all of that. Wasn’t until year 2-3 that acros really took off for me

 

[Trey]

Unfortunately it makes for a pretty boring display for a long time.

 

[AZMSGT]

Some people have a green thumb others don’t. Shane has the skills an know how.

 

[LRT]

It takes a good solid year of going through uglies, getting system fine tuned, stabilizing parameters and getting all the kinks worked out.
I couldn't imagine how much money I would have lost trying to go acro route.

 

[ScottB]

Some people have a green thumb others don’t. Shane has the skills an know how.

Actually, your rebuild has gone pretty flawless. Granted, you got to keep your rock, but still.

But talking about super outliers, check out this guy. Dead rock to mini colonies. 50 days. Insanity.

My new SPS Tank

Hi Guys, After five years of keeping a Fish Only, I just started a new SPS tank. This tank has 50 days and I´m keeping my alk and ca just with kalkwasser. In 2 or 3 months I think I will start with balling ( tropic Marin ) plus kalk My setup is : 2x Hydra 52 1x Hydra 26 HD 2x T5 Blue Plus...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[stephj03]

Actually, your rebuild has gone pretty flawless. Granted, you got to keep your rock, but still.

But talking about super outliers, check out this guy. Dead rock to mini colonies. 50 days. Insanity.

My new SPS Tank

Hi Guys, After five years of keeping a Fish Only, I just started a new SPS tank. This tank has 50 days and I´m keeping my alk and ca just with kalkwasser. In 2 or 3 months I think I will start with balling ( tropic Marin ) plus kalk My setup is : 2x Hydra 52 1x Hydra 26 HD 2x T5 Blue Plus...

www.reef2reef.com

That guys a legend from back in the RC heyday. Even still, he did another thing that ppl should do, he stocked with mini colony sized frags.

I wish every noob would do that as well. They should all go out if their way to start with frags the that big.

 

[AZMSGT]

That guys a legend from back in the RC heyday. Even still, he did another thing that ppl should do, he stocked with mini colony sized frags.

I wish every noob would do that as well. They should all go out if their way to start with frags the that big.

Yea, but who sells mini colony frags? There is a part of the problem. You can only stock a tank with what you can get. So if tiny little nubs are all we can get then we are up the creek. That guy knows people and is able to acquire things that the average noob would not be able to. Kudos to him.. Darned impressive and I'm not trying to diminish his skills. But lets keep things in some context.

Even in my tank when I added larger frags they show more growth today than smaller nubs. You get exponential growth from each coral depending on it's size. Disregard the fact that all corals grow at different rates.

 

[Phil D.]

I had a green birdsnest that went from a small 3" frag to a 1 foot across colony in 2 years. I dose Aquaforest Component 1--2-3 and put Red Sea AB+ once a month.

 

[ScottB]

Yea, but who sells mini colony frags? There is a part of the problem. You can only stock a tank with what you can get. So if tiny little nubs are all we can get then we are up the creek. That guy knows people and is able to acquire things that the average noob would not be able to. Kudos to him.. Darned impressive and I'm not trying to diminish his skills. But lets keep things in some context.

Even in my tank when I added larger frags they show more growth today than smaller nubs. You get exponential growth from each coral depending on it's size. Disregard the fact that all corals grow at different rates.

One of my LFS sells transhipped indo colonies again now. They are very chunky but kinda bland in color.

In the old days his cost was $20-25 including shipping. Now closer to $65 which he retails for $180 - 200. His mortality is pretty high though. Not 50-50 but close enough.

 

[stephj03]

Agree that mini colony sized frags are rare today.

But true 1"-1.5" frags aren't that hard to find for non-designer Tenuis.

The two seem to go together though. There's was a pretty active thread last yr by someone that was on track to have an awesome tank, but had started with just about the smallest, most expensive frags he could find in the first yr of the tank.

$45 worth of PC Rainbow would have done him some good. Might have given him fast enough visible growth to remain active around here.