SPS Coral of the Week: Strawberry Shortcake Acropora (2/29/16)

[afernandez]

One of the classics For sure!
Old picture of mine

 

[Graffiti Spot]

This is an old colony of ours that we got wild, way before they were getting pulled so often. I like this type a lot because it tables so well.

First pic is really old, second and third was a year later when I was learning with a macro lense.

 

[horseplay]

This is an easy acro for me. I acquired this 2 years ago. First 6 months, did nothing. Then it just took off. I have sold countless frags. Picture below is one of the frags I glued to the overflow. It grew to this size from a 1/2" frag in 6 months. This is a par loving acro. The stronger the light the lighter/brighter the color. This one is right below the water surface with about 600 par.

Not sure why the image is not showing but it does show in edit mode.

 

[KritikaL]

its weird i have patches of green and patches of no green very weird reaction to my tank, this is a big colony that has nearly doubled in size since i have had it, but started bright green with red, now its white with patches of green and red

I have a frag lower down in the tank and a frag higher up in the tank, both of which have red and green, and even purple around the rim. but the main colony just looks patchy!

 

[Apisto]

Still a mini-colony/frag, but really nice color even now. OG Macna UC SSC

 

[Nibejeebies]

That is an amazing colored Acro, deffently made my wish/want list for when I feel I and my tank are mature enough to go sps.

 

[matt_97055]

This is my wild piece. Sorry for the horrible cell phone pic.

 

[Greenstreet.1]

This is mine and one of my favorite sticks.

 

[sevens_up77]

Just a frag but it is happy

 

[Atu]

I’ve been having trouble with this acro lately. I’m gonna copy a men’s safe I left in another thread with all the info and pictures



I’ve a strawberry shortcake that used to have a beautiful beautiful coloring, which corallites used to have a beautiful red color. Recently for some reason all the corals in my system started to grow exponentially, except for this shortcake, which loosed it’s red color except in its polyps. As a consequence of this growth explosion, which might be due to the summer ending down here and temperatures in the aquarium dropping from 28 C to 26 C, my all also dropped from 7.8 dKh to 6.1 dKh. I just recently noticed this and I’m beginning to correct.
Also, the part most exposed to light which used to be the most colorful is kinda whitish right now, and I’m a little worried about it. I was thinking about fragging it.

Been keeping stable salinity at 1.026 and pH at 8.2. I auto top off with kalkwasser, use ethanol as a carbon source and dose nitrates (first as potassium nitrate and afterwards as calcium nitrate)

When I got it, August 21st 2018

This was after it was shipped.

Bonus pic with an orange filter from September 19th 2018

October 10th 2018

Parameters from September 28th 2018
- Nitrate 5ppm
- Phosphate 0.05 ppm
- Potassium 540 ppm
- Magnesium 1320 ppm
- Calcium 410 ppm
- Alkalinity 7.5 dKh



December 3rd 2018

Parameters from the same day
- Nitrate 4ppm
- Phosphate 0.1 ppm
- Alkalinity 8.2 dKh

February 20th 2019

Parameters from September 28th 2018
- Nitrate 1 ppm
- Phosphate 0.05 ppm
- Alkalinity 6.7 dKh


Today, May 3rd 2019

Parameters from April 22nd 2019
- Nitrate 0.5 ppm
- Phosphate 0.02 ppm
- Potassium 500 ppm
- Magnesium 1280 ppm
- Calcium 450 ppm
- Alkalinity 6.2 dKh


Now that I’ve see them all side by side it looks like it has been losing color since September 2018, maybe due to too much light. Maybe I should find a lower spot for it, what do you think?

(Regarding lights, they haven’t change in all this time, they are radions G4, I could upload the schedule if you want)

 

[Graffiti Spot]

The aptasia cant be helping, and it showed up when the coral started to turn an odd color. Nutrients stable and normal?
I miss my old colony, the Aussie version isn’t as appealing to me, but it’s still nice.

 

[Dlealrious]

I got 3 different types. All slightly different

 

[Atu]

The aptasia cant be helping, and it showed up when the coral started to turn an odd color. Nutrients stable and normal?
I miss my old colony, the Aussie version isn’t as appealing to me, but it’s still nice.

The aiptasia definitely isn’t helping, but I do kill with vinegar if any touch the coral. I simply have too many and a too deep aquarium for killing them all. If Berghia were available here I would have already buy some. I did add a chelmon this week, I hope he/she eats them (the filefish would rather eat the dry food)
All other acros are doing great.
I’m about to frag the shortcake and place it in different heights... waiting before doing that just in case someone has a better idea.

 

[JustAnotherReefer]

The aiptasia definitely isn’t helping, but I do kill with vinegar if any touch the coral. I simply have too many and a too deep aquarium for killing them all. If Berghia were available here I would have already buy some. I did add a chelmon this week, I hope he/she eats them (the filefish would rather eat the dry food)
All other acros are doing great.
I’m about to frag the shortcake and place it in different heights... waiting before doing that just in case someone has a better idea.

I have had decent luck with H2O2 in a syringe inject and turkey baster it out

 

[Graffiti Spot]

Yea that fish was great for me, it jumped yesterday and I found it laying looking dead. Picked it up and it was back to normal in 2 min.
Fragging it might help, eventually if you don’t feed too much the filefish will hopefully eat them.

 

[rstrann]

Here is mine high flow and high light.

Wow! Gorgeous pic