What's the FASTEST and EASIEST growing SPS Corals in your tank?

[dk2nt9]

Voted no because there was no restrictions in the question: SPS can grow fast and easy in a tanks where they requirements are met. Until then they are not easy, if include tank care time and not only growth, but retaining color too.

I had fast birdsnest growth, with loss of color, in 0.9 gal basic pico cube with enough flow, no filtration, living on water changes, wrong kind of light and manual dosing. This was sub-optimal and not that easy, full water changes and daily manual dosing with testing.

In the tank with partial water changes, biodiversity and better lighting (still below average for SPS, Nicrew saltwater LED), the rest is the same, some of them grow fast and maintain good color: montiporas digitata, setosa, mystic sunset. No more keeping birdsnest and flats that take too much space, small tank.

 

[dk2nt9]

Hollywood stunner.

LPS

 

[Floyd-]

I have a encrusting and plate Montipora that are SUPER easy. Out of all my corals in the mix reef these are easy and grow very fast and well.

 

[MrSkumfrog]

My Monti Confusia is a relatively fast grower as are my Millipora and this table coral. I did have a couple hiccups with the reef, regarding low Iodine and all 3 of my RedSea 90 lights dying.

 

[HexaReef]

the Blue German Digi's on the right.. Several inches in the last couple months. Started off with one frag 1" tall about a year ago. No I almost have a forest..

 

[MrSkumfrog]

Acropora hyacinthus . Started from a 1 inch frag in April 2020 . Over a foot wide now. Also growing well for me are tricolor valida, pink tip, and bc glow stick .

What’s interesting about the Glow Stick from BC. I had it in my Reef tank. My house had some hail damage and the roofers fixed it. Unfortunately, the roofers nailed a water line and flooded my house. My floors had to all be replaced.

i took my reef down and sold all the corals. I kept the Rock in a Brute container in my garage with a heater and flow. After several weeks; I wanted to keep the coraline and sponges lit, so I added a clip-on CF shop light. A portion of the Glow Stick actually came back started to grow under those conditions.

 

[G Santana]

I don't really know, but I'll let you know next year. Right now I have a small forest of skinny sticks, expensive sticks and I talk to them everyday and I plead for them to grow. They laugh, giggle and stick out the polyps at me.
But my Mummy's eye chalice that I bought 5 months ago has doubled in size... so that's all I got lol

 

[chadfish]

Birdsnest and Green Slimer

 

[ZoWhat]

The EASIEST sps are ALL the ones I leave sitting at LFS.

Let them kill the coral with Inevitable STN

 

[mlandscape]

My purple Monti Cap - just getting too large now. Starting to affect growth of other corals due to shading and right hand side just starting to protrude above water line and all this despite some pruning

 

[WheatToast]

That plating coralline algae is pretty cool. I’ve never seen it available anywhere though, does anyone actually keep this in a tank?

I saw this clump of Plating coralline attached to a return at a LFS, but they wanted to hold on to it. Additionally, Boom Corals once sold this algae, but one of their urchins ended up consuming it.

 

[WheatToast]

This is awesome. Wish I could find it somewhere here...although my bet says it'd be decimated by my two urchins? Hard to find Pocillopora here as well for some reason.

Check ebay for the coralline. A few sellers offer it pretty cheap and free shipping also.

Hmmm, I don’t usually see Branching or Plating coralline on eBay, but Gulf Coast Ecosystems and Addictive Reef Keeping sometimes have Branching coralline in stock.

 

[Helter Skilter]

Birdsnest
Green Slimer
Monti Cap

 

[Jseimo]

I have a few fast growing. Birds nest, hydnophora, spongoda, Montipora and my cyphastia. All grow like weeds.

 

[ImaFlippinDolphin]

Purple monti cap
Bali blue slimer
RR Firecracker
Bubblegum digi

In that order for me, but my bonsai and Prarie Fire have started taking off too.

Side note: my mrs accidentally broke off 3 pieces of that purple cap and I put it in my mom's tank and it appears to grow even faster there

 

[Galiant50]

It's a tossup between my birdsnet and a monti digitata frag. The digi was glued horizontally 2 months ago and quickly began encrusting on the rock and growing one vertical branch. Now the tip is growing out too. The birdsnest is growing incredibly fast toward the powerhead and the light (up and out).

I just added a bali green slimer. I have set an alert to photograph it once per month from the same angle on the same day.

Is this just an alert on your phone or do you have cameras set up? What do you use?

 

[homer1475]

Montipora capricornis for sure.

I thought I long killed it(on purpose). R

emoved from tank, rock scraped, rock flipped upside down, rock in very low par(25). Needless to say the thing still grows, and is dang near dinner plate size again in just a few short months.

 

[jfoahs04]

Is this just an alert on your phone or do you have cameras set up? What do you use?

Just an alert on my phone and I’ll try and line it up similarly to the previous shots. Nothing fancy!

 

[Chessmanmark]

All of them once you get past year two. The first year goes pretty slow. By year two you get small colonies. By year three you get coral warfare and shading. Then it’s either time for a bigger tank or a frag system.

 

[Naso110]

Garf bonsai, orange monti cap