When that new sps frag just shines

[Pico Reef Geek]

Ok, this is my first time with coral but I got my first frags today, all sps cause I love sps and I just have to give a shout out to Tidal Gardens for their amazing corals.

I got two Monti digis -- a forest fire and a German blue -- and a purple bonsai acro (it was described as a hardy sps and my understanding is the purple bonsai has been aquacultured for a pretty long time in the hobby). Three little frags for my gigantic 2.5 gallon pico tank.

But the shout out is for how hardy and great Tidal Garden's corals really are. People say not to expect the polyps on most sps to extend on the first day but that little forest fire digi started looking pretty and opened up in less than an hour! Even the acro peeked out a little bit. I knew I would like that forest fire digi the moment I saw it and was not surprised it opened up first, just didn't realize it would do it today! Especially since both it and the acro were moved from frag plugs to small rocks.

First placed


Within an hour



The acro too also made big changes in just an hour.
First placed


An hour later


My tank light is the Halo by reef casa (I know its a rebrand of something else, just can't remember what) with the settings set very low for the first day as I hear you should go slow with lighting ( A5, B15, C5 if I remember correctly). The purple bonsai started to retract as the light dimmed but I didn't want to play with the lights. I did put a drop of brightwell amino in the tank before I put the coral in and I put a dash of reef roids in the tank a few days ago as I feared the tank would be too sterile (its a fishless tank) and used the brightwells bacteria for a couple weeks to be safe. Though I plan to do small water changes daily to ensure stability but a half or full water change on this takes like 5 minutes if anything starts to go wrong.

The German blue is being a bit more of a diva and hasn't extended its polyps, but I have a feeling that frag won't disappoint. It had the hardest time because he snapped in two in shipping but Tidal Gardens said not to worry the German blue should be fine. They were so fast to answer questions and I really appreciate them and just can't get over that fire digi.

I'm hooked lol. I'll post a couple follow up pics on this thread here and there.

Thanks for reading and I hope you comment with your thoughts.

 

[jda]

If it is a real-deal ORA German Blue, then this is not a super easy coral, like most digis, but not hard either. It is a stunner when it gets full colored. Don't take it personally if it struggles in a new tank since it is more of a medium difficulty coral than a super easy one like other montis.

 

[Matt Bravo]

they look dope but I’m pretty concerned about something else…
How old is the tank and is there any other coral in?

 

[Pico Reef Geek]

If it is a real-deal ORA German Blue, then this is not a super easy coral, like most digis, but not hard either. It is a stunner when it gets full colored. Don't take it personally if it struggles in a new tank since it is more of a medium difficulty coral than a super easy one like other montis.

Thank you. I didn’t know that about the blues. I’ll keep an eye on the blue digi. I thought it had similar needs as the forest fire which is why I got the two and glad to know I should keep an eye on him.

 

[Pico Reef Geek]

they look dope but I’m pretty concerned about something else…
How old is the tank and is there any other coral in?

Oh it’s a new tank and just sps (I know I’m a little crazy and in for a lot of work).

While they say you can cycle with bacteria for just a week, and it did test well with ammonia pretty fast, I have been cycling the sand and rock for 6 weeks and the tank itself for a month.

I have heard sps don’t love newer tanks but I’ve also heard the needs of lps and sps make it difficult to keep the two and I went with just a little fishless sps tank. I was planning on getting a couple snails once algae starts growing but so far that hasn’t happened (with frags in there that should change this week).

 

[Matt Bravo]

Oh it’s a new tank and just sps (I know I’m a little crazy and in for a lot of work).

While they say you can cycle with bacteria for just a week, and it did test well with ammonia pretty fast, I have been cycling the sand and rock for 6 weeks and the tank itself for a month.

I have heard sps don’t love newer tanks but I’ve also heard the needs of lps and sps make it difficult to keep the two and I went with just a little fishless sps tank. I was planning on getting a couple snails once algae starts growing but so far that hasn’t happened (with frags in there that should change this week).

Definitely in for a decent amount of work haha. Anyway you might need to dose nitrates and phosphates since you plan on keeping it fishless. Eventually they start growing and consuming them. If it’s only a few corals then it shouldn’t be much of a problem but for now focus on keeping alk calc and mag as stable as possible

Good luck!

 

[billyocean]

Definately hold off adding any more sps for a while and see how these do. It's going to be tough in a tank with rock that new but I'm rooting for ya!

 

[Pico Reef Geek]

Definitely in for a decent amount of work haha. Anyway you might need to dose nitrates and phosphates since you plan on keeping it fishless. Eventually they start growing and consuming them. If it’s only a few corals then it shouldn’t be much of a problem but for now focus on keeping alk calc and mag as stable as possible

Good luck!

Thank you, I really appreciate it and yeah I feel you. I have put a very little bit of reef roids with a couple drops of amino acids in and plan to do so every couple days for nitrate and phosphates (the bonsai acro seems to like it and its little strands come out to gobble it up) and have been thinking to maybe get I believe its called Kalc as I believe Tidal Garden uses that product and the corals are use to it.

The Fire digi seems to just be vibing and looks always happy when the lights turns on, while that blue German I don't think is going to open up anytime soon. If the blue starts incrusting, then I think he will be ok.

For stability, I am doing small water changes every day and testing salinity a few times a day to keep things stable (I work from home so I can keep an eye on them, though I know 90 percent of sps work is not messing with them lol). My biggest worry so far is I don't know if any algae hitch hiked in (I want it to have because while I'll have to clean it, I know most algae serve a positive purpose). It looked like the frag plugs had some Coraline algae but it will take some time to know for sure if it actually did.

I really appreciate people responding, I don't know anyone in my area that are into coral, so while friends love the photos they look at me like I am speaking an alien language when I talk about this stuff.