WHEN WILL I SEE GROWTH?! GOODNESS GRACIOUS

[jayteerq]

I’m new to reefing. Still under a year old. Got these frags 2 months ago. My question is dang when the #@#@!?$m I going to have colonies??? This is slower than watching grass grow I see growth buts it’s like MILLIMETERS!! This hobby is definitely teaching me patience lol

P.S. this post isn’t meant to be taken serious. Just an inpatient reefer excited to have colonies…one day lol

 

[exnisstech]

I normally have the patience of a nat so I feel you. I've had this frag for well over a year and it's just starting to base out.

TBH when I started my acro tank it took a year before anything really started to grow well. I'm on year two now and finally starting to feel good about things. I don't know how some folks do it 9-12 months.

Early in.

2yrs later.

They say good things come to those that wait

 

[sawdonkey]

I recommend the Rip Van Winkle approach to reefing. You go to sleep for a couple of years and when you wake up, you might have some growth.

Yeah, set your expectations. SPS is very slow, especially at first. The good news is that once it starts to take off, it really takes off. But still, we’re talking millimeters per week. It’s just that you’re growing millimeters off twenty branches instead of one.

The other good news is that you’re new to this and are able to keep acros alive!

 

[jayteerq]

I normally have the patience of a nat so I feel you. I've had this frag for well over a year and it's just starting to base out.

TBH when I started my acro tank it took a year before anything really started to grow well. I'm on year two now and finally starting to feel good about things. I don't know how some folks do it 9-12 months.

Early in.

2yrs later.

They say good things come to those that wait

Dude great job man! You’re finally on an incline! I can’t wait to be at your point in the reef tank lol looks good!

 

[jayteerq]

I recommend the Rip Van Winkle approach to reefing. You go to sleep for a couple of years and when you wake up, you might have some growth.

Yeah, set your expectations. SPS is very slow, especially at first. The good news is that once it starts to take off, it really takes off. But still, we’re talking millimeters per week. It’s just that you’re growing millimeters off twenty branches instead of one.

The other good news is that you’re new to this and are able to keep acros alive!

Yeah that is good news. I think the fake posts online sets bad expectations for new reefers. I know SPS takes a long time to grow but people will show off “colony growth” in 6 months and they’re showing like 8” colonies lol. Must be fake. But yeah I’m just being silly I definitely see growth on some of my frags. You can see the fruity pebble acro came bleached but is now bringing back color. You can see the monti plate has almost fully encrusted the plug now. But to be fair, I got all these acro frags on Black Friday so it’s only been 2 months. I was just being dramatic

 

[klc]

It takes a while. Some sps frags will never grow from the fragged section again, but will encrust for a long time and then shoot up branches from the new base. Some of them will not encrust enough while on a plug to do anything and must be attached to a rock so it can really get a good base spread out, then it will sprout branches and grow, but were talking 6 months to a year for this to occur. I hear about year 5, providing you can maintain stability with all parameters, you'll wish they didn't grow so fast lol.

 

[jayteerq]

It takes a while. Some sps frags will never grow from the fragged section again, but will encrust for a long time and then shoot up branches from the new base. Some of them will not encrust enough while on a plug to do anything and must be attached to a rock so it can really get a good base spread out, then it will sprout branches and grow, but were talking 6 months to a year for this to occur. I hear about year 5, providing you can maintain stability will all parameters, you'll wish they didn't grow so fast lol.

That’s what makes me so nervous about acros!!! One slip up… one small swing and you run the chance of them bleaching the sheets. Makes me nervous AF. Long term thinking. All I can think about is “I can’t make a single mistake for the next few years” LOL

 

[exnisstech]

It's really cool when this happens.

 

[jayteerq]

It's really cool when this happens.

Wow that’s beautiful!! Must be a super proud feeling. You can see similar story with my fruity pebble in this post too haha. Did you ever get the tips from the original frag back? Or did it just grow new from the base?

 

[exnisstech]

It is a really good feeling. They have been few and far between but it's one of the things that I enjoy about the hobby.
I cut it at the plug. It was in another tank and started going south a second time so I popped the plug and moved it into my acro tank and it took off. This was when it started to recover in the original tank.

 

[JonoH]

 

[jayteerq]

Wow naaaah no way that meme is too funny. *saved* lol

 

[JonoH]

Wow naaaah no way that meme is too funny. *saved* lol

Haha i saved it from a similar post!

Your keeping Acro alive! That's an achievement in itself.

I managed to score a few colony's in my tank that has made a huge difference, otherwise its very frustrating waiting for growth!

 

[klc]

That’s what makes me so nervous about acros!!! One slip up… one small swing and you run the chance of them bleaching the sheets. Makes me nervous AF. Long term thinking. All I can think about is “I can’t make a single mistake for the next few years” LOL

If something is off, they usually just stop growing and either brown out or pale out on you. You almost always know what caused it, something you forgot to do or let it go for too long, or made a change to something like lighting or changed salt etc. If they are healthy they will usually resume growth in a few weeks or so.

2 days ago I increased the white channel on my viparspectras from 20 to 30%, the blue channel remained the same at 70%, it really wasn't much increase. I have a par meter but I didn't measure what the change was as it didn't seem like it was any big deal. Tonight I found one of my milli frags had rtnd on me, and in it's defense it had been struggling for a few months anyways, it was a frag from a maricultured colony from a LFS I buy a lot of fish and corals at. I'm certain the increase in the lights was the reason, it wasn't in high par to begin with I think it was about 200 or so and with the increase only with the white channel it is now perhaps 220.

10 days ago I measured my alk and it was down into the 6 range so I investigated and the soda ash dosing pump hose had completely plugged up on me. I quickly corrected the issue and gave the tank a healthy shot of 2 part to get the alk back up to 8 where it normally stays. I didn't see any impact on the corals, the polyp extension and color remained good. They did however stall out on me growth wise but I expect them to resume normal growth this week sometime. I look at them daily and I totally know when they've grown even just a little bit lol.

So my point is, when you have some kind of event with your corals, you can almost always think back a few days or a week and realize what caused it. A tank wide bleaching event is actually very rare and doesn't happen that often. I've had it occur, it sucks but luckily I'm in a very good local club and a few members did some fragging and helped me repopulate the tank rather quickly.

Hang in there your corals will grow one day for you.

 

[anthonymckay]

That’s what makes me so nervous about acros!!! One slip up… one small swing and you run the chance of them bleaching the sheets. Makes me nervous AF. Long term thinking. All I can think about is “I can’t make a single mistake for the next few years” LOL

With that in mind, plan your system around redundancy and monitoring to catch issues before they become big problems. eg: Dual heaters in case one goes out. Inkbird temperature controller with something like a hydros controller acting as the master to that. Things like that.

The person above is spot on though. Tank wide bleaching events are rare. The one time I had that happen was because of a power outage in the middle of the night and my water temp dropped down to the low 60's. Lost a few colonies, and most of my acros bleached. But they all came back over the next couple months.

 

[Dburr1014]

Some take off immediately and some like to fester for a year.
Good job they're still alive!