Wild colonies

[whyoming.white]

Besides live aquaria where do people purchase wild colonies from?

Also what kind of lighting do people like to use to acclimate newly acquired wild colonies. Would MH be the best?

 

[Dsnakes]

Pacific East Aquaculture usually has some decent colonies.

 

[DuckSlayer627]

Sometimes Pacific East Aquaculture has them. Everything is mostly frags though. I'm lucky to have a LFS that gets colonies in every couple weeks. I always put them under Halides since thats all I have. I usually stick them on the bottom for a week or so and then move them where I want them.

 

[C. Eymann]

Drip acclimate all new arrivals
Move up adjust lighting over the span of 3-4 days

Flow is hugely important, esp for larger WC colonies, give them the right kind of and amount based on species/morphology, example- a tightly knit tabling Acropora is going to need stronger flow than something like a bottle brush or a thin stag.

Another thing in my experience that really helped with getting wild acropora colonies to hold their color and seem to help with lighting acclimation is iodine testing and additions to maintain NSW levels of it in the tanks we would place the big WC colonies in.

 

[jda]

If you want a lot, then trans shipping them is cheapest. There is no guarantee that you will get anything nice or unique.

Land them in their own tank so that you don't have to dip them until they are more established. These were under the sun a few days ago, so I like to land them under 6500k Halide. Once they are growing and healthy, then I will dip them if I need to.

If you just want a few, then LiveAquaria, Unique or others often have some. You can bet that they will keep anything that in new or unique looking... so the stuff that they offer for sale can be nice, but not outstanding.

Some LFS call the AquaCultured stuff wild - they are not. If they are on a base, then they are not wild.

 

[flockaveli]

Most LFS have connects with wholesalers and are able to order in colonies. They may not be the greatest, but you never know what you're really getting.

MH is really good for wild stuff, T5 will color them up better, ime. High flow and NSW params like others have said. Have a QT so they don't have to be dipped right away. I never dip anything wild until it's settled into the tank and looking healthy daily with good PE.

 

[C. Eymann]

Some LFS call the AquaCultured stuff wild - they are not. If they are on a base, then they are not wild.

If it's on a base in a LFS and it's a small colony its probably maricultured, which is not much different than "wild" as it's still making the jump from the ocean to a captive system.

 

[C. Eymann]

This is where most LFS's "cultured" acropora comes from, which in my opinion, isnt much easier to keep/stabilize than large freshly cut chunks of wild acropora that come in as "wild" vs "cultured" on price/ordering lists.

 

[jda]

Except they are not unique and a few hundred people will get the same piece this week. Although these are chosen to do well in captivity, this is not what people are usually looking for with "wild" pieces.

 

[C. Eymann]

Except they are not unique and a few hundred people will get the same piece this week. Although these are chosen to do well in captivity, this is not what people are usually looking for with "wild" pieces.

This is most definitely true and it drives down the "value" of certain color morphs of species, because they will cultivate what's hot at the time.
I saw this with superman montipora, shortcake, lemonade, pink cadillac etc etc with mariculture corals.