SPS keepers, how many of your colonies started as frags...

[MyReef]

I would say 90 of my 100+ corals started as frags....like RickO said, I prefer frags over colonies for the sheer satisfaction of watching them grow.

I just wish I was better at keeping a picture chronology of the growth. I have some that started as 2-3" frags are 7-8" in diameter with about 150-200 branches now....oh well, maybe I will do it on the next one.

[PaintGuru]

I guess the problem is my few satisfactions are being crushed by the number of times I find a frag turned over and bleached out and the length of time it takes to show good growth (digi and caps the exception). Just call me Mr. Negativity .

[MiddletonMark]

Paintguru - what's your system setup like?

Maybe there's another reason that we can help you with? I'd expect better growth than what you are reporting ... and I'd consider the great suggestions above for keeping frags from falling down.

[darn turbos ... they're banned from my sps reef for knocking stuff around]

[PaintGuru]

General system:

180 G, 2-250W 20K XMs on the ends with a 400W 20K XM in the middle (probably part of my problem on the growth end of things). Barebottom as of October, still battling some hair algae from that changeover. Alk is around 10-11 dKH last I checked and Ca is about 450ppm. Coralline on the glass is going strong. Most of my LPS grow well, but for some reason the acros just do not take off very well. I think this weekend I'm going to go in, remove some of the live rock for circulation sake, and glue everyone and everything down.

[MiddletonMark]

Yep, I'd increase circulation .. that always seems to help.

Personally, I'm in favor of 10k bulbs ... + good reflectors. I was amazed when I improved my reflector how much that helped.

How old are the bulbs? Just checking, but I thought most 20k's lose intensity somewhat quicker than lower K bulbs ... not positive ... but always worth checking.

Maybe for color the 20k bulbs are good ... but at any distance from them ... I dunno. [maybe do the 400 in the middle as a 10k bulb ... keeping some of the heavy blue color but then you can experiment and see if the 10k `helps' growth? ... or the ones on the end as 10k's w/ blue in the middle?]

Hopefully some other, wiser, SPS keepers will chime in. But as you've got a good response so far - why not see what people can suggest? Worst case scenario you can just ignore us all

[wasabi]

out of thirty sps colonies, only two were bought as colonies. the entire tank started as 1-2 inch frags. i still have about 5 colonies that can be moved on there base rock.

[PaintGuru]

Yeah I dont like the color of 20K XMs either which is why I'm going back down to 10Ks. I actually have my return pump and 2-Tunze 6060s as circulations as well so there is some good flow going, but I have a feeling I have too much LR to get the detritus in suspension well. And I never ignore advice, just forget it .

[yardboy]

Well, you gotta remember the three R's of reefkeeping:
bRight light
Rapid water movement
Real good water quality
Yea, I know i stretched it, but still. I discovered that when I increased water movement things started growing noticably faster. And keeping calcium levels up(along with alk)
And keeping phosphate OUT!!! (no hair, good calcification)
I'm not so sure that good coralline growth is much of an indicator of low phosphate. I've always had good growth, but sometimes I've had phosphate. This group of "hooraays" finally drummed it in my head that if you got algae (particularly hair), you got excess nutrients. Ya'll did teach me that didn't you? Or did I just make it up?

[tdwyatt]

Originally posted by yardboy
...I've always had good growth, but sometimes I've had phosphate. This group of "hooraays" finally drummed it in my head that if you got algae (particularly hair), you got excess nutrients. Ya'll did teach me that didn't you? Or did I just make it up?

it was Doug1...



if he looks guilty, it was doug...

[yardboy]

Tom, I'm guessing that the server only allowed you to post that photo late at night! And yea, he definitely looks guilty of something.

[Casey]

oh there is guilt written all over that face.

[PaintGuru]

That is why I went to barebottom, to get rid of the phosphates. I think I am still in the "LR burping" phase and like I said, I think my LR arrangement is not conductive to detritus removal, so I'll probably change it up this weekend. I was also considering getting one of those new Sequence ValueFlo pumps for a closed loop, if I can figure out how to set it up.

Also, how do you do the superglue with new frags? Do you pull the rock out and stick it outside of the tank or is there some trick to getting it on underwater?

[MiddletonMark]

I often superglue out of the water - that's just me.

I also most commonly superglue onto a piece of rubble. Let that harden a little [outside of tank] before putting it back in. This way, thru any moving/fastening/etc ... I'm always touching the rubble, not the frag.
Then I fasten that to my larger LR pieces in the tank using 2-part epoxy ... [like the 2 little fishes stuff] ... I think LR rubble to LR works pretty well with that epoxy - though it can make the skimmer go nuts as well as takes a few days to truly get hard. Not 100% perfect, but works pretty well for me.

To super glue under water [I'm assuming someone else can explain better, but]:
Put big ball of superglue gel on the frag [outside the tank] ... let it `skin over a little. Then put the frag in the tank, in a `one time' shot push it onto the rock where you want it. This should deform the ball-o-superglue and thus get some `wet' superglue onto the rock. Maybe [?] move around slightly, or rock to make sure SG is `spread'. Hold in place until it takes.
IMO this is not as strong as glueing outside the tank, with both frag end and rock lightly dried ... and requires a big more of a perfect shot. With my shaky hands ... not my preferred method.

But it works ...

[PaintGuru]

What about using 2 part plumbers epoxy from HD?

[MiddletonMark]

I dunno. I know people use it ... I just would rather spend a few more bucks and know it's reef safe.

As I can't imagine plumbers epoxy being much less than a couple bucks ... and tubes of the 2-part aquarium-grade stuff mailorder is about $10. For my peace of mind ... not a big deal [also as you don't need that much, in my experience]. My one tube is 8 months old, has been used a couple dozen times, and may have half left.

Maybe I'm paranoid, maybe I'm a freak ... but I don't mind