Thanks for your previous comments. I learn a lot from this thread
. I have had acros (five) for only nine months.
Would you say the reason for choosing small parts of a big colony instead of a the whole colony is better because the big colony is adapted to a reef environment that may be impossible to recreate in aquarium?
Other reasons I can think of is money or plain fun watching something grow from small to big.
A colony the size of two open hands is considered big I suppose?
Can you see any goodies here? Other side of the tank you saw before.
Hi Patrik, i regard anything as big as an open hand as a large colony. I like branches that are usually about 2 x 3" or 3 x 3' in size and almost always take one or two small frags off each new piece to use as test pieces for different spots.
I always place them on the sand on a small piece of pipe so they have good flow under the branches. The next day i check each piece for orientation. Almost every species of acro has a good side and bad side. An eye catching piece can loose 3/4 of it's 'wow' factor in relation to visible pigments simply being placed to grow away from the viewing glass or vice versa.
Anything with substantial horizontal growth patterns will usually look best growing either towards the glass or sideways pointing down the length of your display. Sideways is best to emphasize the overhanging nature of the piece the lower you place it. A table growing 1" off the sand as many of mine are doesn't look like it's 5" over the sand when viewed front on as the sand underneath isn't visible like it is if you were viewing the 5" overhang from the side where all the sand underneath is visible to show the cool hovering colony. The higher up the easier it is to display pieces at different angles and still get a visual wow factor.
The more acros you add the harder it is to find the right spot for a particular piece that shows it best. It's worth turning the new pieces and waiting for PE to return before judging the view of colors each time. Acros without PE can look dramatically more eye catching in relation to color contrasts present WITHOUT any polyps visible - especially when the polyps aren't very attractive compared to the tissue pigments. That's why a lot of sale pics of frags etc are taken after turkey basting the frag or giving it a shake so the polyps are withdrawn - don't fall for that little trick because unless you're going to turkey baste the display every 5 minutes you are going to see a different overall color 'view' of your acros than you might have thought. That's not to say that something with withdrawn polyps won't also look amazing with good PE, just be aware of the fact that it can make a big difference.
I don't care what anything looks like under actinic lighting because i see my display under full lighting 90% of the time and that is the only color view that is important to me for obvious reasons. If you like your colors under the full lighting you run then it's a given that the display will look ridiculous under actinics or RB LED's so focus all your energy on getting the very best colors you can during full lighting.
Sorry for the long ramble but it just comes out of nowhere sometimes......:thumbsup:
I would call all these pieces large Patrik.
The orangey pink colony far right will either be stunning or a drab dog if you can't make it happy. The far left on the first shelf looks very interesting. You will always see stunning pinks and blues - always, so look for pinks with different colored polyps/tips. Anything that is purple with red polyps will be a stunner. All the yellows and pastel green beauties in the pic - before choosing any of them i want you to visualize the acro as much more green and less pastel and consider if you would still like the colors. Some stuff will still have great color contrast whether glowing pastel as most fresh collected SSC does as opposed to when the pigments are saturated in the classic SSC pink/red and green.
I'm not slagging greens, just don't think that the pastel nature of those stressed acros is anything like the depth of color you will eventually see if you get your system running well.
As always - you pick what you like Patrik as we all have different tastes in acros - most of the pieces on the bottom and at the front of the first shelf will only look awesome if you place them growing towards the glass or sideways btw. :beer:
Since Mike slagged me for leaving Bulent's Bliss on an ugly round frag disc i removed it, cut it into three bits and then stuck them on a blob of putty with super glue gel splayed out about 20 degrees further so i had a larger colony already (biggles trick) and kept the encrusted frag disc with three circular cuts on top to recover for my friends Ken and Jen.
The spot where the disc was glued to was at an angle so i placed a small 1/2" thick piece of rock at the same angle using discs to prop it on. Then i placed the three small 2" long branches onto the putty so i had the right shape at the right angle i envisioned once the rock was putty/glued onto the angled spot it was living on previously. I went to all this trouble because the spot is nestled in the middle of about five other acros and room is tight.
If i was living in the US or Canada and was starting everything from frags i would place each one on a similar small rock and putty the rocks where i thought they would look best. Over time as things grow and color up you will see color changes etc that might make you wish you put something in a different spot. As you collect more and more pieces and let's be honest, most of us never stop adding 'just one more must have' there might arise a need to alter the position of some pieces to accommodate the new arrival.
If you place each frag on a small rock and glue the rock to your main rockwork you will not interrupt or destroy any of the encrusting tissue the frag has put on since you first bought it and the change in position will not see a huge change to the acros 'happiness' as long as the flow hasn't changed drastically. It's great when you look at something and think ' if that was 2" to the right of where it's glued i could see that better and this would contrast much more.......... move it '
It happened again Patrik........... raaaaaaaaamble ! :wave:
