buying sps, which site

[mwood]

I'm going to start buying sps online and am looking at two websites, atlantisaquarium.net and liveaquaria.com's divers den. Atlantisaquarium's sps looks almost too good to be true. Has anyone ordered sps from them and can you respond to the accuracy of the pictures? Are some of these really good looking sps much harder to keep than a regular sps?

Just trying to figure out why I don't see more of these really colorfull corals in tank pics.

Marcus

 

[Ball]

Ive ordered from Atlantis. Great corals. However, dont expect much for size. Most frags are less than 1 inch. I think thats why you dont see many, in tank photos. They are just to small and take awhile to grow out to a respectable size.

 

[Double-J]

i've ordered a bunch of LPS from them and they are exactly like the pic. I know Brad has made an order of SPS and was pleased with them.

 

[mwood]

Maybe we can get Brad to share some pics.

 

[dascharisma]

Everything from atlantis comes in as pictured. If you buy any wild colonies you probably won't have good luck keeping their color. On the other hand, the frags are amazing. If you can put up with frags as big as an eraser on a pencil, then buy them from atlantis. Keep in mind that if you are running any bulb besides a 20k raidum your corals won't look near as good. If you don't have the water quality to keep the super bright colors, don't waste your money.

Brad

 

[mwood]

Brad, let me ask this. I run 400w Radiums for 8 hours a day and 400w Iwasaki's for 4 hours a day. Is running the Iwasaki's hurting the color of my sps? In other words, do 20k lights cause sps to color up better or just make sps look better?

PS, for this question assume all other factors are held constant. I realize flow and water quality have as much or more to do with sps color.

 

[dascharisma]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6857834#post6857834 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by mwood
Brad, let me ask this. I run 400w Radiums for 8 hours a day and 400w Iwasaki's for 4 hours a day. Is running the Iwasaki's hurting the color of my sps? In other words, do 20k lights cause sps to color up better or just make sps look better?

PS, for this question assume all other factors are held constant. I realize flow and water quality have as much or more to do with sps color.

Of course I have no real way of knowing, but here is what i have noticed. I don't think that 20k bulbs will change the coral in any significant way. Every coral will look different depending on the bulb. I like the look of the corals i keep under 20k lighting. If tomorrow i switched to 10k, I wouldn't like the looks of the corals as much, even though the corals won't have changed overnight.

When you look at pics of corals on atlantis or in my tank, you are looking at radiums and vho actinic. If you like the look of the corals in the pictures, then assuming water quality etc is the same, you will probably like the look of the corals in your own tank with 20k lighting. If you run a different lighting scheme, the corals will look different to you. Since your water quality and all of your parameters won't be identical to whatever they are at atlantis, the coral will look different in your tank. If you couple that with a change in lighting, then you are seriously increasing the chance that the corals won't look at all like you expected them to. Most likely you will be unhappy with the change. Once you have added enough well known frags to your tank, you should have some idea the way that the color will shift in your tank. You can use that info to have more confidence with what to expect when ordering online.


Brad

 

[mwood]

Thanks

 

[phishcrazee]

I really like this site, sharky's reef

https://www.sharkysreef.com/catalog/login.php?osCsid=7b076f869065a699a8c542542338e2d3

 

[Covey]

I think I've read that corals do adapt to the light conditions they are given. In that they change the mixture of zooxanthella they hold in their tissue. I have noticed it before first hand too. I was cleaning my lights broke one of my daylight and ended up pulling some old bulb out of the closet. I ended up with a very blue mix. My new daylights showed up two weeks later and I went back to the original mix. Most of the corals were fluoresting better many showing color they hadn't before the two blue week. Back under a daylight mix the colors faded back out over the next couple weeks.
In short 6000K really do physically brown out corals.

 

[mwood]

Anyone else have any thoughts? I'm really close to buying a custom set of LAIII's that hold two bulbs each. Just want to be sure I'm not making a mistake by keeping the Iwasaki's.

 

[Covey]

Do you like the color mix you have?

 

[Covey]

Oh ya. The color shift I had was with both LPS and SPS.
Have you had any corals brown out on you?

 

[mwood]

I'm not sure if I've had brownout. I've only had the setup for less than a year.

I like the color blend. I get the 20k look for half the time and the 10k look(6.5k/20k mix) the rest of the time. It's not bad. I may switch to xm 10k's one day. 10k/20k shouldn't be bad either.

I just recieved the details on the custom reflectors. Dave from PGS says it looks very promising.

I looked at sharkys, lots of brown corals right now. I may just go with liveaquaria for now to fill the tank and add frags from atlantis later.

Marcus

 

[thillt]

I donââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t have any experience with SPS, but I have done a lot of research and I think the next site that I will buy from will be Reefer Madness. They have some very nice looking corals with a lot of color. If you want to talk to someone who has ordered from then I would shoot Sipe a PM.


http://www.reefermadness.us/RM-Hand-Picked.htm

 

[dascharisma]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6862885#post6862885 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by thillt
I donââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t have any experience with SPS, but I have done a lot of research and I think the next site that I will buy from will be Reefer Madness. They have some very nice looking corals with a lot of color. If you want to talk to someone who has ordered from then I would shoot Sipe a PM.


http://www.reefermadness.us/RM-Hand-Picked.htm

A friend of mine bought a reefermadness frag pack, and I can tell you that it was some of the worst corals i have ever seen. Reefermadness uses photoshop like crazy on their pics. It looks like they turned unsharp mask up to 500!



Brad

 

[dascharisma]

Hey Marcus. If you end up placing an order through atlantis or liveaquaria, let me know. We might be able to get some free shipping.


Brad

 

[mwood]

How much do we need to order to get free shipping. I know it's 225 on liveaquaria. I'm going to order at least that.

 

[Covey]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6862885#post6862885 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by thillt
I donââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t have any experience with SPS, but I have done a lot of research and I think the next site that I will buy from will be Reefer Madness. They have some very nice looking corals with a lot of color. If you want to talk to someone who has ordered from then I would shoot Sipe a PM.


http://www.reefermadness.us/RM-Hand-Picked.htm

I have orderd three times from Reefer Madness. I can say that very few of the corals I got ended up looking like they do in the pictures. RM is almost totally wild corals even the frags are mostily wild corals. There is little chance they would hold the color if they did come in looking good. Chris is a nice guy but I won't order from there again until they start selling tank rasied corals.

 

[dascharisma]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6863999#post6863999 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by mwood
How much do we need to order to get free shipping. I know it's 225 on liveaquaria. I'm going to order at least that.

It is $500 on atlantis. If you were ordering half of that, i bet jj and i could cover the rest.


Brad