Fox Coral Growth pics

[Doni]

4-11-05
(Fox Nemenzophyllia turbida)

7-9-06

4-14-07

 

[porky]

Holy Cow :eek1:
That thing has grown like crazy!
Cool Pics!

 

[GoingPostal]

Beautiful! My favorite lps but I haven't manage to acquire one yet, they are so expensive online and I've only found one unhealthy looking one nearby. Very impressive growth.

 

[str8clownr]

hey i have a fox coral as well, and i would never even guess they were the same coral.... yours looks 100x nicer than mine, and mine has never really done well, and id like to bring it back so it looks like yours,

could you specify your params, like i know mine deteriorated bc of a high temp (84) so now i keep it around 79 and get much better coloration, can you feed fox corals bits of silversides and krill? or what should i be feeding it? i have not fed yet

 

[Doni]

Thanks everyone!

Temp: 78 winter/80 summer
salinity; 35 ppt/ 1.026
Ca; 410 ppm
alkalinity; 3.4 meg/l
mg; @ 1300 ppm
Auto Top off with kalkwasser
Tropic Marin Pro Reef salt
Lots of random flow

My Aquacontroller keeps the reef temp 78-79 during the winter months and gradually increases it to 80-81 during the summer months.

The photo period is long. I have my dual 250 se xm 10k's on for a total of 8 hrs per day (4 hrs on, 1 off, 4 hrs on) and the dual T5 actinics are on for 13 hours per day.

I have tried to spot feed it but it does not eat. However, I do feed my fishes several times a day with my homemade mush. The mush is many different sizes from a liquid up to tiny chunks of meat. Maybe it absorbs it from the water column??

 

[Lpabsolute]

Nice Looking Fox

 

[poopsko24]

super super nice man. always a fav of mine. Let me know if you decide to frag it, I'm in. What kind of flow r u putting on it ?

 

[sunfish11]

Hey nice Fox! I am interested in why you think yours has grown so well. This isn't that common. I also have one that has done very well and I am not sure why. Here is a photo when it was in my nano tank. It was very small.

And here it is grown significantly and taking up a lot of realestate in my 210.

I keep mine under 3x250 XM 10k MH with T5 super atinic supplement. I feed the tank a lot but never target the fox. I keep my temp at 79-82. I keep alk at 9dkh or so cal at 380-400, Mag at 1250. My lighting period for the MH is only 5-6 hours.

What do you think is the key? I have had this coral since Oct/Nov 05.

Lisa

 

[Doni]

Poopsko24, I have always had lots of random flow. I now have about 850 gph from dual returns plus two koralia #3 ph pushing 850 gph each on an random wave timer. That is a total of 1700 - 2550 gph at any one time. That equates to a turnover rate between 11.3 - 17 times per hour for my 150 gal system.

Lisa, yours is beatiful! Our tanks have a lot in common it seems. I would think that the contributing factors for significant growth with this coral would possibly be a combination of the high par MH, high nutrients in the water, and stable ca/alk/mg. Mine has grown a lot of skeleton in the last two years so proper ca/alk/mg is important.

I only have a few sps corals and only one clam so the kalkwasser I use for all top offs keeps the ca/alk perfect.

 

[sing4lts]

Mine too has really taken off this last year. Does anyone know how to frag one of these?

 

[YoitsArson]

Now I have to go out and get one. Those are nice.

 

[lockus]

doni : Have you found that having the halides off in the middle of the light cycle has changed anything. Just curious on why you do this?

 

[Doni]

I am not certain that it has been benificial or not. Having the MH off for 1-2 hours helps to keep the temperature down and mimicks nature a bit...