is this okay to start with?

[hagakure]

My fiance got me into this hobby, and now I'm hooked. She would like to start keeping SPS, and has been browsing online for cultured frags.

She was really interested in this piece from an online vendor:

Does anybody here have one, and is it suitable as a beginner piece?

Thank you for your advice.

 

[trueblackpercula]

what kind of set up do you have, the question is a little vag

 

[trueblackpercula]

by the way welcome to reefcentral

 

[coralfarmer84]

How new is the tank? Is it the first coral going in? What type of lights are you running? How much flow do you have?

 

[hagakure]

Sorry! It's a sixty gallon with two 150 watt metal halides. The tank's just over a year old, but we've only kept LPS so far. Aside from the return, there are three maxi-jet powerheads with a Natural Wave wavemaker.

I think she was advised on another board what would be decent beginner stuff, like digitata. But, she wanted something real nice. I just felt this piece was too nice and expensive for a first try, so my cousin told me to check with you guys.

 

[coralfarmer84]

if its an online vendor odds are they will still have these pieces down the road. If your having goodluck so far and your water parameters are good, i'd say you'd be ok.... BUT if it was me I'd go with a cheaper piece that you see in person first. It doesn't nec have to be ugly. It just seems to me if you order something offline it never looks as nice as the one in the picture. Photoshopping can make corals that are decent look amazing. Just my .02

 

[duec22]

How's the water quality? This along with lighting and feeding are the three basics for keeping SPS.
I think you lighting is fine if you keep the coral in the upper part of your tank. As for what the other board suggested, I would do the same. Start off with monti's, you can typically get them cheaper and they tend to be a bit hardier. If you do good with them, then you can start to work in the acros.

 

[hagakure]

Thank you guys! Maybe we'll start with a digitata. I wonder if this vendor's known for photoshopping?

 

[mntl]

With sps it is definately good to start with a cheap (hopefully free ) frag of just about anything. Tenuis (sp?) seems to be a good intermediate frag, it is easy to find, it is generally easy to keep, and if you can keep it growing with good color you most likely can keep just about whatever you want. It is a good guage coral imo, some montis are easy but being able to keep a brown or orange monti, brown or orange does not necessarily mean that a blue or purple acro will do the same.

 

[duec22]

Actually I've seen the mother colony that this frag was taken from, and it's not photoshopped. If anything the green is brighter and much more impressive..

 

[Unarce]

At first I thought you pulled that from my photo gallery, than realized it's from the UltimateFrags listing :rolleye1:

I probably wouldn't recommend it for beginners. From what I understand, there's very little of this out there and most of those that got it couldn't keep it alive. I know of only two others (Sand Dollar and tfp) that have been able to raise a colony of it. I'm not sure if Tyree still has it.

HTH

 

[Purple Haze]

I've read your book "The Way of the Samurai"

 

[RichConley]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7395596#post7395596 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Purple Haze
I've read your book "The Way of the Samurai"

LOL.

I took a Samurai culture class. Interesting read.

 

[twon8]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7392792#post7392792 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by duec22
How's the water quality? This along with lighting and feeding are the three basics for keeping SPS.
I think you lighting is fine if you keep the coral in the upper part of your tank. As for what the other board suggested, I would do the same. Start off with monti's, you can typically get them cheaper and they tend to be a bit hardier. If you do good with them, then you can start to work in the acros.

It is my belief that flow ranks near the top of the list, above lighting and feeding for sps. three maxijets is not sufficient imo.

 

[duec22]

good point anthony...I forgot to put flow on that list.. For my SPS dominated tank I run at about a 33-35X turnover rate, and am thinking adding another powerhead to increase that.

 

[Sk8r]

Acropora yongei is a good starter, ditto ac. valida, pocillopora, stylophora, the montiporas.

 

[duec22]

I just saw that Tubs is also selling a piece of this. The pic he has gives a much better idea of what the coral looks like.
http://www.exoticreefs.us/repository/karl/karl_candle.html

 

[imtopora]

I also think flow is very important. I have the three maxijet 1200s and alone it was not enuf so I added a tunze 6060 and it is SPS heaven. Also if you get serious look into a good skimmer.HTH

 

[marine_freak]

Flow, flow, flow.... 2 seio 2600's and tunze wavemaker here on my 4ft tank..... I still feel a little shy on flow needs..... go cheap on your acro, start small.... acros are not for everybody. You will know if you like it with time. It is a lot of work. Getting something hardy, and tank raised preferably 3-4 generations old.... these frags are much more forgiving of water quality and variation. Good luck!

 

[clkwrk]

We have a local that has a 7x7 colony grown from a frag . It is on the bottom of a 30 inch tank prolly 24" away from the light does great even though the system is under a year still.