Sonny, I bought these SPS frags back in March. Green Blasto's, Pavona, Birdsnest, A few Acros and a Few Monti Caps and Zoas. I think we bought 14 various frags for our starter frag set for 110$.. It was a great starter package, A friend of mine owns his own coral business.
http://altisreef.com/ we went out to his house and saw his 25,000 gallon system. It was definitely a sight to behold. So anyways my question is:
I bought these frags that consist of a few different Acroporas and some other corals. This applies to any coral that is mounted on a 'plug' or a rose holder cap. I have a few of these corals that are on these plugs, also an ORA Orange Digi. This applies to the ORA black plugs also. I have noticed that any frags that are left on these 'plugs' grow horribly slow in my system. What do you recommend I do? Ill give you an example. I have a beautiful little Green acropora that was mounted on a rose holder cap. It was 1/4 inch frag and had only encrusted a little bit on the plastic cap. I had him attach the cap to his small home-made rubble frag base. His 'rubble base plugs' are basically a little mound of crushed coral glued together in a small mound to make a frag disc. Looks like an overgrown Hershey kiss. So this rose plug is attached with super glue to the Hershey kiss plug. I have noticed that this Acropora encrusted the whole rose cap and is just barely starting to encrust onto the rubble plug. That is 5 months worth of growth. The frag itself is only a half inch tall, with a few different sprouts. The encrusted base also has tiny sprouts with great polyp extension. I have never had a problem with Polyp extension, it has always been out during the daytime and long. On all corals polyp extension is sofar so good. The baby Acropora seems to be trying to encrust as much as it can before it grows upward.
With these frags, should I break them all off of the plugs (including the ORA Digi) and re-attach them to an actual rubble piece that will be the final resting base of the colony? I should have done something along time ago, but I wanted them to grow a little before I made any drastic changes. What would you do? These frags are staying tiny and I believe that because they are limited space to encrust, they will not grow bushier and taller. What do you think? I'm open for opinions from anyone.
Btw, since following your thread, I have also started dosing Lugols 1 drop a day into my sump! Colors are beautiful (but have not noticed any changes yet) on the corals but my lighting is crap and my flow is also kind of bad. I need a Vortech Mp40w and a decent t5 lighting fixture and I think my tank will finally take off. Growth has been extremely slow in my tank but coloration has been great in my opinion. We can take some pictures and maybe you can critique the system for me? Every time Im 'playing' with my tank and changing something, I tell Katie about your system and show her pictures.. she was like.. "Maybe we can stop over his house and see his tank someday? It would be nice to make another friend. He certainly has allot of talent!" I replied.. maybe someday lol Michigan is kind of far
Thanks Sonny, personally I think your tank and Mcliffy2's tank are my favorite t5 driven systems and the benchmark I hope to obtain someday!
<--- Hopeful TOTM someday!