SPS Wild Colonies Coloration

[Lyfey]

shandy, I think you are dosing too much amino acids. I would stop all dosing of amino acids and increase feeding. I have known people that overdose aminos that it turns all corals brown / dark colors. Certain reefers I know only dose aminos when their colors turn pale or light. I would stop the AA's and I bet you they will color up nicely!

just my .02c Cheers!
-Chris

 

[jbanks]

shandy, I think you are dosing too much amino acids. I would stop all dosing of amino acids and increase feeding. I have known people that overdose aminos that it turns all corals brown / dark colors. Certain reefers I know only dose aminos when their colors turn pale or light. I would stop the AA's and I bet you they will color up nicely!

just my .02c Cheers!
-Chris

I agree here. It would be different if your corals were turning very pale.. In that case aminos can certainly help.. If there already dark, I would back off. What I've noticed with wild colonies, is that the higher the flow the better.. I have seen pieces come back in my tank because what i thought was good flow was fine for some of my aquacultured coral, but way too little for the wild pieces.. reef water is way more turbulent in the wild then in our glass boxes..

 

[Stanley-Reefer]

Are we counting maricultured pieces here? I've got some real winners at the LFS and Liveaquaria later.

Only good pic is this one from the lfs for now:

May/09

Sept/09

12/09

Can you tell the progression of Vodka with MB7 and a hint of biodigest???

 

[chercm]

corals from Waltsmith is wild sps correct ?

 

[shandy_say]

@Dog boy dave - thanks dave. Haven't given up yet!

@Lyfey & Jbanks- I don't dose AA directly into the tank. The AA is in the DIY food i feed my fishes which is just 1/2 inch x 1/2 inch 2 times a day. The AA is very very minimal. I only put a total of 2 capfuls per 1/4 kilo of DIY food.

@stanley-reefer - those are very nice pieces you have there.

 

[ptan]

nice thread you having here Shandy! I think the last resource we can get is to frag the colonies that we got from the wild and put it in our tank... maybe with small frags, wild frags can slowly adopt less flow and less lights and eventually color up... what you think guys?

 

[waxy]

nice thread you having here Shandy! I think the last resource we can get is to frag the colonies that we got from the wild and put it in our tank... maybe with small frags, wild frags can slowly adopt less flow and less lights and eventually color up... what you think guys?

Aquacultured corals were once wild, being raised in captivity, they reach their full potential.

While wild corals on the otherhand, need a helping hand. Might as well be you or me

 

[Ido1]

What about maricultured Acroporas?
Would you consider them wild colonies?

 

[waxy]

Aquacultured -----> Maricultured ----------> Wild
Fully Captive -----> Cultured in the wild ----> Wild Caught

Basically, Maricultured corals is between Aquacultured and wild caught.
It's still considered wild, but bred in captivity Hard to explain, or hard to explain by the explainer

 

[shandy_say]

@ptan-thanks! I haven't done any fragging of any of my wild sps. The only fragging i have done is to remove the dead branches of the damaged sps when they arrive. I know for a fact that this helps as ive seen many of my sps that recovered fully after fragging. Coloration however i have yet to see.

@waxy - hope you can post some pics of the wild colonies you fragged that colored up. If you have before and after pics that would be great.

 

[cdan]

Shandy,
Please see pics belowfirst pic is origional colony second is frag in each. Sorry for poor quality photos but camera is crap.

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All pics were taken a couple of days ago. As you can see colours are lighter on frags but still coming good and I can assure you growth is much greater with the frags.

 

[shandy_say]

Nice! Thanks cdan! Will definitely keep this in mind when I get new wild colonies.

 

[eros]

What about maricultured Acroporas?
Would you consider them wild colonies?

Aquacultured corals are grown under natural sunlight and in the sea so their requirements are very similar to wild colonies. They will not be adapted to aquarium lighting or flow like aquacultured so they are still a gamble IME.

I have an aquacultured coral that does ok but the frags I make off it end up looking much nicer and grow faster than the than the colony. I've never kept them long enough to see what they turn into long term though.

The best thing about my maricultured colony is the acro crab. :thumbsup:

 

[shandy_say]

I used to remove those acro crabs but later on i just left them alone. I now have several in my tank switching from one acro to another from time to time. Is it true that they are actually beneficial?

 

[waxy]

I see my acro crabs at night, switching from one acro to another.

They're quite beneficial and do not harm your acro's. It's great to have one around to do all the cleaning around the house. Their acro home that is.

I've seen one of my acro crabs jump up at least 1" in the water to hook their claw on an acro branch. I was totally amazed, because the crab was the size of half a dime.

 

[eros]

I used to remove those acro crabs but later on i just left them alone. I now have several in my tank switching from one acro to another from time to time. Is it true that they are actually beneficial?

I was fragging the coral the other day and the acro crab was attacking the bone shears. I'd say they are beneficial. Some have reported they help with AEFW. I don't know if it's been confirmed but it would make sense.

 

[waxy]

I was fragging the coral the other day and the acro crab was attacking the bone shears. I'd say they are beneficial. Some have reported they help with AEFW. I don't know if it's been confirmed but it would make sense.

I would assume since they're present in the acro, the presence of pests are non existant.

On a side note, not only do they stick with 1 coral. They jump around, I have a pair living in my Echinata and it's totally awesome.

They don't fight or anything, I hope they lay eggs so my wrasses and corals have food to eat.

My wrasses love them, so they try to stay very close to the corals. It's probably why they only come out at night.

 

[shandy_say]

I saw 2 now living amongst my SPS colonies. I even saw one jump about 5 inches up then floated down to another acro even while the lights were on. Amazing! Cute little buggers also!

 

[waxy]

I saw 2 now living amongst my SPS colonies. I even saw one jump about 5 inches up then floated down to another acro even while the lights were on. Amazing! Cute little buggers also!

The only way you'll have acro crabs is when you have wild corals
Sounds like someone has a tank full of wild corals \/

My wrasses would tear them to shreds if they were ever exposed.
Nonetheless, they're definitely fun to watch.

 

[shandy_say]

Yeah! About 90% of my corals are wild. Heheh! 100% of my SPS are Wild colonies. Like i said, its nearly impossible to get aquacultured corals here. If we can get some, it would cost about 10-20x as much as a wild one.

Btw, do crabs help in coloring up SPS since they do clean the branches of SPS colonies? Might be a dumb question but it just occured to me that since they clean the SPS, more light and flow are able to reach the flesh of the coral.