Success rate with wild colonies?

[Doubledown]

I recently (1 week ago) purchased a beautiful wild colony of Millipora from a LFS. He said he had the piece for about 2 or 3 weeks when I purchased it and it did look healthy.

I placed it in my tank in an appropriate location and within 4 days I noticed the base starting to bleach/die off. It is now 3 days later and the death line has creeped across the base and up some of the branches (I'll unfortunately be fragging this beautiful 6" piece this evening).

I added a few other pieces the week before, but these were Surabya aquacultured pieces and they have done well. The other colonies I have in the tank are showing good health and good growth.


Is it usually hit or miss with wild colonies, even if they have been at the LFS for a few weeks?

Thanks

 

[Lobster]

Wild colonies can be more of a risk, but if it was healthy when you got it it probably would be fine. Milles are pretty hardy. Hard to say what the problem is, you dont give much info. First thing I would look at is flow.

 

[jjjimmy]

IME wild colonies are a 50/50 shot. Great water quality and a mature tank may increase your odds some but not much.

 

[jjackson]

I agree 50/50 and ALOT of flow I have found WC to like alot more than aqucultured

 

[Frankysreef]

Wild colonies are 50/50.. hence cheaper than aquacultured frags... I can usually get them to survive.. but you take a chance with pests, and usually have to frag them... and the color changes, and or they go dormant and wont grow for a year....

I have a purple frag I got from a LFS, and a year after I planted it... it finally has corallites on it ( bright purple ) and is starting to grow.

But I rarely will touch a wild colony anymore after reading these fw, and red bugs threads.

 

[Doubledown]

Thanks all. Too little flow is not the issue, I bought the millie specifically for a location 18" away from the output of a Tunze 6100.

I guess I missed the good side of 50/50.

Just got home and it's worse, so I'm fragging tonight for sure.

Looks like aquacultured/tank raised for me from now on.

 

[Frankysreef]

Frag 1/4 inch up from the recession... Replant in the same area and it should do fine...

What I've discovered ( including myself ) people buy the wild colonies cause they look good in the store, but they don't realize that they probably just got there, But they have been in transit... stressed etc...

But then you go back a week later to the store and it is stn'g and another week and they are selling them as frags... Lots of times stores will frag a piece immediatly after recieving a colony to make sure they have a piece...

I started in this hobby super cheap.. with mostly frags... every wild colony I got, I ended up fragging...

I used to be able to pick wild frags off the bottom of the LFS tanks for around 8 bucks.. Some of these are my coolest!

Most of my other stuff is from other reefers... Luckily there are a few around here that have been doing it for 15 yrs...

And then live and learn yourself...

I can handle losing 8-20 dollars for a frag but 80+ for a wild colony is insane.. I can finally buy the high dollar $60 frags and not worry about them dieing on me...

But Even I have tank fluctuations from time to time... Recently my chiller temp probe got pushed out of the water.. my fault and my chiller wasnt coming on ... my water didnt go past 85 degrees thank god... But some corals were suffering a bit, but it could have been happening for a week? who knows....

That is the great thing about big tanks... bad things happen slow.... small tanks .. bad things happen fast.

fF

 

[prance1520]

I'll agree as well. I try to keep away from the wild colonies as much as I can. Never have great luck with them. They may even last a couple months, but really they are just holding on.

I usually go a step farther from aquacultured and stick with frags from some of the execptional local reefers in my area / and ORA frags. In that sense, I know exactly what I'm getting. I have never lost an ORA frag, and I know exactly what my fellow reefers levels are, so I can adjust acordingly before it goes into my tank.