So you want to get your feet wet in sps. Cranky corals. Challenging, and fun, if you like futzing. Super-easy to frag, most of them. And frags are tradeable.
How do these things grow in nature? Usually in shelves at the edge of undersea cliffs. They start branching and branching and branching until they can make a huge broad mass.
IDing them is difficult---easier when they're dead and you can get a look at the skeleton, but nobody wants them then.
The other way you can tell is by habits (green bali slimer is pretty id-able: it slimes)...and by the arrangement of polyps on the skin, and most of all by the growth pattern of really big colonies. So forget the name-game with these guys. What you see is what you've got and just be happy with it.
What do they need? MH light works well. Some are quite happy with T5. You have to raise or lower them in mounting them to get them into the right light zone. They commonly brown (lose color) in the presence of phosphates or light they don't like; and they really, really really don't like nitrate or ammonia: control that before you think of getting into sps. You WILL need calcium/alk supplementation with stony coral. Note: there are also coral parasites and pests. Either be sure your dealer dipped them for you, or dip your own before installing in your tank. Doing your own is 100% the better idea.
That said, there is a group of sps corals that are easy to grow, fast-growing, tolerant of lighting, even of phosphate, and hardy under incredible conditions (for sps).
Montiporas. They come in: leaflike; fingerlike; encrusting (overgrow a rock) and frag at a touch: be careful while cleaning glass. Just glue your accident onto a rock and trade it at the next frag swap. The broken bit will overgrow and keep going. Break the whole colony off by accident? the first thing it will do is sheet over the rock, then send up candelabra like branches and branch each of those. Got a place you want to shade? Get montipora capricornis (leaflike) and shove it between two rocks: it will grow cabbage-leaflike sheets, often with a different colored rim.
Just offering a window on a different world. If you've got a good skimmer, are doing well with your tank chemistry, these guys are fun. They share a tank with lps (large polyp stony) just fine, if you keep them out of the reach of the hot-tentacled and sneaky lps; and they'll share with shrooms, if you keep the shrooms away from them. Best not put them with cranky softies that spit chemicals...but otherwise, they're pretty well-mannered---except for a few. Hydnophora is one to keep far from its neighbors.
Montipora is a perfectly peaceable coral, but will spread onto any rock it touches.
How do these things grow in nature? Usually in shelves at the edge of undersea cliffs. They start branching and branching and branching until they can make a huge broad mass.
IDing them is difficult---easier when they're dead and you can get a look at the skeleton, but nobody wants them then.
The other way you can tell is by habits (green bali slimer is pretty id-able: it slimes)...and by the arrangement of polyps on the skin, and most of all by the growth pattern of really big colonies. So forget the name-game with these guys. What you see is what you've got and just be happy with it.What do they need? MH light works well. Some are quite happy with T5. You have to raise or lower them in mounting them to get them into the right light zone. They commonly brown (lose color) in the presence of phosphates or light they don't like; and they really, really really don't like nitrate or ammonia: control that before you think of getting into sps. You WILL need calcium/alk supplementation with stony coral. Note: there are also coral parasites and pests. Either be sure your dealer dipped them for you, or dip your own before installing in your tank. Doing your own is 100% the better idea.
That said, there is a group of sps corals that are easy to grow, fast-growing, tolerant of lighting, even of phosphate, and hardy under incredible conditions (for sps).
Montiporas. They come in: leaflike; fingerlike; encrusting (overgrow a rock) and frag at a touch: be careful while cleaning glass. Just glue your accident onto a rock and trade it at the next frag swap. The broken bit will overgrow and keep going. Break the whole colony off by accident? the first thing it will do is sheet over the rock, then send up candelabra like branches and branch each of those. Got a place you want to shade? Get montipora capricornis (leaflike) and shove it between two rocks: it will grow cabbage-leaflike sheets, often with a different colored rim.
Just offering a window on a different world. If you've got a good skimmer, are doing well with your tank chemistry, these guys are fun. They share a tank with lps (large polyp stony) just fine, if you keep them out of the reach of the hot-tentacled and sneaky lps; and they'll share with shrooms, if you keep the shrooms away from them. Best not put them with cranky softies that spit chemicals...but otherwise, they're pretty well-mannered---except for a few. Hydnophora is one to keep far from its neighbors.
Montipora is a perfectly peaceable coral, but will spread onto any rock it touches.
Last edited:
