TV Show I watched

[strout]

I was watching a show on the Discovery channel today, the Life shows that they have running, anyway this was the show on coral reefs. They had one section of the show where they were collecting corals and fraging them and placing the corals on an underwater table of sorts and the letting them grow and them fraging those corals and then placing the coral frags back into the dead reef to re grow the reef and bring fish stocks back. To my point: They had placed time laps cameras around these growing tables and it really blew me away at the growth they achieved on the corals. They would have a frag and in one year they would have a colony, not a large frag but a colony, a large colony. I know the corals grow this good because of the light they get, and more likely because of the amount of food that the corals are getting 24-7. As an SPS aquarium tank want to be, I am guessing that we in the hobby can't get this kind of growth in our (your lol) tanks because of the limitation we have on filtration systems in our (your) tanks, right or wrong? Now to my question: Would it be possible to come close to this kind of growth with say, a larger sump then you would normally run for a given size tank and say an over size skimmer, and that this would allow you to feed the corals more food and then come close to this kind of growth, I am thinking that the over sized sump would help keep the Nitrates deluted with the large water volume until the skimmer could help get them out of the tank. I was just really surprised at the growth of these corals, and had kinda came to the conclusion after a few people in the forum had problems with their SPS tanks that I was going to go with a soft coral tank, this show kinda got me back on the right track of wanting the SPS tank.

 

[CMcNeil]

i think we can come CLOSE to nature and get growth similar to the wild.i know of several locals who have grown 1" frags into 8"+ diameter colonies in a year.i know some of my sps are giving me about 1"/month of new growth.

 

[rck]

Yea I saw that and it was wild how fast they grew. I can only wish for a tank that gives that kinda of growth

 

[LifeAquatic]

It is completely possible to get those growth rates in a tank. I have several 1'frags that have grown out to big colonies in under a year.

 

[Elan L.]

Doesnt look as good on TV

http://vimeo.com/5712168

 

[snowcap]

Very cool program. The colors were amazing and the growth as well.

 

[luvdiving]

i can't wait for the second series...

 

[James404]

Excellent program, thank you!

 

[Dustin1300]

Agreed, this series is amazing. While I would say they most likely grow a bit faster in the wild we do a great job of replicating the wild to the best of our abilities and have advanced a lot in this hobby!

 

[NeveroddoreveN]

It makes me want a fragging hatchet.

 

[dieselgrk]

if you look at the progress of the zeovit show tank and the growth rate and colors of Thomas Phols corals, they seem very similar to the growth rate and colors of the corals in the video. unfortunately i dont believe Thomas Phols results are very typical for even the best zeovit users out there!

 

[dieselgrk]

....actually another tank with nature-like growth rates just came to mind: Leonardo's Formosa Forrest. Leonardo went from frags to huge Stag colonies in about a years time! check out some of his older threads to see for your selfs. so yes, although rare, i would say there are a select few reefers out there that have absolutely obtained natural growth rates of sps within the confines of their glass box....