Acros. Are they the new chalice craze?

[prsnlty]

I actually use kalk w my ato and dose. Kalk wasn't keeping up with my system usage so I had to dose too.

The blue one is unnamed. The pink one is the Pink Dragontails.

I have a young tank and only have a few SPS frags. Wouldn't it be too soon to be utilizing kalk with such little demand? I do dose small amounts weekley of iodide, strontinum and amino acid.

Your corals are beautiful! I will be adding the pink dragontails to my wish list. I just saw a frag of one today but it's nice to see what one actually looks like grown out
125g mixed reef Peninsula
salinity: 1.025, CA: 500, ALK: 9.0DKH, NO3: 0, PO4: 0.25, MAG: 1355
AI SOL BLUES/ 24" T5 Combo
30g Sump, 1400gph Return Flow, 3700 gph PH Flow

 

[OurReef]

They are "easy" as long every is going well...but they are the first corals to die when something is off. Other types of coral are much more forgiving. While they are relatively a low maintenance species compared to corals that have special eating needs they are very fragile. Perhaps "delicate" is a better word.

Growing a bunch of frags into a mature reef full of large Acropora colonies is one of the more challenging accomplishments in this hobby. It takes years and any little stumble along the way can wipe everything out and hit the reset button.

So when someone tells me how easy acros are I like to see pictures of their tank.

Lol I just got ride of most of my mature colonies to make room for different things, like I said I'm going a different route. Also fragged a few down to make room also.

Red planet we pulled out and sold. It was only 14"x12"

One half of the tank

Other half where the red planet came from. Tank is totally different now, only kept two mature colony's, rest are all frags now.

 

[OurReef]

And I do use Kalk hooked up to an ato but I don't dose, just weekly/bimonthly water changes. I want a calcium reactor though.

 

[WesF]

Soooo easy actually, it takes awhile to get here...a bunch of expensive mistakes...and a lot of reading and question asking. But once you arrive, it's not difficult and very rewarding.

Very nice!

 

[Chameleon]

I have a young tank and only have a few SPS frags. Wouldn't it be too soon to be utilizing kalk with such little demand? I do dose small amounts weekley of iodide, strontinum and amino acid.

Your corals are beautiful! I will be adding the pink dragontails to my wish list. I just saw a frag of one today but it's nice to see what one actually looks like grown out
125g mixed reef Peninsula
salinity: 1.025, CA: 500, ALK: 9.0DKH, NO3: 0, PO4: 0.25, MAG: 1355
AI SOL BLUES/ 24" T5 Combo
30g Sump, 1400gph Return Flow, 3700 gph PH Flow

It really depends on how fast your levels drop. My tank is young and mostly frags now, but when I started to see my corals pulling 60-100mL of part a and b I quickly added kalk into the regiment. Now on my 60 gallon with most corals in the frag to mini colony size range and a couple colonies I am saturating topoff with kalk and still use 40mL of alk and calc each a day. Granted I only average a half a gallon evap a day. If your evap is high start your kalk dosing low. IMO if you have stonies its never to early to start using kalk. I might hold off on the stront, aminos, and maybe iodide if I were you.

 

[WesF]

Lol I just got ride of most of my mature colonies to make room for different things, like I said I'm going a different route. Also fragged a few down to make room also.

Red planet we pulled out and sold. It was only 14"x12"

One half of the tank

Other half where the red planet came from. Tank is totally different now, only kept two mature colony's, rest are all frags now.

Nice work. So if acros are "easy" what do you consider "hard"?

The only thing i consider more difficult would be NPS corals. But that just seems difficult because I don't know much about it.

I guess anything is "easy" once you learn how to do it.

 

[Chameleon]

uh oh that was my 666 post

 

[WesF]

I can grow them too. I just don't know if I would call them easy. I killed quite a few before I figured it out.

 

[OurReef]

Acans are my nemisis, and like you said nps. We will see how chalices do in my tank.

 

[Troylee]

If you can keep lps, you can keep Sps there not really that hard... I think Sps has a bad rap because the new wild stuff takes time and can be a pain to Introduce to captivity... I would recommend to anyone wanting to try buy some Ora frags or old school tyree stuff like pink lemonade etc... If they been in captivity for a few years there almost bullet proof unless you fall to pest like aefw.... Give it a shot it's not really that difficult honestly I have kept them for years... Sure I lost my share but they were wild or mariculture colonies etc... Aquaculture frags are the way to go in the Sps game for beginners...

 

[Dave3112]

If you can keep lps, you can keep Sps there not really that hard... I think Sps has a bad rap because the new wild stuff takes time and can be a pain to Introduce to captivity... I would recommend to anyone wanting to try buy some Ora frags or old school tyree stuff like pink lemonade etc... If they been in captivity for a few years there almost bullet proof unless you fall to pest like aefw.... Give it a shot it's not really that difficult honestly I have kept them for years... Sure I lost my share but they were wild or mariculture colonies etc... Aquaculture frags are the way to go in the Sps game for beginners...

Exactly!

 

[mainereefer]

new craze?
sps was big about 6-7 years ago then it went lps because of the acans and then chalices, now it is going back toward sps again I will put money on it there will be a few new softies in a couple years that will put them back on top

this hobby cycles every few years, it is great because it gives the 100,000 frags made in the few years a chance to grow and adjust to captivity so the next time it comes around it will be heartier for the person buying the frag

 

[WesF]

new craze?
sps was big about 6-7 years ago then it went lps because of the acans and then chalices, now it is going back toward sps again I will put money on it there will be a few new softies in a couple years that will put them back on top

this hobby cycles every few years, it is great because it gives the 100,000 frags made in the few years a chance to grow and adjust to captivity so the next time it comes around it will be heartier for the person buying the frag

True but when SPS was big 6-7 years ago people were not charging $500/frag.

People were complaining about $100 tyree frags back then.

 

[Troylee]

If people don't pay the high price it will drop fast.... Plenty of sticks to go around... I personally like the old school "cheap stuff" better than any coming out today... Nothing beats a true Oregon tort, pink lemonade, reef ready grape juice etc... There insane sticks and been around a very long time..

 

[mainereefer]

coral prices have gon up worse than the price of gas! untill people refuse to buy the 1/2" frag, someone will sell it. these acros that are now hitting the market are not new but the price people will pay for the last latest coral definatly influences the price of the "new" coral

 

[Henry C]

coral prices have gon up worse than the price of gas! untill people refuse to buy the 1/2" frag, someone will sell it. these acros that are now hitting the market are not new but the price people will pay for the last latest coral definatly influences the price of the "new" coral

Agreed, the prices of corals will always rise and fall with the demand. As long as someone is willing to pay for a 200.00 1/2" frag people will sell them at that price. As far as SPS being easy or hard that depends on experience of the reefkeeper IMHO. They are more demanding and the parameters need to be stable. There are some sps corals I won't keep because they are super touchy IME. Watching a small frag grow into a colony is awesome and a great feeling of accomplishment for me at least. Just my 2 cents...

 

[MattL22]

Lots of really amazing sps comming out recently especially the. Different colorful deep waters r really sweet hopefully they come down in price soon! About a yr ago back when joes rainbow was f/s for 250$ I thought that was high but I had to get a frag !! But atleast the JR was in captivity for a while and much sought after so if you could grow it out eventually you would get ur $ back! ! Now it seems like every new nice Sps Is priced so high! I was so tempted to place an order because they look so nice but I decided I'm gonna wait and see which ones stick around !

 

[Zack]

I love sps!!!!!

 

[cjrudy]

Been switching my tank over to primarily SPS for the past 6 months