HIGH END Tenuis Hoarder

[Sdot]

I was watching a stream with reef dudes and Mike Palleta recently & in that YouTube stream Mike mentioned that he has spoke to many many successful reefers on acro coloration and there was one concessus amount all of them that he picked up. You wonna guess what it was?
He said that they all had a very large redfield ratio of N & P like 100 to one and that was one of the outliers for polyp extension and coloration assuming everything else is in check! So Shane like I mentioned I think you are on to something & the colours you are pulling from corals is simply stunning. Appreciate you sharing your philosophy & methods! I love understanding peoples success in this hobby by breaking things down and then trying to create like a simple 123 formula and simplify things by finding common trends amound successful reefers and replicate there success

I agree and have similar results.

 

[SBB Corals]

Love all the corals! It’s sad your sticking to just one type of acropora. I also love seeing collectors interact on boards like this. Don’t take the following the wrong way I am just trying to help by giving some experience and am curious what you think. Considering your losses are so high with the coral your selling and collecting I would second the notion of trying some halide lamps like Texas Todd was talking about. You should be able to lower your prices by getting more corals to live. I don’t think tiny swings have anything to do with new corals dying either, unless the coral was on its way out to start and from my experience half the corals from wholesalers I have got died within 2 months. I love how many fixtures your using and I bet you would be astonished at how well a halide can color up a coral to look amazing under blue light and at this point you might even save money on electricity.
Also buying straight from the point of origin is easier on the coral ime. Buying from wholesalers is just buying pieces that have been handled many times over and allowed to sit with a lot of other corals and in the end I have seen more deaths (from stress and handling) when trying to order from a wholesaler than if I order straight from indo and setup the correct tank to keep them alive. Most people collecting wild corals to grow and or resell have much better survival rates. They also get to sell the corals that are not worth propagating before they turn an odd color or die.

Thanks for taking the time to write this post and sharing your experience. I do have other types of acros. I am just not as passionate about them. I will post some of them in this thread as i take pictures and videos of them. I will get some Metal Halides to try and see if it makes and difference and report back my experience. I do think that the tiny swings have an affect. This is just IMO as i don't think the ocean waters have such swings. i think the ocean is super stable but this is just my guess.....Most of the colonies i get come in glowing with insane PE. they stay this way for about 2 days and then slowly start to fade away, loose PE , and then start melting.. I dont think its the LED because i have put them in low low light and still the same issue...I have tested par from 40-450 and all seems to have same issue although the lower par range they seem to last longer before fading away .. I do like my LED a lot though because i don't have to switch out the bulb or worrying about the bulb fading ect.

 

[TonyP]

I just bought your SBB Method PowerPoint, can't wait to see what i need to tweak on my own method.

 

[SBB Corals]

I just bought your SBB Method PowerPoint, can't wait to see what i need to tweak on my own method.

Please let me know if you have any questions. You can post them here

 

[SBB Corals]

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need to pull this one up and do a closer inspection still need another 3-4 months baking!​

 

[CCauthers]

How much flow do you give your tenuis, relative to other acros?

 

[SBB Corals]

How much flow do you give your tenuis, relative to other acros?

high - medium but no direct flow. We use mp40 and switch up the schedule on each pump so its always random flow patterns

 

[CCauthers]

high - medium but no direct flow. We use mp40 and switch up the schedule on each pump so its always random flow patterns

Have you had any problems when they are not given enough flow?

 

[SBB Corals]

Have you had any problems when they are not given enough flow?

yes because if not enough flow detritus will build up around the branches of acro and then this will rot the side of the coral and crate stn/rtn in that spot and then could spread to the rest of the coral- that is why high to medium non direct flow on and all around the acros is best

 

[CCauthers]

yes because if not enough flow detritus will build up around the branches of acro and then this will rot the side of the coral and crate stn/rtn in that spot and then could spread to the rest of the coral- that is why high to medium non direct flow on and all around the acros is best

Sorry, I may not have asked this right lol. I had all 3 of my tenuis frags rtn a little while ago, and they were in moderate flow, and I didn't know if tenuis were a species that you had found liked very high flow compared to other species.

 

[Turnage]

 

[merereef]

I was watching a live stream of a coral breeder budmans corals and he mentions when he gets new corals in he runs them in blue light only for a month or two and this reduces the loss.

 

[Quastermayne]

Absolutely awesome!! Definitely love the bonsai rock structures!!

 

[SBB Corals]

I was watching a live stream of a coral breeder budmans corals and he mentions when he gets new corals in he runs them in blue light only for a month or two and this reduces the loss.

I have tried this but its the same result..

 

[Weasel1960]

Beautiful. Good luck with the next tank.

 

[lemonade]

Thanks for taking the time to write this post and sharing your experience. I do have other types of acros. I am just not as passionate about them. I will post some of them in this thread as i take pictures and videos of them. I will get some Metal Halides to try and see if it makes and difference and report back my experience. I do think that the tiny swings have an affect. This is just IMO as i don't think the ocean waters have such swings. i think the ocean is super stable but this is just my guess.....Most of the colonies i get come in glowing with insane PE. they stay this way for about 2 days and then slowly start to fade away, loose PE , and then start melting.. I dont think its the LED because i have put them in low low light and still the same issue...I have tested par from 40-450 and all seems to have same issue although the lower par range they seem to last longer before fading away .. I do like my LED a lot though because i don't have to switch out the bulb or worrying about the bulb fading ect.

I agree, the wild/mari Tenuis can be real finicky, especially the rainbow colored ones. However, I do think the mixture of LEDs and high nutrients may prolong or even back track the progression of their acclimation to tank life. While I may be bit biased leaning towards T5s, the results speak for themselves. Fresh imported corals under medium par T5 lighting and closer to NSW params will have a much higher survivability rate guaranteed.

 

[TonyP]

I agree, the wild/mari Tenuis can be real finicky, especially the rainbow colored ones. However, I do think the mixture of LEDs and high nutrients may prolong or even back track the progression of their acclimation to tank life. While I may be bit biased leaning towards T5s, the results speak for themselves. Fresh imported corals under medium par T5 lighting and closer to NSW params will have a much higher survivability rate guaranteed.

I agree with lemonade. IMO, the most critical piece of getting wild/mari tenuis to [not only live but] thrive in captivity is getting our tank water parameters as close as possible to the NSW. I'm guilty of saying "getting the water as close to NSW" but the more I think about it, the statement may be too generic. I think I'm missing, matching NSW from where the acro's come from. We all know that water parameters and temperatures can differ significantly when compared to different areas of the world's oceans. After 26 years of serving in the Navy onboard Submarines and Surface ships, I've been around the world dozens of times. During port visits, I've had the privilege of snorkeling/diving those oceans and they feel different, look different in colors, clarity, cleanliness and fish density.

This probably sounds funny but I also wonder if the nutrient levels and more specifically, types of nutrients play a more significant role. Maybe the OceanMagik, PHYTO-FEAST®, Reef Roids, Aminos, etc. that we buy actually don't "taste good" to the wild acros? Is it possible that we are starving them to death before they have a chance to acclimate to the new food source? For example, Japanese Food here in the States didn't taste the same as the food in actual Japan - after 2 years in Yokosuka, when my family and I came back to the States, we had to re-acclimate because now State side Japanese food tasted funny to us. Are the corals experiencing this as well? Although the Stateside Japanese food became nasty to us, we were able to eat other foods so we didn't go hungry. The corals don't have that option but we were able to find a great new Japanese steakhouse eat at.

I know that we talk a lot about lighting but how much time do the corals in the wild spend in the ocean as compared to time spent in the sun? Most corals are in the water 24/7 (with some exceptions of shallow water corals that experience low tide exposure) but the sun isn't available for that same amount of time. Lighting types, adjustments, consistency, etc. are easy...reaching and maintaining water parameters is more challenging for most. We see this all the time. I've only read a billion times where great reef keepers such as SBB are asked for water parameters or their secrets for having eye-popping corals.

Has anyone done a comprehensive ICP / Scientific type water analysis [and actual food types/sources] for those key areas where our most color corals come from? If so, can someone point me in that direction so I can read up on it. I want to try to step up to the challenge of improving the survivability rates of the wild/mari acros.

 

[SBB Corals]

I agree with lemonade. IMO, the most critical piece of getting wild/mari tenuis to [not only live but] thrive in captivity is getting our tank water parameters as close as possible to the NSW. I'm guilty of saying "getting the water as close to NSW" but the more I think about it, the statement may be too generic. I think I'm missing, matching NSW from where the acro's come from. We all know that water parameters and temperatures can differ significantly when compared to different areas of the world's oceans. After 26 years of serving in the Navy onboard Submarines and Surface ships, I've been around the world dozens of times. During port visits, I've had the privilege of snorkeling/diving those oceans and they feel different, look different in colors, clarity, cleanliness and fish density.

This probably sounds funny but I also wonder if the nutrient levels and more specifically, types of nutrients play a more significant role. Maybe the OceanMagik, PHYTO-FEAST®, Reef Roids, Aminos, etc. that we buy actually don't "taste good" to the wild acros? Is it possible that we are starving them to death before they have a chance to acclimate to the new food source? For example, Japanese Food here in the States didn't taste the same as the food in actual Japan - after 2 years in Yokosuka, when my family and I came back to the States, we had to re-acclimate because now State side Japanese food tasted funny to us. Are the corals experiencing this as well? Although the Stateside Japanese food became nasty to us, we were able to eat other foods so we didn't go hungry. The corals don't have that option but we were able to find a great new Japanese steakhouse eat at.

I know that we talk a lot about lighting but how much time do the corals in the wild spend in the ocean as compared to time spent in the sun? Most corals are in the water 24/7 (with some exceptions of shallow water corals that experience low tide exposure) but the sun isn't available for that same amount of time. Lighting types, adjustments, consistency, etc. are easy...reaching and maintaining water parameters is more challenging for most. We see this all the time. I've only read a billion times where great reef keepers such as SBB are asked for water parameters or their secrets for having eye-popping corals.

Has anyone done a comprehensive ICP / Scientific type water analysis [and actual food types/sources] for those key areas where our most color corals come from? If so, can someone point me in that direction so I can read up on it. I want to try to step up to the challenge of improving the survivability rates of the wild/mari acros.

I totally agree with this and wondering if actually some of things we are feeding like phyto or acropower actually hurts the coral before they can consume this new type of food. im wondering if it is better to take this new colonies in and actually start them in very low nutrient tanks in order to slowly bring them up to higher nutrients ect. this is something i plan to test in the new year.. only tenuis though are this finicky.. all other acros are easy and don't die almost they have a 95% success rate.. its such a mystery with tenuis its a nail bitter for sure!

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

I totally agree with this and wondering if actually some of things we are feeding like phyto or acropower actually hurts the coral before they can consume this new type of food. im wondering if it is better to take this new colonies in and actually start them in very low nutrient tanks in order to slowly bring them up to higher nutrients ect. this is something i plan to test in the new year.. only tenuis though are this finicky.. all other acros are easy and don't die almost they have a 95% success rate.. its such a mystery with tenuis its a nail bitter for sure!

I’m sure my experience is on a much smaller scale but I haven’t lost a single new Malaysian or indo Tenuis colony or frag.

 

[SBB Corals]

I’m sure my experience is on a much smaller scale but I haven’t lost a single new Malaysian or indo Tenuis colony or frag.

that is good news.