How often do you buy new corals?

[living_tribunal]

Time to start a frag tank in the bathtub when that happens.

And closet, guest bathroom, kids room, garage, and office.

 

[living_tribunal]

I am weird about buying coral. I love coral/fish and properly caring for them, but I have a very specific vision in mind for what I want the tank to look like. I don't necessarily nerd out about a rare coral or a cool type of new breed or mixture. I care about the the end goal of my tank as almost a living art piece. There are plenty of $10 zoa frags that I want just as much as a (now) rare torch.

I am sporadically buying as I see fit to cover areas on the rock in very specific ways. We will see how it all turns out lol.

I'm the same way. I'm brand new to the hobby but I'm trying to save up and execute on exactly what I want my tank to look like. Many of them are pretty expensive. I'm trying to play it smart but find myself skimming 8-10 websites everyday to see if they got what I'm looking for.

I also chose to qt all new coral for 45 days and my 10G "frag tank" is getting a little.... crowded. Going to set up another 20G frag tank soon.

 

[Viking_Reefing]

Very infrequently. I hate buying frags and told myself that I will only buy colonies moving forward. The problem
is that those things are rarely available and in the last six months I’ve managed to pick up a millie and an alveopora.

 

[mattzang]

*checks bank account*

too often

 

[ScottR]

And closet, guest bathroom, kids room, garage, and office.

This is a true story: I converted my kids playroom into my aquarium room. They now play in the living room. It’s kind of funny how it just kept growing into my room and I slowly relocated my boys stuff out of there.

 

[Cheche]

I did buy a lot before I find out about all this live sales and buying on eBay .. so now I just wait for this type of event and if I buy on eBay is the price im willing to paid if anyone pay more they can have it lol . So patience got the best of me ..

 

[living_tribunal]

This is a true story: I converted my kids playroom into my aquarium room. They now play in the living room. It’s kind of funny how it just kept growing into my room and I slowly relocated my boys stuff out of there.

The old trick of bypassing your wife getting mad at you:

Setting- Christmas Day

Your kid sees 14 boxes under the tree. They proceed to open a 70 gallon sump, 3 ecotechs, 2 mp10s, 300 lbs of dry rock, 250 gal tank, apex, every Hanna checker, calcium reactor, and much more.

“I got you a reef tank kid so we can work on it together”.

 

[Blutspitze]

Even though I live close to nearly a dozen good LFS', I don't really get corals that much, or any stock for that matter. Mostly limited by budget atm. Hoping for a better job that'll enable me to upgrade

 

[Perpetual Novice]

With the last tank I set up I decided to try some more challenging corals. More SPS and LPS than I have tried before. Once I decided the tank was mature enough I bought about 30 over about a month. Basically every species and color morph on my dream list. I didn’t pay much for the frags and I expected many of them wouldn’t make it in spite of my close attention monitoring water chemistry. I’m just not experienced enough that buying a millipora montipora stylophora or birds nest frag is expected to yield a colony.

But I was pretty happy with the result. I wasted about 150$ on the 50% of corals that died. But what remains is thriving. The basic idea was to start all the frags in a stressful environment and keep the ones that were hardiest. If I bought them one or two at a time I would pay special attention to each new addition and probably keep it healthy for a while even if it was a fragile specimen. Then when I relax and stopped bottle feeding the new coral I man find it was only surviving because of my excessive maintenance. It would be a shame to invest so much time and effort into a new colony only to find that its survival always sits on a razors edge and it will be a terrible burden or just die.

The bottom line is that I bought many frags at once so that the “heartbreakers” would be gone quickly and I would be left with coral that I can trust to grow an thrive in my unique aquarium environment.

For example I found that sunset montipora grows explosively in my tank while chili pepper and rainbow montipora slowly wither. I can keep torches but no form of candy cane seems to thrive without special attention. Half my acans love my tank and half decided to wither and were moved. Green slimed acro didn’t do well but a colorful wild millipora frag grew 4x within 2 months.

If you want to give each coral the best chance the staple advice is to space them out 2 weeks apart for best possible results. A dozen over a few months could probably be fine as well.

But if you’re willing to sacrifice the money up front I would actually give my method a try. I wasted money on half my frags. But everything that lived is thriving. I think it’s worth the money to avoid the frustration and disappointment of jumping through hoops to keep a coral that just doesn’t want to accept your water. And then find the colony collapses after a few month or even a year or two.

I advise against trying to keep corals that just don’t naturally like your water. Everyone’s water is a little different and some hard to keep corals will just love your water. Other coral, even ones that are usually pretty easy, sometimes just reject the environment you’re providing. You can fight to keep your water perfect. And I’m not saying you should neglect maintenance. But why not just keep the corals that actually want to be in your tank.

You’ll never know which species and color morphs will thrive for you without trial and error. So get it out of the way at the start and save yourself the heartache and stress by planting all your seeds and seeing what grows. If they die they die. And that’s ok because the dead corals probably weren’t worth it. find your compatible corals from the start and confidently watch them grow. You can’t put a price in peace of mind or the rewarding feeling of a thriving tank.

So yeah. Buy as many as you like right away once your tank is ready for coral. aclimate them carefully and accept what happens. Whatever dies wasn’t worth your time and you can focus your efforts on the corals with actual potential.

I know that was a long repetitive mess. But I wanted to flush out my whole philosophy for adding coral. This may be an unpopular approach for anyone who enjoys a challenge or is uncomfortable with the concept of canary corals. For those people my ideas are totally the wrong advice. But I thought I’d fully elaborate this alternative approach so you’d have it as an option if it fits your goals for your tank.

Don’t let anyone tell you how to plan and run your tank. But once you decide what your looking to get out of your tank definitely follow their advice.

There’s really nothing you “shouldn’t” do if it’s what you want. But there often is a right and wrong way to get there. Take advice on the “how” but you should be choosing the “what”.

 

[muzikalmatt]

For a while there I was buying corals once a week or once every two weeks. I've since slowed down and am trying to let the tank mature and grow out a bit since I've finally achieved some maturity/stability about 8 months in.

 

[Jwoott]

I can’t remember the last time I bought a coral, has to have been at least 2 years....I think I’m long over due to treat myself....

 

[mdbronco]

How often do you buy new corals (or clams, nems, or some other invert)? Is it once in a while? Once every few months? Once a month? Week? MORE!? What drives your coral shopping?

You need a response “whenever I figured out the reason for killing the last batch”

 

[Paul B]

I can only buy a coral if something dies to make room. That happens for a few reasons like 2 weeks ago my very large (7") long spine urchin spawned and made the tank look like a KeyLime Pie. I couldn't see 6" into the tank. I was home and discovered it but two corals started to bleach before I got out the diatom filter and cleared the water.
Those corals didn't completely die but they are about 75% dead. I am surprised they were not SPS which kind of like urchin spawn. ;Wideyed

A few times corals that I have had for years had a war with each other. I came down at night and one was completely covering another one with tentacles effectively killing it in a few hours.

Many times the urchin or a large crab will topple a coral into the back of the tank where i don't notice it and forget about it. By the time I find it, it's dead or almost dead.

Then I go and buy something to fill the space.

 

[BlueDamselReef]

Every two SECONDS!

 

[Jay Z]

Right now I usually buy them specifically for certain spots. Mostly softies and lps. I did buy a cool green stripe mushroom rock last week to create another cave for my second clown trigger.

Now when I get my dual 40 sps tanks up and running in November I will be looking at getting 40-50 frags for them.

I also need to get another small torch for my 10, accidentally crushed one of my small guys moving over from my 6, had to bust the top off to get my live stock out lol.

I do have a tendency to randomly drop things some times (military accident) So I have replaced 4-5 corals I have dropped and damaged too.

For me its just filling spaces which are pretty much full. If I do see something at the lfs I love I have to mentally think if I can adjust and make room for it, or trade it out and I've learned everything looks smaller at the store, so if it looks small at the store, it will look big in my tank, lol.

But I still go to the lfs's every weekend just to look and enjoy. Only so much fits in a 45, 10, and 14.

 

[Daniel92481]

And closet, guest bathroom, kids room, garage, and office.

Don’t forget that new “saltwater” pool in the back.

 

[C-Dub]

My tank is about 6 months old, i made my first coral purchase after it cycled and then let it sit a few months. I read a post from someone a while back about when you see what you’ve searched for to get it because you never know when you’ll see it again. I’ve made three online orders over 3 weeks due to seeing something i was seeking and then because of Labor Day sales. I’m going to let the tank sit and idle until Black Friday time before making any more purchases...maybe. Lol

 

[Oliver d]

Very seldom buy from the LFS or the net swop with fellow reef keepers or go out to collect my own.The laws are very relaxed here about collecting.

 

[William Mumford]

Whenever there is a coral show that I can drive to.

 

[CindyKz]

I am weird about buying coral. I love coral/fish and properly caring for them, but I have a very specific vision in mind for what I want the tank to look like. I don't necessarily nerd out about a rare coral or a cool type of new breed or mixture. I care about the the end goal of my tank as almost a living art piece. There are plenty of $10 zoa frags that I want just as much as a (now) rare torch.

I am sporadically buying as I see fit to cover areas on the rock in very specific ways. We will see how it all turns out lol.

I'll buy a few pieces every few months, usually when there is a frag swap or something, or if I want something specific and a local reefer has it.

I'm very much like the poster I quoted - I could care less about having the latest-greatest-ultra-fill in the blank. I want a beautiful tank that I enjoy. I also enjoy the process and don't want my tank to fill up too quickly.