Red Dragon

[cloak]

I was just curious what everybody's experience has been with this coral. Are they pretty easy to keep or a they very temperamental? Do they need to be blasted with light or is there some leeway? One of the members of my local club is selling some small frags so I thought I might give one a try. Thanks.

 

[Salty1962]

What do you have for lighting? I would acclimate slowly and move up to the top third of your tank. It depends a lot on your lighting for a better answer.

 

[cloak]

I've got a 175 watt 14K MH bulb and two 24 watt T5 actinics over a standard 20 gallon tank. (~8 years old) I don't really have any room on the rocks to place the coral so I'm probably going to have to secure it to the back glass somewhere.

 

[alten78]

Red Dragons have been the bane of my reefing existence. I am now on my 4th or 5th frag, most of them never lasted more than a day, the longest one was about 1.5 years. I have other smooth skin acros with no issues so hopefully this one will do me better.

 

[cloak]

Hmm... I've seen the mother colony and it looked great, although the frags weren't very big though. I was picking up a zoanthid frag that day and forgot to ask how much they were selling them for. If I can get one for $20 or less would that be a good deal?

 

[alten78]

I didn't want anyone to think they are hard to keep, it appears that many people do very well with them but they don't seem to take to dips which I was doing at first that I failed to mention in my first comment lol. $20 for a decent size frag is fair, they are common enough around here for that price. Picked my last one up for $15.

 

[cloak]

Ok cool. Thanks for the information.

 

[atlorange]

They are delicate to shipping and dipping. Once established they are fine. They like lower light compared to other SPS, otherwise they will pale.

 

[markalot]

I've tried twice but they are very sensitive to any goofs. I let Alk fall to low, 6.0, for a week before correcting and while some acros receded a little and recovered the red dragon up and died, RTN'ed in less than 6 hours.

 

[scardall]

Do not expose to air if you can help it. I did 4 times. 1) to dip 2) to Xsfer to 1st rinse and 3) to 2nd rinse 3) to tank . Partial RTN Touched to move several times. partial RTN twice. 3rd time touching/air exposure wiped out the rest (RTN) Wear gloves to touch . Once settled and happy, leave it Alone. ( Just my one time experience)

 

[Rick.45cal]

I have a young frag that I have only had a month and half at most. It came with one branch broken off when it was shipped to me, so I went ahead and stuck it on a frag plug. So far the little piece seems cool, and the frag it broke off of has already healed over the break and seems to be doing well. Like I said it is still early, and anything is possible.

 

[cloak]

Thank you everybody for the replies. I'll call the guy today and see if I can pick up a frag. I'll post a picture if I do. Thanks again.

 

[Hammer100]

Actually one of the few things I seem to be able to grow...I broke it in half when trying to cut it off the frag pug it came on. Then I didn't see the bottom half had fell beside the dip container I was using. It was out of water for a couple minutes
I put both pieces in the tank and both have been growing well. The color is a lot paler than when I received it though. It's a pastel pink right now. Maybe from running zeovit but not sure. I could be lacking some nutrients. It's also getting a lot of light.