What will grow faster?

[mattvisocky2003]

I would say a 5" piece is really only likely in a stag and that 1 piece would grow slower than 5 of the same at 1". Now a better question is 5 1" frags vs a mini colony with 5 1" nubs. That mini would certainly grow faster IMO.

 

[erk]

Why not buy one 5" frag and cut it into 5 equal pieces? Then grow 4 of those frags out and sell them to get several other frags. What will you do if your frags just encrust instead of grow in height? Does this mean they haven't achieved anything? And we are all assuming you mean SPS. If you went 5 zoa/paly frags, then you would totally get more growth. LPS, not so much.

 

[Pete polyp]

I have read studies about this several years ago where growth from different sized acro were compared. At the end of the study it was very clear that the bigger the size at the start the more growth you would get. They measured the percent of growth compared to the starting size instead of actual size gained. Like 1" frag grows to 2" would be 100% compared to 5" having to grow to 10" to be 100%.

 

[4FordFamily]

So just for kicks.... I think you'll get more growth out of the 5 smaller frags of the same coral. This is assuming all kinds of things of course, and I'm using your example to get my answer, but that's what I'm going with.

X2

 

[4FordFamily]

Horn for the record, my beef with the tags was that there were some inappropriate ones thrown in there. I'm not much of a coral guru as many on here. Intermediate at best lol

 

[melypr1985]

I wasn't mad about the tags, I just wanted to know how on earth I got 30 alerts for the one thread and one tag. So weird!

 

[D block]

I am going to go with 5 small frags. That is just a guess.

@CastAway @Steve Maxwell @Mschoolman @Horn @That guy @kmog @Collinslice should know

 

[JedClampett]

I would say 5 small frags because you have 5 times the growth (common since) . I like starting from small frags, and watching them grow, plus small frags are cheaper, but to each his own.

 

[Jlobes]

like pete said ^^, studies have been done on this, try using google or a search engine some time.

the 5" frags will generally outperform the 1" frags.

 

[kmog]

a 1 inch zoa with 2-4 polyps will be bigger in a year than a 5" torch or frogspawn.

There's a lot of factors in which will grow more. Xenias grow insanely fast, Zoas multiply insanely fast, Duncans if you feed them grow fast.

I would personally go with 5 smaller frags and get different types of corals. Ime big mats of Zoas are useless to spend the money on as you can make your own multicolored pads with $5 Zoas and they grow out in 6-8 months from 2-5 polyps to hundreds.

 

[Tegridy Reef]

I am going to go with 5 small frags. That is just a guess.

@CastAway @Steve Maxwell @Mschoolman @Horn @That guy @kmog @Collinslice should know

Thanks for the tag really interesting thread I have done with some of my acros and montis by no means intentionally but from fragging random stuff cause gets to big.

bigger one seems to have three solid looking branches forming

smaller one fully encrusted on plug but I am by no means at a year to compare thou probably two or a month

They are also in same light and same tank. If any one is interested I could frag a couple more pieces and compare the growths. But sounds like these test have already Ben done from the little I skimmed thru the post

So for my answer I think there is a sweet spot for every coral were u the growth is best for each size frag. Finding those sweet spots are hard and takes a lot to find with acros. Probably the 5 inch would b better but for the montis id say individuals would b better more surface area for growth.

Another cool grow feature would b right side vertical growing vs putting the frag sideways on the plug. Or 2 inch branch vs 2 inch of encrustment

 

[Salty1962]

As mentioned the type/pattern of the corals is important. Many corals will have greater growth after they are fragged. So you would probably get greater growth from frags vs colonies.JM$.02 worth.