WYSIWYG SPS Coral Colonies
- Thread starter ClearWaterAquarium
- Start date
Mike Yasin
Supporting Member
Probably all dead? Sucks that we gamble like this with living organisms. Very low survival rate from the ocean to a holding tank to a home tank. Wish we’d be more responsible
Mike Yasin
Supporting Member
Probably all dead? Sucks that we gamble like this with living organisms. Very low survival rate from the ocean to a holding tank to a home tank. Wish we’d be more responsible
If you have a tank that grows SPS well the survival rate of marineculture should be very high. If people want to increase chances of the SPS pulling through they should frag the colony immediately. That helps ensures high light and flow to all pieces and increases the number of shots on goal significantly.
Fortunately not. Of the 11 we got last time, most of them are still alive, and a few look to be thriving. I only saw one report of total loss. Updates are on the previous sale thread.
You should also not assume that these SPS colonies come straight from the ocean. The largest operations in Indonesia, Australia, and Malaysia are increasingly keeping the best cool they find in the wild and then grow them up in tanks with water piped in from the ocean. You can sometimes tell by looking at what the coral is mounted on, encrusting pattern, and shape. It is not only coral distributors in the US and Europe who are growing coral in tanks for sale.
Mariculture is extremely difficult when theirs a swing. They are extremely unforgiving. It’s not months of life. But see if you can grow them for years. They always come in pale and rarely color up to the pictures. Unless you can pound them with super high par. My experience is 1 out of 10 or 20 will be really decent. The rest are meh.
let me save you the troubles... show me the sps that you got, @Mike Yasin and I will play the "name the sps game" with you so you can add either JF, RMF, ASD, RRC, RRA, TSA, WWC, ARC, JCC, to that name.
let me also add, it is bad business practice to give @ClearWaterAquarium - your customers wholesale price and under cutting the other LFS only to benefit a higher tier in the purchasing power.
let me also add, it is bad business practice to give @ClearWaterAquarium - your customers wholesale price and under cutting the other LFS only to benefit a higher tier in the purchasing power.
tribbitt
Supporting Member
They come on grow discs with little tags on them, meaning they're maricultured: coral farmers collect some frags and culture those strains intensively close to shore
In my experience mariculture rarely morph into anything "insane crazy" like vivid confetti, but they end up looking pretty nice.
They're hardy if you treat them well. They tend to do better chopped up - my guess is that their morphology changes in response to the amount of flow in the ocean, and when taken back into a tank with relatively very low flow, they no longer get sufficient flow to the middle of the colony
In my experience mariculture rarely morph into anything "insane crazy" like vivid confetti, but they end up looking pretty nice.
They're hardy if you treat them well. They tend to do better chopped up - my guess is that their morphology changes in response to the amount of flow in the ocean, and when taken back into a tank with relatively very low flow, they no longer get sufficient flow to the middle of the colony
When you frag a colony. It puts the frag into survival mode. If it’s a healthy frag it will do well if it was weak it will rtn in a few days to weeks. But yes. Most of your thinking is correct. Young Jedi.
Mike Yasin
Supporting Member
Mariculture is close to shore in similar conditions to the ocean, and its native water, save for a few variables. I don’t mean to come off as an a-hole, far from it. I’ve seen some very cool survivors, but those are usually limited to farms who practice a very high degree of specialization - not saying hobbyists can’t succeed. Just lower rates of success is all.
No worries. Many of the hobbiest who purchase these colonies are degenerate coral gamblers. Every once in a while the lotto hits!
They cut off the deadline to submit earlier than anticipated. The last few requests and the extras I ordered did not seem to make it into the boxes. I have 9 pieces arriving which I believe to be the following:
BayAreaSaltyReefer #11
Footer #32, #28
albertlin #29
Krak256 #26 and #49
Newfly #17
Umrigark #23 #50
I appologize to those that did not make it.
BayAreaSaltyReefer #11
Footer #32, #28
albertlin #29
Krak256 #26 and #49
Newfly #17
Umrigark #23 #50
I appologize to those that did not make it.
surely those brown colonies can be colored up, no? the stress of travel, etc... can't they be brought back to full coloration? do we really think they are selling healthy brown coral? is that a thing - brown coral?
tribbitt
Supporting Member
Many many of the corals in the ocean are brown
These corals have the coloration they have because of the conditions they’re in in the ocean. In our tanks that color and morphology often change a little due to different conditions
If it arrives when they say and customs doesn't hold it these should be at the store by 11. More likely is that they will arrive at the store 11.30-12.
interesting. so placing a brown coral into favorable conditions won't necessarily color it up?
Not if it's a natural occurring brown coral to start with. If it's a coral that wasn't brown but turned brown due to poor tank conditions high nutrients or in adquate lighting it's possibly in that case for the coral to regain color. Could take weeks or up to a year, in a ideal environment. Assuming it's healthy enough to endure it's current condition and makes the transition smoothly.
Not many import or bother collecting brown corals these days because not many people would consider buying them.
And there is also no 100% guarantee that a coral that turned brown will recover. Though, I've have a few brown acroporas recover for me.
You can buy marineculture that appears very colorful upon arriving at a facility in the US. If you buy that coral (either the colony or a frag), and bring it back into your tank the color can change dramatically. At least this is what happened to me with three different marine culture SPS. I didn’t buy entire colonies—instead I got the importer to frag me a few chunks which left the colonies still large and sellable. The primary issue I had is the polyps turned brown after a few months whereas before the colonies were originally super colorful. I will continue to leave the frags in my tank and see if they color up at 6, 9 and maybe even 12 months. Still a fun experiment even if it doesn’t work out.
In contrast, I haven’t had any well-known named SPS change dramatically when moving from a frag tank at a coral show, hobbiest tank, etc. to my tank. They can definitely look different due to my lighting and tank conditions but I have never seen a complete switch in color like I did with the 3 marinculture SPS.
tribbitt
Supporting Member
Not always. Sometimes, but sometimes not