New Corals, Acros First attempt.

[Civicdemon]

So I picked up a couple frags,

Got a nice size piece of rainbow birds of paradise, Also I nice size piece of blue tip acro, A couple smaller frags off red planet acro, and blue man acro, also a small piece of green slimmer. Will post up pictures tomorrow if they open up hopefully.

This is my first attempt at acros so we will see what happens.

 

[2XAl]

Acros weren't as hard as everyone makes them out to be- there seems to be no such thing as too much light and flow.

 

[Civicdemon]

Here the pics and a short Video.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyKXSln9waA[/ame]

Rainbow Birds of Paradise



Red Planet Acro ( My Fav of my Pick ups )





Green Slimmer ( Not really open this one was cut so might still need time )



Blue Tip Acro





Blue Man Acro





And Hee a couple growth shots of my Pink Birdsnest and RBTA

 

[Sakura2282]

Beautiful pieces you have there! That bubble tip anemone is gorgeous.

Good luck with them! :)

 

[2XAl]

That red planet has beautiful coloring. Great buy!

 

[AnthonyTheNewbie]

Nice pickups dude! :)

 

[lilmatty5dimes]

agreed. love the red planet.

 

[Aquarian]

I agree that red planet is awesome.

 

[MitchReef]

Very nice pieces...you are aware that the Birds of Paradise is a birdnest and not an Acropora, right?

The purples and deep or dark blues are usually somewhat of a challenge to keep colored up but as long as your water is really impeccably clean and the system very consistent those are the keys to SPS success....

 

[Civicdemon]

Thanks guys yeah I picked everything up for 50$ So I hope it was a good price. The red planet is by far my Fav. that thing looks awesome.

Is it a good sign that the polyps are extended ???

I hope these corals make it, my tank is pretty stable and usually has only slight readings of nitrates around 3 ppm to 4ppm tops. lately I changed up my water change schedual and have ben doing about 17 gl every week. Before i was doing about 33 gl every 2 weeks.

Yes I do know the Birds of paradise is a birdsnest and not an acro. But it was one of my new pick ups. I really just hope they make it in my tank. So far I have ben keeping my digitatas and there doing pretty good. So I hope these also do good.

 

[noy]

the red planet will encrust around the base - you should think about either popping it off the plug or cutting the plug stem off and mounting it where it can continue to encrust (preferably over your rockwork).

it will probably encrust over the plug in 2-3 months. I find it to be a bit of a slow grower otherwise.

 

[Civicdemon]

Yeah im definitely going to move it a little closer to the lights, just have it there for a bit so it can acclimate to my lights.

 

[MitchReef]

Those look great. The BOP is a favorite for me too. If you give the Red Planet a lot of light it may turn all red. From my experience the green color comes in best at lower intensities.

You did well on your value, those are nice looking pieces....

 

[Civicdemon]

Ahhh. Ok so then i might keep it around where its at now then and see what happens. What about the other ones ?? Was.thinking of moving the blue tip up and the blue man also.

 

[MitchReef]

generally acros can take all the light and flow you can give them but give them a couple weeks where they are then move up or down for couple weeks and find the "sweet spot" Coloration and PE will tell you everything....

 

[noy]

+1 Mitch
your blue man looks like a tenuis and the blue tip - looks like a lovelli or cervicornis. i'm definitely not the expert.

If you are getting into acro's more - you should get a magnetic frag rack. When you get new acquisitions you can put them on the frag rack and put the frag rack on the bottom and slowly move it up every few days so your coral can light acclimate. This will prevent bleaching.

 

[MitchReef]

I agree with what noy said, I actually have a little 6X6 square grid piece of black eggcrate. It measures right at 4 1/2 X 4 1/2 inches and I sanded a bevel onto the underside of the eggcrate and glued ot to a small MagFloat. Frag gel holds it like it was made for this purpose. The bevel is just enough angle to make it sit level when on the slightly off level surface of the float. Then you can use the other half of the MagFloat to hold from the outside. Works great because if you have cuttings you are settling in and you don't want a plug stuck to them you can put them in the squares that are on top of the MagFloat and it holds them without mounting them.

 

[Civicdemon]

So heres a short little video showing the growth of these new corals so far. Enjoy and let me know what you think...

 

[MitchReef]

Your tank looks great, what size is the display?

Your video mentions having several tangs, the Atlantic Blue Tang is known for aggression. I hope he does settle down for you. I kow a number of people who had trouble keeping one.

 

[Civicdemon]

Its a 125gl and yeah I already had issues with the first one because he was much larger than even my yellow tang this one is a bit smaller and seems to be doing good with my yellow tang but he is picking on the sailfin a lot. going to give him another week and see if he calms down, if not Im going to get rid of him and give it another try with a much smaller one since I know my yellow tang and the sailfin are farly good tempered. We will see what happens and if that doesn't work im thinking of getting a kole tang or something like that. would love to try the other tangs I want but wont be able to get those unti I get my upgrade. Achiliues, and a couple others.