An Experiment in SPS vitality/hardiness U.D. 01-24

Congrats on the PE. I tried your experiment with a green tip birdnest and had the same issue as you a newly shipped one and lost the tiny ones probably due to the same issues. Best of luck with the rest of the survivors.

 

cool experiment ReefMonkey

just one comment
if you want faster growth from SPS frags, lay them down flat, rather than pointed up
its live tissue in contact with the rock or plug that governs the speed they can colonise

a small frag laid down on its side, means more live tissue in contact with the surface they are on, and thus faster spread. once they have covered an area, thats when they will send branches upwards

Steve

 

Good tip Steve. Thanks. I've also read that pointing them straight down will increase growth speed and branching. All good info no doubt.

 

It's been a little over a month and as you can see the little tip really isn't showing "growth" when the larger frag behind it is growing like mad. I do have to say that the little tip frag has excellent polyp/flesh coverage with great PE.

 

While scraping/prying GSP mantle back away from my digi I broke a 2" branch off of it. So I decided to try out your suggestion of laying SPS flat. I was feeling lazy and just laid it on an old Monti Cap skelly I'd epoxied on a boulder to make a shelf. It's been there 3 days now and has excellent PE on the "up" side. Hopefully it will encrust the shelf before a hermit or my Urchin knocks it down into the sand.

 

It does look healthy , Reef Monkey, color is good as is PE

IME
on any frags I buy with a decent amount of encrusting growth on plug or rock, tend to start showing signs of upwards growth pretty quickly (white tips)
but any frags I get that are more freshly cut and have little if any encrusting growth on plug, tend to grow outwards and encrust that 1st, before displaying any signs of growth at tips

the coral must know that stability of base, is required before pushing for the sun

Steve

 

Yes, the coral grows in the direction that requires less ATP (energy). By encrusting, they don't have to waste resources needed to build a calcium skeleton.

 

Makes absolute sense.

 

It's been two months since my last update. The Red Hyacinth is doing well. The little tip began to thicken awhile back and now has a fork at the top. The bigger piece mounted behind it is becoming quite the nice mini colony imo.

A single shot of the rock and corals as they look today


A collage of growth over the past 4 months


I'll update again in April.

 

I was hoping you would do a f/u post.

It looks beautiful and healthy, congradulations.