An SPS Recipe for Success (A Manhattan Reefs Article)

Excellent article. It shows how much a small mistake can highly affect an SPS tank.

That's an awesome tank but the growth pattern on that Seriatopa (birds nest) in the first photo is quite odd.

 

What makes you say that Curt?

 

I've had colonies that big before and all of my growth was angled out and up as opposed to out and then down. I suspect it was due to be under 400W MH vs 250 watts. Mine were probably always reaching for the light.

There's lots of weird things like that which I've found over the years (and the above is just a hypothesis). For instance on a M. capricornis, I can look at a colony and tell what kind of flow that tank has. Lower flow and/or laminar flow will create plating that is relatively boring and looks just like a smooth plate.

I've found that if you want a nice A. tortuosa, immediately break your frag off the frag plug the day you buy it and then glue it back the plug on it's side. Then sit and wait for MONTHS. It really won't appear to do anything and then one day, it will just take off.

 

Interesting. When we had a large colony, the growth was pretty much like the one on that website. I actually prefer to lay frags on their sides. I've noticed that acros will not start to branch out until they've laid down a good solid base to support the main structure. Laying them down on their sides seems to speed up the base-laying process which is probably why they take off as quickly as you described.