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Making lemonade from SPS encrustation, Update! post #48


Mr. Microscope

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Mr. Microscope

<3 this idea. There are so many gorgeous encrusting corals--what a beautiful way to get them up off the rocks.

Really, I should try this with my bonsai. That thing might as well be called an encrusting monti. I'm curious to see what will happen with the milli as it's a pretty fast grower and more likely to branch. Though, jservedio is probably right. It'll probably just ball up over it and look like poo. lol

I can tell you exactly what will happen! It'll plate right up the side of the dead skeleton and leave a bunch of hollow spots - it won't hug the skeleton, but will make more or less a ball around it with a bunch of plates and branches coming off of it. I have an A. Valida about the size of my fist that receded about 60% during AEFW dipping that stopped receding after the dipping and it regrew over itself. It is a big nasty looking mess 8 months later. I can take a picture when the lights come back on tomorrow :)

 

Edit: Here you go - sorry for the crappy picture quality since it is at night and I was just cycling through the Radion presets and is something like 10K for auto-wb to work. It is much more purple than the picture. Anyway, you can see the multiple layers of plating over it's dead skeleton leaving behind large hollow spots. This is 8 months after the initial recession:

Thank you for your contribution to this thread jservedio! I appreciate your input and experience with this. It'll be interesting to see what happens with the milli as it has a bit different growth pattern than the valida (eventual tabler as opposed bush...i think).

 

The valida I had was extremely touchy and would lose it's highlighter tips at the slightest variation in water parameters. Eventually, I lost it.

Very interesting, can't wait to see how this turns out :).

Thanks Rolla! Will post more!

The frag that will never grow :P

:P lol. Normally, I'd agree with you, but that milli (er, uh prostrata?) hasn't failed me yet.
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Really, I should try this with my bonsai. That thing might as well be called an encrusting monti. I'm curious to see what will happen with the milli as it's a pretty fast grower and more likely to branch. Though, jservedio is probably right. It'll probably just ball up over it and look like poo. lol

Thank you for your contribution to this thread jservedio! I appreciate your input and experience with this. It'll be interesting to see what happens with the milli as it has a bit different growth pattern than the valida (eventual tabler as opposed bush...i think).

 

The valida I had was extremely touchy and would lose it's highlighter tips at the slightest variation in water parameters. Eventually, I lost it.

Thanks Rolla! Will post more!

:P lol. Normally, I'd agree with you, but that milli (er, uh prostrata?) hasn't failed me yet.

 

I'll keep an eye on it as it continues to grow and let you know - I am hoping when it finished "balling" the rest of the dead skeleton, it'll start throwing up branches and look natural in another year or so. It is definitely weird seeing it plate over living coral tissue (there are areas that are 3 layers deep).

 

However, acro it will definitely re-encrust directly over itself with no hollow between if it is perpindicular to the light source. I have an A. Suharsonoi that I almost lost 2 times in the past year and a half and it receded almost 50% of it's base twice and regrew directly over itself with no hollow twice now. When I put it in my tank it receded and then during AEFW it receded again and both times is just stopped one day and re-grew over itself. The base is incredibly thick and it has slowed down encrusting and started throwing branches again - but you can't even tell that it receded and regrew....twice.

 

Too bad you didn't pick a faster grower though, at least for me Palmer's Millies grow incredibly slow. I only have 2 millies, one Palmers and one rando freebie from Cherry Corals that I got around the same time and the CC one is almost 3 times the size of the Palmers.

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Mr. Microscope

 

I'll keep an eye on it as it continues to grow and let you know - I am hoping when it finished "balling" the rest of the dead skeleton, it'll start throwing up branches and look natural in another year or so. It is definitely weird seeing it plate over living coral tissue (there are areas that are 3 layers deep).

 

However, acro it will definitely re-encrust directly over itself with no hollow between if it is perpindicular to the light source. I have an A. Suharsonoi that I almost lost 2 times in the past year and a half and it receded almost 50% of it's base twice and regrew directly over itself with no hollow twice now. When I put it in my tank it receded and then during AEFW it receded again and both times is just stopped one day and re-grew over itself. The base is incredibly thick and it has slowed down encrusting and started throwing branches again - but you can't even tell that it receded and regrew....twice.

Interesting. Before acros take on their mature form, they can sure do some weird stuff.

Too bad you didn't pick a faster grower though, at least for me Palmer's Millies grow incredibly slow. I only have 2 millies, one Palmers and one rando freebie from Cherry Corals that I got around the same time and the CC one is almost 3 times the size of the Palmers.

Odd. Mine has always grown like a weed and has survived a lot of brillain't fails over the life of my tank.

(BTW, I just invented that word, "brillain't.") :lol:;)

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Interesting. Before acros take on their mature form, they can sure do some weird stuff.

 

What is weird is this one was just getting into it's "mature" form when I got AEFW. I had to remove it from the rock it was on and turn it 90 degrees from horizontal to vertical to sit on my frag racks. When that happened, it started receding and baasically "reverted" back to the same way a frag would grow. That's when all that crazy growth started happening. If you looked underneath the "three level" plates on the left side, you would see a bunch of dead, small branches.

 

That colony is about 2" bigger than it looks since all the dead skeleton that was left uncovered was jammed into the crevice in the rocks. I'll have to pull the colony before it attaches really well to the rock to take pictures of the bottom of it - it is definitely much more strange than those pictures show.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Mr. Microscope

Brief update!

 

I started this experiment on the 28th of July. It's now the 8th of August. I just came home from a week long business trip, but everything in my tank looked okay aside from a lot of filth on the glass.

 

Here's a pic I took last night of the frag:

experiment20140808_zps479d30db.jpg

 

New growth seems to have taken over the glue and is now making contact with the skeleton. As you can see, there is some brown stuff on the zombie part, but this is the same stuff that was on the glass when I returned. So, it'll easily scrub off with a toothbrush. Will probably take care of that tonight.

 

Again, the zombie frag pictured above is sitting on the bottom of my tank. Here's a couple other shots of the same coral growing near the top of my tank on a frag rack. You can see the original encrustation is all green up here too, but branches are starting to form from the edges with the classic Palmer's Blue color.

PBfrag0120140808_zpsa2be242a.jpg

 

PBfrag0220140808_zpscae1789a.jpg

lol on this second image. The branch on the right is not a branch, but encrustation chasing a small feather duster. If you look closely, you can see the, "feathers" sticking out of the tip. I wonder who will win?

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Making progress :) When your around you may want to shoot the zombie with a turkey baster from time to time to keep algae/ detrius/ junk at bay if your not already.

 

 

As far as the feather duster/branch.... the feather duster will likely be ok I have seen quite a few old, larger colonies with feather dusters in them the acro just grows around them :)

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Mr. Microscope

Making progress :) When your around you may want to shoot the zombie with a turkey baster from time to time to keep algae/ detrius/ junk at bay if your not already.

Good idea! I should probably do that.

As far as the feather duster/branch.... the feather duster will likely be ok I have seen quite a few old, larger colonies with feather dusters in them the acro just grows around them :)

Interesting. I guess they can keep up. Good to know. I think it's kinda funny how they're growing together.

 

I've been feeding coral chili two or three times a weeks lately and my feather duster population has increased considerably.

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Good idea! I should probably do that.

 

It will definitely help, acros like a clean surface to grow on.

 

Interesting. I guess they can keep up. Good to know. I think it's kinda funny how they're growing together.

 

They can definitely keep up and IMO are somewhat beneficial because of their decent abilities as filter feeders... works good for both of them ;)

 

I've been feeding coral chili two or three times a weeks lately and my feather duster population has increased considerably.

 

Yeah not surprising, they are pretty good filter feeders. Are you noticing any response from the corals growth/ coloration wise as well??

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Mr. Microscope

Yeah not surprising, they are pretty good filter feeders. Are you noticing any response from the corals growth/ coloration wise as well??

I'm also using Red Sea Energy A&B, and yes. Colors of my corals have never been so awesome. It's likely a combination of the feeding, the A&B, and running my system cleaner. I've finally gotten a lot of pink/red out of my red planet rather than just green and pink or just green! Pics to come in my tank thread about that one.
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Mr. Microscope

I did this recently with some blue clove polyps on a birds nest skeleton. Looks pretty cool now.

!!!

Pics! Would love to see that.

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streamline.by.design

I'll see what I can get. Actually just glued it to a plug and am going to try and sell it. Adding a new stub to where it was before.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I have them spreading in my nano, but everything fights it off just fine. Fills in the voids nicely.

Some of my softies couldn't compete. Since I buy relatively small frags with the intention to grow them out it causes problems too since it prevents slower growing things from spreading onto the rocks. I personally hate them lol, but I know some people love them. They are a really pretty color, but they've been such a nuisance for me in my 40 gallon.

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streamline.by.design

They are nice in my Evolve8 but when I get my 40 set up, I won't add them until most corals are established.

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Mr. Microscope

Just got back from traveling. I noticed more growth on my this frag and algae seems to be staying off the skeleton. Will post more pics soon.

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This is why I usually leave the skeles in the tank if I lose a coral. It make come back/regrow over old skele. If not, I have more "rock" to grow corals on now! I've always thought that an acro colony skeleton with zoas growing all over the branches would look really awesome!

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Some of my softies couldn't compete. Since I buy relatively small frags with the intention to grow them out it causes problems too since it prevents slower growing things from spreading onto the rocks. I personally hate them lol, but I know some people love them. They are a really pretty color, but they've been such a nuisance for me in my 40 gallon.

I finally managed to get a hold of a rock of the blue cloves from my LFS. I had 3 shipments of them sent to me and all died in shipping. I thought I was SOL.

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Mr. Microscope

Progress shots!

 

Briefly after taking the last pic, I accidentally knocked off the donor skeleton from the tile. :facepalm:

 

I'm still seeing growth however. There's definitely some encrustation making it's way up the skeleton. You can also see that the color is lightening up a bit and turning more purple. Not bad for sitting at the bottom of the tank.

 

On an added note, since I scrubbed off the algae that formed on the skeleton near the beginning of the month, there has been NO NEW ALGAE on the skeleton at all. It would seem my biopellets are starting to kick in. Here's the progress from last time:

 

2014.08.08

experiment20140808_zps479d30db.jpg

 

2014.08.27

experiment20140827_zps1b588ea6.jpg

 

 

On a side note, I thought I might as well post some updated shots of my other Palmer's Blue frags that are making more marked progress. These are sitting near the top of my tank. So, color and growth are a bit better than the experiment frag. Check it out. Branches are really starting to form and color has really gotten a lot more purple overall. The blue doesn't really come out well in the pic, but the tips of the branches are a really nice blue color.

 

Frag 01

2014.08.08

PBfrag0120140808_zpsa2be242a.jpg

 

2014.08.27

PBfrag0120140827_zps4db17b01.jpg

 

Frag 02

2014.08.08

PBfrag0220140808_zpscae1789a.jpg

 

2014.08.27

PBfrag0220140827_zpsa0b3e6c0.jpg

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Mr. Microscope

Unfortunately, this experiment is over. I found some bryopsis on the tile and I'm not going to risk bringing it into my new display.

 

Sorry to dissapoint..

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