Chucktown BC 29 Mixed Reef

[diggman08]

wow dude you have got some Awesome Zoas there... your tank looks totally different with that new light...loook amazing..

[divecj5]

Huge photo update........nice. It's amazing how much those sps have grown. Congrats.

 

Thanks Boris. I figured if I was going to do a picture update...might as well make it a nice big one. I never really see how much things have grown until I take pictures of the corals. For some reason, probably because I glance at things daily, I never really note growth.

 

 

Wow - you've had some amazing growth as well! Those caps are starting to round out nicely and take on their true form - I love them! All looks good - and I still want some of those strange green things!!!!!!!!!

 

Thanks Karen. I am really happy to start seeing some growth out of my corals. It has been a while since I'd seen any and I think a lot of that was due to the excess micronutrients that were in there. Since I've started running carbon, phospure, and seagel I have honestly seen a major change in the health of the corals. That will be the last time I don't run my reactor

 

I can bust up a rock with some of the Neomeris and bring it the next time we meet. I would be happy to share my greenies

 

 

crazy growth on those SPS and some really nice photos.

 

looks like that Green Pocillipora is growing down but not up?

 

Thanks Tudizzle. I totally agree with you about the Pocillipora....for some reason it just continues to lay down a bigger base and not really grow up that much. It seems to really be forming a tight ball like shape with the branches, which is pretty cool. Just wish I could get some more height out of the bad boy. As long as it's healthy and still growing in some shape or form, I'm happy.

 

 

Hey Adam (and Karen since I'm sure you will see this too) incase you guys looking for my post through the pages, I moved it to the members aquariums!!

 

I was wondering where it went to. I will have to make note of that in my thread notifications.

 

wow dude you have got some Awesome Zoas there... your tank looks totally different with that new light...loook amazing..

 

Thanks Digg. It is pretty wild how some of the zoas have morphed over time. I got some from Karen and some from Tudizzle (which I still need to send you your cooler back with corals ). The ones from Tudizzle have really morphed a good bit. Really cool to see when they turn out to be something really nice.

 

 

Thanks everyone for taking a look at the pictures. I am possibly getting a couple more stonies today so keep your eye out tomorrow for some pictures

[diggman08]

i still have TUDD's Thermos from last year when he shipped me some goodies.... ::thought to self:: dam tudds gonna read this... hehe. ( i was suppposted to send him stuff back in..never got around to it)

 

Tudd's reaction

[nUgZ]

The tank's looking great!! BTW I cut the undata yesterday. I'll try to snap a pic later for you.

[varanus37]

Great pics! Everything in the tank seems to be doing really well. The blue polyps on that cap really shine in your tank. Very kewl. Glad to see everything is working out so well for you.

 

Bill

[diggman08]

just hit post number 1000

[divecj5]

i still have TUDD's Thermos from last year when he shipped me some goodies.... ::thought to self:: dam tudds gonna read this... hehe. ( i was suppposted to send him stuff back in..never got around to it)

 

Tudd's reaction

 

Haha...I have it all cleaned up as well and ready to go back to him. I was just going to wait to send something back to him.

 

 

The tank's looking great!! BTW I cut the undata yesterday. I'll try to snap a pic later for you.

 

Thanks man. Shoot me a pic when you get the chance. Looking forward to getting it sometime over the next week or two.

 

Great pics! Everything in the tank seems to be doing really well. The blue polyps on that cap really shine in your tank. Very kewl. Glad to see everything is working out so well for you.

 

Bill

 

Thanks for stopping by Bill. Yeah, the frags have really taken off and the green with blue polyps is one of my favorites.

 

On another note...I GOT MORE STONIES.

 

I went up to Columbia on business today and decided to stop by and meet up with the owner of Aquarium Specialty (if you haven't been to the site, check it out) to see if he had any frags.

 

Umm...yeah,he had some frags. He had HUGE colonies of ORA Oregon Tort, Purple Monster, Stags...you name it, he had pretty much a colony of it. So after drooling over his tank, here's what I got for under $100

 

-3-5 inch ORA Oregon Tort frag (has about 3-4 branches on it already)

-5-7 inch Bali Green Slimer (this thing is almost too big already )

-2-3 inch Bali Blue Slimer

 

I will have to grab some pictures of them tomorrow and post them this weekend. They are stunning to see already. I also rescaped a bit, well actually a lot to make it so that my scape is more vertical so that I can get my SPS more light. I think this has been holding their growth back a bit.

[TUDIZZLE]

i still have TUDD's Thermos from last year when he shipped me some goodies.... ::thought to self:: dam tudds gonna read this... hehe. ( i was suppposted to send him stuff back in..never got around to it)

 

Tudd's reaction

 

 

hahaha..................no my reaction is damn I have a lot of zoa frags, sure would like to send some to Digg for his pico's

[Elite Twit]

Very nice updates. Forgot to post up yesterday and finally got some time today. Can't wait to see the shots of the new stonies, they sound huge compared to what you've got in their now.

[nUgZ]

Wow that sounds like a great new connection for you. If you decide to frag that Oregon Tort let me know.

[divecj5]

Yeah nUgZ....he is a really great guy. He used to do almost all of the imports of foreign corals a long time ago....basically from anywhere except at the time Australia. He used to work for the wholesalers so he has lots of connections. It was really cool talking to him about corals since he is a biologist as well.

 

What was really crazy was seeing all of these corals that you usually see just frags of at their true colony size. He had a Purple Monster colony that as bigger than my hand, he had two ORA Tort colonies that were larger than my hand, a ORA Rose and Green Milli colony that was about the size of a NERF ball, and all sort of other crazy stuff.

 

Once the Tort is up to a fragable size, I will definitely hook you up.

[airman_verde04]

woah Adam, I went to TL yesterday to pick up my water, and I looked at a 29BC, they are much larger than I thought! Its like the perfect size for a tank that you even could want! I thought for some reason they had a 29 set up, but its a 14gBC.. I bet they look awesome in a house or in a smaller space where the size of the tank really gets to aesthetically take over.. oh! congrats on the new stony! did you pick it up locally?

[klarion]

Very nice updates. Forgot to post up yesterday and finally got some time today. Can't wait to see the shots of the new stonies, they sound huge compared to what you've got in their now.

 

+1

[divecj5]

Shots hopefully this afternoon or tomorrow morning.

[divecj5]

Found my cord for my camera...should have some pics up soon.

[divecj5]

Here is a little sample of what I got. I need to take a picture of the green slimer mounted since it is no longer laying down like some log

 

ORA Oregon Tort

This has a little bit more of a greenish color at the tips but was hard to capture

 

From the left...

 

Front

 

Blue Stag/Blue Slimer

 

From the left

 

Front

 

 

Bali Green Slimer

 

I will take some more tomorrow as they all have more polyp extension now that they have settled in a bit.

[klarion]

Those are great looking. I can just imagine the forest of corals you'll have a year from now :-)

[Weetabix7]

VERY nice new additions!!!

[divecj5]

Thank you Boris...hopefully they will thrive for me like they did in the owners tank.

 

Thanks for stopping by and checking out the pics Weetie. By the way, I think your avatar is hilarious

[spanko]

Hey Dive, how are ya?

Just a FYI, I have been read (I think Borneman) that when fragging Acro's it is better to have them lay down like a "log". Something about more corallites exposed for upwards grrowth therefore more potential for more branches coming from the log. I'll see if I can find it.

[spanko]

Sorry it was Anthony Calfo. Here it is:

 

BREAKING STICKS

 

Heehee... the most common endeavers of coral fragmentation to date have largely been with digitate stony corals like Acropora and Montipora digitata... finger Porites, etc.

 

And to date, the most common way of fixing these frags to a substrate as been to glue, epoxy, insert (into a hole) or otherwise position the finger of a frag in an UPRIGHT position like a planted tree.

 

Yet do consider how unnatural this is. Can you imagine how many frags created on the reef by various water, weather/storm or animal damage... actually sink and settle - voila! - in a planted an upright position? Ahhh... not many, if any

 

More importantly, as it pertains to optimizing fragmentation techniques... the vertical orientation of a frag severely handicaps the potential for growth that accumulates total mass overall.

 

You have heard perhaps of other means for optimizing growth for mass? See my article index for links to an older Reefkeeping.com article on suspension growth of corals... there are some threads here on RC too from over one year ago on the same subject. You can grow more mass faster by suspending a coral on string since the colony will get more water flow all ways around and more light (refracted off sand and aquarium walls/substrates to the underside of the coral). But indeed... few folks will have the space or the desire to string corals.

 

So addressing the typical keeping of frags on substrates, let's look at an example:

 

Imagine a 2"/5cm single branch frag of Acropora.

 

"Planted" in an upright and vertical position, the axial tip of the branch continues to get the best light and water flow and grows the fastest.

 

But do you know what's better than a nice little fast growing axial corallite? Several of them: Lay the frag down horizontally.

 

Laying down horizontally... that 2" frag now has tens of secondary corallites now exposed to better water flow and light (especially) for being out from under the "shadow" of the vertical orientation. On this horizontal branch you will get at least several new branches that will each grow at the same or better pace than the single axial branch of a vertically fixed branch.

 

But do you know what's better than several new branches growing from a horizontal 2" frag? Two times the number of branches! And we get this by simply splitting the branch in half bilaterally (like a bananna split). Thus... we get 4-6 new branches off of both pieces laying down horizontally with their cut sides face down... instead of just several from the whole uncut branch laying down horizontally.

 

But do you know what's better than 4-6 new branches off of a bilaterally split coral frag? 20+ branches! And we get this by instead sawing the 2"/5 cm frag into say five 10mm disks/wafers! (done with a thin wet tile saw blade or lapidary saw blade as some of you have seen Eric Borneman or myself do in frag workshops... see 2005 IMAC and/or MACNA DVDs).

 

Each wafer of stony coral can be placed on a new hard substrate with a dab of glue and the topside cut edge will be stimulated to cover with new tissue and form at least several (if not more) branches in the process.

 

So comparing the growth on the same 2"/5cm Acropora frag in a single month between:

 

-vertical frag with single axial tip

-horizontal frag with several new branches

-split horizontal frag with 2X several branches

-4-5 10mm wafer cuts of the frag which each produce several+ branches

 

... the productivity is remarkable.

 

What great differences in the total amount of mass (and ultimately salable/tradable) corals produced!

 

This is the sort of mindful examination of our techniques we must continue to do as we collectively advance the hobby

 

Let's use this thread as one small place to add ideas and discussion about improving coral propagation techniques.

 

With kind regards, Anthony

[varanus37]

So, slice all your stuff into wafers and glue it to your LR! It'll be the next big thing. I can see it now. That was a pretty kewl article though. Dive, lay down the log!

 

 

Bill

[divecj5]

Thanks for the article information Henry. I have heard things similar to this and it really does make a lot of sense. Makes sense that the more surface area you are working with, the better for growth.

 

So, slice all your stuff into wafers and glue it to your LR! It'll be the next big thing. I can see it now. That was a pretty kewl article though. Dive, lay down the log!

 

Bill

 

Hahaha....look at his Wafer Reef

 

I already mounted the frag but I mounted it in a way that it is still more or less in a laying down position so it is parallel with the sand bed. I mounted the Tort and the Blue Stag vertical so I might lean those to the side a little just to get them off being completely perpendicular to the light.

 

It's sometimes funny when you think about how maniacal we are about our tanks when in the ocean, a piece of coral breaks off, falls to the sand or rock base and is happy where it is. I think we are just more thorough about thinking things out because there is money attached to our little frags, not like in the ocean

[Travis]

Here is a little sample of what I got. I need to take a picture of the green slimer mounted since it is no longer laying down like some log

 

ORA Oregon Tort

This has a little bit more of a greenish color at the tips but was hard to capture

 

From the left...

 

Front

 

Blue Stag/Blue Slimer

 

From the left

 

Front

 

 

Bali Green Slimer

 

I will take some more tomorrow as they all have more polyp extension now that they have settled in a bit.

 

Nice dude! Hopefully that Tort will color up some. Just keep up with Trace Elements, Ca levels, and your Nitrates and it will do good.

[divecj5]

Thanks Travis. It is a little more blue than comes out in the picture but I just hope I can keep it's color and have it grow for me. Time and patience will tell