Abzdot Posted July 25, 2020 Share Posted July 25, 2020 I’m a new reefer who wants to dip their toes into acropora, I have had a pocillopora for 3 months and have had great growth. I was wondering if they’re similar to acropora in relation to care. Quote Link to comment
mitten_reef Posted July 25, 2020 Share Posted July 25, 2020 In my experience, pocillopora is like the weed of sps, right up there with monti cap. Unless you’re doing something really wrong, they will keep growing. So I’d put them in the “easier” category. since you manage to have one thriving, it won’t hurt to dip your toes into acro. just make sure you don’t spend a ton of money for your first acros. Find a couple of healthy bargain frags at LFS is the best way to go. 2 1 Quote Link to comment
Abzdot Posted July 25, 2020 Author Share Posted July 25, 2020 14 minutes ago, mitten_reef said: In my experience, pocillopora is like the weed of sps, right up there with monti cap. Unless you’re doing something really wrong, they will keep growing. So I’d put them in the “easier” category. since you manage to have one thriving, it won’t hurt to dip your toes into acro. just make sure you don’t spend a ton of money for your first acros. Find a couple of healthy bargain frags at LFS is the best way to go. Thanks, that’s what I intended on doing, I was going to get a £15-25 acropora maybe even less just need to see prices at LFS. Thanks! 1 Quote Link to comment
jservedio Posted July 25, 2020 Share Posted July 25, 2020 19 minutes ago, mitten_reef said: In my experience, pocillopora is like the weed of sps, right up there with monti cap. Unless you’re doing something really wrong, they will keep growing. So I’d put them in the “easier” category. since you manage to have one thriving, it won’t hurt to dip your toes into acro. just make sure you don’t spend a ton of money for your first acros. Find a couple of healthy bargain frags at LFS is the best way to go. Haha maybe I have bad luck or something, but other than monti caps, acros have been the easiest SPS for me. Only SPS I have recently had trouble with is birdsnest and pocci! Actually, in the last two years only SPS I lost was a pocillopora. With acros, you know what you're getting, with everything else other than monti the requirements can be all over the place and they take forever to adjust. Of course, YMMV... 3 Quote Link to comment
mcarroll Posted July 26, 2020 Share Posted July 26, 2020 13 hours ago, jservedio said: Haha maybe I have bad luck or something, but other than monti caps, acros have been the easiest SPS for me. Only SPS I have recently had trouble with is birdsnest and pocci! Actually, in the last two years only SPS I lost was a pocillopora. With acros, you know what you're getting, with everything else other than monti the requirements can be all over the place and they take forever to adjust. Of course, YMMV... I agree about the Birdsnests you mentioned. I have a pink that seems to be the exception that proves the rule, and survives anything. But I've lost green bird nests and green-tip birdsnests from seemingly the slightest tweaks sometimes. The first was when I'd had a frag mounted for a few weeks and then accidentally broken it off trying to frag another coral (go figure). I ended up accidentally re-mounting the coral backward from how it was facing, but couldn't tell. It looked pretty similar, but (due to it's form) instead of leaning out into the flow channel it was in, it was now leaning slightly back just out of the flow channel. It was dead down to the skeleton within a day, before I had any of that figured out – no "moment of looking bad" to react to. But as long as you get a good start on one and then keep things stable I think they are one of the best looking, easiest to grow, fastest growing, easiest to frag corals ever. Go figure! 🤷♂️ Don't you think there are some Monti's that are pretty finicky, not unlike some Acro's? Undata's have seemed that way, but it could have been my source. The plating Monti's are all definitely weeds tho! 🙂 Digitata's seem to be somewhere in the middle....often pretty easy/weedy. "German blue" M. digitata was my very first stony coral, and still might be my favorite. (My avatar photo.) Need to find a new copy though...it's been a while. Quote Link to comment
Frag Factory Posted July 26, 2020 Share Posted July 26, 2020 In my experience frags tend to be hardier, particularly frags from corals that grew in aquariums. Acros get a reputation of being hard to keep, I don't think that's true but they can be hard to keep coloured up and looking attractive. If you're going to try them buy some frags and go from there. Leave the £200 Aussie colonies to people with more money than sense. 1 Quote Link to comment
Abzdot Posted July 31, 2020 Author Share Posted July 31, 2020 I got an Acropora milllepora today! Fingers crossed all goes well! 2 Quote Link to comment
coralline-adam Posted July 31, 2020 Share Posted July 31, 2020 Get a frag that you know is from a colony that has been in captivity for a long time 👍 Quote Link to comment
pokerdobe Posted July 31, 2020 Share Posted July 31, 2020 Easy is relative to how stable you can keep your tank. High stability, mature tank? All corals are easy then. Never tried my hand at Poccis, but I've never had luck with birdsnests or stylo. I've had much better luck with acropora. Quote Link to comment
Abzdot Posted July 31, 2020 Author Share Posted July 31, 2020 2 hours ago, pokerdobe said: Easy is relative to how stable you can keep your tank. High stability, mature tank? All corals are easy then. Never tried my hand at Poccis, but I've never had luck with birdsnests or stylo. I've had much better luck with acropora. My tank has been mostly stable, only thing that has been slightly dogey is my Kh which I have fixed with some aquaforest buffer. The tank is 5 months old with 10kg of live rock and live sand. 2 hours ago, coralline-adam said: Get a frag that you know is from a colony that has been in captivity for a long time 👍 great to hear! Quote Link to comment
jservedio Posted July 31, 2020 Share Posted July 31, 2020 39 minutes ago, Abzdot said: My tank has been mostly stable, only thing that has been slightly dogey is my Kh which I have fixed with some aquaforest buffer. Which is the most important thing to keep stable - if there is one parameter to obsess over now, this should be the one. Make sure you've got a really good test kit for this if you plan on keeping SPS. I'm partial to the Hanna checker because I'm lazy, don't have the best eyes, and I ham-fist everything, but the Salifert kit is awesome as well. Quote Link to comment
Abzdot Posted July 31, 2020 Author Share Posted July 31, 2020 15 hours ago, jservedio said: Which is the most important thing to keep stable - if there is one parameter to obsess over now, this should be the one. Make sure you've got a really good test kit for this if you plan on keeping SPS. I'm partial to the Hanna checker because I'm lazy, don't have the best eyes, and I ham-fist everything, but the Salifert kit is awesome as well. I used to have an api test kit but then ditched it as it was immensely inaccurate and imprecise so I went with salifert and seem to be good! A generic noob question I have is how long should it take for the polyps to fully open? Quote Link to comment
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