Jump to content
Cultivated Reef

where do i get huge colonies of policciporids and acro for damselfish


filefishfinatic

Recommended Posts

filefishfinatic

guys where can i get huge colonies that would fill up a 20 high of table coral. i do not care if they are pretty. brown and pink acropora are fine. i just want coral heads that look like they were from the wild and are dirt cheap and fill up the tank. i want this because i want to put chromis and damsels and coral dwelling gobies in the tank. all the fish i just mentioned require large colonies of coral to survive and not loose their mind in my tank. the reason most chromis and damsels are really agressive is because they do not have coral heads like they do in the wild and they get confused and start murdering eachother image.png.e91ea055760279cafa8b15655b87f336.png

Link to comment

a. coral that size for dirt cheap do not exist - unless you found someone at the peak of their game wanting to break down a tank (and in that case they probably sell to LFS for good amount of cash)

b. you haven't shown us any ability to keep the most basic tanks.  so far, all i've seen are just thoughts and ideas and rambling.  you clearly are not aware that an SPS colony that size takes significant experience and husbandry to maintain, and a mature tank.  you can't just drop acros in a brand new tank and hope it'll be fine, there's no "shortcutting" a tank maturation to get to where acroporas will be happy.  <- while that's just my personal opinion, you'll find many tank journals on here that come in "head strong", claiming to be an all-acros, all-sps tank from the get-go.  those journals fizzled out fast, because sps just don't like new tanks.     

 

Personally, I'm not afraid to say that I'm still struggling to get my current tank up to the place where acroporas can be happy.  and it has been up since March/April.  I'm at the point where I'm pretty much resigned to the fact that I won't be doing any acros shopping for the holiday sales.

 

setting up a reef tank is not about instant gratifications, and I get the feeling that is all you want - an instant reef.  my advice: start somewhere, and start slow - after all, you keep saying how low-budget you want all these rambling setups to be.  the more you want to stock up the tank when it's not ready, that's when you'll lose the most money.  

 

Please read more of the tank of the month journals and try to understand how each of them get to where they are/were.  https://www.nano-reef.com/featured/  they also should give you ideas on tank type, livestock, and associated equipment/maintenance/husbandry required.  all featured tanks also linked out to the actual journals, where you can see how they all began, when they hit their peaks, and what happened after (some literally went in decline right afterward)

 

Again, this hobby is not about throwing a bunch of shit in a glass box, cuz someone else says it works.  It works for them, because they've built up their system to where they are currently - and that takes time.  Stop spewing hypothetical ideas that aren't based on any proven process.    

 

 

  • Like 8
Link to comment
10 minutes ago, mitten_reef said:

while that's just my personal opinion, you'll find many tank journals on here that come in "head strong", claiming to be an all-acros, all-sps tank from the get-go.  those journals fizzled out fast, because sps just don't like new tanks.    

Am I classified in this category 😅?

  • Haha 2
Link to comment
Just now, M. Tournesol said:

Am I classified in this category 😅?

TBD?  you haven't fizzled out yet, clearly...😃 

But you did experience some losses of sps due to "young tank" situation, as far as I recall.     

and I enjoy seeing ppl turning their tanks around....so good luck to you.

  • Like 1
  • Haha 1
Link to comment

You're definitely right about damsel behaviour, though doing this reently in my newest nano a couple weeks ago what I did was keep some of my old coral skeletons cooking in a sump, then I made a base of coral skeletons and some live rock piled together - just liverock doesn't have the fine branches that acros do but their skeletons keep that intricate structure well. I placed a bunch of acropora ontop of that so the damsels and gobies treat the dead coral much like the living stuff and since then the fish population's a lot more peaceful 

  • Like 1
  • Wow 1
Link to comment
filefishfinatic

oh wow thats a good idea. that means i dont need 20 ai primes and dosing pumps. i could even just do a reef crest and i dont have to design the tank to keep acropora. i can keep easier sps like montipora stylos and seritopora 

Link to comment

Yeah exactly, you end up with the exact kinda structure and shape you want at day 1 - and also dead coral heads are the perfectt shape for just squeezing frags into beacuse they fit perfectly into the gaps, the only thing I think stopping me doing this more was that I used to toss out my dead coral rather than turning it into live rock until like April this year 

  • Like 1
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment

I'm pretty sure that aggression in damsels comes from their inherent territoriality, and not from the lack of coral heads. In the wild, each fish has a territory measured in square feet. Which is not realistic in most aquariums.

 

Habitat use, feeding and territorial behavior of a Brazilian endemic damselfish Stegastes rocasensis (Actinopterygii: Pomacentridae) | SpringerLink

 

  • Like 3
Link to comment
filefishfinatic
11 hours ago, East1 said:

for Chrysiptera, you need 15cm square footprint per fish for it to work, and it needs to be rocky / have those tiny nooks. 

thanks 

Link to comment
filefishfinatic

15cm is kinda small but i think it coudl work out. im not talking about seargent majors. they get too big im talking about chromis and small damsels like lemons and azure 

Link to comment

In a 20 hight that would mean maximum 6 damsels and ALL the surface would need to be covered with branching coral. 4 damsels would be a more plausible number in this tank but you would still have a high chance to finish with 1~2 damsels.

  • Like 3
Link to comment
filefishfinatic

its mostly an experiment i would like to try, i want a tank that looks like a legit reef crest and i know that damsels live in reef crests and they just hover over a coral head then they rush back into it. on planet earth and other shows they have macro footage of damsels wedged into coral heads. i have heard tons of people say to keep chromis, you need massive heads of policciporids and 2 they said they need large numbers. another proof of this is how damsels are similar to african chiclids and how they evolved into african chiclids and they have similar habits and teritorial issues and my theroy is they became more teritorial to compensate for no huge heads of coral to hide in. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment

Large dead coral skeletons are still pretty expensive. 
 

 

The cheapest way is to just grow out frags of fast growing birdsnests and stylos and such but you have to be capable of doing that….

  • Like 3
Link to comment
filefishfinatic

what i may do is get a coral skeleton of a thick branching coral with thick long branches. then take a masonry bit and cut holes in the tips then stick frag plugs in there to make even more branches 

  • Like 1
Link to comment

I would be tempted to try one of the fake rock walls made out of live or dry rock leaving plenty of caves and caverns for the fish. This would give you a base to grow out frags and get the look, however would not be an instant job which is what you seem to be looking for. I'm considering doing something similar for a single damsel for a 5g 

Link to comment
filefishfinatic
Just now, Ratvan said:

I would be tempted to try one of the fake rock walls made out of live or dry rock leaving plenty of caves and caverns for the fish. This would give you a base to grow out frags and get the look, however would not be an instant job which is what you seem to be looking for. I'm considering doing something similar for a single damsel for a 5g 

i was planning not on a rock wall but just a coral head with a coupel rocks under it. i want it to grow so branched that it lets light and sunlight (rock wall would block) and then i could keep like brain coral and soft coral and lower light stuff underneath it 

  • Like 1
Link to comment

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recommended Discussions

×
×
  • Create New...