Pico reefers, how do you deal with corals overgowth? Planning, preventing, fragging, suboptimal conditions?

[ubpr]

I am looking for better solutions for downsizing. For now tank has a lot of overgrown corals, and only few of them are branching and easy to contain and frag. GSP and xenia require too frequent removing. A lot of encrusting corals, including variety of zoas, LPS and SPS. Something more practical and realistic with workload for a variety of the fast growing corals.

 

What I tried, could think of and what was advised before:

 

1. Carefully choose species to keep. Not encrusting and not spreading as xenia. Branching corals are easy to frag: snip, glue and done. But from branching corals, LPS are too big and too expensive (hammers, frogspawn, octospawn in my area, not US). What leaves candy cane and small polyped SPS. Keeping SPS requires intense dosing after you have a lot of them and they start growing. What adds to workload in a low tech setup. So, what set of less labor intense species worked well for you, in a span of 3-4 yrs?

2. Frag them as soon as necessary, leave new small frag remove main piece. A lot of work, especially with a lot of species, encrusting stony corals and no band saw. Remember, I am looking for a changing way of keeping to make it more easily manageable.

3. Create suboptimal conditions, not enough food and light. Tried, do not like an outcome: this tanks looks as being starved, not what I am aiming for.

4. Let corals grow onto each other and figure out by themselves who survives and who dies. Don't dare and I would expect that the tank will become a monoculture.

5. Monoculture tank: gsp, xenia, favia or montipora. Let them fill the space, scrape (or frag once in few years for LPS). Tried, not interesting enough to keep this over years.

6. Some corals are attracting attention and keeping you interested, others not. For me, it's a variety of cyphastreas, chalices, favias, montiporas, some zoas are nice. Now they overgrew available for them space again, and increasing tank size every few years is not an option.

 

Open for suggestions about what to do next: revise what set species to keep, mono species, only branching or else.

[debbeach13]

2 hours ago, ubpr said:

 tank has a lot of overgrown corals

A problem most reefers enjoy. 

 

2 hours ago, ubpr said:

GSP and xenia require too frequent removing.

Remove entirely. There is no way to slow their growth once they are happy, without compromising other corals in the tank. Also take out any other corals that you do not like or do not find interesting. Sell all of it to supplement purchasing corals you do like.

Maybe some acans would work for you. 

[Tired]

Remove and sell anything you don't like, avoid corals that will inevitably overgrow, and keep the number of SPS and other demanding corals relatively low. Letting stony corals fight can also be a good option; they'll contain themselves that way.

[mcarroll]

On 12/17/2022 at 7:10 AM, ubpr said:

So, what set of less labor intense species worked well for you, in a span of 3-4 yrs?

 Given that short of a time-frame, I think you can slightly vary your approach and get better results.

 

A) Don't rush the setup.  It's typical to find folks with a completely stocked tank only 6-12 months into the affair.  Who declared this a race??!!  (If you're old-school, you know Nothing Good Happens Fast In A Reef Tank)  Stretch each stage out longer than you would normally and find ways to enjoy or at least appreciate those stages as fully as possible.  (Each stage is pretty amazing after all....too bad most folks skip or get them over with as quickly as possible.)  If you do it right, you could still be stocking the tank into Year 2.

 

B) Eliminate all so-called "beginner corals" from your tanks.  They are all weeds.  Zoas, Xenia, Mushrooms, et al.  Et al.  😉

 

If you can do those two things, your tastes (as expressed in the first post, at least) can pretty much set the rest of the limits on what you stock the tank with.  (Seems like you already know more or less what works within the tank's limits and what is unsatisfactory.  Eg. hard-to-frag corals, etc.)

 

Some other thoughts...

 

Slowing growth would be better thought of as "not encouraging fast growth".  As you discovered, you don't want to starve anything – that's a very different (and not nice!) purpose.

 

Corals are (generally speaking) VERY well adapted to low light conditions.  And in general, growth is slower under lower intensity light....all else being equal.  Low lighting could actually be quite difficult to achieve due to the extremely shallow depth of your tank.  I would, without doubt, use at least a handheld lux meter to set up your lighting...on any tank, but especially on a tiny tank.  BTW, your corrals should still look fantastic under low light.  If they don't, there's something else wrong.  Remember that corals need dissolved nutrients....especially phosphate.

 

Letting corals grow into each other can be a perfect option, but it can be hard to predict outcomes without some experience under your belt – or lots of reading online.  I don't see why a multi-color assortment of Montipora cap's couldn't be kept in a nano....they have to be the most famous inter-compatible corals (and very easy to frag), but they aren't the only ones.  Look closely at ANY mature tank (even good pics) to see how the borders between corals get naturally defined and you should get lots of ideas.

[ubpr]

Thank you all, great insights, something to try and see how it will be working.

 

One of the tanks, from four for  a time being,  is fairly low light (Nicrew Saltwater 20W with weak leds), most actively growing and overstocked. Corals, requiring higher light are closer to the top, of a shelf. The rest of them is everywhere around and below. Standard 5.5 gal tank, not a pico for now, had to move them to a larger, then to a next larger tank. Now it's time to make it much smaller.

 

Another is with most common economy lights, 2 of API PAR38 Tuna blue 12w bulbs, placed ~14" high, to cover the whole tank area, also 5.5 gal tank.