1st SPS and was it a good choice

[oralsturgeon]

What was your first SPS and was it an approprate chice? please consider your past water quality, any obvious failures, what was the easiest?

[teen]

my first was a green montipora digitata. it was a good choice because its doing great and it took off really fast. it got stuck in the mail when it was sent to me. it was lost in 100+ degree weather in tennesee in august. it made it to me a day late, the cool packs were no longer cool. it lived. then a few days later, it fell of the frag plug i had it on. i took it out off the tank, dropped it on the floor by accident and it shatered into like 5 little pieces. i glued them all to a piece of LR and it still lived and is doing great. the base covered the plug its on and is about 2 inches tall and shooting out branches from everywhere.

[MiddletonMark]

My first SPS was an orange Montipora digitata.
Seemed to be a great choice, did pretty well and got me watching for changes/growth + seeing the effect that good Ca/Alk levels had.

Moved onto another digitata and multi-generation Acro frags [green slimer + Hiller Aqua Acro] - which seemed hardy and able to go through the various first-year bumps in the road, and rewarding me with fairly easy color/growth when I had good water quality.

I'd recommend them, esp the digitata as a first SPS-type.

[Weatherman]

My first SPS was a Pocillopora. It was purchased in November 2003 and placed in my 180g tank about seven weeks after the tank was set up.

Here’s a picture of it then. It was about 2 1/2” across at the time.

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y87/PufferReef/Reef/FirstSPS.jpg


The coral was moved to my new 120g tank in March 2005. The tank had been running about five weeks. The coral was about 5” across, then.

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y87/PufferReef/Reef/Poci_050313-1.jpg


Here it is a couple of weeks ago. It’s about the size of a football:

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y87/PufferReef/Reef/Pavo_Poci-1.jpg


I consider the coral to have been an excellent choice. It has survived a tank transfer and a six-hour loss of power during Hurricane Wilma. It has also spread babies all over my 120.

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y87/PufferReef/Reef/Pocillo_babies.jpg

It has perfectly adapted to life in captivity.

By the way... the Pavona sitting next to it is a good choice, too.

[PL-Reef]

mine was a BROWN digi. it was in my softy tank for months with no growth at all. probably because of of the poor water and the crappy PC lights and lack of a good skimmer. 2 years later and alot of late nights on RC reading, new tank, lights, skimmer, more knowledge its a beautiful indigo purple colony!

[Ti]

green monti cap for me

[cjc_cali]

Started out as a brown acro (on the left)
http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/99230mini-IMG_0072.JPG
moved and colored a little
http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/99230mini-IMG_1013.JPG
almost completely lost it while on a deployment
http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/99230mini-Acropora_2006_06_19.JPG
coral came back and turned out NICE.
http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/99230mini-IMG_1998.JPG

Still one of my favorites in my tank almost 2 years and 3 moves later.

Probably not a good choice at the time, but was a trade for a guy who was holding my corals and shipped this in exchange for a mated pair of clowns. but with some determination (the corals and wifes) it survived. Really got me into sps's too, notice the monti's in the last pic.

[FSOL]

mine was a 5" in diameter montipora cap that had just one layer. In 8 months it has become around 12" in diametr and has many many layers and branches growing out.

[Justin/TiV]

brown digi here...I don't think you can kill them unless you're way off on water quality. I've had them live over a month without light while setting up new system. I didn't care if it died, kinda hoped it would actually, but it didn't.

[acrodave]

mine was a green plateing mont that took over my 12gal in about half a year i still have a few frags of it in in diff tank