just frags tank?

[leveldrummer]

any one out there start their whole setup using just frags? how long does it take to mature into nice sized colonies on average? i see some of the tanks in the "show off your tank thread" and just curoius how many of those started with all frags like i am.

[fishdoc11]

All of my SPS grew out from frags. I would say on average it takes a couple of years for them to grow into 8" to 10" colonies. Some take a lot less and some take a lot more time than that.
Chris

[leveldrummer]

thanks chris, just what i was expecting. i have some that are doing great, others that are barely showing any growth at all. its a crumby waiting game right now. lol

[ReefWreak]

I've started a few corals in my setup from just frags. Little branches of Digitata that were in my 24g nano under power compacts for a year. I moved the digi to my 120 while it was being setup and was still a new tank. I think it's almost a year exactly now that the 120 has been setup, with the frag in it for 10 months now. It's grown into a full size colony, and is 8" or so. It would be bigger as well had I not fragged the heck out of it a lot. Above the main colony that grew from a stick is another colony that I started by just breaking a stick from the first one by accident and then jamming it into a rock.

it's almost sick to think back that it used to be a 1 branch stick mounted to the rock. Then it was 2 branches, and I was cleaning the rocks and snapped off one branch and planted it on another rock nearby. Now they're both huge colonies. Only 8 months later. The only supplementation that I did for a good 5 months was just kalkwasser topoff. Before that it was just getting its calcium from sand I guess. For tha last 2 months I've been doing 2 part and I have a lot of acros that are really taking off as well. They also grew without me doing many waterchanges either. Maybe 15g every 2 months or so.

I'll check in on this thread later from my other computer and post some pics if I can find them.

A bunch of my other stuff have grown from tiny frags. I've got a basketball sized kenya tree that grew from a droplet from someone else's tank, shipped to my house, then chilled in my tank for 10 months. Grew like a freakin weed. Now it's dropping droplets all around my tank, and I'm sharing the frags for cheap like someone did before for me :).

I've also had a good 4"-6" diameter growth on my big Pocillapora colony that I'm trying to figure out how to get to color up at this moment. It went from brown to green, to whitish with pink undertones. I think it's supposed to be pink base with green polyps, but it's getting too much light.

Come to think of it, I consider myself very lucky, because I'm getting slow but steady growth from most of my corals, getting at least 100% growth over the past 8 months, or however long I have had it. Especially since doing 2 part vs. doing just Kalkwasser.

Hopefully I've encouraged some of you to be patient with your tanks and take things slow and steady :)

[chessmanmark]

All my corals were grown from frags. I posted in that thread, although my tank wasn't as impressive. SPS takes a lot of patience. Usually they grow down for a long time before they grow upwards. Aquascaping is the hardest part. You have to have a vision for the future. Sprinkling together a variety of colors is the hardest part. Different corals grow at different rates. Birdsnest and montis generally grow at a fast clip while acros go slower. Another good idea IMO is to mount your SPS to plugs or rubble which can then be epoxied down and moved latter. The other alternative is to peg them. Some corals will thrive and others will die so sometimes you have to move them around. I also believe the less you touch them the better they will grow.

[gasman059]

in my case about 75% frags then 25% wild colonies.
Anyways this setup is about 1 months and strting to sprout.

[ReefWreak]

Okay here it goes as promised:

8-19-06
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a373/ericzombie/FTS%20over%20time/CIMG0899.jpg

1-30-07
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a373/ericzombie/FTS%20over%20time/CIMG1159.jpg

6-9-07
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a373/ericzombie/FTS%20over%20time/CIMG1496-1.jpg

You can see the montipora looked non-existent in the first shot, as well as the kenya tree that I was talking about. It's amazing what can happen in less than a year. The Blue Stag, LJ Tricolor (purple Tip, cream body), and Superman Monti toward the top were all purchased as tiny frags around Thanksgiving of 06. You can see how much they've grown since then.

Hope that helps

[Nuuze]

Most of mine were, click on my red house for pics...

[DarkXerox]

All of mine were and you can click my red house to see my tank build thread (although I need some new photos). I've been going a little slower than most since school kind of gets in the way of buying new corals. ;)

[Wazzel]

That is what I am doing. At 8 months since the first coral was add I am starting to see things getting nice. I am about halfway through stocking and it will be several more months till I am done. I got myself on a one frag per month purchase budget.