First acans! Need some help

[jencheung]

I picked up my first acans yesterday. Yay! I've done some reading on them but I just wanted to ask a couple of question to make sure I do this right.

1. A lot of pics that I see have the frags and colonies on the sand bed. Do they do better on the sand than they do on rock? Do they need rock to encrust or will they just build their skeleton out on their own? Or are they just down on the sand to keep them from getting too much light?

2. I know that they benefit from direct feeding and they all ate eagerly last night just a couple of hours after bringing them home. Most places that I've seen have said 2-3 times a week. Is there such a thing as overfeeding a coral? Would it be bad to feed them daily?

3. I generally feed a combination of mysis shrimp, Spirulina brine shrimp and cyclopeeze. Last night each polyp got mysis. Is this a good diet for them? My fish also sometimes get Formula 1 pellets. Would those be good for the acans as well? Anything else I should try for them?

4. One of the frags I got wasn't fragged perfectly along the edges of the polyp so neither of the two polyps are whole. Both partial polyps ate last night so I'm not too concerned. But just to check, they will heal in time right?

Thanks in advance for your help!

[blackbeard 1]

They will do fine on the bottom or midway. I feed them mysis or cyclopese. Not both. to much pollution. If it has a half head overtime it will become whole. they grow faster on smooth surface and build skeleton underneath after. They are very hardy. I have 40 colonys and lots of frags for years just acans.

[jencheung]

Thanks blackbeard! I've attached pictures of the three frags I have. They seem to be settling in well. I just wanted to ask about their placement and mounting.

Frag 1
http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/518/191556Single_polyp.JPG
This single head is mounted with about 1/2 an inch of it's skeleton onto a frag disc. How would I go about getting it onto a flat surface to make it easier for it to grow?

Frag 2
http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/518/191556Red_Acan_Frag.JPG
This frag is mounted more directly onto the frag disc. Should I attach the disc to a larger rock to give it more room to spread as it grows?

Frag 3
http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/518/191556Green_Acan_Frag.JPG
This is the frag with the two partial heads. I'm sure they'll heal up just fine but the mounting question is the same as Frag 2 - should I attach the disc to a rock to give it more surface to spread? (And don't worry, that mushroom is actually on a different rock behind it with plenty of room in between even though it doens't look that way in the picture!)

I'm just trying to give the frags as much of a head start on developing into a happy healthy colony. The only question that I think didn't get a direct answer is whether or not it's possible to overfeed a coral. Can I continue to feed them every day (of course keeping an eye on water quality) or will it not help any more than feeding a few times a week?

Thanks and sorry for the poor picture quality!

[Chibils]

ime they will stop accepting food when they're not hungry.

[jencheung]

Thanks Chibils. So I guess I'll just feed them daily unless they tell me differently. Any thoughts on the mounting/placement of my frags? Thanks!

[jencheung]

Any advice on this? I'm just not sure on what their growth patterns are but if they do better on smooth surfaces, how do I accomplish that with my frags? I'm specifically thinking about the single polyp frag (Frag 1 in the pictures). The other two I think I'll just epoxy the discs to rocks, maybe try to find a bit of a depression in the rock to fit the disc in so the frag sits more flush with the rock. But what should I do with Frag 1? Thanks!