First Corals!

I went to the Aquatic Experience aquarium tradeshow in Schaumburg last weekend to check out and talk to some of the manufacturers I use or have heard of.  I had a great conversation at the Kessil booth about my A80s, which they are promoting very heavily right now.  I also got some tips from the rep at the Hanna booth about how to properly measure reagents for my Alkalinity Checker.

One thing I did not expect to see was coral frags being sold by vendors.  As it turns out, this was nearly the focus of the show.  I'd guess at least 10 different outfits were there selling corals, including Insane Corals, my local favorite shop based on the browsing I've done over the last couple months.  Although I was tempted to pick some corals up then, I wasn't headed straight home and didn't want them freezing in the car for hours.  But, the experience convinced me it was time to start adding corals to my tank.

I jumped on WorldwideCorals.com, a site I have browsed lustfully, especially because they sell 100% aquacultured corals.  No wild collected corals at all, which means I can shop there with confidence that I am adhering to my sustainable-reef focus.

The site is very light on soft corals and very heavy on SPS, but they have a nice range of LPS and a smattering of zoanthids and mushrooms.  Since I had expected to start with soft corals for their hardiness, even though I don't really love the way they look especially when they grow out, I found a "beginner pack" of five corals on the site and was intrigued.   The pack includes a green star polyp, a favites, a psammocora, a chalice, and an open war coral.  A great range of simple to keep and fast-growing soft, LPS, and SPS frags.  They also represent a huge range of colors including red, green, purple, orange, and violet.  My major hesitance about soft corals is that they seem to come only really in green and brown, and the greens are few and far between.  So, on Sunday night I pulled the trigger.

The corals shipped overnight on Monday and arrived on Tuesday morning.  I did a 15 minute float, a 30 minute drip acclimation, and a dip in Coral Rx before placing the frags on the sand bed of my tank.

New coral frags on the sand bed

I turned my lights down to 30% intensity and am ramping them up by 15% ever few days until I reach 90%.  I guess I can probably only do this once, and it may not even be necessary with my relatively low power lights, but it was recommended in several articles I read, so I'm giving it a try.

The corals opened up within a few hours and the colors are fluorescent under blue light.  The green star polyps fully extended and the tiny polyps of the other corals are visible as well.

Green Star Polyps

TG Watermelon Psammocora

When my snails were re-sent this week, Algae Barn included a pouch of live nano brine shrimp as a gift for the DOA mishap.  I've been feeding these daily to my clownfish, who go crazy for them, and I've target fed some with a turkey baster to each coral every few days.  Unfortunately the shrimp will only live another day or two in the pouch and I'm not using them nearly fast enough, but it's fun to watch the clowns go after them and the corals seem to be responding to them as well.

Tyree Open War Coral

Hollywood Stunner Chalice

 As I mentioned before, I still don't have a good way to photograph my tank, so accept my apologies for the insanely blue images.  These were taken with a phone app that's supposed to help color correct for reef tank lighting.  I will say the colors of the corals are pretty close to how they appear to the eye.  The electric blue gravel, however, is not a thing of this world.

WWC Spitfire Favites, my personal favorite!

I mostly took these photos so that I can measure progress of the corals encrusting and growth over the next several months.  I will post progress photos as soon as there is anything to see.