Coral growth question(s) / IDs?

[MrX]

What do you all do to promote growth for corals like red/brown worm-brains, meteor showers, etc. once they've outgrown their initial location?

I have a number of these coral types that are growing pretty well. Should I be placing them on larger frag plugs/discs, or rock pieces, so they encrust/grow there, or is it enough to let it grow on the sand?

In a couple cases the frags are on my eggcrate frag rack in the frag tank and the coral is growing down/around the eggcrate.

Here's some pictures of what I'm talking about; if anyone can ID any of these I'd appreciate it.

This red/brown worm-brain is growing onto the sand:

This super-red acan lord is out-growing the tiny frag plug it's on:

Meteor shower is fully encrusted on plug; what should I do to keep it growing?

Some type of chalice? Miami-something? Growing onto sand:

Another acan out-growing it's plug/disc and an unidentified coral (any IDs?):

More in next post. Thanks!

 

[MrX]

Not sure what this is:

Nor this:

Or this:

See how this is growing down over the eggcrate / need ID also:

Another view with another coral growing down over the eggcrate / need ID on both:

 

[Codeman]

Red with green is a war coral and the blue is silver leptastrea. If you can mount any of them on rocks it will give them structure to encrust on.

 

[afboundguy]

If you leave acans along they will ball up... They grow slower that way compared to letting them grow out... One thing I've always liked doing is going to Market Basket and buying a bunch of the huge quohogs clam shells (or however you spell them) and then boil them and mount the frags to them... It gives them a nice place to continue to grow... They're super cheap and it's easy to cut through them when it's time to frag...

 

[badlands25]

Miami hurricane is the chalice another looks like digitata

 

[badlands25]

The one after the Miami looks to be sunset montipora

 

[dannyp02908]

All of the corals you posted will continue to create skeletal structure to grown albeit more slowly as stated above.

 

[MrX]

All of the corals you posted will continue to create skeletal structure to grown albeit more slowly as stated above.

So if I just leave them alone on the sand (or a rock or whatever) I don't have to do anything... but to speed things along a little I can use shells, bigger frag plugs, whatever.

I'll have to find some bigger frag discs (or shells as mentioned above), especially for the ones on the frag rack; would hate for those to grow around the holes in the eggcrate.

Thanks peeps!

 

[sutton6989]

You could also use pieces of rubble/small rocks or small tiles..

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717 using Tapatalk 2

 

[dannyp02908]

It doesn't have to be shells/frag plugs. If you put them on a rock, the will grow onto it. If you glue a frag plug to a rock, at some point the coral will grow onto the rock. With a coral being on the sand, it will take longer as it will need to create its skeleton using the calcium/carbonate in your water.

 

[kingfish62]

I had set my meteor shower on a rock hoping it would encrust without mounting it and it would start to but than it would get knocked off by me or a snail. Then it would have to start the whole process over. After six months of that I finally decided to get som marine putty and mount it to the rock . Thats when it really took off. Don't waste any more time mount it now. You wont be sorry.

 

[kingfish62]

Petsmart has bags of reef rock which is great to have around to use for bases to attach your corals . Or you can buy any of that Dry LR
like it.
http://www.petsmart.com/product/index.jsp?productId=11147303

 

[FinsUp!]

Not sure what this is:

This is some sort of chalice. I have the same one and haven't been able to narrow it down to a particular color variety. It's pretty spectacular under the blue LED's though!

I wish my corals would grow fast enough to worry about what to do with them! Mine seem to be taking their sweet time, aside from the kryptonite candy cane, star polyps, frogspawn and my tree corals.

 

[dannyp02908]

for those wondering about growth speed its all about stability. And not just in your parameters. Like Kingfish said, mount it. In a permanent location. It wont grow if it is continually moved.