Pszemol
August 23rd 04, 05:06 PM
Yesterday I visited a LFS in my area and noticed
a nice sized SPS coral frags for $20 - they were
labeled as "montipora" - that was it... The kid who
worked in the store did not know anything about it.
The coral is very brittle, very thin, greenish branches
with whitish tips (indicating fast growth?) very nice
branched into a ball of about 4-5" diameter...
When he put this coral into the bag he broke off
two small branches, very disappointing me but the
coral was still worth the price so I took it home
without much of complaining...
There I found it did not survive the 30 minutes trip
from the store in the plastic bag in a one piece:
looked like it dismantled into 4-5 smaller pieces...
At this point I was very disappointed and confused.
I took it out of the bag to acclimate it and I noticed
it was unusually brittle - it broke off at the slightest
touch - I do not have any experience with SPS corals
but other frag sold to me as montipora as well was not
as brittle as this one...
At the end I have a bunch of 5-6 small, 2" branches
loosly stuck into a piece of rock with a ball of epoxy
instead of one, nice sized elk-horn shaped coral
I have purchased so it does not look pretty anymore...
Oh well, but my question would be: is it normal for the SPS
to be soooo brittle? Is it possible it was growing in bad
conditions? Something like, I am wild guessing, a tank with
too low concentration of calcium? Maybe this coral is sick
somehow and does not have strong "bone" structure? ;-)
What could it be??? How can I adjust conditions in my tank to
let it create stronger skeleton? I am affraid my fishes will do
further damage to this brittle coral during next feeding
when they swim like crazy not even looking what they run into...
a nice sized SPS coral frags for $20 - they were
labeled as "montipora" - that was it... The kid who
worked in the store did not know anything about it.
The coral is very brittle, very thin, greenish branches
with whitish tips (indicating fast growth?) very nice
branched into a ball of about 4-5" diameter...
When he put this coral into the bag he broke off
two small branches, very disappointing me but the
coral was still worth the price so I took it home
without much of complaining...
There I found it did not survive the 30 minutes trip
from the store in the plastic bag in a one piece:
looked like it dismantled into 4-5 smaller pieces...
At this point I was very disappointed and confused.
I took it out of the bag to acclimate it and I noticed
it was unusually brittle - it broke off at the slightest
touch - I do not have any experience with SPS corals
but other frag sold to me as montipora as well was not
as brittle as this one...
At the end I have a bunch of 5-6 small, 2" branches
loosly stuck into a piece of rock with a ball of epoxy
instead of one, nice sized elk-horn shaped coral
I have purchased so it does not look pretty anymore...
Oh well, but my question would be: is it normal for the SPS
to be soooo brittle? Is it possible it was growing in bad
conditions? Something like, I am wild guessing, a tank with
too low concentration of calcium? Maybe this coral is sick
somehow and does not have strong "bone" structure? ;-)
What could it be??? How can I adjust conditions in my tank to
let it create stronger skeleton? I am affraid my fishes will do
further damage to this brittle coral during next feeding
when they swim like crazy not even looking what they run into...