Jestersix

How's the SPS frags doing from the Battle Corals GB?

I’m pretty happy with what I got still at this point. Hoping I can color them up good over time. Still waiting to see. The overall price, customer service, and health of frags was good in my opinion and I’m sorry for those that didn’t have a good result with this group buy. More than happy to take suggestions for what vendor to use for the next one in a few months.
 
I’m pretty happy with what I got still at this point. Hoping I can color them up good over time. Still waiting to see. The overall price, customer service, and health of frags was good in my opinion and I’m sorry for those that didn’t have a good result with this group buy. More than happy to take suggestions for what vendor to use for the next one in a few months.
My advice here is, if a coral not coloring up well or dying in your system, look in to why before you add more.
With someone like battle coral, his frags come from the same colony.
Unless it arrived dead, or died within couple days. If that's not the case, the issue is the system.
I apply the same logic on myself, thats how I learn to dig to understand how can I drive my system to be better..
 
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My advice here is, if a coral not coloring up well or dying in your system, look in to why before you add more.
With someone like battle coral, his frags come from the same colony.
Unless it arrived dead, or died within couple days. If that's not the case, the issue is the system.
I apply the same logic on myself, thats how I learn to dig to understand how can I drive my system to be better..
Why does a frag come come to me looking nothing like the picture on the BC website. The frag hasn't even been in my tank for 1 hour so it can't be due to my tank conditions. Even the frag you gave me from BC looks nothing like what his website portrays.
So I'm just curious why. I'm not trying to bash BC. I'm trying to learn too.
 
No, didn’t kill too many worms, no fish died this time (I did lose a fish once using FWE) just corals. The fish did look stunned for a day. The corals all slowly died together over a few weeks. I tried this experiment a couple times unfortunately with same result because I didn’t at first link the coral deaths to FWE. All the Salifert spokesperson could tell me is maybe my carbon was bad (even though I did a 40% water change right afterward and used BRS Rox 0.8 carbon). I think my takeaway is either I have something else in my tank that released something bad for corals - I noticed FWE took out all my <1cm baby sea cucumbers of which I had a hundred or so - or something was wrong with the FWE batch. Also I’m never putting anything in my tank that doesn’t list and control for ingredients again.
That totally sucks. I feel your pain.
 
Goldenrod and Watermelon mille are doing good and encrusting but growth is slow for me.
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@Cheedo
Your pics may or may not represent the true colors of the corals, so I can't comment on them as compared to BC's webpage.
Do you think the colors of the corals are the same as what is seen on their webpage?
If so, that's great. If not , why?
 
Why does a frag come come to me looking nothing like the picture on the BC website. The frag hasn't even been in my tank for 1 hour so it can't be due to my tank conditions. Even the frag you gave me from BC looks nothing like what his website portrays.
So I'm just curious why. I'm not trying to bash BC. I'm trying to learn too.
Totally reasonable queations.
I think there are 2 scenarios.

If frag arrived dead or looking bad, thats one thing. Couple reason can be the root cause, most common one is shipping. If frag arrived dead or looking really bad.
If frag arrived not looking exactly like the picture, it can be because its fresh growth cut (many times fresh growth cut looks diffrent), shipping (some coral stress more and change color during shipping, it can be condition (frag might been placed in a different system for couple days waiting for shipment)...etc.
Regardless of the reason, a reputable seller would offer a replacement if frag is dead, looking bad or looking very different.
Now word of caution, looking different can be subjective given the different spectrums reef light has. But thats another topic for another time.

If a frag arrived looking good then deteriorat, the most common abuse is the system that is hosting it. Unless coral had a disease or infected by an invasive pest, usually its the condition of the host tank.

BTW even if you want to, you can bash battle coral as much as you like. They are retailer and should take care of their customers. My comment was more about how to think of these situations with clarity.
Am really sorry you did not enjoy the group buy. As Mike said, we can swap. I can actually swap with you rather soon. Wanna do that?
 
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I have similar colors to the lower encrusting parts in Adam’s pic so again, I think it needs more light. The growth edge looks closer to the color in his pic. I don’t really expect to have the same exact colors as Adam, he has a few thousand gallons and I have 25 and there are various lighting and Parameter differences.
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I think growth tips explain most color differences. The tips are what are going to get fragged. Give em time.
+1 to that. You should see the new growth rainbow mellon frag i gave mike:) you would not guess it came from this colony.
Some examples of how much of a color shift coral can go through in their new homes.

For fun, this is before and after of a shortcake I got from @Rostato and the rainbow mellon I got from battle coral..

See how diffrent the rainbow mellon looked at first. Although I received it looking pretty similar to whats in the website, within 3 days color shifted to the picture u see(before). Then it took 6 months to color back to how it is now(after)

For the shortcake as an example, if I want it to look like it's looking in @Rostato system, I need to reduce its PAR. This is one example of what can change coral color..
 

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Colors will vary from system to system. You can look at it in person at a LFS and like the color, get it home and it looks different, even more different in a month. Frags also are stressed. From getting fragged, shipped, dipped, dumped in different conditions. It takes them a while to adjust. Sometimes a long while. I have had sps corals that look like crap for months until they get encrusted well and then all of a sudden color and growth take off. Not sure if it's putting more energy into establishing itself, or what, but it can take a long time.
 
Fude this growth is unreal. How long you had these frags?
Great job!
Just to clarify, the top shot in each series is mine, the others are BC's :)

That said, mine are all practically mini colonies...esp the rainbow melon.. at least tripled or more in size. had them since the group buy...was it mid-Aug?
 
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