Wild Colonies

[Reefland]

I would like to get an idea from everyone that keeps SPS corals on your survival rate for wild collected stony corals. We have pretty much a 0% success rate on colonies that we purchase unless they are small aquacultured colonies grown from frags in captivity. We have at least 2 months of success with them and then they receed to nothing.

Just curious on what your success rates are.

[dougc]

My experience with wild SPS colonies has not been good. ALL of them have started to recede within a month or two of acquisition. Some of them I have managed to save by fragging them. I don't think wild colonies adapt well to the lighting in our tanks. Not necessarily the quantity, but the fact that our lights don't move throughout the day, lighting different parts of the coral, especially the base and interior spaces. In my new tank, all the SPS are frags and all are doing well after 2-4 months. The only wild colony was an orange montipora digitata, which has been receding slowly for about 4 months. Last week, the recessions seemed to be accelerating, so I pulled it out and fragged off all the good parts. The good news is that if they survive, I will have lots of frags to trade.

The other problem with wild colonies is that if they survive, they usually end up looking nothing like what you brought home. The color and growth form will change to adapt to the conditions in the tank. This can happen with captive-raised frags, too, but not to the same degree.

I think the above also applies to in-situ aquacultured specimans, not just corals chipped out of a reef.

I guess someone needs to take a chance on wild colonies, at least for the purpose of expanding the range of species, colors, and forms available to the hobbiest, but I don't think it is a great way to stock a tank. Although it is difficult to take the axe to a newly purchased colony, it might be best to frag it right away instead of waiting for it to start dying.

[zhenya]

Sadly, my experience has been very similar to what Doug had said. Out of four colonies that I had purchased only one still remais after a year in my tank. All others were lost, even after I fragged the crap ot of them. All frags had died as well. Growth rates of the captive fragments are incredibly fast and connot be compared to any wild colonies, even if they do live.

[kevinpo]

I have bought about 25 or so fist sized or smaller Acropora pieces. Maybe 5% have died. I haven't purchased any large colonies. The biggest problem I had when I first started keeping them was to put them into too high of light too quickly. They would begin to RTN. I would move them to another low light tank or location and was able to save most of them.
I received 2 frags of the same coral from the same person on the same day. I put them inches apart one RTN'd and the other was fine. I think that sometimes it's nothing we do just the shock of change.

Regards,
Kevin

[mdmaquatic]

We too at MDM Aquatic have had our share of Acro losses, i think they get shocked too badly when shipped, my last shipment was a disaster, even the normally hardy montiporas started to take a crap on us. If we can get them into captivity, get them too survive and them frag them i think we'll have hardier corals for the future.. As far as us though, i ended up fragging out most of our acros to save them, the seem to have stopped the recession. We will not be doing much with acropora sp. in the future. I have also had troubles with euphyllia and lobophyillia shipping badly too. Just my two cents.


Mike

[SueT]

In my 120g that is currently my sps tank, I have almost all captive raised frags. I even have a few captive raised colonies. I thought why not get a couple of wild colonies. That first shipment was a disaster and the vendor kindly replaced the whole thing. After having 6 colonies shipped, I have 1 colony that made it even with fragging.

The funny thing is everything in my tank is brightly colored and this 1 sad wild colony is brown.

[LowCel]

I have purchased two wild colonies so far. All of the rest of my corals were purchased as frags. Of the two wild colonies one of them is still alive. It is just a pink birdsnest though. In the future I have absolutely no intentions of buying any more wild colonies. There are too many beautiful corals available as frags to justify me taking something from the ocean. Plus frags are much, much cheaper.

[golfish]

My old 150 had about 15 wild colonies in it...I'd say of those 15 3-4 RTN-ed within 1-6 months after they went in..About the closes thing to wild in my new tank is a Bali aquacultured blue tip Tenuis..

[JB NY]

I've had good luck with wild colonies as well. Mail order colonies is not nearly as good as those bought at the LFS. I'd say I only lose about 10-15% at the most of wild colonies. Almost all have kept there color as well. I think that what Kevin stated is pretty true. They seem to do beter when not being exposed to high light too quickly.