SPS id

[darkreef]

Well they had two kinds there green and pink ! But I found pink sps hard to keep for some reason

[Aquattro]

Originally Posted by tang daddy

I will wage a friendly bet that greenish base stylo will eventually turn pink.

When corals are shipped they are stressed and tend to drop some zooanthelia making them look bleached and more vibrant in colour. I've seen many shipments with super intense colour, as they settle in they start to get abit darker more normal looking.

A popular technique is to grow or harvest corals from deeper water, let them settle in shallow water to bleach a bit, making them very vibrant, then ship. They will usually revert back to their darker color once in a tank.

[TimT]

To maintain the pink it requires a lot of light. I have vibrant pink Birdsnest here that I have had culturing in tank for well over 3 yrs and in lower light it starts to go green.

I have seen coral farms from 2 meters deep to 5 - 8 meters deep. The reason for deeper farms is to prevent damage from storm surge and cyclones.

If you want to check out Walt's Coral farm here is a link to his website. Lots of cool pics!!!

http://www.waltsmith.com/Aquaculture/CoralFarming.htm

Cheers,
Tim

[tang daddy]

Originally Posted by Aquattro

A popular technique is to grow or harvest corals from deeper water, let them settle in shallow water to bleach a bit, making them very vibrant, then ship. They will usually revert back to their darker color once in a tank.

Is it called the shake and bake technique?

[Aquattro]

Originally Posted by tang daddy

Is it called the shake and bake technique?

Perhaps

[asylumdown]

Originally Posted by kien

That could be true, but should not necessarily be assumed to be true. Walt Smith maricultures a lot of corals in the ocean. They eventually do end up in holding tanks but even those holding tanks at their facilities are fed by ocean water which is quite a lot different than synthetic tank water.

+1. I've got maybe 6 Walt Smith corals. While no coral stays the same colour it was when I got it in my tank, the Walt Smith ones have all morphed the most, and have taken the longest time to do it. One of my very first corals in this tank was a Walt Smith pink mini colony of some unknown acropora, it plated a bit, then went in to suspended animation from a growth perspective for over a year. In that time it turned dark green, then a really gross grey, then the grey faded to a metallic green that fluoresced under the royal blue LEDs, then the fluorescence went away and it was just grey-green, and now finally, 13 month later, it's starting to get rose pink growth tips and the body is a gunmetal green.

The rest of the Walt Smith corals have all grown incredibly slowly, and have all changed colours at least twice. Not sure if that's other people's experience, but it's made me shy away from buying them.

[TimT]

Here is some info about the farming operation from Cameron Bee the Livestock and Aquaculture Manager at Walt Smith International.

Quote:
Hi Tim, here is a bit of background info on the farm.
We have a bunch of different sites at different depths and the corals farmed
are placed in the site that replicate the depth at which the corals for
farming are found. We also have brood stock sites which hold cuttings of
farmed corals that are growing out that we can take cuttings from.
I approximate that about 80% of the acros we farm are a found in waters less
than 5 meters depth.
Plenty of staghorns such as austera and abratanoides are in less than 2
meters and in some areas you are just to be able to float over them it is so
shallow!
The rest of the acros are found less than 8 meters with a few such as
aculeus/carduus/horrida/latistella and some echinata are found at around
12-15 meters
Most coral is collected by breath holding divers so this limits the depth at
which they are collected.
Pretty much all other corals (apart from acros) are collected between 5-15
meters.
Due to the time needed to find the right coloured pieces, diving deeper
greatly reduced the working time underwater.
In our area of Fiji, we do not have deep reefs, we can drive for over an
hour (up to 50 km away from shore) and we still have reefs that end at about
25 meters, whereas other countries can have deep reef drop offs which we
just don't get.
So...our shallowest farm site is at about 3.5-5 meters (depending on the
tide) and this is mainly for things like staghorns and other shallow water
acros such as hyacinthus/clathrata/divaricata/samoensis/robusta etc and
other shallow water corals such as birdnest/porites
Another farm site is slightly deeper at around 5-6.5 meters(again depending
on the tide) for the majority of acros eg tenuis/sarmentosa and more of the
ones already mentioned above plus species like brain corals, plating
montiporas and turbinarias. This site also has double layer racks and in the
bottom layer we grow pectinas, favias, favities, encrusting montiporas,
pavonas, echinophyllias, echiniomorphas, lobophyllias, catalaphyllias,
acanthastreas and any other corals that either grow on the shaded sides of
bommies, in caves, deeper water or in low visibility water that has filtered
light.
We have a new site just recently and that is around the 10 meter mark so it
restricts us to mostly working on this farm with scuba but still in free
diving range in case we have to. It also allows a bit more protection for
the corals and farm racks from storm/cyclones and heavy wave action which
wiped out the whole farm at Christmas just gone.
The only corals that change colour once put on the farm is Acropora tenuis,
and only some of them get bright blue tips and this is in response to a
number of factors including light, water flow, different water temp and
amount of sediment in the water among a bunch of other unseen changes to us.
The rest stay the same and some even brown up and are unsellable as they
change colour for the worse when moved to a new spot.
We have naturally very bright and colourful corals that we farm. We do not
farm the boring run of the mill colours as what's the point. But when
looking for new corals to farm, we have to swim over hundreds or more just
to find the ones with the brightest colours and as mentioned, some of them
go brown or dull as the farm is deeper than what they were collected from.
Of the many thousands of corals grown many of them do not reach the market
due to lack of colour, breakages, partial or whole death, predator attack ,
crooked shapes and just down right ugly.
The ones that are not sold stay on the reef and as they grow many of them
form part of our brood stock area.
As time goes by, more of the frags that we keep for future broodstock can be
used and that is growing at farm depth.
Hope this helps, I am sure Walt can add a bit as well, and I hope this gives
you a broad description of how the farm works.
I would love to help out in any other way if you have more questions.

Oh and to answer the actual direct answer to your question is...our stylos
are not deep water, we just only select the ones with bright colours to
farm.
Yes the colour may darken or brighten when put in a tank but that is
dependent on many many factors with the major ones being how much light and
what type of light they are using, if it is focused light or diffused light
eg, LED/halide or T5, and also the amount of nutrients in the water, water
flow etc....you know the drill.

Attached is a photo of broodstock stylo brought in by the divers right now
and next to a cultured one brought in from the farm yesterday. Collected
specimen was taken from shallow water less than 5 meters and the farmed one
was harvested from our farm named "Star" at a depth of around 5-6 meters,
they look pretty similar to me



end of quote.

The colours in the corals pictured will be diluted due to the sunlight. Put them under a 20k Radium and they will look very nice.

Cheers,
Tim

[kien]

Great info, thanks for sharing! I like how their "shallow" farms are 2-5 meters meanwhile, my tank is half a meter deep :-)

[TimT]

Yes, my tanks are pretty shallow too. My Hot Pink Birdsnest is 5" underwater and the 400 watt Radium is 18" above the water.

Coral colouration is something that still mystifies me. when I was wading on the reef flat in Vanuatu I came across two 2"diameter pocillopora colonies about 6" apart. They were in 6" of water. They had the same amount of light, same water conditions and same current. One was hot pink and the other was brown. Go figure

[kien]

In other words even Mother Nature has trouble keeping SPS colours
So I should stop pulling my hair out then :-)