New 45g SPS thread

[kwirky]

Originally Posted by fishytime

Tank is lookin good Sean...for a bb tank: mrgreen: j/k. I disagree with you about the browning out of sps. ... Its not surprising to me when a coral has browned out after spending 3-4 days in the dark in a small bag, getting shakin about like a martini. Unfortunately,it is difficult in an LFS environment to maintain stable enough conditions for sps to thrive.I have seen browned out coral in every LFS that I frequented before I was at RC. Does that mean that every store that sells sps has unhealthy systems?

It's just a frustration with the market in Calgary, really. SPS is a niche market that Calgary doesn't have the capability to support really. Fish sells faster than coral so LFS's won't spend the time and money required to keep SPS healthy and colourful. The only business in Calgary that has good healthy SPS for sale all the time is Coralmaster (Greg). And he sells frags because there's not enough demand for anyone to start up a full propagation facility to sell entire colonies.

My theory is that if people stop buying browned out SPS either the stores will stop stocking it or put in the effort required to sell it healthy. Probably the stores would just stop stocking it and sell frogspawn and zoos n such.

[Aquattro]

Originally Posted by kwirky

My theory is that if people stop buying browned out SPS either the stores will stop stocking it or put in the effort required to sell it healthy.

I've seen many stores sell their brown colonies for close to cost, and in that case, I think it's a great deal and I'll take responsibility for them turning blue or purple again. Honestly, coral don't come in brown, they just go that way.
Further, we can't expect stores to be able to maintain perfect systems for keeping color, when most hobbyists can't even do it long term.

[fishytime]

I think in most cases its a stability issue. Thats what corals do, they take root and spread. In a LFS scenario they are constantly being shuffled around. I have one piece in particular in my tank that didnt seem to want to color up for me no matter where I tried to place it in the tank. I finally gave up on trying to find the right spot for it and left alone. Its coming up on a couple months and its just now starting to regain its color. I suspect if I had just glued it down when I first got it, it would have settled in for me much sooner.