POTO Arctic Tundra

[jackson6745]

This was a frag that I picked up 2 years ago from Kenny. It's a unique coral because it has pink/green shortcake color, grows like a table, but can get Ice blue tips (which aren't too visible at the moment). In my old stick death reef, I killed half of the frag leaving me with a colorful booger. 16 months later I have a mini colony again. This has not been a fast grower for me, I suspect this coral would grow and look better in a low nutrient tank.
I just wanted to see who still has it (I know valor does) and share progress.

Here is a current pic of mine.
IMG_0924 by rich.colombo, on Flickr

 

[Samsreef]

Nice looking colony...

 

[jackson6745]

Kenny!!!!! Where you at? Show us the history of this nice coral that you discovered.

 

[POTO]

Kenny!!!!! Where you at? Show us the history of this nice coral that you discovered.

Richie - Your SPS game is on point. I should have sent you all my SPS so I could enjoy them vicariously through you. That was an Aussie wile colony. Rtn'ed shortly after I got it and I was able to salvage a branchless portion of the base. Took a painfully long time for it to finally shoot out branches, but no blue tip. I decided to move it higher and closer to the powerhead, that was when it took off and blue tip started to show. Lit under Kessil (A350n at the time) the whole time I had it. I lost my colony in the move. =(. I can see the icy blue growth on the base in your piece already. It seemed to love lots of light and lots of flow. Can't wait to get my DT back in order and get back in the SPS game.

 

[jackson6745]

Thanks Kenny! I would have gladly kept your SPS safe for you . I still have the Vivid rainbow frag from you as well. That coral is a PITA LOL. Do you have a old pic of what this table looked like in your system? I recall it having more blue?

 

[POTO]

The vivid rainbow is notorious for browning out after being cut. How's it doing in your tank? I dug up this original pic of the Arctic Tundra but not as big as yours.

 

[jackson6745]

The vivid is holding color well, but it hasn't taken off for me. It was encrusting and starting to grow until my tenuis colony started to shade it. Eventually I saw a little stn on the base (this happens to any coral i my tank that starts becoming shaded by other corals). I was forced to break it off the rock that it encrusted on and remount in an area of higher light. STN stopped and its regrowing. Looks like this at the moment.

IMG_0433 by rich.colombo, on Flickr

 

[POTO]

The vivid is holding color well, but it hasn't taken off for me. It was encrusting and starting to grow until my tenuis colony started to shade it. Eventually I saw a little stn on the base (this happens to any coral i my tank that starts becoming shaded by other corals). I was forced to break it off the rock that it encrusted on and remount in an area of higher light. STN stopped and its regrowing. Looks like this at the moment.

IMG_0433 by rich.colombo, on Flickr

Richie - looks better than it did in my tank. The vivid is one of those corals that needs to lay down a good foundation base before branching. Once mine had laid down a base of approx 4" around, it started to branch out like crazy. I saw on an episode of the BBC's Blue Planet that in the wild corals vacate the base to move upward in branches when colony gets too big or get shaded. That's where reefs come from if you think on a larger scale. So seems to make sense in your case here that the shade had caused the bottom to die off.

 

[ValorG]

I know you've seen mine but wanted to contribute. Heres mine so far, very slow grower for me and didn't throw branches up till a year after i bought it.

 

[POTO]

I know you've seen mine but wanted to contribute. Heres mine so far, very slow grower for me and didn't throw branches up till a year after i bought it.

Very nice Gideon. What light is it under? Richie - did you switch to LED yet?

 

[ValorG]

Same lights, diy leds + t5 supplementing.

 

[jackson6745]

Kenny, still running halides and t5's. To get proper coverage on my tank with LED it's too expensive + it's hard to top the results of 400w radiums I do have blue led supplements though.

Valor, I like the blue color you're getting

 

[ValorG]

Thats actually just from the lights lol, its more white in person. It's hard to get true color shots with leds so I mainly turn on my t5's only which are blues.

 

[ValorG]

Got a better photo of the arctic tundra that looks more how I see it. Did your pieces (kenny and rich) ever look like this? Because I saw Rich's colony and it looks different.

 

[afernandez]

My first picture of it I've had it 2-3 weeks so far it's doing great . It's under plenty of indirect flow and about 200~ par

 

[fredro]

Rich. Pretty impressive regrowth from the booger in 16 months! lookin real nice. its great to have a success story on a salvage.

 

[fischcrazy]

My little tiny frag, looks great from above, but whitish from front, nice pink tips but unfortunately didnt come out with my phone camera. Hoping the polyps turn red, pretty brown right now