Favia placement

PufferMan

PufferMan

Member
Hello,

I'm just getting started with corals in my tank. I got a few corals frags that I'm told are pretty easy to care for, however I'm a little unsure about the placement of them. The two I'm questioning are favia frags.





I was told that they will eventually spread, and to place them on another piece of live rock. Is this the best way to place them?

Any other recommendations regarding favia?

thanks!
 
jcarlilesiu

jcarlilesiu

Active member
If they are currently not mounted you can super glue or epoxy their skeleton to a larger piece of rubble. Give them moderate light with soft turbulent flow. Be prepared for very slow growth even in ideal conditions.

Sent from my HTC Thunderbolt using Tapatalk
 
lunacris

lunacris

Active member
I have one that was placed mid way up in tank unerring 400 watt halides and gentle flow. Looks alot happier then any other position I had it. Verrry sloow groowing. Just noticed mine is getting multiple mouths in one head. Should be multiple heads soon. Good luck
 
PufferMan

PufferMan

Member
I'm running 4 HO flourescent. 2 of them are 10000k and 2 are actinic 460. Then I also have a single regular fluorescent that is actinic 420.

And yes, I have the corals with my puffer. I never thought it would work and that he would certainly eat them, but I read that some people have had luck with it depending on their puffer. So I figured I would give it a try. Started with some zoas, expecting them to be gone in the morning, but he never touched them. He has yet to show any interest in any corals thus far and it's been over a month with them in with him.
 
jcarlilesiu

jcarlilesiu

Active member
PufferMan said:
I'm running 4 HO flourescent. 2 of them are 10000k and 2 are actinic 460. Then I also have a single regular fluorescent that is actinic 420.
Click to expand...
That isn't a huge amount of light. Put the favia in the top 3rd of the tank to be sure it gets enough light.

PufferMan said:
And yes, I have the corals with my puffer. I never thought it would work and that he would certainly eat them, but I read that some people have had luck with it depending on their puffer. So I figured I would give it a try. Started with some zoas, expecting them to be gone in the morning, but he never touched them. He has yet to show any interest in any corals thus far and it's been over a month with them in with him.
Click to expand...
Every fish have personalities, and the guidelines for "reef safe" are based on general tendencies of various species. Generally, puffers are terrible reef inhabitants. Hopefully you got one that won't bother the coral. Good luck.
 
jcarlilesiu

jcarlilesiu

Active member
Like anything there is calculated risk with mixing species which generally have certain traits which may cause conflict.

I have had multiple people tell me "you can't keep a trigger in a reef". In one case, they were right and a niger was re-homed. My blue jaw however doesn't touch anything... corals, inverts, etc. (knock on wood).
 
PufferMan

PufferMan

Member
Yes Jake, that's sort of where I am coming from. Like I said, I have had my puffer for a long time, and everyone always told me that I could never put him with any corals, that he would eat all of them. Which I believed because he would certainly eat any fish he could fit in his mouth, and any invert he could fit in his mouth.

But about a month ago, I met someone at the lfs that said they had successfully kept their porky with corals for years. I found it hard to believe, but gave it a try, figuring worst case scenario I lose the corals. Put some zoas in with him, but he didn't touch them. I understand that what I am doing us somewhat unorthodox, and acknowledge that I am taking a risk, but so far it seems to be working out just fine.

As for mixing species of fish, I feel same thing goes. I tried to put a niger trigger in with the same puffer (pre corals), cause everyone told me they were very docile and would make great tankmates, but I had to take him out and back to the store that same day cause he was chasing my puffer all over the tank!
 
PufferMan

PufferMan

Member
Jeni, regarding research. That's part of why I'm here. I am hoping to get some helpful info from people regarding their experiences and thoughts. I appreciate both the positive and negative vies. I am not new to the hobby as a whole, I have had saltwater tanks for over 13 years, I am new to the coral aspect of it. And I fully understand that my situation is not the normal "recommended" setup. But that also doesn't mean it's necessarily wrong either. I have done lots of research regarding all aspects of it. Obviously I did things the way I did them based on something. What I'm looking for here is to hopefully get some recommendations on details about things based on others experiences. I had lots of people tell me that what I'm doing shouldn't be done. However, not one person told me they tried it and failed. It was simply what someone had told them.
 
jcarlilesiu

jcarlilesiu

Active member
PufferMan said:
Jeni, regarding research. That's part of why I'm here. I am hoping to get some helpful info from people regarding their experiences and thoughts. I appreciate both the positive and negative vies. I am not new to the hobby as a whole, I have had saltwater tanks for over 13 years, I am new to the coral aspect of it. And I fully understand that my situation is not the normal "recommended" setup. But that also doesn't mean it's necessarily wrong either. I have done lots of research regarding all aspects of it. Obviously I did things the way I did them based on something. What I'm looking for here is to hopefully get some recommendations on details about things based on others experiences. I had lots of people tell me that what I'm doing shouldn't be done. However, not one person told me they tried it and failed. It was simply what someone had told them.
Click to expand...
That happens alot in this hobby. I think that the intentions are right, but I think that people get to a certain point where they believe what they have been told by hearsay so completely, and because they hear it so much, that they have no problems continuing to tell people not to do it. Which may be right.

There is a story about a study that was done. 4 chimps were put into a cage with a post in the center. On top of that post was a bunch of bananas. The 4 chimps that were originally put into the cage were sprayed with a forceful bit of water when they tried to climb the post for the bananas. After a few times of being knocked to the floor, they gave up.

Then 1 of the 4 chimps was replaced with a new chimp. When that chimp tried to climb the pole, the 3 original chimps would knock him off or pull him down to prevent him from getting blasted with water. Their intentions were good. Slowly, the 3 remaining chimps were all replaced, and through this communication and essentially hearsay, each chimp was taught not to climb the pole. Eventually, you had a cage full of chimps, all of who wouldn't climb the pole, but none of them knew why. The hose had been removed from the facility after the first chimp was exchanged.

Long story. Our hobby is much like that.

I am not saying Jeni is wrong. I am saying that things are not black and white in this hobby. Give it a shot, just be ready to intervene in case the hose comes back on.
 
Pufferpunk

Pufferpunk

New member
I do not even own a porcpuff. I do though, own a forum for the past 12 years that is all about puffers. We have countless folks there who keep porcpuffs. Maybe Jimmy is the one chimp who will get those bananas in spite of the water & other chimps but the odds are against him. For his puffer's sake, I hope he is!
 
lunacris

lunacris

Active member
A smart chimp would throw poop on the handler spraying him off the pole. At least that's what id do. Lol. Sorry off the point I know.
 
nyckeeandnate6

nyckeeandnate6

New member
Since I started this hobby I have been told you cannot do that or that's not possible and every time I proved them wrong. We were told that you had to have a tank larger than 75 gallons to have a successful reef and we are now at about 3 years of successful reefing with a 29 gallon tank. We were told you need to have T5's or Metal halides to have a reef aquarium and we grew LPS, SPS, and Softies with PC's. Good Luck Puffer Man! Push the limits and see what can be achieved. If we all did things exactly the same the hobby would never advance.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top