SPS mounting -- This might get a little sideways

TheRealChrisBrown

Reef Shark
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#1
Anybody mount their SPS frags on their side? Any benefit? I've heard a lot of rumors that it encrusts faster, especially good for milli's, you'll end up with a thicker colony with more branches, etc.

Never tried it. Might try it. Might try it side by side.

Seems the common explanation is mounting a frag on the side results in more surface area for flow and light.
 

MuralReef

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#2
Do you mean pointing off of the rock sideways or by taking the stalk and laying it down on its side and glueing it in place?
 

jda123

Dolphin
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#3
IMO, it is a bunch of crap. I mount them the way that they came out of the tank and like to grow. For most, this is vertically. For some like efflo, soli, and other tablers, then it is laying down. I tried the on-the-side thing and just got frustrated because while they do encrust faster, it takes them forever to grow... and when they do, they sprout like 50 branches that take years to do anything whereas 2-3 branches could have grown to 4-5 inches by then. They kind look like a tree that has been cut into a bush. Bushes are cool. Trees are cool. Trees that look like bushes are not.

You will see some stuff about how corals in the wild are not fragged and mounted horizontally... but corals in the wild rarely survive as small fragments. Sexual spawning happens in the wild. Larger fragments can survive, but smaller ones get washed into the sand and don't see the light of day again unless they are really lucky.
 

DyM

Sting ray
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#4
I agree with jda. Aslo one thing I found with all acro's, if the tip is cut off, the coral branches from there. I wish I had good pics of this. It started with green slimer, I had to frag and cut it back all the time. Always noticing when I cut it, it formed a mini colony branching structure from there. I moved that experiment to Acro Tenuis, etc, and sure enough it held true. By the time I came to this conclusion, my reef was so full of corals it didn't help me. Now that my new reef is new, I plan to do this when I start putting sticks in there, and I'll post details.
 

TheRealChrisBrown

Reef Shark
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#5
Do you mean pointing off of the rock sideways or by taking the stalk and laying it down on its side and glueing it in place?
Like gluing an acro on it's side to a frag plug or rock. I'd say 99% of the time I see frags glued where it is cut off of the colony. This would be gluing it on it's actual physical side. I think this was the best image I could find on a quick search. Left frag is glued sideways, right frag is glued "traditional"

View attachment 14165
 

SynDen

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#6
Ya, I have tried growing them sideways, but as Doug mentioned, it then seem to take them forever to do anything. I assume its because then the coral has to reorient the polyps and coralites to compensate
 

ReefCheif

Reef Shark
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#7
Ive got a RR The Vihn that Im currently doing this experiment on. Cut 2 1” frags, glued one upright, glued one sideways. The sideways one is actually growing faster. Its bigger size wise, its starting to branch out where as the one glued upright has only encrusted the plug.
 

TheRealChrisBrown

Reef Shark
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#9
Ive got a RR The Vihn that Im currently doing this experiment on. Cut 2 1” frags, glued one upright, glued one sideways. The sideways one is actually growing faster. Its bigger size wise, its starting to branch out where as the one glued upright has only encrusted the plug.
Nice! Keep us posted on the growth. Do you have a theory on why? Do you buy the more surface area for light and flow?
 

ReefCheif

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#10
I honestly think it depends on the coral itself. Ive done this before with other corals and havent noticed any pattern to anything. Some grow faster upright, some grow faster sideways. This is the first time I decided to conciously try this and monitor it.
 

flagg37

Anthias
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#11
We had a pretty lengthy discussion on this topic on a different forum. No conclusion but a buddy has been running a similar experiment. He did 3 frags; one vertical, one horizontal, and one at 45 degrees. It’s been several months now; I should check back in with him.
 

jda123

Dolphin
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#12
There is a youtube video out there where a team of scientists are trying to repopulate the reefs in the Atlantic/Caribbean and they experimented with both vertical and horizontal mounting. They settled on vertical. They actually hang them from strings at first since they can keep them from blowing away in a storm, but when they mount them out in the wild, it is vertical.
 
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