WWC - Slime Ball Anacropora

An absolute glow stick for your aquarium that will grow rapidly under medium to high light.

It is a relatively fast grower, growing in a tree sort of formation.

It enjoys high light and high flow, around 350 to 400 par depending on what lighting you are running of course.

Frag Size: 2 - 3 cm

Think of frags as Anacropora seeds. Fragments of anacropora are mounted onto small stones and grown in aquariums. We grow and frag the Slimeball Anacropora coral here at BPK. We believe that frags and aqua-cultured corals are the future of the aquarium hobby.

Placement: Mount the Slimeball Anacropora coral using IC gel glue, or putty, on an exposed rock or ledge in the aquarium where it will receive direct flow and light.

Feeding: BPK recommends feeding acropora corals with Oyster-Feast and/or Roti-Feast. Target feeding gets the corals fed using less food while keeping your nitrates and phosphates lower.

Lighting & Flow Requirements: The Slimeball Anacropora coral coral requires moderate to high water flow and bright lighting (PAR 300-450) to maintain its color. T5's, Metal Halides, or LED's can all grow acropora when the proper PAR levels are provided. We recommend a 14-20K color spectrum for best coloration.

Care Level: Easy in SPS tank!
Lighting Requirements: Moderate to high (PAR 300-450)
Water Flow: Moderate to high
Aggressiveness: Peaceful
Range: Indo-Pacific, Grown in California
Family: Acroporidae
Water Conditions: 75-80° F; sg 1.024-1.026 (1.025 is ideal); pH 8.1-8.4 Ca 420-440 ppm, Alk 8-9.5 dKH, Mg 1260-1350, Nitrates <10ppm, Phosphates, < .10ppm

Water Chemistry: It is important that proper calcium (420-440 ppm), alkalinity (8-9.5 dkh - run it 7-8 if you are carbon dosing) , and magnesium levels (1260-1350 ppm) are maintained. Raising magnesium levels gradually up to 1400-1600 ppm can help to combat algae outbreaks, just keep CA and Alk in line as you raise the Mg. Nitrates should be below 10 ppm and phosphates should be below .10 ppm. We recommend doing a water change when Nitrate levels rise to 10 ppm. It is important to replace your phosphate media when phosphates rise to .10 ppm. Media Reactors make the most efficient use of your phosphate media by fluidizing it.

Dosing: Vivid Aquariums uses and recommends dosing pumps to automate the dosing of additives and keep your levels more constant. A dosing pump can alleviate the chore of manually dosing your aquarium with Ca, Alk, & Mg 2,3, or 4 times per week and will benefit your aquarium by keeping your levels constant through frequent small additions of Ca, Alk, & Mg. Our tanks all progressed when we switched from 3 manual dosings per week to 70 automatic dosings per week and we got a lot more work done.

Always light acclimate your corals slowly to high levels of light by placing them away from the lights and then slowly moving them to their preferred spot.

Anacropora Coral Care

This article is all about Anacropora, common name is briar coral, but I’ve never heard anyone call them that. The Anacropora is one of those corals where the scientific name is the de facto common name. Having said that, “briar coral” is a somewhat fitting name because as the colony gets larger the branches fuse together resembling a briar patch. As fas as classification goes, Anacropora is part of the Acroporidae family along with popular corals such as Acropora and Montipora. I always thought they looked like a more branching version of a Montipora setosa, especially when you look at how the polyps are spaced out on the body and how there are no terminal polyps at the tips of each branch like an Acropora would have.

Lighting

I would recommend either medium to light light, anything from 100 PAR to 300 PAR. This coral will change color depending on the type and intensity of lighting provided. More light = lighter colony color, medium light = more rich colors brown polyp color which is lost in high light.

The main concern is to avoid shocking a new addition with too much light right away. This is true for pretty much all newly added corals. Far more damage is done by initial overexposure to light rather than too little light. If you have a particularly high intensity lighted tank, let’s say with an average of 200+ PAR, just take the requisite steps to allow the coral to slowly adapt to those lighting conditions. If you see it start to fade or worse yet bleach, find a spot under an overhand low in the tank or a spot off axis from the source of light where the intensity is lower.

Low Light

Low light translates to about 30-50 PAR

Medium Light

Medium Light is between 50-150 PAR

High Light

High Light is anything over 150 PAR

Lighting is a loaded topic, so for a more in-depth discussion of lighting, please see our detailed lighting video.

Water Flow

I would recommend medium to high flow, but again pay attention to the size and density of the colony. As the colony grows and starts to bramble, less and less flow get to the interior polyps so it may be necessary to add flow as time goes on.

My worry is if there isn’t enough water flow you might run into issues where nutrients can’t get to the middle of the colony and waste can’t get out leading to a collapse from the inside out essentially.

Water Chemistry

Anacropora is a very fast growing coral which is both a positive and negative. Fast growing SPS make maintaining water chemistry more of a moving target. Keeping constant levels of calcium, alkalinity, and magnesium is not terribly difficult early on, but as colonies grow to 10 or even 100 times their original size they soak up a much higher volume of major and minor elements, so what worked year 1 might not work so well in year 2.

Once the colonies start growing, keep an eye out on these parameters and remember that consistency is what to shoot for. Here at Tidal Gardens we try to keep water chemistry close to natural sea water levels. People like to keep their levels slightly higher than NSW because it provides a slight buffer in the event of a dip, but it’s more of a crutch because again consistency is the goal rather than a particular value.

In the video below, I cover three different aquariums that utilize different techniques to manage their chemistry.

Feeding

In addition to lighting, coral get nutrients from feeding. Anacropora like many other SPS aren’t ones to put on spectacular feeding displays and many successful hobbyists don’t make any special effort to feed them. That said, if you wanted to be proactive about feeding take a look at very small meaty fare such as rotifers and consider amino acids as well.

Propagation

This genus for the most part has been propagated extensively in captivity and is an excellent candidate for aquaculture. It is reasonable to believe that a sustainable harvest can be achieved in time.

#bpkaquaculturecorals

Care Level: Expert Only
Temperament: Peaceful
Color Form: Blue
Diet: Omnivore
Reef Compatible: Yes
Water Conditions: sg 1.020-1.025, 72-78° F, dKH 8-12, pH 8.1-8.4
Max. Size: 1'

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