On a scale of 1 to 10, how difficult is it REALLY to keep Acros?

[Loosechangereef]

Sps or any aquarium is not hard to grow and maintain,it’s all a matter of passion and dedication .
The problem with these tanks you have to pay close attention to a equipment’s failure that usually hurts your tank,
And you have to start kinda over and $ is kinda a factor.
But if once a reefer always a reefer

 

[92Miata]

I really feel like this is just a disagreement on what the question is asking. If the care requirements are "average" at 5 in a poll, my read on that is that it means it's the average level of care required to keep something in the hobby. IMO if almost everything is a 1-3, that means on a scale of 1-10 those are 4-6. I agree that with reasonable care most things can be kept. That was my only point. In essence I am assuming a normal distribution

I think this is a really uncommon interpretation, and I've never seen a normal distribution assumed in a "difficulty one to ten" type question.

5 isn't average on a 1-10 scale - it's middle of possible range.

There are things to do in this hobby that are way, way, way more difficult than keeping acros. Like I said - raising easy fry is an order of magnitude more difficult than keeping acros - and breeding and keeping pelagic fish is way more difficult than that. Way more goes into your $25 CB clownfish than a $150 acro nub.

Frankly, Acros aren't that hard. I think the use of "hard" is misleading and confuses a lot of people. My tank tends to have really high flow, and a big skimmer - and that tends to lead to lower dissolved nutrients in the water column. This makes keeping acros relatively easy - but a lot of the "easy sps" are hard for me - it's really easy for me to kill stuff like montipora - they die way faster to phosphate limitation than acros do. And the really "easy" stuff - like mushrooms? Wither away and die.

IE, they're not harder, they just have different ideal conditions.

 

[kenjung]

It's hard, look at SPS forum, there are regular thread about RTN/STN and no one can help them, some establish aquarium lost tons of Acros for no apparent reason.

 

[Luciano Aguiar]

I can sum it up in two words: Study and dedication

 

[piggled]

I gave them a 1. All corals can be just as sensitive as acros. For some reason ricordea mushrooms will not grow in my tank. I’ve had 3 super high end ones just wilt away. A person just has to care about the water quality more, which results in a healthier tank anyways. So, IMO they’re extremely easy to keep. It’s just maintaining the water in which they thrive, and in which all(except ricordea for some reason) will thrive in is more of the difficulty. Honestly, fish are harder to keep than acros. If you want fat healthy thriving fish, it requires just as much if not more dedication than acros, it’s just that people are more familiar with it.

My little 15g jbj cubie growing out while I wait for my new custom made 74g tank to mature.

 

[Whiskeyboy84]

I have yet to be successful in keeping Acro’s however that’s in a 240g DT with sub par flow, sub par lighting, horrific aqua scape and less than desirable routine maintenance, which I am curing with a new build. So when I built my first reef tank I was moving over from freshwater and watched all the BRS videos I could before making the plunge however I made one fatal mistake which is quite contrary to most peoples advice I went too large with my system. Total volume is 320g, I have an RO/DI unit and brute cans for a mixing station and all was good in the beginning until I had to replace my homes hot water heater and the plumbers sold me on a de-scaler to improve the longevity of my new tankless unit well this single piece of equipment ruined my entire reefing experience it took my RO from producing 175g per day to 5g a week talking 7 days not five so I had to switch over to chemically treated tap well I have since had my entire home re-plumbed and a whole home water purification and softener installed so no more de-scaler. I also found that my AP700’s weren’t capable of supporting much of anything other than softies I have three over my 96” long 20” deep DT. So the new SPS build is a Waterbox Affinia 165.4 with a pair of Orphek Icon full size fixtures with two Orphek Blue Plus’s as well. For flow I have two Gyre XF280’s and four MP40’s plus two Reef Octo 4’s as well. I am also preparing to culture my own Phyto and Zoo planktons as well as my own copepods and brine shrimp. This system is also going to utilize a full Neptune Apex with Trident I am going to setup a 20% auto water change throughout the week then do an additional 20% on Sunday’s. I am going to use the BRS hybrid balling method so we shall see how this experience works out lol. The goal is to get one my system up and running in the next year or two as well to start aquaculturing SPS out of my Waterbox Aquarium as well as revamping my 240 Planet Aquarium tank for an LPS system and then the 48”x48”x36” cube that I am currently designing and planning out to be a euphyllia tank. I am also looking at getting into providing a QT service for people for fish and CUC members. I would like to utilize this as a bit of a side hustle and who knows maybe I could one day make it my full time business.

 

[Loosechangereef]

Also sps like good amount live rock , I had great success with miracle mud, and patience, and all the other maintenance

 

[Loosechangereef]

Google world wide corals , there help have nanos at there desk, they also have sps in there, there tanks are beutiful most With just w/c.this hobby is a matter not to overthink things, start with good water live rock and don’t keep putting snake oil in for quick fix

 

[Treefer32]

I had three colonies of euphyllia die off during a nutrient swing at the same time my Acropora did fine. So, my experience is that some Acropora are easier than LPS. I have a toadstool Leather that's melting right now for no reason that I can figure out other than it's emotionally upset at me and my acropora are more colorful and brighter than ever.

Go figure. I've had nitrates as high as 70 (2 weeks ago) and phosphates as high as .66. And my SPS and Acropora faired much better than any of my hammers, elegance, plate coral. All of them died in the nutrient spike (was over feeding nutrient dense food). Phosphates are now zero and nitrates 45. My SPS look amazing including the acropora, and my hammers are growing new heads now. Go figure...

 

[92Miata]

It's hard, look at SPS forum, there are regular thread about RTN/STN and no one can help them, some establish aquarium lost tons of Acros for no apparent reason.

The closest thing to RTN in mammals is cascading organ failure (like seen in huge doses of radiation) or stage 4 metastatic cancer. The reason people can't help isn't because there's some huge mystery - it's because it's already way too late.

It's like showing up at the vet with a dog that hasn't eaten in two weeks, won't move, and is vomiting blood. There's nothing left to do.


I've never seen an Acropora RTN where I didn't expect it. Usually it's either in the first week or two after being shipped (more usually the first day or two), or it's after spending a couple weeks looking like crap. The reason it appears on this forum to happen with "no apparent reason" is that the people posting give almost no useful information, and have no idea what to look for.