Mobile Bay Reef Keepers

Bought a bottle-brush @ Progressive, and before we even got home I noticed flesh dangling from the skeleton. Now, it's all white today. My fault for not checking it better at the store, even though the tips still had green on them... Still a bit irritating though.

Anyhow, before you drop $ for a frag, make sure it's not dead.

Thats odd. the two frags I got are still alive.

i have noticed alot of rtn and stn in there main raceway with sps fraggs in them i believe it is because parameters on that tank are changing to much
(lack of proper care)
also they have not been acclimating corals like they should (beaver did a good job before )
i think rich will fix the problem give it some time

Yea, they had brown ones, and a light greyish green bottle brush. I opted to go with the Brown one. I like surprises and it would have been interesting to watch it color up. I did pick up an A. gemmifera from them a few months ago that's doing good.


Sucks though. There's no one around that carries nice wild Acros. Even in Pensacola.

YA THATS TRUE I HAVE BEEN DOIN MOST OF MY BUYING ONLINE I'VE HAD GOOD CUSTOMER SERVICE WITH BLUE ZOO

The problem with all the wild ones is they just didnt do well and honestly I don't recall any of the shops around carrying many wild colonies. They have been bringing in Maricultured stuff for quite some time.

The frags of them that I got are doing well so far. Have had them about 2 weeks or so too.

I think you should change the name of the thread to "Check before you buy". It's kinda hard to believe you couldn't tell the piece was bad if it was de-fleshing in the bag. Everything I've gotten from Rich lately is doing fine. He definitely doesn't have what he used to due to the fact that high end pieces aren't selling as good.

wtrhed wrote:I think you should change the name of the thread to "Check before you buy". It's kinda hard to believe you couldn't tell the piece was bad if it was de-fleshing in the bag. Everything I've gotten from Rich lately is doing fine. He definitely doesn't have what he used to due to the fact that high end pieces aren't selling as good.

What should I have done, stuck my hand in there, grabbed the frag(s) and visually inspected them? Its not super easy to inspect a browned coral, in a top-down situation with a moving light and slight ripple across the surface, it's even harder to inspect the underside of a coral (where the tissue first started RTN'ing) from a top down view. I saw the the green tips and assumed it was in decent enough shape.

I never said anyone did anything wrong. Rich wasn't even at the shop. I simply said avoid the Acros (bottle brush specifically), as they are dying. Don't like the title? Too bad. Go check the frags for yourself and report back how wonderful they're doing. Maybe I should have taken the bucket of coral skeletons on the side of the tank as a warning.

i bought a blue with red polyps from him a few months ago and slowly but surely it died off. paid a pretty penny for it too, not sure if it was the coral, my lighting, water parameters, or coraline algae.... because as it slowly depleted, coraline grew on the dead portions of it and now the frag is nothing but coraline. who knows, but i have been cautious with the things ive bought since then. B&B is even lacking in their coral department. went in there earlier today and found nothing at all of interest. may be making a trip to pcola soon... or andys house in spanish fort! haha

Fishfood wrote:The problem with all the wild ones is they just didnt do well and honestly I don't recall any of the shops around carrying many wild colonies. They have been bringing in Maricultured stuff for quite some time.

Oh I understand this issues with wild corals. But it's always fun to pick up a morph that's never really been seen in the trade before.

The gemmifera is a maricultured piece, and is doing well. Slow growing but well.

Speaking of acros did that one that got stung by my acan die or is it still alive. I may have a second death due to that orange crush acan. This time another LPS.

Fishfood wrote:Speaking of acros did that one that got stung by my acan die or is it still alive. I may have a second death due to that orange crush acan. This time another LPS.

Alive and kicking. The top portion that was stung/dead is now about half covered back over. I've been thinking about cutting the piece in half and making two half-moon base pieces, but will probably just let it go for a while.