Growth contest

Hello All!

Me and another member have been tossing around the idea of having a contest. The winner getting a little somethin-somethin special.

What sort of contest? Well, a growth contest! once a month, the people entering this contest sends in a picture of growth of their coral. The details have yet to be fully worked out. I am posting this to see what sort of general interest there is in a contest such as this.

The hangups I see happening is we all would have to start at the same time with the same size frag of the same coral. So that may get a little tricky. Or just general overall growth of the tank for a period of time.

And for the prize?

Half of this beast:



A mini-maxi anem (Stichodactyla tapetum) (I'll be fragging it in a week or two, as its just giant) And if not, I will find something else that will make people happy. Like an acan frag. >.<

I would LOVE a mini maxi nem

If only you had came up with this when I moved last. My birdsnest has grown from a large marble to a softball and been chopped up multiple times over the course of the year to control growth...lol.

I would jump in on this if you wanted me to. How many months are you looking for pics? Any restrictions on what coral or what type of coral?

This does get hard for the fact of some tanks are designed around LPS and others around SPS. Then there are the softies that grow like mad... Hard unless it's a controlled environment. I guess the most fair would be to do either full tank growth or go for a few different specific corals in each tank (1 SPS, 1 Zoa, 1 LPS, 1 softie). Pick 3 of the 4 or something...

Let me know your thoughts.

I was really thinking full tank growth, but that may be hard to 'judge' overall. And I know that mini-maxi's will go like hotcakes around here, I don't think many of us have them yet.

Edit


A few months. Maybe the swap would be the best time to give it to the winner. Sooooo that's 6 months!

it would be hard to judge. There would have to be outside person who did not enter who was not influenced... Either that or give each person who enters a vote but they HAVE to vote for someone else's tank... no idea.

Well, since I am giving away the animal, I could be a judge. But I'd want rulers involved, lol

Since I dont have a tank anymore I could judge??? Just a thought.. As long there is not to much involved....LOL

Well, see? two judges now!

If you go the coral route, I think it would have to be a coral that can from a third person and not from a coral that is from someones tank that is participating in the contest. That way the coral isn't used to the tank.

That is a concern/point. But as pointed out earlier in the thread... some people have softy tanks, some have sps, some have lps. So if we got a frag of SPS and cut it all up equally-the people with the softy and lps tanks automatically fail. So not truly fair.

You can do zoas

This type of contest is hard. It almost needs to be an LPS, Zoa, and SPS coral to really get a good average of growth between species. I know acans thrive in some people's tanks but I have yet to keep them alive. My zoas seem to explode and SPS is a slower grower no matter what, except for my birdsnest.

hmmm... Zoanthids are promising.

I could frag up my purple deaths, but then we'd be limited to how many people could enter as I have a limited amount of them. I do have some 'ugly' orange and green ones I could frag up too, but again limited in number. hmmm. Well, lets see what others think too

I would go for a purple death frag

start with a single polyp and see how they go type of thing?

yeah. But I only have 8 polyps so far. >.> They're reallly slow growing in my tank compared to the other zoanthids

Ohohoh, I have an idea.

Everyone get a 2 gallon tank. And raise mojanos! Whoever can get the most wins?

Never had a mojano, don't want one...lol

I think overall growth would be good enough to judge, just compare shots month to month or whatever and whoever has the most wins?

There should definitely be more than one judge. I wouldn't put that on one person. I guess overall growth seems a good way to handle it and the judges could take into consideration if one person keeps easier growing corals than another.

I think it would be a more fun "launch" to this project if we had a meeting and all who were interested took home the same piece of coral to grow but can't totally imagine how that would work due to already mentioned obstacles. If we had categories and you could enter the SPS, LPS, softie or all three, maybe we could come up with a different price for each category? I'd be willing to put up a prize too.

I bet we could come up with different prizes for each. So when's our next meetin? (ha!)

I know right!? Meetings seem rare these days.

I have a candy cane colony that could be cut into certain number of heads for the LPS category. And, I have orange cap to donate for the SPS category. Oh....and I have toadstools for the softies category. On prizes, we may need to confer. I think having to come to a meeting to enter is a more fair way to decide who can participate too rather than having entrants from the other side of the country. And, we get the bonus of encouraging meeting attendance. I like the idea of it ending at swap time. I hope to set a date for that within the next week. (My turn to do a water change at the HSC.)

Hey, I'll come to the water change too... see your pm's. Just tell me when We can discuss then.

Got to thinking and zoanthids are probably a better softie for a contest. I may not have enough toadstool. I just have 2 small ones at the moment. The HSC has a huge one I could cut pieces off of but I don't think they'd want me to.

its such a nice, big, pretty colony

You can run into issues of chemical warfare for those with SPS tanks by adding a toadstool... Many leathers give off a chemical that can inhibit SPS growth unless carbon is used to neutralize it...

Here I finally toned down my supplements because I have Massive corals growth in my tank as it is that's the last thing i need to do is get into a growth contest...LOL
I can hardly get rid of my growth stock as it is.