growing corals on my overflow box

[jakano]

i am thinking about attaching some corals to my overflow and was wondering what to go with. my overflow is built across the top of my tank instead of going down to the bottom. i am thinking an encrusting montipora type or maybe some zoos.any suggestions?it will be a high flow area lots of close light of course since it is at the surface of the water.what species will thrive in this type of setting?

[szwab]

might be too much light for a montipora. could do zoa's or even GSP.

[cadams]

my only concern is that someday, they may grow OOC and interfere with the function of your overflow (clog the drain holes and such). but this could be avaoided with regular maintance i reckon.

GSP may not like the intense light either; the GSP I have closest to the light, doesn't extend completely. and has stopped growing upward.

[thebrian]

Just remember - whatever you want to grow on it, start it as far down as you can, because it will only grow upwards towards the light.

~Brian

[MiddletonMark]

Good point on growing upward.

I've got an Acropora and a plating Montipora on my overflow. The plating monti encrusted great - and while I need to break off the plates before they shade too much below - I'll put one on my next tank. IMO they work great for this use.

The Acro has taken quite a while, but given they're slower growing maybe a better idea [maintenance-wise].

I've found I can break the whole encrusted piece off [accidentally] so while the overflow-grate-obstruction is something to consider - on many stonies I don't think it would be too hard getting them off the overflow.

Good luck - IMO a great idea.

[KMKJA1]

As stated earlier, you must be careful when it gets close to the top. I got lazy and some xenia got onto my overflow. It grew up and started cloging it up, got into the actual box and it was a pain cleaning it all out. Great idea but you have to keep up with whatever you put on there.

[jakano]

hey middletown i see you are running two 250's that is what i have.how far above the corals on you overflow are they.also i see you run two different temp bulbs.how do you have that set up are they just one on each side of the tank?

[porky]

I've tried this with a couple of zoo colonies but could never get them to stay?
I tried super glue and epoxy I even tried placing a piece of rock w/zoo's near it and they just would not grow onto the over flow. Maybe I wasn't patient enough?

[jakano]

yeah i was worried about zoos not attaching. i was actually leaning towards sps. even though i am more of an lps guy the sps is what i think would do the best.heck sloth had some growing on a magfloat.

[xdusty6920]

caps on overflows look sweet and ive seen it several times so it must work pretty well. a green with purple rim or an all purple cap would look sweet

[cj_basser]

I've got 3 different montipora caps growing on my overflow. I have a big green w/ purple rim, and a couple small orange/ red caps. It seems that the green one has growth spurts. Before i left to go out of town, the cap hadent encrusted yet. When I got home a week later, it had encrusted.

I have noticed that it takes about a month on the overflow for the corals to start growing.