Fragfarmer Red Robin Stag

Fragfarmer Red Robin Stag is a named Acropora strain from Fragfarmer, carried in the master strain queue with a one-line description: red staghorn. The Fragfarmer prefix is the farm prefix, and keeper lists compress it to FF, so the strain circulates as FF Red Robin Stag, FF Red Robin, and, with the prefix dropped, Red Robin Stag and Red Robin Staghorn. The queue files the strain as an Acropora sp., and the keeper records read for this entry file it the same way — the featured nano inventory that carried one lists it as an Acropora species entry with no species name attached. The word Stag in the name is a growth-form word: this is a branching staghorn-form acro, and the database's species-level staghorn entries are separate entries for separate corals.

The strain has a long captive history, and the dates are part of its identity. A classic California collection list from the early 2010s carries Frag Farmers Red Robin Stag twice among named lines from Cherry Corals, Sexy Corals, ORA, Tyree, and Battlecorals. A 2014 nano build ordered a Frag Farmer Red Robin Stag by its full name alongside an ORA Pearlberry. In July 2020 a nine-year-old 20-gallon nano reef, featured that month, still listed an FF Red Robin Stag among its SPS — a staghorn acro holding a place in a small mixed reef across the years that tank ran. Longevity of that kind is the quiet credential named strains accumulate: the coral stayed in circulation, and stayed identifiable, across a decade of keeper lists.

A second name warning belongs near the top. Top Shelf Aquatics sells a TSA Red Robin, its own prefixed line, as cut-to-order frags taken from a photographed mother colony. No source read for this entry equates the TSA line with the Fragfarmer line, and the two prefixes name two farms. Everything in this entry — growth, colour, price — belongs to the Fragfarmer line and to keeper records that name the strain without a conflicting prefix. The TSA page contributes its general Acropora care record at genus weight, and its prices are recorded in the field notes under the TSA name so the ladder below stays clean. Two further namesakes share words only: an RR Robinhood from Reef Raft, and a Red Robin Goniopora sold in flash sales. Neither is this coral.

The colour record starts with the queue's filing — a red staghorn — and then narrows it with the most strain-specific colour record available, which is a warning. A keeper writing about keeping reds photographed his Red Robin and reported that adding calcium nitrate to bring his nitrate to a measurable level increased the colour of another coral in the same system while the Red Robin turned brown-red. His wider conclusions, drawn across his third attempt at colouring SPS, were that phosphate stability mattered more than any single phosphate number, that reds suffer when phosphate is elevated with exceptions, and that reds are difficult partly because they brown easily where other colours mask the brown. His own best window for most of his corals was nitrate at 2 to 5 on his test, with stable phosphate held near 0.05 — and the Red Robin was the piece that moved the wrong way when nitrate rose.

Growth form is the strain's second defining record, and it splits by system in a way the entry states plainly. In a build-thread exchange, the donor of an FF Red Robin frag asked whether it had kept growing at 20 to 30 percent per month since he last saw it. The recipient answered that the frag was still growing in his system and that it formed branches no matter where he placed it, while the same coral had tabled in the donor's tank. One lineage, two forms, each reported by the keeper who grew it. At colony scale, a Reefer 425 XL build thread records the removal of a large Red Robin staghorn colony during a re-build of one side of the tank, replaced by a Tyree Red Dragon colony, in a post that names keeping up with growth among its reasons. A stag that reaches that size in a home reef is a placement commitment, and the entry treats it as one.

Care follows the Acropora standard. Top Shelf Aquatics frames the genus as the centerpiece group of advanced systems: vibrant colour and dynamic growth in exchange for careful attention and stable conditions. For this strain the stability work has a named target — the red. The keeper record above ties this coral's colour loss to a nutrient change rather than to light, so a keeper chasing the red should hold nutrients steady before reaching for the light controls, and should expect the colour to answer slowly.

Water chemistry follows the standard reef shape. Reef To Go's standard parameters suit the strain's base: temperature 77–79 °F, salinity near 35 ppt (about 1.024–1.026), alkalinity 8–10 dKH held steady, calcium 400–450 ppm. The vendor genus record read for this entry gives calcium 420–440 ppm, alkalinity 8–9.5 dKH, magnesium 1,300–1,450 ppm, nitrate under 10 ppm, phosphate under 0.10 ppm, temperature 75–80 °F, salinity 1.025–1.026, and pH 8.1–8.4. The strain-specific keeper record sits inside that shape with its own emphases: alkalinity held near 6.7 dKH by a keeper who preferred low to high, phosphate held stable near 0.05 rather than chased to a number, and the best general nitrate window at 2 to 5 — with this strain recorded as the exception that browned when nitrate was raised. The entry claims the genus band as its guidance and keeps the keeper's numbers in the field notes, labelled as one keeper's system.

Light follows the genus record: 200+ PAR for vibrant colour, whiter light encouraging faster growth at less vivid colour, deep blue enhancing colour at slower growth, and a gradual 2–3 week climb at acclimation. The strain's one lighting record is about restraint. The reds keeper set his hybrid LED and T5 fixture — two Blue+ and two Coral+ tubes in BigE's combination — and stopped adjusting it, and his reds did their best after the adjustments stopped. No Fragfarmer-specific PAR window was found, and this entry claims none.

Flow follows the genus record: strong, variable, randomized flow from mixed wavemaker types, audited regularly as the branching colony grows and changes the tank's flow dynamics around itself. A stag makes the audit tangible — branches shade and shelter the interior as the colony thickens, and the colony-scale record for this strain is a large one, so the flow a frag needed will not be the flow the colony needs.

Feeding is a supplement with a real but secondary effect. The coral is photosynthetic first. The vendor farm record feeds a phytoplankton blend alongside Benepets, Reef Roids, and various aminos, target-fed gently with pumps off for roughly 10–15 minutes, and credits nutrient-rich feeding and trace elements such as iron and iodine with supporting pigmentation. The strain's keeper record is cooler on feeding: Reef Roids on no schedule seemed to help some acros and do nothing appreciable for others. Nothing in the keeper record ties this strain's red to a feeding product, and the keeper himself wrote that he had become a skeptic of products sold to improve colour.

Placement should plan for the colony records, not the frag. Mount the frag securely in the middle-to-upper rockwork where high light is reachable, with strong randomized flow and open room on the sides a stag will claim. The form record warns against expecting placement to steer the shape: one keeper's piece branched wherever he put it while its sibling growth tabled in the donor's system. Site for size and light, and let the form be the form the system produces.

Pests and health checks carry the Acropora list: Acropora-eating flatworms and red bugs belong on the inspection checklist for any new frag, dips and quarantine are the standing entry routine, and the genus failure order applies — rapid tissue necrosis under stress or instability, bleaching under sudden light or temperature change, stability checked first and one variable changed at a time. The frag-scale health record for this strain is Susan's build check-in — two Red Robin Stag frags, one white and one brown, with months expected before good colour — which is the ordinary fragile start of a stag frag stated by its own keeper, and a fair expectation to set at purchase.

Price anchors place this strain in the established named-acro band, well below the early-era collector peak its decade in circulation spans. The cleanest Fragfarmer-prefixed retail record is a 2016 WWC live sale offering FF Red Robin Acropora at $35. Unprefixed Red Robin Stag listings, whose lineage the listings do not state, run higher in the current market: AquaSD offered a Red Robin Stag at $75 in a flash sale and a Red Robin Staghorn Acropora at $199.99 regular with a $60.00 sale price at 70% off. Those figures are recorded under their listing names, at their own weight, and the TSA line's prices stay out of the ladder entirely, recorded under the TSA name in the field notes.

Field notes — what keepers report

- The growth-rate centre is the Tony Vargas 300-gallon build thread exchange. A keeper who had given the thread's owner an FF Red Robin frag asked, in the thread, whether his frag had kept growing at 20–30% per month since he last saw it. The recipient's reply, kept whole because it carries the form record with the rate: the frag was still growing, and it was not tabling the way it had in the donor's tank — it formed branches no matter where he placed it. The 20–30% figure is the donor's rate for his own system, quoted as a question the recipient did not dispute; the recipient confirms continued growth without quoting a rate of his own. Both halves stay attached to the keepers who reported them.

- The colony-scale record is CoralDanimal's Red Sea Reefer 425 XL build thread. During a re-build of the left side of the display, he removed a large Red Robin staghorn colony and an even larger blue sapphire millepora colony, replacing the Red Robin with a Tyree Red Dragon colony and the millepora with a Gigs Mothra mille frag. His stated reasons for the re-build include flow geometry around the MP40, a slimer hiding corals behind it, and keeping up with growth — and the Red Robin colony, photographed after removal, was a large colony by any home-reef measure. The thread does not carry a Fragfarmer prefix for his colony, so the record is filed at build-thread weight: a Red Robin staghorn grown to large-colony size in a mature 425 XL whose alkalinity the keeper later dialed to under 0.3 dKH of daily swing before the tank cruised.

- The colour centre is the "How do you keep Reds in your corals?" thread (November 2016). The keeper photographed his Red Robin, labelled it as such under its photograph, and reported the split result that anchors this entry's nutrient caution: adding CaNO3 to make nitrate measurable increased the colour of the unknown wild or maricultured piece photographed above the Red Robin, while the Red Robin turned more brown-red; a maricultured bluish piece of his also browned under elevated nitrate, while his green pieces loved it. His system record, kept with its numbers: phosphate held stable around 0.05 with PhosphateRx at 3 drops daily after GFO had swung his phosphate and stressed corals; alkalinity around 6.7, with a stated preference for low over high; a hybrid fixture set once and left alone (2 Blue+ and 2 Coral+); nitrate controlled with a Seachem Matrix media filter rather than carbon dosing, which he distrusted in an acro-dominated tank; Reef Roids fed on no schedule, with mixed effects by coral; trace elements dosed daily at a quarter of the recommended rate, which he doubted was doing anything; water changes only when something looked off, with his best reds after three months without one. His summary conclusions: nitrate unreadable on a Salifert test means suffering colours, 2 to 5 works best for his selection with exceptions, stable and decently low phosphate is critical, and reds can easily be brownish while other colours mask the browns.

- The longevity record runs through three keeper lists. Reefer831's Eye Candy collection list carries "Frag Farmers Red Robin Stag" twice in one long named-strain inventory, among Cherry Corals, Sexy Corals, ORA, Tyree, and Battlecorals lines — a working collector's list from the strain's early era. Pico's 50-gallon Nano-Reef build records an order containing one Frag Farmer Red Robin Stag alongside an ORA Pearlberry, posted in 2014, in a tank whose other SPS were recovering from a GFO incident at the time. Jservedio's nine-year-old 20-gallon tall mixed nano, the July 2020 featured reef on Nano-Reef, lists "FF Red Robin Stag (Acropora Spp.)" in its SPS inventory alongside ORA Red Planet, ORA Hawkins Echinata, and Tyree Pinky the Bear — the strain holding a place in a nine-year nano is the strongest single longevity data point this dossier has.

- The frag-scale record is Susan's RS Reefer 3XL 900 build thread. In a night check-in with a blue flashlight, she recorded her Red Robin Stag as two frags — one white, one brown — beside a Strawberry Shortcake showing a little colour, a Pinky the Bear showing colour under blues, and a Darth Maul Porites colouring well, and she wrote that she expected months before good colour across the group. The record is filed as a starting-condition report, not a strain verdict: white and brown frags at check-in, in a system recovering through an algae and ATO episode, with the keeper's own timeline set at months.

- The slow-growth counterweight is a Reef2Reef help thread in which a keeper listed a red robin among three acros that had not grown over past months in a 25-gallon system at PAR 100 at the top of the tank, nitrate at zero on his reading, alongside a strawberry shortcake in the same state while a green acro grew well. The record is filed at its exact weight: an unprefixed red robin, in a young low-light, low-nutrient system, failing to grow — consistent with the genus settling record (growth can appear stagnant for the first 3–6 months) and with the light floor this entry carries, and not a contradiction of the established-colony growth records above, which come from mature high-light systems.

- The namesake record, kept at full strength because it governs the price ladder. Top Shelf Aquatics sells "TSA Red Robin Acropora Coral" as its own prefixed line: the page states the photo is of the mother colony, frags run typically ¾–1 inch, and crawls of the page have priced it at $47.99, $69.99, and $79.99 (cut-to-order) at different times. No source read this run equates the TSA line with the Fragfarmer line, so those prices are TSA prices, recorded here and excluded from this entry's ladder. WWC's Cyber Monday 2016 live sale, by contrast, sold the strain under the FF prefix — "FF Red Robin Acropora" at a $35 live-sale price — and that figure anchors the ladder as the cleanest Fragfarmer-prefixed retail record found. AquaSD's listings name no farm: "Red Robin Stag" at $75.00 in a pre-flash sale, and "Red Robin Staghorn Acropora" at $199.99 regular / $60.00 at 70% off in a seasonal sale — recorded under their listing names, neither claimed as Fragfarmer lineage nor excluded, since the unprefixed name is this strain's common circulation form.

- The form-word record: keeper and vendor sources use Stag and Staghorn interchangeably for this strain (FF Red Robin Stag, Red Robin staghorn colony, Red Robin Staghorn Acropora), and the TankFacts generic "Red Stag Acropora" page — light pink with red polyps, Indo-Pacific range, moderate-to-intense light and strong flow — describes unnamed generic material on a species-style page. Its colour description was not imported into this entry, because no source ties that page's material to the Fragfarmer strain; the queue's own one-line filing, red staghorn, is the colour and form record this entry stands on, narrowed by the reds keeper's brown-red report.