Thanks 1337!!!

I love that coral! Also, what is that orange thing on the left? Your tank looks great!

Thanks riz!!

The orange coral is a Dendrophyllia. Both it and the red gorgonian are non photosynthetic.

nice tank/corals,medred!rockscape is rockin'!

Hey MedRed. How often do you feed your gorgonian?

2 - 3x a week. My LFS had it for months and never fed it directly.

hey med, did you custom made your dry box for the vortech MP? im thinking should i move my mp20 to the backwall? i am still not to sure about it and worry it might flood my mp20

Thanks!

my LFS made me a custom dry dock... it uses a lip so it sits slightly higher than the top of the tank. The tank would flood onto the carpet instead of filling the drydock

hey bro! any way you can get your LFS to make a custom dry dock again with the lip. i am willing to pay for it since i dont have the right tools to be able to make one. please? LMK.

i want to copy you because you are my new role model. lol

lol... i'll ask them. I'm wanting them to make me a slightly slimmer one... so i'll ask for the both of us. How can I be you're role model when you're my role model? Maybe David can be both of our role models.

I hope you're not talkin' 'bout me David, 'Cause the two of you blow my tank right outta the water!!!

hey dave, you're the main reason why i wanted to start a solana. then med is a cool guy that is always on around 12am til 6 in the morning. but both of you guys is rocking this solana out far from mine. i wish someday i have the courage to add acans to my tank. im still skeptic about adding one since i had an bad experience with it. ;( but anyways this for showing your support and advices!

You too are crazy. I was drawn to both of your tanks before I set up my solana. Don't be afraid of acans! I just added added 2 more with 1 more on the way. That's a total of 6. One more rainbow acan will round it out. I need to do an update. Made some major changes that look kind of minor.

Update?

been really busy... but It seems like all the bad luck i was going to have with this tank pooled up and hit at one point.

A). What were you thinking?

I recently tried to kill my remaining 4 patches of bryopsis with Flourish Excel. I'm an experimenter... more of that side will come out later. I used a large pipette and administered 4 doses over the 4 areas (sidenote... only one of the patches is endemic to the tank... the other three only grow on the 2 zoa frags and one ricordea frag i'd received from others).

The reaction was almost like in the movies when everything goes quiet in a jungle scene signifying something is wrong. I just happened to notice while administering the last dose that every single coral had closed up tight as a drum. I'd never seen that before, not even at night. I realized at that moment I'd added about 4x what I would have added to an entire FW tank as I was using a gigantic pipette. I know Excel can kill simple algae... so now i was worried for the safety of the tank.

I performed a 15 gallon water change... made up more SW and did another 15 gallons. My ponape birdsnest is dying back, my favia isn't looking too hot, the 2 treated zoas haven't opened up fully again, most of the sps browned out, and the ric i directly treated let go and has ended up somewhere in the tank. All in all... a crisis has been averted, but I'm not doing that again. On another note... it did kill the bryopsis. I may try excel dosing on a small scale and not repeat my episode in stupidity.


. The Series of Unfortunate Events.

So the pump to my skimmer was making an AWFUL racket. It finally went away. I then noticed it went away because it wasn't working. I lifted the skimmer out of the tank and poured the water out. I later realized that the surface of the tank was smooth... my vortech wasn't working. I had poured the water out of my skimmer right into the dry dock. I then took the vortech out and draped it over the side of the tank to dry and see if it'd start back up. while fooling around with the cables i inadvertently caused the heavy vortech to fall on top of the canister used for the 5.5 gallon tank. this broke the clamps that hold the lid down. I now had water pouring out of the canister and onto the power strip for both tanks and the carpet. I had to unplug the power strip and fumble with the shut off valves. So my $30 pump going out... coupled with my stupidity cost me a $400 vortech and $120 filter.

I had to rush out to the LFS to get a Koralia 4 to provide flow until my new vortech arrives. I also had to get a filter as my canister was both filtration and flow for the 5.5 gallon. The 5.5 gallon actually benefited as I upgraded from the older model 2232 ecco to the larger and revised model 2236 ecco. I added almost a gallon of water volume and significantly increased the flow by going with the larger filter.

Everything is stabilized and the tank is looking good. I'll take some pics this weekend.

On a side note I've added a few more inverts. I now have 3 Porcelain crabs, 1 anemone crab, 1 striped cleaner shrimp, 1 peppermint shrimp, 1 scarlet cleaner shrimp, 1 emerald crab, and 1 pom pom crab (ordered 2 but one didn't make it at the LFS). I'm going to add another pom pom crab and I'm thinking of one of the shrimp that host anemones.

Holy crap I'm sorry to hear about you luck. I messed up my vortech also so I have to use my other korrilla pumps. I'm glad that you got everything back and hopefully everything and birdnest is healing back soon. I will pm you later. David

Hey MedRed, sorry to hear about your tank that is definitely a bummer. I hope everything works out though!

ps: how are your porcelain crabs doing? I just got one yesterday but he has been hiding all day

they are doing well. They hide most of the time but sometimes decide to perch out in the open.

Pre Apocalypse:
I'd removed a lot of SPS to make room for pieces I really wanted. Looking for some ORA Roscoe’s Blue, Hawkins, Blue Echinata, Marshall Island Yellow Fuzzy, and Pearlberry Acro.


Post apocalypse:

The Koralia 4 looks big and bulky in the tank. It's putting out less power than the vortech does on half power. I can't wait to get my new vortech. I still need to upgrade the light. already bought the moonlights to attach to the fixture.



Pom Pom Crab: Only one claw has an anemone and it's tiny:



Anemone Porcelain Crab: He lost a claw while I was moving him. Unfortunately it was right before he moulted.



Monti Mount: Just need some superman to complete my encrusting monti area


Acan Alley: just need 1 nice rainbow to complete the area.The light washes out the colors. The one to the lower right is neon green and pink.



Chili:

Tank is looking great man! I always forget about the all in one section. I'll have to hang out here more often, tons of fantastic tanks

Thanks! It seems that a lot of the AIO tanks are moving to the member tank section for more visibility.

Nice acans, did you also get the rainbow from amnestia? He's a pretty cool guy and have nice selection of alot of things. I got the rainbow n cloudy day plus some hulk n fireice. I can't take any photo right now cause I'm getting ready to move.
Did you ever got my pm about the broken mp40? lmk

I want a piece of that chili. It look cool! Is it hard to keep them?

so... Upon realizing my camera isn't as bad as I thought it was and I was just doing it wrong... Tigahboy gave me some tips to take some better pictures. Let's begin!


























Night Shots:



Porcelain Anemone Crab between the Rics:


Emerald Crab on Gonoipora (he better not be eating my polyps):


Overexposed:

Beautiful shots med! Haha I see you got the rainbow acan from amnestia too! I got the rainbow acan too! That's my favorite and the hulk acan at the moment. What's that bright neon coral on the top left. I can not see it on my iPhone it's hella look sick!

That chili coral is awesome. I want some. Is it difficult to keep / find?

Oh, I also love your rainbow acan. I need to pick one of those up too haha.

Thanks D! The bright green coral is a blurred flame torch due to the exposure. Nothing fancy. I still need to play twith the camera more... and I will probably upgrade to a better point and shoot. As soon as my new vortech gets here... i'll let you know if any of the old pieces still work.



thanks atlweb. I've not had the chili very long, but it seems happy. It looks totally different if it's not polyped out. It shrinks down to a limp, red blob. I'll take some before and after pics. I was actually looking for one and was at my LFS and asked if they had one. strangely enough they did!

Chili...

Polyps in:


Polyps out:


Feeding:

You've got some awesome corals! Mine kinda look bland but I'm scared I'll throw something out of balance again if I add stuff lol.

Thanks CL, you need a new light!

Probably. It's only 70 watts and the monti caps you sent me aren't colored up despite being at the top of the tank. Maybe I can buy your old one when you upgrade? It would more than double my light

sounds like a plan

Hey Med where you been? MIA? hope everything is going good over there any updates?

Hey D. I've been holding off on updates as... I may be moving halfway across the country soon >_<.

why might you be moving?

job promotion. i'd be going back to Texas which would make me very happy. I don't know for sure yet... but i've been in a holding pattern for a little while now. I have brand new chalices and ora corals that haven't been glued in place yet as I wait on the news. hopefully i'll know soon.

Wow... Good luck bro!!!

Lets see some updated pic soon Red. Havn't check you're thread out in a while.

Moving to Cali... so the tank is in the process of going away :-(. I think i'm going to sell everything (tank included) and start all over.

Sell me your acanthus frags and your chilli.. Lol

Good news that you got the job and is relocating to cali. But sad to see your tank have to break down. But lmk if u let it go bro.

WHA???

Say whaa?
Wow. At least Cali seems like a nice place.

I have to start getting rid of stuff really soon. i don't have enough time

How have you been? did you get to move into your new place yet? any updates?

Damn that ric rock is freaking awesome.....

What did you do to your camera to take better shots? What kind do you have?

Acan Alley is pretty cool, but the Ric rock with the clam on it is awesome bro!

I'm all moved. I have yet to even begin to think about resurrecting the tank. I do miss it though :-(








Thanks guys. The tank has been broken down for a couple months now as I just moved. I was using an SD750. Some members here gave me some pointers on taking better pictures and some better settings. Using a tripod really made the difference. I am ready to get started again on an awesome tank. It may be a little later this year.

I look forward to seeing your new setup when you get settled.

Glad to hear you aren't gone for good.

Take care and good luck,

Ian

Congrats on the move!

I look forward to seeing what you do with the next tank!!!

WOW!! I have not check out ur tank thread in a while! The tank is looking GREAT!