ewwwa!!!!!!!!!!

big difference in colors in your tank since you went with a differ lighting.
great shot of your zoas

I like the tank, nice build!

Thanks Guys.
I really like the looks of the higher kelvin LED's also. Ony problem is I'd gotten the PAR readings on the blues and it's lower than the whites, but after the addition, my table bleached somewhat, but I see that it's polyps are still being extended, so hopefully it will color back up. The growing tips of it are normally blue so I really want it to do well.
In other news, the mini-carpet in my jetties nano split and I couldn't resist temptation to put one in the contest tank (the jetties tank has mostly 10000K, not so favorable to color). As I expected, the colors were unbelievable, but I also knew that the addition would likely put me overbudget, but it was so pretty........... then my porcelain crab took a shine to it, put it on its back, so it had the two small ones on its claws and the mini on its back! That decided it, had to get that mini out of there!
This morning I got up and there was a mithrax perched on the Seriotopara! Both those crabs are so shy as to make it surprising that this is going on. But the mithrax and merely chosen the coral as a convenient place to molt and when I was checking to see if something was wrong, I knocked it off. Dohhhhh. Both episodes would have made cool pics. Got to be quicker!

Dude, this forum needs about a million more like you. Do you ever say anything negative? Not that I've seen. Keep up the good work!

well i do if i am extremely pissed at someone. But it's hard to get me that mad. Other than that, life is way too short to stay mad. Plus i am a happy kind of a guy.

and thanks for your kind words

Pretty awesome tank man, awesome frags!

I do not know why, and I don't know where, but this tank requires shoveling calcium and alk in.
Using the aquaglobe for topoff, which lasts a day and a half, if I am in a hurry and don't use calcium or alkalinity in the topoff, just use regular DI water, the calcium drops 20 ppm. Not realizing how quickly it depleted, I used just DI water for a week and the uppermost tips on the birdsnest died back. Calcium was 370. Too weird. Jacked it back up and now after two months I've finally started seeing some corraline on the glass. Got to stay on top of this little rascal.

I have noticed that my 10g also depletes calcium like crazy. I only assume it is the Halimeda
I have been dosing 2 part every day.

Must be nice to have that problem! My tank doesn't seem to be using much calcium or alk at all, which means that things probably aren't growing all that much. I've got quite a bit of SPS too, which makes it even more strange.

Check your test kits and technique! Just kidding.
It is odd though.
Maria, I've found that Halimeda is about the worst for robbing calcium. I've got it in my ghetto frag tank refugium and since I took on some boarders (pencil, black spine, and carrier urchins) they've eaten every cell of macro except the halidmeda. I'm not illuminating it at all, except a north facing window, and it's growing, but mercifully not so bad that it is major robbing calcium, I don't think.

If I was using my old API kit, I'd agree, but I'm using brand new Salifert kits for both. I've also spent some times in a geology lab, so I'm used to performing tests properly (so long as I'm not doing it with a beer or three at hand. ) I'm wondering if maybe my SPS are still a bit too new to be doing serious growth. However, some of the pieces are showing observable signs of growth. Could it be that I'm getting Calcium from other sources? Maybe from the LS and LR itself?

Well, that would be one difference between yours and mine. I'm using calcite tiles on the bottom, and they don't dissolve as readily as aragonite. That could be some of it at least.
I've not checked my change water either. I use IO and don't know if they keep calcium and alkalinity up in that salt or not. Coincidentally I just made up a big batch of water, so I'll check it out.

Ah yeah, that certainly would be a different animal! I use IO (I think it's reef crystal, but I buy it as resale). The price has gone up recently, so I'm considering switching to a different brand. IO plus some semi-regular dosing does keep my calcium and alk up though. I just don't like that I have to let it mix for 24 hours to really get rid of any residue / unmixed salt.

i reallly like your tank!!!!!

I've watched this guy arduously climb atop the purple monti tower. Why does he do it? Because it's there?
And why does the monti grow against the column its on instead of out? Afraid to fall?
Thinking outside the box doesn't seem to arrive at the same answers as the thinking inside the box does.

thats such a cool pic... your crabs are awesome. i only have an emerald crab and its lame....i'm gonna have to get me a cool little hermit

what a cool pic, but odd

I have a red mithrax (same as emerald but red) and I'm thinking of making him lame, pull a couple of legs off on opposite sides so he can't wreck havoc in my tank. I put him in when I began to notice some small patches of maybe bryopsis and that horrid red wiry macro, and he did a fine job of eradicating those things, but like a lawnmower that cuts the grass then topples the trees too, there is not a rock in the tank that he can't move. Every water change I'm repositioning rocks and corals he's knocked over, even when they've been glued. I've started using epoxy now, until eventually the whole rockscape will be one big chunk.

Need A FTS today after the 16th of this month you will be DQ if no FTS is Posted on the main Thread
http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=214206

In a hurry so no cleanup of mithrax mess, tumbling rocks everywhere. Weirdo.
FTS 021510

Hey Yardboy,

Your tank is looking great!! I like your idea of using the tiles for your substrate.


I wonder if you'd comment on the tiles....

Are you happy with the results, visually speaking?
You mentioned that it might be affecting your Ca levels. Any other '+'s or '-'s?

Thanks

DougN

Well, first of all, they aren't white. I'd have preferred that, for reflection purposes, but haven't gotten anything to eat the corraline of them. Might try a Diadema type urchin, they're supposed to be notorious about eating corraline, but haven't put one in to try it. The pencil urchin never gets onto the bottom, spending all his time in the rocks.
I think the primary structure of the tiles is calcite, which doesn't dissolve like aragonite can, to help buffer calcium and alkalinity levels, though there is some controversy about aragonite doing that. On the other hand, I have noticeds some slight deterioration of the surface around pits and edges, but not enough to supply any real calcium.
They do make it easy to vacuum up detritus so that's the plus I was looking for.

My asterina stars can tear some coraline up!
my pencil urchin likes it too

new desktop.

Now I'm embarassed. We've got a new camera, Canon T1i, but I haven't been able to take as good of pictures with it as I can my old Olympus C-4000 P&S.
I'd have liked it to be more in focus. If I get a better one I'll send it to you!

The red reef hermit looks like he is plotting to take over the world lol
I could see him rubbing his lil' claws together look at those beedy lil' eyes...

Close your aperture a stop or two. Will increase your DOF.

Many people try hard to get very thin DOFs though.

Thanks! Seems that the older p&s does a better job on auto than the new camera does. I've been using manual on the Olympus for underwater stuff exclusively. Seems I'm going to really have to read the manual to shoot in manual!

also when you open your aperture more it will slow the shutter speed down. To compensate bump up your ISO and lower your exposure compensation about 1/2-2/3 stop. Also most of my tank pics are using a tripod.

Thanks Guys. I finaly got a remote shutter control. The first one didn't work but the new one just came. (Thanks Amazon for your great replacement policy.)
I'll try and use aperature priority for a start, hadn't thought of manipulating the ISO number.

My ISO is usually around 250-400, sometimes I go 800 but my camera does an awesome job of reducing noise on higher ISO shots. Also it may not make that much of a difference but I use mirror lock-up on macro shots. It raises the mirror before you shoot so it doesnt not jar the camera on the tripod. I did notice a difference in several of my macro shots (like my avatar).

Wow awesome tank! Can't wait to see it as time goes on!

I complained in my last FTS post about the mithrax tearing up everything. While he did a great job cleaning up algae, he was just too rowdy and over a period of a week I watched him slowly dismantle most of my rockwork. It was like entropy in action, with every piece slowly taking up a position of least energy in the tank. Finally enough was enough. He put up quite a battle though and I eventually ended up taking every single piece of coral and rock out of the tank before I nabbed him and put him in a tank with lots more algae issues and little to dismantle. Of course, try as I might in reconstructing the aquascape the way it was, the rockwork doesn't look quite the same. Oh well, I kinda like it better, mostly because rocks aren't falling to the bottom of the tank any more.
Also, forgive me father for I have sinned, I broke one of the primary tenets of reefkeeping:

I didn't provide enough water movement for the tank. While I had an initial growth spurt of everything, over the weeks all the corals just stopped growing. I tried a small unobtrusive Hydor powerhead (and did I mention it was cheap?) Bored a hole in the back partition and stuck it in there, but it was just too little. I finally bit the bullet and bought a Korallia 1. Within a week everything was looking beautiful again. But of course now I am overbudget, but when it came down to dead livestock or disqualification, well I hope anyone would have made the same choice.
The purpose of this tank was to see if LED's were viable for using to grow sps corals. I can unequivocally say "YES"! I have another ten gallon tank, set up for several years, but linked to my 150 display that had been languishing for a while under an too old 70W Astralux HQI bulb. I replaced it with the LED's and the three sps corals in it took off. They've grown quite a bit more than they ever did under the 70W, and more than the corals in the contest tank, but they have plenty of flow and the stability of the larger system, though I imagine now the corals in this tank will really take off too.
Then there's the matter of my penchant for rescues. My buddy asked me to take care of this anemone for him, though it was somewhat bleached, and when I put it under T5's, it bleached more. I finally decided to put it in the contest tank since I already had a jetties anemone in there, and it is thriving. So, now I've added a high dollar rose anemone to the tank, to thoroughly, completely and sincerely bust my budget. Ah, well.


I am going to "stay" in the contest, just to continue to show the tank, but don't expect to win any prizes. Good luck to the rest of the entries.

Strike another point against the infamous crab culture.

That is an awesome pic!

My emerald crab was a PITA and was sent back to the LFS within a few weeks.

I am wayyyyyyyyy over budget to

I will be moving my macros to a 40 long soon! BOLO

that RBTA has potential!

edit- oculina Robusta is on it's way to Panama City Beach

I agree, amazing looking

At the risk of everyone thinking I'm crazy I'll relate a funny thing that happened after posting the above picture. Right before I went to bed, I checked on everyone and noticed that the clown was swimming in front of the Korallia and shooting across the tank, toward the overflow The anemone was also kind of extended, like I've seen when they decide to move. Not knowing what I could really do about any of it, I went to bed. At 3 am, I suddenly woke up and had an urge to go check on the tank. Turning on the lights, I realized that both the clown and anemone were nowhere to be seen.
After searching around, I finally found the clown swimming in the second chamber of the back, inside the carbon reactor. Wow, what a ride. A redirected the korallia so it wasn't blowing directly toward the overflow then moved the clown back in the tank. After searching for awhile, I finally found him where he'd crawled inside the rockwork, too shy I guess. Yes, this all happened at 3 am. nuts, I guess.

wow, sorry to hear about that. Hopefully no damage wasdone to iether the clown and the nem.

I have that happened to me during the night had a sudden thought I need to check in on my tank. wham, my dottyback had jumped out of the tank.

Everyone's fine.
Strange how in tune with our tanks we can be.

Obviously overbudget FTS

Just cause I know you're looking Maria!

FTS due today.

thats an amazing looking pic , i love it, the colors stands out