dotc0m Posted March 7, 2011 Share Posted March 7, 2011 Nice anthias. Colors are eye popping for sure. Care to elaborate on the malnourishment you mentioned and how the fish helps the sps with that? Nice anthias. Colors are eye popping for sure. Care to elaborate on the malnourishment you mentioned and how the fish helps the sps with that? Link to comment
SpringFever Posted March 7, 2011 Author Share Posted March 7, 2011 Hey dotCom. Good question and thanks for asking. My rationale comes from a fantastic Bob Fenner article I will dig up when I get home from work this evening. Basically, all life needs to have a varied diet, coral included. Often time people take the approach that light will provide sufficient nutrients to stony coral, but this is wrong. Zoox only provide carbohydrate based nutrition completely devoid of nitrogenous compounds (protein/amino acids). The frustrating balance we reefers are trying to achieve is one where particulate, nitrogen base foods are made available to our stony corals, but not allowed to break down into excess Phos or Nitrate. This is where overpoweder skimmers and carbon dosing come in. From what I have read, tanks that are ‘nitrogen limited’ have SPS corals which display very light (almost pastel) coloration. I am experiencing this at the moment. As I understand it, my inhabitants are not receiving enough nitrogen based foods. The two ways in which you can increase the availability is to either broadcast feed planctonic foods (which I do already) or add a fish – fish poop is a GREAT food source for stony coral. I have worked very hard for the past two years to limit algae growth in my display. I have two very small fish and feed planctonic foods more than I do fish food. I have not had a spec of algae in over a year, but I think my coral are suffering. My skimmer can handle the extra load and I don’t want to mess with Amino/carbon dosing. Adding a fish is the lowest maintenance way for me to achieve my goal of deepening the color of my coral. Link to comment
gutterguy Posted March 8, 2011 Share Posted March 8, 2011 That Antheis is awsome. Im thinking I may have to add a couple. Link to comment
SpringFever Posted March 8, 2011 Author Share Posted March 8, 2011 Thanks for dropin’ in GG. The anthias is doin’ great so far. I have been feeding cyclopeeze in the morning and mysis in the evening. He doesn’t leave his cave, so he doesn’t get much food per meal. I didn’t think he’d eat anything for a few days, so I’m happy. Link to comment
SpringFever Posted July 27, 2011 Author Share Posted July 27, 2011 Well it's been 4 months since I updated this thread… Since then I have started a new job and as a result have been given free reign to finish my build sans budget. I love my wife! I decided to put a marble top on the stand (pictures later) and build my own lighting. If you are interested, please pop on over to the thread linked below and help me iron out the details of my HQI/LED combo pendant. Light build Cheers! Link to comment
MGDMIRAGE Posted July 27, 2011 Share Posted July 27, 2011 Welcome back, can't wait to see more! Link to comment
SpringFever Posted April 28, 2012 Author Share Posted April 28, 2012 I can't believe it's been over a year since I've updated this thread with anything of substance. While I may not have been active on the board, I have been active on my new tank. I could blab on and on about what I've done, but why not just show you… I may string out the posts if they get too long. Let me know if you have any questions. Enjoy! Link to comment
rhoman Posted April 28, 2012 Share Posted April 28, 2012 Just a quick question: My 40b has a big sticker on the bottom panel stating that it's tempered, so I figured that I had to drill the back like everyone else. How did you get away with drilling the bottom? Link to comment
bdare Posted April 28, 2012 Share Posted April 28, 2012 Just a quick question: My 40b has a big sticker on the bottom panel stating that it's tempered, so I figured that I had to drill the back like everyone else. How did you get away with drilling the bottom? Different tank manufacturer? Link to comment
SpringFever Posted April 28, 2012 Author Share Posted April 28, 2012 Just a quick question: My 40b has a big sticker on the bottom panel stating that it's tempered, so I figured that I had to drill the back like everyone else. How did you get away with drilling the bottom? My tank is from the petco $/gallon sale. I checked the manufacturers website and it said the glass was not tempered. I am really glad I drilled the bottom because my tank now sits less than an inch away from the wall. What little room I lost in the tank I gained in my livingroom. Great looking scape. Thanks! I bought dry shelf rock from BRS and combined that with some rock from my old 20. The only major downer was that the dry rock had bryopsis spores on it. I didn't know this sh!t could live dormant for years in its spore state... now I have the pleasure of trying to kill this crap before it kills everything else. A gallon of Kent tech m showed up last week. Mag level today is at 1650. Burn baby burn! Link to comment
SpringFever Posted July 2, 2012 Author Share Posted July 2, 2012 This new tank has been challenging. I had assumed that transferring everything to a new, larger, better thought out tank would be a God-send. Not so. My battle with Bryopsis is finally over… It took more than 6 week of Mag levels in the 1700+ range to kill the stuff. Then, once it was dead, I had a GHA outbreak as a result of the Bryopsis die-off. I am now on the winning end of the GHA as a result of large water changes and GFO. In the midst of all of that, I had an Ich epidemic which killed all of my fish. My tank has been fallow for 7+ weeks now. I will start restocking next week. Part of me is very frustrated; however, a different part of me lives on this stuff. I like being presented a problem and having to figure out how to solve it. Despite all the algae and ich, my corals are looking better than ever. I switched to Kalk from a two part dosing which I think has done wonders. I don't know why, but proof is in the pudding. Color is great and growth has never been better. My Droid pictures don't do the tank justice, but here is a little show and tell. Bryopsis, you Sh!t eating bastage... My precious-es Link to comment
TeflonTomDosh Posted July 2, 2012 Share Posted July 2, 2012 What kind of coral is this? Link to comment
SpringFever Posted July 2, 2012 Author Share Posted July 2, 2012 What kind of coral is this? It is a Lobo brain. I found it in a crapy LFS's $10 section shrived, brown, and sad. 6 months later it sprouted two more mouths and turned an awesome purple/orange color. It is a gamble, but some of my best pieces have come out of similar situations. Thanks for asking! Link to comment
SpringFever Posted July 2, 2012 Author Share Posted July 2, 2012 I am very excited to announce the upcoming addition of a Yash pair and pistol shrimp companion. I just ordered this trio from the Divers Den. They should be arriving this Friday. Travel safe, my darlings! Forgot to copy the image location before it was taken off the site, but here is a single Yasha for reference: Next up I will be on the market for an interesting pair of Clowns. I really like Alardi/Clarki/Pink Skunk, but my wife is bonkers for the Perc variety... I think she will wind up winning this one as that is the only thing she has expressed an interest in. Happy Wife = Happy Life . small concession if you ask me... Link to comment
SpringFever Posted January 28, 2014 Author Share Posted January 28, 2014 Well hello again boys and girls. I figured I would resurrect my build thread from the dead with an update on my tank. It has been over a year since I’ve posted so why not start things off with some pics. I suck at photography in general and my phone takes really bad pictures with my new LED supplemental actinics, but hopefully you will see that things are going pretty well… FTS: Left Side top Left Side Bottom Middle The right side is hideous and I don't want to show a close-up. I went from Bryopsys to red turf algae. Let me tell you - i'll take bryopsys any F-ing day of the week. The turf algae is impossible. Absolutely impossible. No phosphates, no nitrates, no HA, no cyano, but nothing eats it, it won't pull off the rocks, and it won't die. Did I say it was impossible? If anybody has any suggestions, I am all ears. Please. The pictures above were taken after my halides turned off. I'll try and get another FTS up tomorrow when the full system is running. Major things to note would be the sustained growth and coloration of a few acro colonies. I was using Kalk for a while with decent results but my alk would fluctuate quite a bit. I switched to a ReefKeeper Light/BRS dosing pumps system and have been thrilled with it. My levels are bang-on 8dkh and 420ppm calc. The other major change I attribute improved color to was lighting. For a while i was running 2x 150w 20K radiums, 4x 24" T5 and 12x 3w royal blue cree LED. Color kind of sucked and growth was not happening. I thought maybe I had too much light over the tank and was experiencing photo inhibition. I reduced the photo period of my MH to 6hrs but nothing improved. Then I borrowed a par meter from an LFS. Boy was I wrong about having too much light! I was only getting ~200 par at the highest point directly under the halides. I lowered my fixture, increased the photo period of my halides to 8 hours (over a few weeks) and switched from 20K radiums to 10K XM bulbs. My par is now 460 at the highest point and colors are starting to brighten. I also made some minor system improvement in plumbing. At first, My plumbing was set up where the drain line split with the primary line draining into the skimmer section, and the secondary split over to the fuge. I re-plumbed the system to where my mag 9 supplies a manifold which drives my return, GFO/carbon reactors, and fuge supply. It really cleaned up the look of my pluming, kept me from adding another pump/heat for my reactors, and made tuning the herbie drain much easier. The only down side is that air gets fed into my GFO reactor whenever I fire the main pump. I don't think it's a big deal, but if you are considering a manifold like mine, make sure you consider that. There's probably more that's changed, but that's all i've got in me tonight. Thanks for reading! Link to comment
SpringFever Posted January 29, 2014 Author Share Posted January 29, 2014 Snapped a few photos today while the halides were on. Does anybody know of a good place to find nice SPS pieces? I have been shopping with DD but am not too thrilled with their selection lately... Link to comment
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