An addicted reefer chic's 40B w/ GHL Mitras & 2x30g display fuges

[MeanGreenEyes]

Happy Holidays everyone!

Hooked up the continuous feeder yesterday...corals are loving it!! I was impatient and just set one of those little shelves bridged between the 40B and top 30G to set the mini fridge/pump above the tank. Shhh...lol. I'll fix it as soon as I find a viable non-ugly/ghetto solution.

The "Pappone" is being fed through one line and I mixed a small amount of Kent Marine Zoe and some AlgaGen Coral Smoothie in the second line for now.

[MeanGreenEyes]

Love this chalice under actinics...

With flash...

[Spirofucci]

Merry belated Christmas Mean Greeny!

 

Glad to hear your Coke machine contraption is working!!! How bout some pics???

[MeanGreenEyes]

Merry belated Christmas Mean Greeny!

 

Glad to hear your Coke machine contraption is working!!! How bout some pics???

 

Thank you, Spiro! Hope you had a Merry Christmas and have a Happy New Year!

 

I will get some pics as soon as I get the chance. Lights are out at the moment. Did a rescape of the center and left side of the tank and fragged everything in my tanks for a local reefer that lost everything in her tank from Hurricane Sandy...so the tank looks extra sh*tty right now with frags all over the sandbed and ghetto egg crate frag racks until I can get them to her.

 

Off topic... but feeling down and about to dye my hair...can't decide if I want to go red again or black or half and half with the under layer being black...help me decide, Nano-Reef...

[Spirofucci]

Happy New Year Mean Greeny!

 

What did you do to your hair? All I ever use is Grecian Formula on mine.

[MeanGreenEyes]

Happy New Year Mean Greeny!

 

What did you do to your hair? All I ever use is Grecian Formula on mine.

 

Thank you!

 

And OMG...I'm scurrrred as h3ll! Just stepped out of the shower after dying it half red/half black and glanced at my laptop while asking how the manchild's day was b/c he just walked in from work...haven't even dried it and seen the results yet.

 

I've never done anything this crazy before. New year...birthday coming in Jan...was in an adventurous mood, etc. I also cut my long a$$ hair...well more like trimmed...but it feels like a lot...

 

Oh and I'm thinking about picking up a 120g for my living room as a birthday present to myself...fml...the manchild will kill me...it wouldn't be a upgrade...it would be a second system so that I could keep my beloved yellow tang long term. He keeps looking at me with those lil' puppy eyes...I hate the thought of rehoming him. Idk...still debating. A local female reefer friend wants him to help her restock after losing everything to Hurricane Sandy...so I know he'd go to a long term loving home in her 155g.

 

Gotta run and hope I didn't destroy my hair...lol...sorry for the ramble...nervous as sh*t!!!

 

Happy New Year to you and Mrs. Spiro! Gotta catch up on your thread when I get a chance...haven't been getting any email notifications for my subscribed threads since the site update. Been super busy, too. Hope your addition is going smoothly. And DRILL that d@mn tank! Have Mrs. Spiro do it!!! lol

[metrokat]

Happy New YEar you rocker chick! With your eyes, red looked great, and black will too. I wish I knew how to do my eyes like you, but then you have those mean greens so they really need no enhancement. I hope you have a wonderful 2013, we should celebrate our January birthdays together.

[MeanGreenEyes]

Haven't updated in a while because I've been really busy and also because I'm pissed at my tank. I've been having problems with my ato since the morning of the swap. To top it off my aqualifter pump for the ato just stopped working...haven't had time to pick up a replacement so I've been topping off manually in the am and pm.

Since my system goes through 2.5g a day...the salinity has been fluctuating of course. I lost my Ora Scripps acro colony, but only that piece. Every single other piece of coral is doing amazing...setosa, pearlberry, purple tabling acro, garf bonsai, birdsnests other SPS, lps, softies and macro algae too. I haven't found any pests in the tank.

Just posting to keep track of my params to figure out a dosing regimen for my tank. Need to get everything automated again asap b/c I don't have time to sit and babysit the tank. Ordered the replacement diaphragm from Amazon Prime so that I can get it within two days. I guess I could hook up a maxijet, but I like the aqualifter's ability to top off in smaller increments since I put kalk in my ato.

Haven't had time to do a water change since 12/31...have some water mixing to do one tonight. Carbon and gfo were changed on the 31st as well. Skimmer is working great. Don't know what else it could be unless it was the fluctuation in salinity, and if it was...why would it only affect that one piece? Don't have any pest algae problems, either.

Out of Nitrate and Phosphate kits...gotta order more. So I only tested Cal, Alk and Mg with the Red Sea Pro kits.

RODI TDS: 0

PH: 8.2

Salinity: 1.024

Temp: 78.6

Cal: 455

Alk: 9.2

Mg: 1320

What's the easiest way to figure out my dosing requirements? Specific time of day that is better to test? Right before and/or after water changes? How often should I be testing for this purpose?

Oh and I forgot to mention...I've been dosing kalk in the ato since the ato was set up at 1tsp/gal of ato reservoir...so at half dose. Will I need to stop dosing kalk to figure out requirements? Whenever I start dosing is it ok to continue with the with kalk in the ato?

[ZephNYC]

Hey Meangreen,

Sorry I havnt been keeping up. Dont take it personally though, I dont keep up with anyones thread, barely even my own. However I though you might like this new Crimson nps gorg. The ones behind it are you typical red gorg's but the front center one is breathtaking!!

 

[ZephNYC]

 

Haven't updated in a while because I've been really busy and also because I'm pissed at my tank. I've been having problems with my ato since the morning of the swap. To top it off my aqualifter pump for the ato just stopped working...haven't had time to pick up a replacement so I've been topping off manually in the am and pm.

Since my system goes through 2.5g a day...the salinity has been fluctuating of course. I lost my Ora Scripps acro colony, but only that piece. Every single other piece of coral is doing amazing...setosa, pearlberry, purple tabling acro, garf bonsai, birdsnests other SPS, lps, softies and macro algae too. I haven't found any pests in the tank.

Just posting to keep track of my params to figure out a dosing regimen for my tank. Need to get everything automated again asap b/c I don't have time to sit and babysit the tank. Ordered the replacement diaphragm from Amazon Prime so that I can get it within two days. I guess I could hook up a maxijet, but I like the aqualifter's ability to top off in smaller increments since I put kalk in my ato.

Haven't had time to do a water change since 12/31...have some water mixing to do one tonight. Carbon and gfo were changed on the 31st as well. Skimmer is working great. Don't know what else it could be unless it was the fluctuation in salinity, and if it was...why would it only affect that one piece? Don't have any pest algae problems, either.

Out of Nitrate and Phosphate kits...gotta order more. So I only tested Cal, Alk and Mg with the Red Sea Pro kits.

RODI TDS: 0

PH: 8.2

Salinity: 1.024

Temp: 78.6

Cal: 455

Alk: 9.2

Mg: 1320

What's the easiest way to figure out my dosing requirements? Specific time of day that is better to test? Right before and/or after water changes? How often should I be testing for this purpose?

Oh and I forgot to mention...I've been dosing kalk in the ato since the ato was set up at 1tsp/gal of ato reservoir...so at half dose. Will I need to stop dosing kalk to figure out requirements? Whenever I start dosing is it ok to continue with the with kalk in the ato?

 

Nobody can acurately determine this for you. Dose HALF of what you THINK you need and up your kalk to 2 tsp per galllon and measure every few days for dkh and calcium. Let kalk run your system, and supplement it if necassary. You prolly wont need to dose any calcium chloride at all and just a little buffer. Maybe not even that if you like a dkh of 7.9 - 8.

[MeanGreenEyes]

Love the color of the gorg...just purchased a red base/yellow polyp nps gorg a few days ago.

 

 

In regards to a tank update...

 

 

New additions that I bought from Coral Theory for my birthday...

This last acro came with this adorable acro crab...

[MeanGreenEyes]

Cell phone pic of the top macro fuge...

 

 

[metrokat]

Happy Birthday!!!

[Spirofucci]

Yep, happy birfday!

 

Sexy fuge you got there Meanie!

[MeanGreenEyes]

Happy Birthday!!!

 

Thanks Kat...same to you. Snag any corals for your Birthday? Hope all is well with the tank. Haven't had time to follow up on everybody's threads and have some reading to do.

Yep, happy birfday!

 

Sexy fuge you got there Meanie!

 

Thanks, Spiro! How's the tank? Have gotta sit down and actually try to take pics so you can actually see stuff instead of a sea of blue...

[Spirofucci]

I used to consider myself a pretty good photographer back in the day. You probably never heard of this, but they had this stuff called 35mm film. It was kind of a hassel, because after you took pictures, you had to take it someplace to get it developed. But the pics always came out good.

 

Now a days, it's frigg'n impossible to get a decent pic of a tank. I just don't get it.

 

I just got my second tank on line. Gonna be a display fuge, hopefully half a sexy as yours.

[MeanGreenEyes]

I used to consider myself a pretty good photographer back in the day. You probably never heard of this, but they had this stuff called 35mm film. It was kind of a hassel, because after you took pictures, you had to take it someplace to get it developed. But the pics always came out good.

 

Now a days, it's frigg'n impossible to get a decent pic of a tank. I just don't get it.

 

I just got my second tank on line. Gonna be a display fuge, hopefully half a sexy as yours.

lmfao...80's baby here. I know exactly what 35mm film is...ugh that shizzz sucked. Once I nurse my DT back to health after my neglect for the last month...I'm gonna have a photographer friend stop by and take pics for frags. I have 2 friend's offering to teach me but I just haven't had the time. Plus, I need to upgrade camera's and well let's face it...reefing stuff or camera??? I'll take reefing stuff...camera...ahhh...one day.

 

Ohhh...effff...forgot about that. I'm sure it'll be amazing...look at your freakin' DT! Gonna have to read up on your thread asap and you better have pics up. How long has it been online?

[Spirofucci]

lmfao...80's baby here. I know exactly what 35mm film is...ugh that shizzz sucked. Once I nurse my DT back to health after my neglect for the last month...I'm gonna have a photographer friend stop by and take pics for frags. I have 2 friend's offering to teach me but I just haven't had the time. Plus, I need to upgrade camera's and well let's face it...reefing stuff or camera??? I'll take reefing stuff...camera...ahhh...one day.

 

Ohhh...effff...forgot about that. I'm sure it'll be amazing...look at your freakin' DT! Gonna have to read up on your thread asap and you better have pics up. How long has it been online?

LOL, new tanks been online for two days.......

[MeanGreenEyes]

LOL, new tanks been online for two days.......

Wow...only 2? Gotta run but I'm gonna read up on your thread later...promise. Have missed talking to everybody...

[MeanGreenEyes]

New Ora Grube's gorg from Coral Theory...haven't decided it's permanent placement so I just plopped it onto my blue ochtodes for the time being.

Couple other pics...

Purple tabling acro from the swap encrusted onto my overflow...

Rastas

Little island rock...

Continuous feeder setup

Setosa

There's like 3 or 4 baby Yuma's on that rock too...

Not even going to bother fragging the Ora Scripps and green and purple Digi's that STN'd from the A.T.O. B.S. there is a lot of polyp extension on them now so I'm just going to let it grow over and let nature take it's course. All of my birdsnests have a lot of new growth.

I've also decided to setup a "2nd system" which will be around 120/125g in my living room sooner than later for a certain reason. I love the deep blue frag tanks but it's just not big enough for what my fish need long term. Already started discussions with a couple of friend's. Everybody is pushing for a 150/180 but I don't know if I'm comfortable taking the risk in a 6th fl apartment. This may be custom because I want shallow, but not too shallow. I also don't want to have to dive into the tank for regular maintenance so a deep tank isn't an option. It will also end up being Mitras lit...most definitely.

[iPhone]

Made some Pappone for the freezer with some scrap egg crate, a baking sheet coated w/ wax paper and some plastic clamps since the recipe makes way more than I can use for my system before it spoils in the fridge. Was able to make the cubes a little more uniform by tamping down the baking sheet and by using a small offset spatula.

 

What is that?

[PodRod]

Wow - Your macro fuge looks better than most display tanks and the acro crab is a score. For some reason I really like those guys. Amazing corals you have!

[MeanGreenEyes]

What is that?

 

 

This...

 

There's also some info with the links below of the "pappone recipe" It's an Italian coral food, that's had amazing results. I'm doing it. It was an excellent read! I will also alter the recipe a tad, by adding some sodium alginate powder to help keep the food suspended to prevent settling. (It's used to for caviar/spheres) So I will be using that, instead of oysterfeast. Of I will be culturing my own phyto to feed in the 2nd channel, as it's a dual channel pump.

 

Going to be trying this in the continuous feeder...ran into a very interesting read on it...

 

Here: http://reefcentral.net/forums/showthread.php?t=971190

 

And after the split here: http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1074951

 

"Pappone" Recipe Italian Coral Food (Updated 12/20/2006)

 

Materials:

5 Oysters

5 Mussels

5 Clams

5 Shrimp (NOT cocktail shrimp, the big scampi type w/o the head and the shell)

1 Tablespoon of Sugar

200 mL of RO/DI water

10 g of Red Algae (Palmaria palmata; Bisck uses Julian Sprung's brand)

and/or 10 g of Spirulina, 10 g of Nori (spirulina is what Bisck prefers)

 

Methods: Make SURE that all ingredients are the freshest possible and DO NOT use frozen foods (unless it is impossible for you). Make sure everything "live" is rinsed and cleaned before putting it into the blender. Put all the ingredients into the blender and blend for 5 min, wait 2 min for it to cool, 5 more min blending, 2 min of waiting again, then finally another 5 min of blending (the pausing is so that the solution doesn't get too hot and "cook" from the heat of the blender/blades). Pour into cube forms (approx 10 mL each). Then freeze it all—you want to minimize how long everything is at room temperature.

 

Wow - Your macro fuge looks better than most display tanks and the acro crab is a score. For some reason I really like those guys. Amazing corals you have!

 

Thank you! I love the little acro crab...he looks like a little ninja.

[MeanGreenEyes]

New goodies from Coral Theory...

One head frag of these ...

This pic is the worst lol...but lights were already turning down for the night...the colors in the above pic are definitely true to life...started glowing as soon as it went into the tank and before it was even fully open. Love it!

and a Blueberry gorg...I am in love with NPS as much as SPS right now...I started getting polyp extension on this within minutes of being in the tank...

Some other pics:

"Continuous feeder makes us happy" lol

Growth on my monti's on the back right corner of the 40...pink and purple grown from 1" frags...

Still loving the feeder/Pappone...

Lavender sponges in my red titan macro's...

[metrokat]

Is that the little frag of red titan we traded? Mine have pink sponges, they're pretty cool.