Mark's 40B and 46 bow

[markalot]

The death machine ?

 

Is fine, of course. You're talking about the wall frogspawn on the left or the anemone? I thought anything the anemone touched would be dead, but so far nothing. It's actually touching the forest fire digitata but no sign of any damage.

[metrokat]

You sure it's a nem and not somebody pretending to be a nem?

[markalot]

You sure it's a nem and not somebody pretending to be a nem?

 

Yea, it's a bubble tip. It's moved a little to the left and seems to be set for a while. Going to move the corals that I can move over the next two nights. Right now an Alveopora is brushing against it, again with no ill effects.

 

It's interesting what a mere 4 days of no light will do. Most of the LPS show no change, but the birdsnests are bleached now because I neglected to dim the lights when turning them back on. The green monti is a little lighter, but the red and purple show little change. Milli's are a little bleached and showing no polyp extension, The Plum Crazy Acro has a little STN and browned out, big time.

 

The chaeto in my mini fuge showed little dieback, but the feather calerpa lost about a third of its mass ... and frankly this is probably what is causing some of the SPS issues, a big nutrient spike due to the die off. I've done a couple of 10% changes ... not really sweating it.

 

Once again I have to go ahead to upgrade, this time replacing the 46 with a 65 gallon. I need to get rid of this bowfront, it's horrible to keep the glass clean or take any clear pictures of the coral. Initial plan is transfer everything to a 40 gallon rubbermaid tub, move the 46 out and the 65 in, then carefully restock. I have to think about this carefully because I would like to try and keep any new tank pest free and yet not lose any of my fish or corals.

[markalot]

Snapshot time.

 

40 looking ok. Some color loss from the low alk and high salinity, but not so bad.

 

 

My new random acro frags are doing well. No sign of AEFW and both have decent color. The reddish one is growing rapidly.

 

 

 

The 46 is a little worse for wear. The birds are bleached and the montis have lost some vibrance. The green torch is getting huge. The nem has set up near the middle of the tank, behind the duncans and right over my alveopora.

 

[RollaJase]

Everything is looking really good Mark. I love both your tanks, particularly the SPS dominated 40.

[markalot]

Everything is looking really good Mark. I love both your tanks, particularly the SPS dominated 40.

 

Hi, thanks.

 

I bought two fish and two coral frags yesterday after visiting my LFS. Got a Blue Damsel for the 40, to replace the long lost Blue Chromis. I needed a fish that could hold its own with the sixline. They had a discussion and after a few standoffs seemed to come to an agreement that they will ignore each other.

 

For my little 20 I bought a Yellow Banded Possum Wrasse. The store has had this guy for over a month, no one wanted him. I think it's a nice fit to go with all the other small peaceful fish in the 20. I also found a small blue hammer that was sitting at the bottom of their frag tank. $5 because ti was so small. Now sitting on the frag rack in the 40. I also spotted what appeared to be a green and blue polyp something, maybe a birdsnest, maybe a stylophora. My luck it will turn into something I already have, but it looked good.

 

So I had my hands in the tanks yesterday ...

 

. Mounted the acros in the 40

. Trimmed the big bird which was starting to shade some corals again

. Moved the German Blue digitata to the 46 (I mounted an acro where it once was)

. Fragged the Bird of Paradise and mounted it in the 46 to replace the bleached Big Bird frag.

. Moved my tiny frag of ORA orange digitata into the 46, it was not doing well in the 40.

. Discarded my ORA Plumb Crazy frag. Between the AEFW attack and 4 days without light it had pretty much died.

. Turned up both WP25 pumps in the 46 to full speed. They need cleaning and flow has been reduced. I have a nice random back and forth flow in there now.

 

 

So now on to the lights. I've had it with the T5 in the 40. Unless I feed like crazy every day my corals tend to bleach out, but not my two acro frags up on the frag rack, upper left, getting fairly low par. I removed all ATI bulbs except for a single blue+

 

--front--

AquaticLife Blue

AquaticLife Purple

ATI Blue+

AquaticLife 10K

AquaticLife Purple

Actinic

--back--

 

Based on previous measurements with these bulbs, for every ATI bulb removed this will drop PAR by about 20. Due to the addition of the 10K it looks brighter to the eye, but the PAR measurement will be lower.

[markalot]

Blue Damsel is dead. Ate the first day, breathing heavy the second, snail food the third. One of the risks of running wothout QT, there's always a first. Watching the other fish carefully but no signs of any stress.

My cheap frag purchases over the weekend at the LFS near home.

 

This was laying at the bottom of their frag tank. For near free I took it to see if it maintained the blueish tint.

My luck this is yet another green bird, but the blue polyps struck me as different so I picked it up.

 

Possibly another green Poci. I already have one, but it's refused to give me much green, so I wanted to try another.

Took a chance on this "green" acro. It has hints of blue so hopefully it will color up to something besides a green stick.

[markalot]

Yellowtail Damsel survived the night. Little guy, using the big bird for cover. He's made peace with everyone except the Midas Blenny.

 

32 pictures taken, 2 decent but not great shots.

 

 

[Felicia]

What a pretty fish! They're underrated

[Arkayology]

32 pictures taken, 2 decent but not great shots.

Typical lol

[markalot]

Rescaped the 40 tonight, always a fun time. I only broke a few things. My goal was to get the monti caps in back or on the side, better visibility of some of my corals, and to start moving acros back into the front, including the green slimer.

 

FTS. Got every fish in the photo.

 

 

My Reef Gardener Apple Berry monti.

 

 

I still haven't trimmed the slimer.

 

 

Newer dark green acro.

 

 

I thought sure I killed this but no, it comes back, now with 2 dead spots. :|

 

 

2 birdsnest I don't know what to do with. Neither has shown great color, but the one on the left (ORA green tip bird) is probably the better of the two.

 

[Felicia]

Gorgeous new photos! Your corals all looks so happy right now! That photo of the slimer with the yellow tang in the background is amazing

[markalot]

Gorgeous new photos! Your corals all looks so happy right now! That photo of the slimer with the yellow tang in the background is amazing

 

Thanks.

[GtTap]

Man you tank looks good so much color wish i can get this picture taking thing down.

[markalot]

Man you tank looks good so much color wish i can get this picture taking thing down.

 

Yea, it's tough and I still haven't gotten it down yet. Thanks for the compliment.

[GtTap]

Have you ever tried bare bottom.

[markalot]

Have you ever tried bare bottom.

 

Nope. I like the look of sand. The 40 has a pretty course grain and I stir and gravel vac each water change, removing thick brown muck. I try to move my rocks around every few months just to stir things up. Even if not rescaping I'll 'twist and shake' to put some muck in the water column. This is going to get a lot harder as the corals become larger.

 

The beauty of bare bottom is you can see and remove any detritus easily during a water change, but you miss out on all the critters that live in the sand. I have thousands of worms in the sand, always reaching out with feeders to grab food.

[GtTap]

Yea my sand is large grain too but thats my issue with the detritus building up right against the rocks then getting stuck under them i was going to do a remote sand bed in my sump in a plastic container about 6" high in like a 4x4 jug.

[Arkayology]

Nice pics Mark!

[markalot]

Nice pics Mark!

 

Thanks!

[markalot]

Nothing exciting going on.

 

I bought a second 32 gallon can for RO/DI water. I felt some discomfort in the legs whenever I lifted my 7 gallon containers after filling with RO/DI so it was time. Took all day to make about 50 gallons of water, both cans filled, then made up some salt for much needed water changes in all three tanks. Gravel vacced the 40 ... yummy smelly goodness.

 

I cleaned out the HOB refugium on the 40 and released some hair algae scum into the tank. This is apparently a delicacy for the tang who proceeded to eat it all up while crapping at the same time. I believe this explains why the tang in my 40 is so much healthier looking than the one in my 46. I most likely have a lot of hair algae growth that he grazes on. Unfortunately I am planning on taking the tang in the 46 back to the LFS, along with the purple terror, when I change tanks ...

 

And yes, the current plan is to switch out the 46 for a 45 gallon tall and skinny tank. 36"L x 13"W x 24"H It will look good in that spot and be much easier to keep the front glass clean. I am not looking forward to putting everything in buckets or a large 40 gallon tub during the move, especially the anemone. There is still a 25% I won't do anything except remove enough of the rock to catch and return both fish. We shall see.

 

In coral news ... My green hairy acro is getting a nice turquoise growth tip. I've got my fingers crossed it will be something besides another giant green stick.

[markalot]

Hunting around for pictures of 45 gallon reef tanks and I find this.

 

 

From this blog page a few years back.

 

http://sandjwootton.blogspot.com/2011/11/above-is-new-picture-of-justins-45.html

 

Look at the monti and the birdsnest mounted near the top of the tank, back wall. Pretty darn cool.

[markalot]

A few pics I took, snapshot quality. Pumps are all on and these are hand held, so nothing spectacular. I played around with a smaller aperture and kept speed at 80+, then used Raw Therapee and a different de-mosaicing algorithm designed for high ISO pics. The raw files are very noisy but after processing they look damn good. ISO was on auto and ranged from 1600 to 3200.

 

My undata is coloring up nicely.

 

The reddish acro might be getting redder, but still looks like a turd. The green fuzzy has a nice turquoise growing tip, but does not show up well in a photo.

 

 

Shot of the two birds in back. The green is rapidly crowding out the BOP.

 

[RollaJase]

Nice shots Mark, I think I'm going to give Raw Therapee a try myself, never heard of it before.

[markalot]

Nice shots Mark, I think I'm going to give Raw Therapee a try myself, never heard of it before.

 

Not as easy to use as LightRoom, but free. In Lightroom you pay for all the shortcuts added to make most of this much easier. It's probably worth it but I'm not a fan of subscriptions or the $149 full price.