plainrt Posted July 24, 2015 Share Posted July 24, 2015 Tank is looking good and love the vaca photos. The turtle ones are amazing. I'm jealous Link to comment
dpoltsdsu Posted July 24, 2015 Author Share Posted July 24, 2015 Tank is looking good and love the vaca photos. The turtle ones are amazing. I'm jealous Thank you! I appreciate it, I'm enjoying every second of it! Link to comment
charnelhouse Posted July 24, 2015 Share Posted July 24, 2015 That's pretty wild. My dad and I go in the morning when there is groups out there so we are not alone. Did you see anything cool when you snorkled there? We have seen a ton of turtles the last couple of days. I have seen at least 10 each time I have gone Glad you had a good outing and a safe one It's pretty much a guarantee you're going to see cool stuff out there... haha. Lots of turtles and all of the usual Maui reef denizens. A few eels that I think were a type of Moray. We didn't see the shark, which made me super nervous being in the water. I'd have been better if I could see it and knew where it was. Coolest thing I have seen on any of my trips to Maui was a Spotted Eagle Ray. It was up at Black Rock. It came over a lava formation and glided down the face of it then across the bottom out into deeper water. It was probably 3 feet across and so graceful. Link to comment
dpoltsdsu Posted July 25, 2015 Author Share Posted July 25, 2015 Glad you had a good outing and a safe one It's pretty much a guarantee you're going to see cool stuff out there... haha. Lots of turtles and all of the usual Maui reef denizens. A few eels that I think were a type of Moray. We didn't see the shark, which made me super nervous being in the water. I'd have been better if I could see it and knew where it was. Coolest thing I have seen on any of my trips to Maui was a Spotted Eagle Ray. It was up at Black Rock. It came over a lava formation and glided down the face of it then across the bottom out into deeper water. It was probably 3 feet across and so graceful. I have also seen an Eagle Ray at black rock, they must frequent there. They are extremely graceful. I'm going to go out in the water again in the morning and try to photograph some White Tip Reef Sharks that apparently have been cruising the area in the morning! Link to comment
dpoltsdsu Posted July 25, 2015 Author Share Posted July 25, 2015 Thank you to everybody that recommended the back road to Hana. My family and I really appreciate it. I told my family about the recommendations from here and we decided to do it today. The drive was incredible and everybody had a good time. The scenery was some of the best I have ever seen. Pictures do it no justice. Here are some pictures from along the way "The Road to Paradise" Link to comment
dpoltsdsu Posted July 27, 2015 Author Share Posted July 27, 2015 We went out and explored the normal way to Hana for a bit today since the water was very choppy today. I think I got two pretty good pictures! My girlfriend texted me today and told me all is good with my tank back at home. On a side note, do you all think that dosing Kalk and doing a 20% water change would be sufficient in a tank with a future moderate bioload of SPS coral? Here are the pictures from today! Thanks for looking! Link to comment
dpoltsdsu Posted July 31, 2015 Author Share Posted July 31, 2015 I just got home, the tank sitter did an amazing job and the reef is looking good! I did a large 40% water change when I got home and everything in the tank seems to be doing well. Here is a FTS The SPS continue to grow and do well. The Digitata is rapidly encrusting while the Setosa has started to grow vertically. I am very pleased with how the SPS experiment has gone so far! The new Bam Bam's are also doing very well so far! I'm really liking the way the Briareum looks mounted on the side of the rocks. The first one I put there has started to encrust on the rock already and the second seems ready to start encrusting as well. I'm hoping they grow into an overhang on that side of the tank. The Clownfish and Flame Hawkfish are already spending a lot of time under the two small branches. Hope all is well with everybody Link to comment
dpoltsdsu Posted July 31, 2015 Author Share Posted July 31, 2015 Here are some growth pictures of the Acan and Montipora Setosa colonies First off is the Acan colony, I have been happy with growth so far. After moving the coral down off the rock work and increasing feedings, its growth has about doubled! May 7th, 2015 July 31st, 2015 Next is the Montipora Setosa. When I first got this coral, it was in pretty bad shape. It had dropped behind the rockwork at my lfs and the owner gave it to me for basically nothing. I put it very low in the tank and slowly moved it to a high flow and high light area. Since then, it has really colored up and begun to show some good encrustation and growth. Here are the pictures. May 28th, 2015 July 31st, 2015 Link to comment
dpoltsdsu Posted August 5, 2015 Author Share Posted August 5, 2015 The coral was looking good this evening so I took a couple pictures Zoas Briareum and Clove Polyps Duncan Coral Link to comment
HarryPotter Posted August 5, 2015 Share Posted August 5, 2015 The coral was looking good this evening so I took a couple pictures Zoas Briareum and Clove Polyps Duncan Coral WOw! Duncan Coral is insane- have you considered fragging it? I took a branch of my 15 head colony (not nearly as big as yours) with a dremel and got a nice 5 head frag that I'm planning on trading local Link to comment
dpoltsdsu Posted August 6, 2015 Author Share Posted August 6, 2015 WOw! Duncan Coral is insane- have you considered fragging it? I took a branch of my 15 head colony (not nearly as big as yours) with a dremel and got a nice 5 head frag that I'm planning on trading local Thanks! It's my favorite coral and has been going strong for about 2 and a half years. I've debated fragging it but I have decided I am not going to. I love the look of large colonies and I want to leave the coral as it is Link to comment
dpoltsdsu Posted August 6, 2015 Author Share Posted August 6, 2015 While cleaning the garage today I got an idea... I had an old tank sitting around with an old great stuff background on it and I think I could make it into a cool refugium/quarantine tank. However, if I set up a a second reef, I wanted it to be unique.. So the reef/rainforest tank has been born. The tank only holds about 3 and a half inches of water which totals out to about 6 gallons. However, these 6 gallons are spread out over a pretty big area. I plan on keeping 1 or 2 small and hardy saltwater fish in this section. Because of the fact the tank will hold both coral and live plants, I had to go for a lower spectrum. I ended up with 3 5500k led daylight bulbs from Home Depot. I know the lights will grow plants but they should be able to grow some soft coral as well. The lights seem to be extremely bright so it will be interesting to see how they grow coral. The plan is to have a reef area on the bottom with terrestrial plants that do not root attached to the background. I will also have a rock structure that comes out of the water in the middle with coral attached on the bottom and plants ttached to the top. If all goes to plan, the tank could turn into a very interesting contrast between land and sea. Here is the tank, I think the background actually turned out really good. I just put rock and sand in so the water is very sandy. Let then cycle begin.. I plan on adding more rock and plants later on in the week! Link to comment
Sk8n Reefer Posted August 6, 2015 Share Posted August 6, 2015 Catching up on your thread - looks like a great trip and the tank is looking really good ?. Great job on the sps- the growth patterns of sps are so unique and fun to see what directions they go - always a surprise! New tank set up looks promising for sure Link to comment
HarryPotter Posted August 6, 2015 Share Posted August 6, 2015 While cleaning the garage today I got an idea... I had an old tank sitting around with an old great stuff background on it and I think I could make it into a cool refugium/quarantine tank. However, if I set up a a second reef, I wanted it to be unique.. So the reef/rainforest tank has been born. The tank only holds about 3 and a half inches of water which totals out to about 6 gallons. However, these 6 gallons are spread out over a pretty big area. I plan on keeping 1 or 2 small and hardy saltwater fish in this section. Because of the fact the tank will hold both coral and live plants, I had to go for a lower spectrum. I ended up with 3 5500k led daylight bulbs from Home Depot. I know the lights will grow plants but they should be able to grow some soft coral as well. The lights seem to be extremely bright so it will be interesting to see how they grow coral. The plan is to have a reef area on the bottom with terrestrial plants that do not root attached to the background. I will also have a rock structure that comes out of the water in the middle with coral attached on the bottom and plants ttached to the top. If all goes to plan, the tank could turn into a very interesting contrast between land and sea. Here is the tank, I think the background actually turned out really good. I just put rock and sand in so the water is very sandy. Let then cycle begin.. I plan on adding more rock and plants later on in the week! Would there be any circulation of the water or filtration? You are plumbing it into your system? Killer idea- might be something amazing Link to comment
dpoltsdsu Posted August 6, 2015 Author Share Posted August 6, 2015 Would there be any circulation of the water or filtration? You are plumbing it into your system? Killer idea- might be something amazing Thank you! I appreciate it. I am going to add a smaller rock structure in the back left of the tank where I will hide a bag of carbon and a powerhead that will provide circulation. I also think this may be a perfect tank for mangroves so I will be adding a couple to the middle rock structure which will add a little bit of extra filtration. I'll probably only add a small Goby so hopefully the water stays decently clean. I have not done something like this and I haven't seen many of these done so it will definitely be a learning experience! Link to comment
dpoltsdsu Posted August 6, 2015 Author Share Posted August 6, 2015 First plant is in! A beautiful Moth Orchid, we'll see if I can get it to bloom again when the current bloom dies off! I'll be getting some lava rock this week. I think the black will contrast with the coral and rocks to make an interesting dynamic between the aquatic and terrestrial species. I plan on adding mangroves to the future lava rock island in the middle of the tank. The water has cleared up a bit, I'm going to add some circulation soon! Link to comment
dpoltsdsu Posted August 10, 2015 Author Share Posted August 10, 2015 The reef is doing great, the green Briareum is really taking off. Its beginning to look like a forest at the top of the tank. The refugium tank is also coming along nicely, I got a great deal on some lava rock today. I feel that the black lava rock will give the tank the tropical look I am going for. It has a long way to go but is getting there. I got 20 pounds of lava rock for a total of two dollars today. The rock is extremely porous as well so I think it may turn into some great live rock. Notice all the pores and holes in this rock Here is the tank after adding some live rock, I'm going to mess with it a bit more. I also got the first Bromeliad today. Hopefully it does well! FTS of Refugium (The water is dirty from all the sand being stirred from the rock) Link to comment
hinnenkm Posted August 10, 2015 Share Posted August 10, 2015 Wow, thank you for sharing! It will be exciting to see where the newest tank goes - it seems so unique and is an interesting concept ? Link to comment
dpoltsdsu Posted August 12, 2015 Author Share Posted August 12, 2015 Well I have some good and bad news. The bad news- The cool refugium tank has sprung a small leak on the bottom so I will be taking it down.. Fotunately I will be keeping all the lights and rock for it as they will be incorporated in my build which will start when I get my own home a couple of years down the line. The good- I purchased some more SPS from the lfs today. I bought two different small frags of Birdsnest coral, a Purple Polyp Birdsnest and a Neon Green Birdsnest and a frag of Purple Stylophora. All of the SPS are on the same rock and are all getting heavy flow and high light. Hopefully they do well! Link to comment
dpoltsdsu Posted August 13, 2015 Author Share Posted August 13, 2015 Here are the new additions! Neon Green Birdsnest Purple Stylophora and Purple Polyp Birdsnest (Sorry for the bad quality, my phones zoom isn't the best) FTS Link to comment
NanoFever Posted August 13, 2015 Share Posted August 13, 2015 I don't know what looks better Maui or your tank! Nice pics! Link to comment
dpoltsdsu Posted August 13, 2015 Author Share Posted August 13, 2015 Thank you! I really do appreciate it Link to comment
charnelhouse Posted August 13, 2015 Share Posted August 13, 2015 Where are you going for your corals? I'm partial to Aquatic Warehouse, but ASD has a LOT of nice stuff. Priced accordingly in many cases though. Link to comment
dpoltsdsu Posted August 13, 2015 Author Share Posted August 13, 2015 I've purchased corals from both, I've had good results from aqua sd. I get a lot of corals from amazing reefs and aquariums in Orange County. I've been home for the summer so I've been in the oc a lot. Link to comment
charnelhouse Posted August 13, 2015 Share Posted August 13, 2015 I've purchased corals from both, I've had good results from aqua sd. I get a lot of corals from amazing reefs and aquariums in Orange County. I've been home for the summer so I've been in the oc a lot. Ahhh.... I need to get up there and do a tour. Good excuse to ride the Sporty too Link to comment
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