Mark's 150 (NanoBox Retro)

[markalot]

Added the first new acro in almost a year.  15 minute dip in 25% Bayer followed by 5 rinses, scraping with a scalpel, and superglue around parts of the base that I didn't like.

 

This is a Cali Tort, another funky staghorn like coral.  I had one a long time back.

 

What dip?

 

 

 

Brownie is getting another chance.  This one never colored up and has lived in the sump for a year.  Rugged beast, though it has receded significantly while down there under a cheap LED strip.  Can I color it up this time?

 

The larger frag of my beloved Lokani

 

Frags #3 and #4 of the Katropora.  100 and 125 PAR over here and look at it.  

 

 

Crazy bird, going everywhere, likes to really color up in lower light.

 

Rainbow Acan finally recovering.  Really suffered under low calcium, more so than the acros.  This started to die off prior to me losing the pretty red and yellow acro but I ignored it, thinking it was a food issue.

 

 

 

Finally, my Superman shrooms are reproducing.  Dream tank would be acros up top, these everywhere else.  Done!

[markalot]

2 more new corals.

 

Red Planet ON one of those damn ORA plugs.  I'm 0 for 3 so far, this one for sure?

 

Pink Lemonade, or something close.  

 

Both dipped, scraped, but no super glue.  Risky risky.   Both showed good polyp extension an hour after adding to the tank.

 

I did my first large scale fragging.

 

I cut up the big Katropora for the first time ever.  Kind of an emotional experience lol, I'm such a sap.   The nearby store can hopefully keep it good looking enough to sell.  They've sold half the slimer so far.   I also got rid of a reddish acro I could never get beyond a boring red/white combo and removed a big piece of the blue tipped stag because the damn thing is growing faster than the slimer, I swear.  Branches are skinnier and it already made it to the surface.    

 

The goal is to get enough space for the new acros but it's going to take a few weeks to chop, scoot, and re-arrange.  

 

[Andreww]

2 hours ago, markalot said:

2 more new corals.

 

Red Planet ON one of those damn ORA plugs.  I'm 0 for 3 so far, this one for sure?

 

Pink Lemonade, or something close.    

 

Hi Mark, glad to hear your tank is as good as ever. 

Ever tried the ORA green planet?

I m not sure if you want another green in there but it could look good on the right side of the tank opposite of the slimer.

Here’s one of my frags. Forest green with lime tips.

Very fuzzy once acclimated. Not milli fuzzy😌

[Andreww]

And here a picture from the R2R forum.

 

[markalot]

8 hours ago, Andreww said:

And here a picture from the R2R forum.

 

 

Thanks for the idea.  They had one, I'm just not into more green.  At least not at the moment.  I'm looking for more blue / purple / and the combos.  I may have picked up a yellow which should fit in nicely as well.

 

The green planet was a nice bright green at the store, more robust than the red planet, so I can see why people like them.

 

I will probably do a small Battlecorals in January if we have some decent weather, or possibly @Cultivated Reef since I've always gotten great corals from them.  My Red Robin is from CR and they have the Vivid rainbow delight which has the cool color combo I'm looking for, but can be difficult.  

 

This unknown that took me a year to color up is my current favorite, and with more time might be the right color combo.

 

Something like this from JBNY's tank

 

 

 

[markalot]

Ordered Orange Passion and Vivid Rainbow Delight from Cultivated Reef.  No clue when it can be shipped, might have to wait until early next year.

[markalot]

Corals arrived from @Cultivated Reef 

 

Orange Passion

 

Vivid's Rainbow Delight

[slowngreen]

How often do you have to trim to avoid warfare?

[mitten_reef]

Really nice list of new additions so far on this page. Any pics of the red planet and pink lemonade frags mentioned earlier?

 

and as always wonderful pics.  👍

[Andreww]

12 minutes ago, markalot said:

Corals arrived from @Cultivated Reef 

 

Orange Passion

 

Vivid's Rainbow Delight

Will wait to see what kind of colors you can pull out of these 2.

Im sure you won’t disappoint 😁

[markalot]

18 minutes ago, slowngreen said:

How often do you have to trim to avoid warfare?

Daily?  I rarely trim and most acros are fighting.  :)  It's stressful really, with the slimer reduced the Miami Orchid has exploded in growth and needs trimmed today ... if I get to it.  This weekend for sure, or at least by the end of the month.  Maybe.   

 

14 minutes ago, micoastreefing said:

Really nice list of new additions so far on this page. Any pics of the red planet and pink lemonade frags mentioned earlier?

 

and as always wonderful pics.  👍

 

I've had two Alk swings, 6.0 to 6.5 and recently 5.8 to 7.2 (oops).  Acros seem rather oblivious to swings as long as the end result is 7 or under but I suspect I would have some better colors with steadier Alk.  Already down to 6.8.  So much for reducing 2 part usage by removing the slimer!

 

Cali tort is now growing fast, needs to be 'planted'.

 

Red Planet doesn't look super healthy yet but is encrusting the frag rack.

 

The possible Pink Lemonade is showing some red.

 

The white tips shocked me, I don;t have any other acro with tips this white.  The fast new growth is also a bit annoying.  Want to buy slow acros!

[markalot]

Some crappy quick shots of the tank.

 

 

I hacked the ends off the Katroporas and just like that, before you can even tell the scars are covered with skin, new tips appear.

 

 

Slimer coming back fast, I need to get in there and do another significant trim.

 

 

 

[Andreww]

Tank is looking phenomenal but it’s not the same without the slimer😄

That green was really popping and everyone knew it’s your tank when they saw the slimer haha

But I understand it can get annoying trimming it down constantly and it growing into other corals.

[teenyreef]

Nice additions Mark! I can't wait to see them color up. 

[markalot]

Hands in the tank again, this time to continue the re-arranging and chopping of some of the larger corals.  It was all I could do, with both hands, to cut the purple stylo.  Super impressive how thick and solid the branches are.

 

 

This gives me enough room for a few smaller frags.   I'm thinking how I can get more space, but done for now.

 

I also rescued all the corals I wanted to rescue in here.   One acro, one monti cap, and a Duncan.  I don;t hold out much hope for the acro, but it's a tough one so who knows.

 

This is a blue / blue green unknown that got infested with those v? snails and then shaded out by just about everything.   I chopped off all the living parts, scraped pieces of purple cap off of it, then dipped in literally a 75% Bayer solution to kill everything on it.   There was some breakage so I ended up with two frags.  This one is a collection of broken bits.

 

 

Polyps.  lol.  I've had small bits like this RTN overnight so I'm not too confident in it's survival.

 

The other piece is the base and there does appear to be more polyps on it. 

 

Superglue artwork. 

 

Next is a green polyp brown or purple monti cap.  Shaded by the big purple stylo.  This was the only section I could find that was still alive.  

 

This Duncan somehow survived the orange mushroom assault, falling between two rocks and apparently getting just enough light to survive.

 

The tenuis is still alive.  lol

 

 

[teenyreef]

The tank looks great, and nice saves! I've had the same experience with gluing tiny frags like that too. I have one that broke off from my bubblebath unicorn. Instead of gluing it, I just dropped it into the little cup I have with rubble rock (for attaching mushroom frags) in the frag tank. It doesn't get much light but I'm hoping it will at least grow enough to glue it to a plug.

 

So far so good, it's survived for a week!

 

My purple stylo is the same - very thick and getting very large. I may try draining enough water to get it in the air, and then going after it with an oscillating saw.

 

Have you ever seen if vermetid snails are killed by Bayer? I can't recall if I've specifically tried it.

[markalot]

32 minutes ago, teenyreef said:

Have you ever seen if vermetid snails are killed by Bayer? I can't recall if I've specifically tried it.

I have not, just hoping it does since it seems to kill everything else.  I don't understand why this coral was so susceptible to those snails .. I've seen them on other acros but usually they die off pretty quickly.  It may have been the shading.  

[teenyreef]

30 minutes ago, markalot said:

I have not, just hoping it does since it seems to kill everything else.  I don't understand why this coral was so susceptible to those snails .. I've seen them on other acros but usually they die off pretty quickly.  It may have been the shading.  

Hopefully it will. Theoretically it will kill anything with a nervous system.

[Tamberav]

I had one of those nasty snails in my Oregon tort and I dipped in in Bayer...snail alive and well after a few days...

 

It ended up killing the coral around where it lives. I even tried cutting it out of the coral and a piece must have survived as it came back again!! 

 

I hope you have better luck...maybe it survived because it was inside the coral and not enough Bayer got in it's tiny hole.

 

1 hour ago, teenyreef said:

The tank looks great, and nice saves! I've had the same experience with gluing tiny frags like that too. I have one that broke off from my bubblebath unicorn. Instead of gluing it, I just dropped it into the little cup I have with rubble rock (for attaching mushroom frags) in the frag tank. It doesn't get much light but I'm hoping it will at least grow enough to glue it to a plug.

 

So far so good, it's survived for a week!

 

My purple stylo is the same - very thick and getting very large. I may try draining enough water to get it in the air, and then going after it with an oscillating saw.

 

Have you ever seen if vermetid snails are killed by Bayer? I can't recall if I've specifically tried it.

 

1 hour ago, markalot said:

I have not, just hoping it does since it seems to kill everything else.  I don't understand why this coral was so susceptible to those snails .. I've seen them on other acros but usually they die off pretty quickly.  It may have been the shading.  

 

[teenyreef]

13 hours ago, Tamberav said:

I had one of those nasty snails in my Oregon tort and I dipped in in Bayer...snail alive and well after a few days...

 

It ended up killing the coral around where it lives. I even tried cutting it out of the coral and a piece must have survived as it came back again!! 

 

I hope you have better luck...maybe it survived because it was inside the coral and not enough Bayer got in it's tiny hole.

 

 

 

I had the same problem with my Hairworms from Hell. They would get so deep into the cracks in the rock that the Bayer did nothing. Although I never tried leaving them in for more than 15 minutes. Maybe a longer soak would have gotten them. 

[markalot]

Still alive ... I'm stunned, and it's coloring back up.   Still not out of the woods by any means, but so far...  

 

 

Primadonna is happy and showing just a little base growth.

 

And as for the flubber, the Acan continues to recover nicely.

Speaking of Primadonna's ... number 2 in the tank now, didn't take long.  Only the female clown is over him.

 

 

The tank stabilized at 7.2 KH last Wednesday and is steady so far.  This has resulted in deeper coloration and the beginnings of a huge growth spurt in just about everything.  Snapshot of the center of the tank.  The green/ten/blue stag has hit the waterline again.

 

[slowngreen]

@markalot I don't want to read through all 3 million posts so I'll ask out right...What are you using other than a skimmer and dosing? Do you use any carbon or phos reactors? I'm curious what your nitrates and phosphates are usually at too.

[markalot]

2 hours ago, slowngreen said:

@markalot I don't want to read through all 3 million posts so I'll ask out right...What are you using other than a skimmer and dosing? Do you use any carbon or phos reactors? I'm curious what your nitrates and phosphates are usually at too.

 

I use a reactor filled with Seachem matrix (white stones) to reduce nitrates because I used to have high nitrates.  I don;t any more and sometimes dose CaNO3 to get a measurable reading.  I have no idea if the matrix works or not, but I leave the reactor running.  It's a filthy mess.  That and a skimmer is all I use.  I don't test po4 anymore, 6 months ago it was .04 IIRC.   If I think po4 is high I might put a couple of drops of PhosphateRx in the sump ... but I haven't done that for months now.  

 

 

[DaveFason]

Looking great as normal. How to you manage to keep the Xenia under control?

[markalot]

1 hour ago, DaveFason said:

Looking great as normal. How to you manage to keep the Xenia under control?

 

I have to get in there and spend an hour picking the crap off.  It's horrible.  Strong flow does help slow it down, but it never stops spreading.    I took a bad fall and luckily only minor injuries which include a cut up hand.  Fortunately the sidewalk broke my fall.  lol.   Almost healed up, then hands back in.