Mark's 150 (NanoBox Retro)

[markalot]

Now this is my kind of tank. http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2007-09/totm/

 

I love the fact the coraline is creeping up the front glass, makes it look like a frosted window. I've finally got some coraline on the back glass, and the LED strip in the back is giving the back glass more light so hopefully soon I'll have a wall of it.

[hey]

Now this is my kind of tank. http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2007-09/totm/

 

I love the fact the coraline is creeping up the front glass, makes it look like a frosted window. I've finally got some coraline on the back glass, and the LED strip in the back is giving the back glass more light so hopefully soon I'll have a wall of it.

 

lol it drove me nuts not being able to scrape it off my old aios wall.

[Sk8n Reefer]

Any updates on the nudi's?

[gena]

Yea, that would be nice. So the Merlettis are the easy ones I suppose?

 

http://www.tidalgardens.com/red-blastomussa-merletti-927.html

 

Those look like something that would melt quickly for me.

Merlettis are supposed to be easy peasy . That's been my experience with them so far too . I don't even feed them in my 8g tank and they are growing nicely!

 

Oh Mark...that link . I'm feeling very vulnerable this morning . May have to order a couple of those merlettis .

[markalot]

Any updates on the nudi's?

They are slowly munching on both spongodes on either end of the tank. The sixline might be munching on some of them.

[markalot]

I raised the lights up. Way up. It looks quite good with the lights this high, even though there is a lot of spill in front of the tank. PAR over most of the SPS is in the 225 to 275 range now, uncorrected. I'm going to see what happens and then try T5 if I can't get better colors.

I took the t5's off, though still plugged in and ready to go if I change my mind again. So my lighting is back a BML 20K strip in back, the Razors running at 60% white and 70% blue max for 6 hours with a slow ramp on either side, and a BML custom strip across the front of the tank. This strip is similar to the 20K except I replaced half of the 6000K whites with 3700K whites.

 

 

One benefit of running the lights higher is a better spread of the blue light in the evening.

[Sk8n Reefer]

Looks good . Is that the strongest intensity you have ran them at that height - are you going to start slowly increasing them? Dang you've got some large pieces

[markalot]

Looks good . Is that the strongest intensity you have ran them at that height - are you going to start slowly increasing them? Dang you've got some large pieces

 

I had been running lower at 80/100 Everything was fine until I slacked off on the feeding a bit and I believe that's when the bleaching started. I'm going for much lower light levels for a while to see what happens. I've got coral new to the tank and some that have been in a while so it will be interesting to see what happens.

[markalot]

Did a bunch of PAR measurements, adjusted lights, measured again, etc.

 

Razors are 12" above the glass tops, 2 BML strips front and back. Now running 70W/90B with the BML strips at 60%. This gives me 300 PAR unadjusted for blue at the Katrapora, 195 down on the Rainbow milli, 155 back on the Bonsai like acro, and 250 - 300 on various other acros.

 

The biggest change was dropping the BML strips from 100% to 60%. Color has already been coming back since first dimming and then raising the lights. We'll see if it continues.

[markalot]

One of the benefits to the way I scaped is that the two big arches are used as cleaning stations, one by the Goby and the other by the shrimp. I just happened to have the camera when one of the tangs pulled in for a cleaning.

 

[markalot]

5 days since putting this in my tank and already showing significant growth and color increase.

 

 

I swear I looked at this yesterday and didn't see the vibrant green, but I doubt it really changed that fast. Too many things have changed over the last week to know exactly what it is this liked. I really hope this dramatic shift was not because of running T5's for two whole days.

 

This coral has encrusted the frag rack at the LFS I purchased it at, and they were able to knock it loose without breaking any of the base. I placed it in a low spot in this rock with enough putty to allow it to sit as if it's encrusted the rock already, and it seemed to work.

 

Of course it's green though, I have a 'green thumb' apparently.

[markalot]

Final set of pics for the evening.

 

New FTS with raised lights. Notice where the Foxface is? He's paled himself to match the background out and is working on some bubble algae stuck to those WP25's back there. No fish in this tank has ever, ever, done anything with those pumps until he went up there.

 

 

Later this evening with the lights a lot bluer ... look where Righty the tang is. He goes up and pesters the Foxface until he moves, as if this was his spot. These pumps were covered in crap until the Foxface found them and now the punk is trying to claim he was working these all the time.

 

 

 

The bird in the upper right likes the light up there, and it looks better now that the fixture is raised up. It was never this green in the 40 under T5's.

 

[Sk8n Reefer]

That Birdsnest is sweet ! Took me a minute to find the Foxface

[vlangel]

I couldn't find the Foxface either at first. I'm glad he's doing his job even if the tang is trying to take credit.

[markalot]

Updated the first post with monthly FTS and fixed some tank info. Some of the coral growth is amazing, some underwhelming. THe biggest surprise when looking back is how much the anemone has grown. Uh oh.

 

 

[TheKleinReef]

man, looking at the green slimer makes me wonder how big mine would be if i didn't lose 90% of it when i upgraded tanks. :/ one day my 3" frag will return to its former glory.... one day.

[jedimasterben]

Now if only your pics weren't blocked at work

[markalot]

Now if only your pics weren't blocked at work

 

Not missing much.

 

Just ordered from Unique:

 

ORA Joe the Coral

ORA Red Planet

 

[markalot]

Unique Corals arrived.

ORA Joe The Coral


ORA Red Planet


FTS, some re-arrangement.


But I'm not quite done yet.

These corals ordered form Cultivated Reef. I stole these images from their website so I slapped their name on each one in basic text.

 

Red Robin stag

 

Rainbow Acropora

 

Blueberries and Cream

[Sk8n Reefer]

Nice- I am jealous - you keep stocking- guess that's easy with a 150gal. We have Fragtober event this weekend in Co. So I am limited but looking for something special- we will see

[latteslave]

great new pieces!

[vlangel]

Your tank is really becoming a thing of beauty! So much diversity, color and texture, great job.

[metrokat]

Very nice updates Mark. I didn't know the fox could change color intensity? Wow. Those frags from Unique, they're a quality vendor for sure.

[markalot]

Your tank is really becoming a thing of beauty! So much diversity, color and texture, great job.

 

Thanks, much appreciated. We'll see if I can color these up. I have more confidence (but not a lot) that I won't kill any acros, but not sure I can color them up.

 

great new pieces!

 

I agree, thanks.

 

Nice- I am jealous - you keep stocking- guess that's easy with a 150gal. We have Fragtober event this weekend in Co. So I am limited but looking for something special- we will see

 

Hopefully you can find something cool at that frag event. If nothing else frag swaps are fun!

 

 

Very nice updates Mark. I didn't know the fox could change color intensity? Wow. Those frags from Unique, they're a quality vendor for sure.

 

Yea, he can change quickly when he needs too, and then back to bright yellow in less than a minute. The tangs are learning that he is peaceful until pushed and those spines mean business. The other cool thing is he lets the neon Goby clean him right out in front of the rocks and fully extends the spines, which the goby works over one by one. Maybe because of the way they are folded up it's important to get them cleaned often?

[got2envy]

I raised the lights up. Way up. It looks quite good with the lights this high, even though there is a lot of spill in front of the tank. PAR over most of the SPS is in the 225 to 275 range now, uncorrected. I'm going to see what happens and then try T5 if I can't get better colors.

I took the t5's off, though still plugged in and ready to go if I change my mind again. So my lighting is back a BML 20K strip in back, the Razors running at 60% white and 70% blue max for 6 hours with a slow ramp on either side, and a BML custom strip across the front of the tank. This strip is similar to the 20K except I replaced half of the 6000K whites with 3700K whites.

 

 

One benefit of running the lights higher is a better spread of the blue light in the evening.

Looks awesome! Trying to catch up on your threads

I miss a big tank. It is good to know that the Razors can cover this size tank.

Looking good sir, Looking Reeeeal good.