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Mitten_reef’s IM30L


mitten_reef

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mitten_reef
22 minutes ago, holy carp said:

It can be scraped off with a razor blade if necessary.  That's what I do whenever the cyphastrea attempts to round the corner onto the next pane of glass.

:happy:

3 minutes ago, ninjamyst said:

really?   I am never able to remove encrusting SPS on rocks but I guess on glass it is different?

hmm, in a few weeks or so, I'll share what it's like.  I had planned to "pop out" the starter chip once the monti is well spread/encrusted - to give it the smooth, flat look.  We'll see how clean the chip comes off the back acrylic wall.  I'm just hoping that it won't peel off the entire thing, that's why I'll wait a little while longer. 

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mitten_reef

It's Friday, can't focus on work.  I was just wondering what kind of 'fancy' clown I got (my first 'fancy' one ever), so I wandered over to ORA to look at their pics.

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It seems that my new clown is a lot closer to the black ice than the 'regular' snowflake. I know that most clownfish typically darken over time, but this guy came in already with a good amount of "shadow" all around. 

34217987080_90b3d8eb48_b.jpg 

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mitten_reef
On 11/22/2016 at 11:09 PM, micoastreefing said:

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A 6-months check-in:

ORA BoP grew a lot - still couldn't commit on where to place it. (BoP on the bottom left corner)

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Red Planet - been growing quite well, but mostly encrusting to rock it's glued on (somewhat hard to see, but it's in the center of the big rock featuring all 3 monti plates below, almost directly below Leng Sy in the pic)

"neon green" across - not doing so hot, hanging on to dear life

palmer Blue milli - same as neon green acros

(These two are on the same frag plugs of "last legs" in the middle of the pic above)

Ice Fire - this one didn't even last a month sigh.

Leng Sy Cap - already broke some off to give to LFS, starting to show some purple edge (silvery green monti plate in the middle).

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mitten_reef

Brought out the "good" camera today. All photos WB set at 7500K (the ricordeas were adjusted for brightness cuz they're in the shadow side of the tank)

FTS - forgot to take one with adjusted white balance. looking up at NBR on AI classic mounting rail.

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Full tank-ish - Top down

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Sunny D's re-gaining some colors, still got a bit more to go on orange

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New Yuma picked up this past wknd, it's a bit bleached out....but has good potential.

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My favorite plating Monti

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Leng Sy already showing growth since last post

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Frag rack: Starburst Monti (center), ORA's BoP, a cluster of various color monti and lepto (hoping for some cross over color alchemy)

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Orange Ric - stuck under a rock...it got 'eaten' by the BTA at one point, but now seems to be fully recovered.

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The other rics

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My two most favorite Acro's, blue one on the upper left and the red one showing some yellow tips

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The red gorg is fairly healthy now, now that I know to target feed it every so often.

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The new star of the tank:

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And here's how I ended up mounting the NBR Quad over the tank - worked out perfectly!

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mitten_reef

So yesterday came home from spending all day doing fun stuff, to find all 3 rBTA in really bad shape, the water was cloudy everywhere. I thought they nuked the tank. Immediately went into detective mode to figure out what went wrong. Well the first thing I noticed was that my tank was warmer than it usually feels. Sure enough the heater must have been bumped up to 80F during the water change the night before.  I couldn't imagine it making a huge difference, but I guess that's how the great barrier reef bleaching happens, a few degrees difference. Here's a pic of it after over an hour of trying to cool the tank back down to 78F. 

They look better today, a bit deflated and lost some colors. 

This is not a nem-pooping event. I know what that's like. 

 

IMG_0843.PNG

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mitten_reef

June photo dump. With a bunch of online sales going on this wknd, I felt like buying (but can't afford shipping). So went a checked out a new local vendor today and got some frags (Check out Dutch Family Reef! for those of you in and near grand rapids). Got myself a bunch of new Acros - the Acroholics is setting in. 35062348252_2d69b49512_b.jpg

A bit more closed-up

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@metrokat Do you think this could be a wild cousin of "Katropora"? 

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Some other existing growth/progress. BoP, Lepto, and Starburst continue to do quite well

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Love this top-down, Leng-sy is taking off! Red Planet is slow but steady (I think)

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One and only Acan in the tank. I can see why some ppl love these guys, I'm on a look out for some interesting colors/patterns for sure. The actual color is quite a bit more orange than appeared in photo tho (closer to the orange Monti above).

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mitten_reef
3 minutes ago, Rehype said:

Everything looks great!...glad the nems bounced back after the heater mishap. How much are you dosing daily?

Thank you!  TBH, nothing consistent lately (bad, I know).  I followed the Aquavitro (Seachem's in-store-only "premium" brand) weekly dosing regimen for 'calcification', 'eight.four' and 'ions' for a few months.  I was doing their recommended basic/maintenance dose - didn't get too scientific with the tank requirements/levels.  Then many of my SPS got really unhappy.  So I backed off from dosing.

 

The unhappy corals incident could be the results of too much nutrients build-up as well.  I went from weekly, maybe bi-weekly as I thought I no longer need to replenish the tank's calcium and alk and ions as often through water change.  

 

Since then, I've been doing weekly 5 gallon water change with Red Sea Coral Pro for the past month or so (just the way I've always done it). Everything bounced back, happy, and growing once again.  If I remembered, I'd dose half the recommended amount of calcium and alk once in the middle of the week between water changes.  

 

Will plan to do better with testing and determine the real consumptions/needs before the next dosing adventure. Will likely switch over to Red Sea supplements too.  

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@micoastreefing Doesn't look like it. The coloration might look similar but the Kat doesn't have dual color flesh- meaning the coralite on the tip has a pink or purple rim but the top 1/2 inch of the tip isn't a different color like this ombre coloration. Growth pattern is also different. :flower:

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mitten_reef
14 minutes ago, metrokat said:

@micoastreefing Doesn't look like it. The coloration might look similar but the Kat doesn't have dual color flesh- meaning the coralite on the tip has a pink or purple rim but the top 1/2 inch of the tip isn't a different color like this ombre coloration. Growth pattern is also different. :flower:

Thanks for stopping by to take a look. :flower: much appreciated.  

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mitten_reef

I did some water chemistry testing today.

pH - 8.0 (API)

Mg - 1360 ppm (Red Sea Mg Pro)

Ca - 400 ppm (Red Sea Ca Pro)

dKH/pK - 7.0 (Red Sea KH pro) 

 

The numbers all look to be right at the recommended level.  

Didn't add any supplement tonight - it'd be interesting to see how the levels changed tomorrow (or maybe Wednesday).

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mitten_reef

So tested again today:

pH stays at 8.0 (wonder if it gets any higher mid afternoon)

Mg dropped 60 ppm to 1300 ppm

Ca dropped 20 ppm to 380 ppm

dKH dropped 0.3 to 6.7

 

Dosed (Aquavitro products):

8 ml of calcification 

9 ml of eight.four

14 ml of ions

Rough estimates on how much to add, gotta figure out some calculations/calculator for the exact amounts another day. These amounts won't "overdose" the tank. 

will see how the parameters change tomorrow. 

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Bella's Reef

Looking great, my Sunny D's are going through the same issue right now moved them from where they were happy to low part of the tank and made them made so moved them higher up to a different rock and they are starting to look better.

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mitten_reef

Skipped a day of testing, did 5 gallon water change yesterday. 

 

Today:

pH : 8.0

Mg : 1300

Ca : 375

dKH : 7.6

It looks like dKH went up a bit (0.9) after Tuesday's dose plus yesterday water change (14%). 

 

Dosed a little more today:

ions : 15 ml

calcification : 10 ml

eight.four : 12 ml

 

hopefully stay on task and test again tomorrow evening. 

 

 

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mitten_reef

This morning:

pH : 8.0

Mg : 1500

Ca : 410

Alk : 7.95

May have to check again tonight and see how much to dial back the dosages. Seems like Mg and Ca may have gotten quite a big dose the other night. 

 

The monti's and BoP are loving the constant availability calcium carbonate in the water. Their growth has been noticeable. Jury is still out on Acros. They aren't unhappy by any means - they may just take a little time for growth spurts. 

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mitten_reef

Sorry for the boring water parameters in the past few posts, a good way of forcing myself to track them. 

Some iPhone pics today. 

the rainbow BTAs are recovered, I'd say.

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My pistol shrimp; I call him "Midas", cuz he has golden hands. 

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mitten_reef

Looking extra bubbly today - wish I knew why.

 

Two changes had happened lately: been doing Ca/Alk/Mg test regularly and dose all 3 to make up. Also started running IM MiniMax half full of carbon - water is noticeably "clearer".

35282363592_71a46af956_b.jpg

^ iPhone pic

edit: decided to grab some top-down shots since the water looks SO CLEAR!!

Sunny D's, Acan, german blue digi, my showpiece monti

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Almost FT top down

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new BTA "true" color with Clown

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brighter ISO (1600 vs 800 above)

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massive fist-size mystic sunset.

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A couple of frag rack shots: (semi top down)

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a side-view35062885980_d24f9b5a3f_b.jpg

Edited by micoastreefing
adding new pics from the good camera
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mitten_reef
20 hours ago, dpoltsdsu said:

Your plating Monti's have incredible color.  They look absolutely fantastic!! 

Thank you!

 

Yesterday we had clear water, today we have clean glass! I did a water change and scraped the front pane last night.

"head-on" shot of the main island - kinda like this shot. I need to move those little rocks on the sand bed and spread them out, to accentuate the bommie reef look I was hoping for. If only if someone in Michigan would take me up on the BTA offers....I'd have so much more space on the sandbed.

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German Blue Digitata - I've had this Monti variety for a while. It kept growing skinny and long branches, so it got fragged and majority of it got traded back to LFS. Now starting from scratch with this tiny 2-frag cluster, hoping to blast it with high flow so it gets more "stout". Also, putting it in a cluster hopefully gives it a nice thick base.  You may spot a hint of red polyps in the middle of the cluster. It is my failed attempt at "grafting/merging" a red digi with this guy, the blue just takes over the red slowly, and almost completely now. 

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Red Acro with yellow tip - This will be a stunner one day!

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@JcSH2o here's what I was talking about my monti plating downward vs upward due to their placements. See Red Cap frag on the rack vs the leng si in the background. The height difference in the tank placement is barely a few inches, vertically speaking. And as far as encrusting goes, the "head-on" shot above you'll see that I glued the tequila sunrise to the right, literally, on its flat edge to the vertical side of the rock. It had since encrusted onto the rock vertical surface nicely. There is no rock underneath that plate whatsoever.  It did get knocked off the rock a few times earlier on during maintenance and such.  

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A few, better white-balance study

7500K WB

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9000K WB

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10000K WB

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I'm thinking 9000K - that's how 'blue' my tank look to my eyes. 10000K is definitely more neutral than actual tank lighting.

 

I'm trying to nail down the camera settings. Which WB looks best, share your thought?

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
mitten_reef

Sooo, what to expect when you're expecting? 

 

Very, very little time to do anything with the tank. I have fed the fish maybe twice, and reefroid for the corals once since we left for the hospital on 6/30. I tried to dose when I can, but it definitely has not been daily. Oh, and forget about water testing, ha, no time for that.  The fish and corals are happy nonetheless. Oh, so are the mom and the baby - they're doing well and happy too. 

 

The plus side - I feed less and the acros are loving it! Polyps are extending everywhere.  Palmer blue Millie frag that turned bright green a while back is now turning back to blue again! Getting nice highlights of colors from many of the frags. Now I finally get why people love to keep "low nutrient" tank. 

 

The down side - I haven't been able to keep up the dosing routine (both the measurements and the actual dosing) as much as I'd like. But that might also be somewhat a good thing in disguise. The monti's seem to slow down their growth spurt a little. 

 

 

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