22g Mr Aqua AIO - new photos 5/12

[Tamberav]

1 hour ago, shaner014 said:

Nice setup! Loving that lid. I need one of those... 

 

I saw in teeny's thread you picked up the CAD skimmer. Any pics? Thanks!

 Decided to start the water change process...so here are pics.

 

Definitely not inconspicuous like the tunze and I wish the skimmer didn't have red on it but overall happy with it right now. Its not touching the bottom of the chamber and I could probably lower it a little.

 

My favorite part is it is very quiet. 

 

 

 

 

[Tamberav]

Battlecorals have arrived! I ordered 6, got 7 😮 plus whatever the 10 cent Bosos is on the website. 

 

 

 

Cat approved, money well spent! He thinks battlebox means that you hide in it and challenge people to battle by attacking them. 

 

 

 

[Reefkid88]

How was yours ?! Those things seems to never disappoint !!! I may have to consider one when my tank is ready. 

[FISHnChix]

Ohhhh nice! I was going to order one of those too!! What ya get??? Oh and if you dont mind how was the packaging??

[Tamberav]

42 minutes ago, Reefkid88 said:

How was yours ?! Those things seems to never disappoint !!! I may have to consider one when my tank is ready. 

 

23 minutes ago, Weikel said:

Ohhhh nice! I was going to order one of those too!! What ya get??? Oh and if you dont mind how was the packaging??

Packaging was fantatsic...maybe the best I have seen as he puts them in mini plastic medicine like cups around the bottom of the plug to protect the branches. They were in a styrofoam box with a heat pack.

 

I haven't posted pics or anything because I had to leave after acclimating.

 

Only one coral looks like it got stressed in shipping and missing a some flesh on one side. It's winter and snowing and Fedex was a few hours late and this shit happens. Hopefully it recovers.

 

Here is the list:

Clown car 

Ultimate table (the stressed one)

Rainbow bright

Ultra pink mili (my fav he sent...I didnt know pink things could glow under blues)

Fox flame

Bc bliss

Monarch mili

 

 

[Reefkid88]

That is a absolute amazing pack !!! That is the $200 box right ?! If so,that is insane !!!! 

[FISHnChix]

Yea I am not a stick fan , but after I saw that 200 dollar box I figure I would try some and see what happens 😆

 

Cant wait for the pictures ...

[Tamberav]

9 minutes ago, Reefkid88 said:

That is a absolute amazing pack !!! That is the $200 box right ?! If so,that is insane !!!! 

$300 pack,  I don't think the 200 one comes with free shipping. However I think I paid only 250ish because it was on sale for black friday. I didn't look up the cost of the corals yet... I figure no matter what I must have come out ahead. I thinks its about $35 per coral. Fox flame i think goes for at least 100 on most sites? I got no complaints.

[Tamberav]

4 minutes ago, Weikel said:

Yea I am not a stick fan , but after I saw that 200 dollar box I figure I would try some and see what happens 😆

 

Cant wait for the pictures ...

 I am actually not a stick person either but figured I needed to challenge myself. Usually just do a few sticks in a mixed reef and call it done.

 

My weakness is macroalgae and NPS and I have neither of those anymore lol Macro dominated tank and NPS are a huge pain to keep... worse than sticks for me.

[FISHnChix]

Ya I get that . I just have a hard time paying so much for little 1/4 buggers that grow so slow. They are cool once they turn into colonies though!! I just love the movement of Los,news, and even some softies,

[Tamberav]

Here is a really crappy cell pic just to show frag sizes, the monti on the left isn't part of the pack. He only sends sticks unless you request encrusters. I got water everywhere on my glass from acclimating them 😛

 

 

[Reefkid88]

Oh okay I won't lie I looked at all the pieces on the site and I wanna say it was almost like $400-$500. 

 

Which isn't bD for all of those. The rainbow brite is insane. 

[Tamberav]

5 minutes ago, Reefkid88 said:

Oh okay I won't lie I looked at all the pieces on the site and I wanna say it was almost like $400-$500. 

 

Which isn't bD for all of those. The rainbow brite is insane. 

 

He will put stuff in the box you want too... he asked me if there was anything specific I wanted. I told him a fox flame and some millis and there ya have it. So if there is a specific item or two w/i reason, it seems he fills it. 

 

Some of the other corals he sent are better than the foxflame though lol My phone can't capture it. 

[Reefkid88]

I have actually seen other people say that,and after even reading it in the caption of his packs on his site,I definitely believe that which is pretty nice. I REALLY like that Rainbow Brite you got. 

[Tamberav]

1 hour ago, Reefkid88 said:

I have actually seen other people say that,and after even reading it in the caption of his packs on his site,I definitely believe that which is pretty nice. I REALLY like that Rainbow Brite you got. 

Yeah it is definitely my 2nd fav thing in the order after the ultra pink mili, the monarch mili really glows too. I am not sure everything he sent me is on the website. The rainbow brite has big fuzzy polyps too! 

 

The table did RTN though 😞 Although not completely, the ends are alive so far. I fragged a tip last night which didn't RTN yet as well. He said he would replace it. It was packed good and was fully encrusted so it's just one of those things. Everything else looks healthy.

 

I will let these all settle and try to keep my tank dialed in and probably do another order in the future. Anoother plan is to move anything that doesn't color up right for me into a frag tank I am going to set up in the basement. I only have so much room.

[teenyreef]

Wow, that's a great deal for $300! When it includes named corals with wide appeal and value, it gets even better.

 

I'm definitely getting a BB soon. Of course, I haven't even figure out where to put the latest corals I got, but hey, I'll figure something out 🙂

[blizzardscout2]

Those look awesome! The Battle boxes never disappoint. I love the peninsula look, it is looking great.

[YHSublime]

On 11/30/2018 at 10:14 PM, teenyreef said:

I'm definitely getting a BB soon. Of course, I haven't even figure out where to put the latest corals I got, but hey, I'll figure something out 🙂

Slow your roll! 

 

I have been eyeing a BB for the better part of the past 6 months. I would have pulled the trigger over black Friday or Cyber Monday, but I just don't have the room! Looks like you got some really quality pieces for the money, I think it's probably the best deal available. We have some club members that have been doing them since BC started, and a lot of those OG pieces are floating around now that they're all colonies in lots of tanks. I worry about the fine line of calc/alk in such a small water volume once everything starts to grow! 

[Tamberav]

LOTS of chaos/swings been happening 😮

 

First I noticed my temp on apex was swinging all over from 73 to 79... eeek...it gets cold at night. I replaced the heater and that fixed the problem. The heater was kicking on but not staying on. It was a cobalt but honestly don't much care for them, while they are more accurate, they seem to die on me faster than other brands, replaced it with a Jager. My apex keeps it accurate anyways.

 

Next thing is I noticed salinity was low... like 1.023... woops. Pretty sure that one is my fault... a cup of water here... a cup of water there... to melt food and spread out throughout the tanks, forgetting to turn the ATO off sometimes during a water change. I guess I need to be more careful 😛 I think it very slowly came down though, I am just topping off with salt and fixing that.

 

THEN my gyre bearings/propellars got stripped and I had no main flow for... idk...  I was at work for 13 hours and didn't notice when I came home and went to bed. I guess maybe 24 hours max without the gyre. I stuck a MP10 on it for now but its a total flow change and I can't turn it up much since where I have to place it faces the nem... I don't want to add a nem taking a walk as the next chaotic event. I have new gyre parts otw.

 

Ofc all this happened in the same week 😛 

 

Everything looks okay so far except the strawberry acro has a tiny amount of STN, very very slow STN. Keeping an eye on it. I am guessing the temp swings is the biggest issue because it was a BIG daily swing and happening for awhile before I noticed. 

 

The bottom of my tank has chicken pox 😉 It is a super pale pink...almost white... I think it is on my rocks but not visible because its so light. I guess that means it should reflect a lot of light back up once it covers the bottom? My 25g has dark red and purple and pink and all sorts. I suppose I could seed this tank with other colors at some point.

 

My peak light is only on for 3 hours since I set this tank up, slowly ramping that up. 

 

 

 

 

 

[YHSublime]

I bet it's ready to handle a little more light!

[Tamberav]

 

[Reefkid88]

How is the battlepack doing ? 

[ninjamyst]

Also thinking about picking up.a battlebox soon.  How are the frags doing?

[MrObscura]

Battle corals has awesome stuff, too bad I wont buy corals online. 

[Tamberav]

8 hours ago, Reefkid88 said:

How is the battlepack doing ? 

 

7 hours ago, ninjamyst said:

Also thinking about picking up.a battlebox soon.  How are the frags doing?

Clown Car and BC Bliss need to color up after shipping or maybe because of my faulty heater. The rest look great and are encrusting. Rainbow bright is super fuzzy and damn cool... I just finally took some off the frag rack and glued them last night. Had to get them off frag plugs or cut the stem which proved difficult with an old dull saw blade so they took a little abuse. 

 

On his site it does say Clown Car needs an insane amount of light and 250 isn't enough so I should probably move the frag rack up. 

7 hours ago, MrObscura said:

Battle corals has awesome stuff, too bad I wont buy corals online. 

Any particular reason? Just like WYSIWYG and not photoshop? 😄

 

I started my reefing hobby in a small town with no access to any sort of coral. Everything had to be bought online or drive 2 hours. I did make the drive for the yearly frag swap though, that was always worth it. Needless to say I did a lot of shopping online, a lot of fish. I still buy fish online because DD has stuff I can't find anywhere else. I am just used to online sales now but since I have access to more in Milwaukee I actually have only ordered from battlecorals and the clams from PEA. Everything else I got local besides some fish. So if the option is there, its nice.

 

Battlecorals is only 1 hour from me, I didn't ask if I could come pick up in person though but it could save on shipping stress. Boom Corals is about 20 min and I have picked up stuff in person there which is nice.