ADA - the 2 island reef

[Tamberav]

I did a blackout with my clam - was fine. I would take the top off to feed in ambient light when I did the blackouts. Good luck. 

[Andreww]

Anyone knows what this brown dusty stuff is at the bottom of the Magnesium compartment?

I use B-Ionic for the 2 part but Magnesium is the ME Coral brand . 

This brown stuff is only present in the magnesium compartment. 

If I start swirling it around , it lifts up and mixes into the solution until next day or so.

Are those impurities ? 

If so, so much for the “pharmaceutical grade” magnesium.....I’m gonna use the ESV magnesium when I exhaust this jug.

[Andreww]

Ok here is the update.

Lights were off since Thursday night. Basically I’m at the 2.5 day mark and didn’t want to wait until tomorrow to uncover the tank. 

No dinoflagellates in sight and even a good portion of my hair algae died back.

 

Heres what I did the night I covered the tank.

Put new carbon in the reactor and plugged my skimmer back on just to see how much stuff it’ll pull out of the water til today...wow, was I surprised....and I just did a water change on Wednesday...

 

Check out the collection cup. I might be keeping the skimmer plugged in for a while...definitely don’t want that stuff in my water.

 

So much for going skimmerless...but there’s so many tanks running no skimmer makes me wonder if coral type and requirements plays a big part in running a skimmer vs not running one.

[Tamberav]

No idea about the Mg, I have used the BRS stuff and it doesn't do that.

 

I would guess the skimmer is pulling out stuff that is dead/dying aka dino/algae, bacteria, ect. Mine was pretty damn thick when I was murdering dino or any algae for that fact. 

[Andreww]

22 minutes ago, Tamberav said:

No idea about the Mg, I have used the BRS stuff and it doesn't do that.

 

I would guess the skimmer is pulling out stuff that is dead/dying aka dino/algae, bacteria, ect. Mine was pretty damn thick when I was murdering dino or any algae for that fact. 

Makes perfect sense. That nasty stuff has to go somewhere...

[Andreww]

Couple pics.

Light has been bumped up 10% since last week. If colors fade a bit I’ll dial it down a little but I increased it mostly for the clam.

 

[Andreww]

I need better photo skills. And a better camera.

Bottom right(ish) is my new “green echinata acan”. That’s how it was labeled at 15$.

Well I didn’t say anything, bagged it and got out of the store fast.

I noticed some deep orange on one side of the colony and the colors are already changing around the eyes in some deep purple. For 15$ I can’t complain.

 

[Tamberav]

Idk about your photo skills... tank looks great to me! I wish we had $15 acans, even green ones! I want a green one to put next to my red. 

[mitten_reef]

2 hours ago, Andreww said:

Couple pics.

Light has been bumped up 10% since last week. If colors fade a bit I’ll dial it down a little but I increased it mostly for the clam.

 

Big fan of 2-island. Looking really nice with all the open space. 

[Andreww]

6 hours ago, Tamberav said:

Idk about your photo skills... tank looks great to me! I wish we had $15 acans, even green ones! I want a green one to put next to my red. 

Green seems like the color most reefers run from. I run towards it lol...I’ve got too much red in my tank; need to balance it with some green.

[vlangel]

3 hours ago, Andreww said:

Green seems like the color most reefers run from. I run towards it lol...I’ve got too much red in my tank; need to balance it with some green.

I love green coral but then green is my favorite color!

[Andreww]

Just added a green slimer. It was under the same lights as mine so I was comfortable putting it straight up top . I hope it’ll do well for me.

 

[specore]

On 11/11/2018 at 6:06 PM, Andreww said:

Couple pics.

Light has been bumped up 10% since last week. If colors fade a bit I’ll dial it down a little but I increased it mostly for the clam.

 

This is not what I expected to see after reading pays discussing blackouts and dinos.  Well done, simply beautiful

[MrObscura]

Greens pretty common, but I like it because it can be some of the brightest coloring, and I really like it when it's seen in a coral you usually don't find in green, because it usually is so common. 

 

And I noticed cleaning sand mentioned earlier. I can't vacuum mine because it'll just all get sucked out so what I've started doing is turkey basting the hell out of it with every water change. I really get it churning and between the sand and blasting the rocks the tanks so cloudy you can't see the corals. Gets all the detritus into the overflow and/or the bucket. 

 

 

[Andreww]

20 minutes ago, specore said:

This is not what I expected to see after reading pays discussing blackouts and dinos.  Well done, simply beautiful

Thank you. I think I caught it early and didn’t wait until everything was covered in dinos to do the blackout.

I still have hair algae to manage for a while until it’s all gone but fingers crossed dinos aren’t coming back.

[Andreww]

21 minutes ago, MrObscura said:

Greens pretty common, but I like it because it can be some of the brightest coloring, and I really like it when it's seen in a coral you usually don't find in green, because it usually is so common. 

 

And I noticed cleaning sand mentioned earlier. I can't vacuum mine because it'll just all get sucked out so what I've started doing is turkey basting the hell out of it with every water change. I really get it churning and between the sand and blasting the rocks the tanks so cloudy you can't see the corals. Gets all the detritus into the overflow and/or the bucket. 

 

 

What I do is start the suction but kink the hose to stop it from sucking sand out and only take out the nasty stuff. This way minimal sand is getting sucked out of the tank.

Turkey baster works well on rocks. It’s amazing how much stuff gets collected on them in between water changes.

[MrObscura]

My syphon has a valve that's slow flow, I didn't even think about that. Lol

 

But it's hard to syphon mine anyway since rock work is in the way. And churning it with the blaster is quick. 

[Andreww]

A little update:

Took out the anemones cuz they started to move and the rock under them was unusable because of shading/stinging of the nems.

 

Traded them in for a frag of pink lemonade Acro about 4” tall . It has 3 sticks on the plug. I wasn’t sure if I should frag it and place it in different spots or just let it be.

 

Color is a bit off ( need to get a top down picture to show the yellow on tips)and seems like flow was pretty bad as well in previous owner’s tank cuz it has a weird growth pattern to the side.(can’t see that from this picture). Hopefully in time it’ll become what it should be:)

 

Here’s a poor representation of it:

 

[Andreww]

[Andreww]

Very interesting. I was listening to Dana Riddle ‘s ‘18 Macna presentation on coral coloration and at some point he brought up how certain metals present in the water will affect coloration in some species.

Just today I was observing the deeper red, almost burgundy color my monti cap seems to be getting lately whereas for the longest time it’s been a more pale red...my magnesium has been at 1600ppm for about a month now...could that be it? Don’t know...but interesting nonetheless .

[Tamberav]

This is a good read for effects of elements and color:

 

https://reefbuilders.com/2008/09/03/guide-of-sps-coral-coloration-make-them-more-vivid-bright/

[Andreww]

Bulkheads / locline fittings from BRS just arrived.

Im getting ready to drill the 2 returns to eliminate the glass lily pipe and to add the second return pump for redundancy and more random flow that way.

Fingers crossed everything will go smoothly as far as drilling goes...it’ll be pretty close to the tank edge. 

Also picked up a hole saw from HD, pleasantly surprised it comes with the drill guide. 

[Andreww]

Everything went good.

Hooked both returns to the same pump, one is way weaker than the other and that’s to be expected since the hose is double the length.

Need to get a second Eheim return pump sometimes in the near future.

Had to leave right away to my parents house for dinner, I’ll snap a few pictures when I get back home.

[Andreww]

Took out a piece of rock from the sump and took a hole saw to it ; plan was to make a cradle for the clam. It was constantly moving ever since I placed it on sand. 

Hoping now she’ll stay put.

Picture taken right after...she’s mad at me.

[Andreww]

Couple new frags. Birds of paradise birdsnest and unknown green acro.