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I do think new lights will help some with the tank looking so pinkish.  Swapping coral out for other colors is a good plan.  I like how you have zoas in what looks like an old clam shell.  I have a rock that looks like that as well in my sump.  At any rate you have a nice aquascape.

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Last weekend I went to a local aquarium show and spent 2 hours with the wife drooling over tons of really cool corals and equipment.  It was the first show I'd ever been to.  It was really cool to be able to see things in person I've only seen pictures of.  With the exception of the premium items, everything was pretty reasonably priced.  I ended up taking a few pieces home.  I've been looking for more colors and I hit it with some orange, green, and blue.  I picked up an orange/yellow ricordea, a blue tipped torch, and a john deer leptastrea.  Pictures are below.  The colors aren't 100% accurate.  I was playing around with an orange filter on my DSLR and haven't had time to really dial it in to the right balance yet.  Going to wait until the new lights, if they ever come, to play with the camera settings.  I've done some reorganizing last week to deal with some coral wars stuff.  Some more tinkering is going to be needed as things continue to grow.

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

As if it isn't enough that I'm trying to fix the alkalinity issue I'm having, freaking bubble algae popped up on the ricordea frag I bought a few weeks ago.  I pulled it, scraped and dipped it.  Hopefully I got it taken care of.   

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12 minutes ago, Lognor said:

As if it isn't enough that I'm trying to fix the alkalinity issue I'm having, freaking bubble algae popped up on the ricordea frag I bought a few weeks ago.  I pulled it, scraped and dipped it.  Hopefully I got it taken care of.   

Hopefully that did the trick. 👍

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10 hours ago, Lognor said:

As if it isn't enough that I'm trying to fix the alkalinity issue I'm having, freaking bubble algae popped up on the ricordea frag I bought a few weeks ago.  I pulled it, scraped and dipped it.  Hopefully I got it taken care of.   

You could use a cotton swab and peroxide the bubble algae.  Ricordia are pretty tough but try not to get peroxide on the coral tissue if possible.

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Personally I don’t think bubble algae seems like that big of a deal??? I don’t usually go to any effort to remove it, just wait for my emeralds to find it and eat it. Sometimes I manually remove it. Is that bad? 

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10 hours ago, vlangel said:

You could use a cotton swab and peroxide the bubble algae.  Ricordia are pretty tough but try not to get peroxide on the coral tissue if possible.

Thanks for the tip.  So far it looks like i'm ok.  Luckily it was on the frag plug, cleanly away from the ricordea so I was able to remove the bubbles and scrape the area around it to try to remove any remnants embedded in the stone.  Gave it a dip and a rinse, so we'll see if that worked.  I don't have emerald crabs or natural feeders that I am aware of that would keep it under control if it started expanding out.

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  • 2 weeks later...

The last few weeks has been challenging.  I started having  some parameter issues.  My purple torch was the first to start reacting.  It has been really open and extended for months and suddenly shut up tight, then the duncans started doing the same.  Checking numbers, the PH was low, so I started adding buffer to bring it up.  I posted a thread here and got some feedback about checking alkalinity.  I had been checking carbonate hardness, but not alkalinity specifically.  I listened to too much advice, got a kit and tested.  Unfortunately, I read the results wrong and thought I had low Alk, so I started raising it.  I was wrong, it had been fine, except now it wasn't.  It took me a few days to figure it out.  It's frustrating.  Instead of listening to my LFS guy/friend, I got off track and screwed things up more.  Taking a step back, really really slowing down and reading my kits and data way more carefully, I determined my Alk/Kh was now the only thing off.  Instead of chemically trying to adjust again, I decided to do daily water changes.  After a week of daily 4-5g water changes, the alk has come down and is just at the high end of preferred.  My nitrates are at 0 now, but want them to be at 5-10, so I'm going to slow down on the water changes.  At this point, I lost one of the heads on my purple torch and the other two are still TBD.  My other torch and duncans are starting to recover and open again, so things are looking better.

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My @nanobox retro kit arrived!  Really excited, but also nervous about making the switch.  Watched the video several times and read a bunch on settings.  Took the plunge last night and did the swap.  Everything went smoothly and after a few hours had the lid back on and everything up and running.  Immediately noticed the difference.  I dialed the settings down on all stages to 30% morning/evening and 45% midday.  I'm not really sure where I want to ramp it up to, but i'll up it a few % points per week.  Just excited to finally have the new lights in and be able to get rid of all of the wires and digital timers.  

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Picture from this morning under the new lights.  Just took it on the fly, so the quality is only OK.  Bottom line, everything is more open than I've seen it in weeks, especially the frogspawn!

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  • 3 weeks later...

Well, I officially lost the purple torch.  The water quality issue I had really knocked it down, and it just never recovered.  I also think that the lighting change didn't help matters.  While some of my corals responded very positively to the new lights, the torches and Duncans have not been happy.  I had turned everything way down to acclimate, but it wasn't just enough.  The white torch is still alive, but has very little extension.  The Duncans are opening up slowly, but they're no where near the extension I used to have.  At this point, I'm just going to ride it out.  They're either going to get on board or they're not.  I'm kind of tired of losing my mind and panicking every time something happens.  So my plan now is to decide where I want my lighting to be and just slowly ramp up to that point.  The damn coral will just have to get in line with it!  Looking forward to adding some new stuff around christmas time.

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  • 4 weeks later...

After almost a month with no royal blue lights, the replacements finally arrived and went in last night.  What a difference!  Looking forward to everything getting back to normal.  Since the lights went out most of my corals have been less than happy, but the Duncan's in particular aren't open much, and when they are, the clowns come over and punch it in the mouth trying to get it to open up and host them.  The female has made the green/purple hammer her home, but is always pushing the male out so he keeps trying to make the duncan home, but it's not as interested in his abusive relationship so it's closed a lot.

 

Speaking of the hammer, since the lights went out I've lost 2 heads and I think 2 more are on their way out.  I'm not sure if it's really a reaction to the lights or the clowns wedging themselves into it at night and swimming through it all day long.  Waiting to see how it progresses. 

 

Relocated the frogspawn and rotated the rock it was on slightly to put more distance between it and the chalice that it was stinging the hell out of.  Moved one of the acans to give it and it's neighbors some room to grow.  Adjusted the large Duncan to make room for the smaller one, and mounted the small one next to the larger.

 

Just before the lighting issue I added a neon green plate coral and a green torch.  Both have been doing well, but extension hasn't been quite the same, again, hoping it is a lighting issue since all my parameters have been stable for the past 8 weeks.  Last week I was window shopping at a LFS and saw a single head of neon pink zoa, so had to get it.

 

Took a few shots under the lights last night.  Looking forward to everything getting reacclimated to the lights and getting the DSLR out for some better macro shots.

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The damn royal blue lights are out again!!!!!  I cannot believe this.  I just put the replacements in 4 days ago.  Reached out to Nanobox this morning, waiting for a response.  God this is really frustrating.  $400 for lights that have failed twice since I put them in less than 2 months ago.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I have a few different updates I'll be posting over the next few days on what's been going on with the tank, lights, etc.  But for now, I had to share something I was really surprised to see.  Last night I was checking on everything just before lights out and noticed something floating by the hollywood stunner chalice.  I took some video because I wanted to show the wife.  The video came out pretty well, so I figured I would share it here too.  I was really surprised.  It was really cool to see.  I had no idea that the chalice would have sweepers.

 

 

 

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8 hours ago, Lognor said:

I have a few different updates I'll be posting over the next few days on what's been going on with the tank, lights, etc.  But for now, I had to share something I was really surprised to see.  Last night I was checking on everything just before lights out and noticed something floating by the hollywood stunner chalice.  I took some video because I wanted to show the wife.  The video came out pretty well, so I figured I would share it here too.  I was really surprised.  It was really cool to see.  I had no idea that the chalice would have sweepers.

 

 

 

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Great video!!! Yeah now you know why they call it hollywood stunner, and it’s not just its good looks haha. 

 

I had one too, but I noticed the sweepers extending at night shortly after I got it, so I ended up rehoming it. Such a gorgeous coral, but won’t work in my tank since I like to pack the corals in haha. 

 

Are you planning on keeping yours? 

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13 hours ago, banasophia said:

Great video!!! Yeah now you know why they call it hollywood stunner, and it’s not just its good looks haha. 

 

I had one too, but I noticed the sweepers extending at night shortly after I got it, so I ended up rehoming it. Such a gorgeous coral, but won’t work in my tank since I like to pack the corals in haha. 

 

Are you planning on keeping yours? 

Good questions, not sure yet.  The hammer next to it lost a few heads on the branch closest to the chalice, but I thought that was from the clowns making it home.  Now I'm not so sure.  Going to have to keep an eye on it.  I like having it.  It was one of the first corals I got.  My friend just threw it in the bag with the zoa I buying.  It was only a tiny sliver about an 1/8" x 1/2".  I can't believe how much it's grown in a year.  It's anchored itself to the rock I mounted on, so not sure how easy or difficult it's going to be to move it, if I decide to rehome it.  I might just have to frag it into a few pieces. 

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Replacement lights finally arrived and are in!  So nice to see royal blue and not minty green all the time.  Hopefully it won't take long for things to start recovering.  The leptastra in particular has really gone downhill in the past week.  The duncans have also not been very happy, barely opening, even at mid day peak.  It will be interesting to see how things go over the next few days.

 

I also added a Hydor wavemaker to the tank to vary up the flow.  I'm not sure if I like it though.  Since it's not a true wavemaker that ramps up and down, I'm a little concerned about the life of the powerheads constantly going on and off.  I'm also not sure if I like the flow changes to the corals.  I have two Hydor PH's, a 240 and a 425 that I have running in synchronous mode alternating on and off every minute.  Again, I'm going to just have to wait a bit longer to see how the livestock feels about it, particularly once the lights have been up for a few days.

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  • 1 month later...
  • 2 weeks later...
1 hour ago, Christopher Marks said:

Great shots @Lognor! It looks like everything is responding really well after getting the lights back on track. How are things going with the new Hydro wave maker, did you decide to keep it?

Thanks!

 

Been so busy lately I haven't been able to do much journaling.  I had the wavemaker on for a couple of weeks, but ended up turning it off.  At the time, things in the tank were really unhappy, so I wanted to return to my previous conditions, and get back to normal first.  Some of my issues were related to the lights.  I've also had a couple of parameter issues over the past few months.  Now I'm battling an algae issue, both diatoms and green film on the glass.  I put phosguard in the media basket, turned the light intensity down, and will be adjusting feeding for a little while.  I'm still concerned that my flow isn't optimal.  Most of my corals are happy, but I think it's too low which isn't helping my diatoms issue.  Once I get things stable I'll probably give it a try again.

 

Overall, growth in the tank has been pretty good.  My Duncans seem to be doing better, but their tentacles aren't as long as they used to be.  I'm seeing new heads growing so they're ok.  I think the torch is splitting one of it's heads, and my frogspawn is going to have to be fragged soon as it is growing like a weed.  The green plate coral has doubled in size in the past 6-8 weeks.  I also have a red plate coral I've been trying to nurse back to health.  It was nothing but hard skeleton when I got it, finally figured out it was malnourished.  I've been feeding it daily and covering it while it eats, so other things don't steal its food.  I can see tiny tiny little tentacles starting to show.  Very excited for what it will look like when it gets back to normal.

 

When things settle some, I'm thinking about getting an RFA.  I really want one with a lot of blue in it.  Maybe move one of the acans and put it right in the center of the rockwork.

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Christopher Marks

Is the film algae on the glass fairly slow growing? I wonder if a larger snail population would help make a dent? Any reason to suspect your water source could be contributing?

 

It sounds like the coral are all growing well, LPS are the best! I'm sure they'd benefit from an increase in flow, even on the lowest settings.

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3 minutes ago, Christopher Marks said:

Is the film algae on the glass fairly slow growing? I wonder if a larger snail population would help make a dent? Any reason to suspect your water source could be contributing?

 

It sounds like the coral are all growing well, LPS are the best! I'm sure they'd benefit from an increase in flow, even on the lowest settings.

It was growing pretty quick last week before I put phosguard in.  It's much slower now.  I've been adding snails and crabs the past few weeks, but probably need some more small snails like cerith or astreas.  I have been getting my water from the same LFS store the entire time, but I may have to look at that as well.

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