A Splash of Color

[C.Eymann]

So there you go, if Dave can not ship, you can !!!. You can pay your hobby by selling you to us......

I will have to pay at my LFS a piece like the 2 you got (the smaller ) at least $200 and I never saw that Acro. For the other (the big one) no less than $300 (US Dollars). But could be more because I have never seen acros at the LFS around Boston with such colors.

Definitely , you are lucky with that store and by living in Australia.

Enjoy them !!!!! And we enjoy too with your pictures and all your stories !!!

Cheers
Daniel

This x100. Just picked up a hand sized piece of Aussie A. Spatulata from my LFS yesterday... $130.

Biggles-great thread, beautiful photos. Stunning work!

Very jelly about the resources you have at your fingertips.

 

[tripdad]

With an acro store like that around it's no wonder why you want a bigger tank! I would just build a pool and cover it, can see my wife and kids faces now, they already think I'm nuts. Corals look great and your wicked sense of humor is always a bright spot.

 

[biggles]

How can you recognize ill corals?

I don't mean that they are ill as such mate, just that the colors you are seeing - particularly the pastel look is not at all what you should expect the acro to look like in your tank. Purples become blues and vice versa sometimes, yellows are bleached greens. Go for white skin with yellow corallite highlights in the shop over the beautiful bright yellow acro you see a couple of pieces up from my paleskin. Another trick to make an 'almost yellow' piece look yellower is to put it next to a bright green acro.
It's one thing to have access to beautiful acros but it's another thing entirely to keep them all colored up. :spin3:

Andrew if Dave doesn't ship overseas we all have to come to Melbourne and buy corals"¦.:dance:

You can come and buy Aus corals, just not the ones at my shop......

Even worse (from your perspective), we may even decide to settle there. I personally would not mind that because this season's first snowfall happened last night in where I live.

If you live here Bulent you can go to my shop for a look - just a look.

Those prices are absurd. What a beautiful selection and the prices are extremely fair, why must you make everyone feel inferior all the time?

I like the two pieces you picked out, very jealous.

I just wanted to show you what the real colors look like when you see GBR acros within hours of collection rather than after international shipping etc. If anything it puts the pressure on me to produce a cool display as i have no excuse when it comes to the acros i can acquire

So there you go, if Dave can not ship, you can !!!. You can pay your hobby by selling you to us......

I will have to pay at my LFS a piece like the 2 you got (the smaller ) at least $200 and I never saw that Acro. For the other (the big one) no less than $300 (US Dollars). But could be more because I have never seen acros at the LFS around Boston with such colors.

Definitely , you are lucky with that store and by living in Australia.

Enjoy them !!!!! And we enjoy too with your pictures and all your stories !!!

Cheers
Daniel

It sucks that they're so expensive over there Daniel. I'm glad you enjoy the journal buddy

Wow, 45 to 60 for acro from Aus would be outstanding. I pay 150 to 200 which is still very fair considering the shipping and potential DOAs, which on occasion can be really brutal. I picked up a nice piece of Spath yesterday and the cut end has started to regenerate after only a week. Would you glue it on that cut end or lay it down on its side?

I would glue it down on the cut end mate, if that's the way it was growing. Considering how expensive it probably was i would slice the bottom 1/4" off that is healing and glue that to a frag disc and then glue the main piece down on the fresh cut end. That way you don't waste the rapidly encrusting area and gain a backup/trade frag to boot. The small frag is also good for experimenting with different light levels before you commit to a place.

This x100. Just picked up a hand sized piece of Aussie A. Spatulata from my LFS yesterday... $130.

Biggles-great thread, beautiful photos. Stunning work!

Very jelly about the resources you have at your fingertips.

Thanks for the kind words mate.
Here's a general spath tip, don't treat them anything like a milli. They don't like anywhere near the PAR that most millis thrive under and don't need as much flow to stay happy, give them the same sort of light you'd give a granulosa or aculeus and you'll see good colors.

Tomorrow i'm removing the big tricolor from the small center island and placing the new acros in its place. It's going to a spot with more flow as it isn't at all happy with my new reduced flow in the center where the sand used to blow away. I have three small rocks picked out to glue the acros to and then i'll glue the rocks to the island base rock - the process i explained earlier. I'll cover the whole process in and out of the water with pics if you like but i won't be wasting time adjusting pics as i'll be posting updates as i wait for stuff to dry in the sump. You'll just have to put up with the iphone pics which are sort of ok lol.

Bed time for me, the dremel will be screaming tomorrow - i love the small of fresh cut acro branches in the morning.............

 

[biggles]

With an acro store like that around it's no wonder why you want a bigger tank! I would just build a pool and cover it, can see my wife and kids faces now, they already think I'm nuts. Corals look great and your wicked sense of humor is always a bright spot.

Thanks very much mate

 

[bibarassa]

Andrew tuesday I got 3 coral that come from chinamen reef (GBR) I dare not tell you how much they cost here"¦..:sad2:

 

[C.Eymann]

thanks for the tip on the spathulata, I was about to mount it fairly high up, guess I'll keep it low per your advice, after reading other posts on people's experiences with the coral, it sounds like most put in high light and it turns brown.
I know it's a finnicky one, we will see how it goes.
thanks again!

 

[M007]

i love the smell of fresh cut acro branches in the morning

Andrew, you just dated your self buddy :lolspin: Thanks for GBR acro insight :beer::thumbsup:

 

[biggles]

Andrew tuesday I got 3 coral that come from chinamen reef (GBR) I dare not tell you how much they cost here"¦..:sad2:

Hey mate, i expect they were expensive as all hell lol. I hope they earn their price tags and do well for you my friend.

thanks for the tip on the spathulata, I was about to mount it fairly high up, guess I'll keep it low per your advice, after reading other posts on people's experiences with the coral, it sounds like most put in high light and it turns brown.
I know it's a finnicky one, we will see how it goes.
thanks again!

Just my experience as far as the spath placement is concerned mate, i think getting the right light is critical to color success with a spath but who knows.

Andrew, you just dated your self buddy :lolspin: Thanks for GBR acro insight :beer::thumbsup:

Lol i'm no spring chicken anymore Mike, hopefully there's some useful info in my ramblings at times

So i have been a busy boy this morning and carried out the acro scaping procedure with zero trauma to myself and the acros.
Before i begin i check which orientation look best to the eye for each piece.

Growing toward the front:

Facing away from the front:

The iphone doesn't show the detail but right piece looks twice as colorful facing the display front with much more purple pigment visible - that's the way it's going on the rock.
The middle piece looked fine in any orientation so it can face the back if needed.
The left piece looked very ordinary facing away but was cool growing towards the display front or sideways.

Here's a rough check of the main two pieces, one facing forward and the other back. The third piece will go between them pointing to the right. The tricolor is sulking over the back under the yellow tang for now.

 

[biggles]

Ready to mount the first acro on the small rock. As the island base is pretty much flat i cut the rock bases flat with the dremel so placing them in their final spots would be simple. The disc is for Dom's frag.

I cut a flat spot on top of the rock and the same on the bottom of the acro branch. I put slices in so the super glue gel can really get a good grip on the acro.

Big blob of super glue and pushed the acro into place, used the acro xmas tree for a prop while the super glue set well enough to move the piece into the sump to really set hard for 10 mins.

I mounted it almost horizontally as that's the way it was growing on the reef.

You can see where i dremeled the frag off, lower left on the acro.

Then all that's needed is super glue on the base of the rock, putty on the glue and then more glue on the bottom of the putty before simply pushing it down onto the base rock in the display pointing in the direction i wanted.

 

[nemodan]

Nice details of your job.... !!!!

 

[biggles]

Nice details of your job.... !!!!

Thanks mate

 

[slavetonet]

Crazy colours right there Andrew.
I have moved my ssc to the location as per your suggestion. Hopefully it will be speedy recovery.
Pending on removing some lps corals, some new sps corals will replace them.

 

[nemodan]

That tank is a PIECE OF ART !!!

 

[M007]

From one springless chicken to another BRAVO :celeb1: Etching the bottom of the cut is a great idea :thumbsup: Looks great :dance:

 

[shih87]

love the step-by-step photo...

 

[Myka]

Andrew, there seems to be a lot of flubber making its way into your tank these days. If you carry on like that I'm thinking you will need to move your thread to the LPS forum. We don't need that kind of stuff around here. If you're going to have flubber like that, at least don't take so many embarrassing photos of it.

Hey, what's the purple/pink piece in the bottom left of this pic?

 

[mhucasey]

Ready to mount the first acro on the small rock. As the island base is pretty much flat i cut the rock bases flat with the dremel so placing them in their final spots would be simple. The disc is for Dom's frag.

I cut a flat spot on top of the rock and the same on the bottom of the acro branch. I put slices in so the super glue gel can really get a good grip on the acro.

Big blob of super glue and pushed the acro into place, used the acro xmas tree for a prop while the super glue set well enough to move the piece into the sump to really set hard for 10 mins.

I mounted it almost horizontally as that's the way it was growing on the reef.

You can see where i dremeled the frag off, lower left on the acro.

Then all that's needed is super glue on the base of the rock, putty on the glue and then more glue on the bottom of the putty before simply pushing it down onto the base rock in the display pointing in the direction i wanted.

Nicely laid out tutorial Andrew! You are using standard aquarium epoxy, correct? Does it make your skimmer go bananas when you put the epoxy in your tank?

I tend to use the "Corafix Pro" glue, only available in the big 50 dollar bottles. It's way thicker than even the regular Corafix, which lets me build up a thick pad of the stuff on the coral base. I then rub or twist the coral base on the target location until the glue coats both surfaces. That sticks it very secure. The epoxy idea would help with larger pieces though, better contact and a more stable base.

 

[DiscusHeckel]

Hi Andrew,

I like your illustration, which is very educational. Your new corals are exquisite.

What are your latest NO3 and PO4 readings?

 

[reefmutt]

Andrew, you're one gifted reef wrangling artist!
Looking sooo good!
Also curious about n and p..

 

[troubadour11]

Nice work buddy! :thumbsup:

I've been using the biggles glue/putty/glue method for awhile now and it works great! I even picked up the same bit for my dremmel. Although I haven't got around to testing it yet. :headwally: But it all works great and my corals are staying in place now :thumbsup:

The selection and size of the pieces you have access to is incredible. The tank looks good. I can't wait until the pieces grow in and are reaching up into all that open water space above! I'm looking forward to the upcoming tree as well. This one looks like it could be a goodie! :dance:

When you have a minute, check out my latest updates. I think I've finally made it to qualify as a true mixed reef since I have a lot more SPS now then ever before! Not quite to the extent you have going on over there though. Maybe one day... :cheers: