I found one a few months old.
Many of the rocks are red in this picture from Long island algae, no it's not cyano although there is a bit of that in the back.
When the lights come on I will try to take a new picture. The rocks are much more whiter now and slightly turning green in places. These are just a normal progression of what happens in this tank seasonally. I think it has something to do with the NSW I collect. The tank displays whatever algae is present in the water. It usually disappears in a few months and something else grows. I have about 7 frags of sps that a member gave me a month or two ago which are doing fine, actually better than I expected being I never replaced my actinic lights and my MH lights are probably 5 years old. That is another reason the tank looks reddish brown. The lighting is dead.
It's just another thing I need to replace. Now that I am retired I don't have access to free stuff as I sometimes did and my salary is non existant so $400.00 worth of light bulbs is not as easy as it used to be, but If I see any problems I will correct them immediately.
My actinic homemade fixture needs a ballast also but I think I will also build a new fixture as the one I have is kind of getting corroded.
After so many years I went through many fixtures, more than I can count and I have parts all over the place.
There are slight clues in a tank that tell us that all is well. Especially when I look through my magnifying goggles. Every centimeter has life growing and things crawling. There are tiny pieces of colt corals growing and miniscule mushrooms. Spaghetti worms and even those astria starfish that no one likes are abundant. They provide food for the harliquin shrimp.
Many fish are spawning which is the best sign. All healthy fish at least try to spawn. They must be in the best of health to do that.
Any slight problem with nutrition or the water and they show no interest in spawning. I look very closely at the sps frags I have, especially the tips as that is where new growth or dead tissue will show up. They all seem fine and as I said the colt coral is also spawning. I collected some of the pieces to grow in a small container. There are 5 brackish bumblebee gobies all doing great although they don't like each other too well, but they still all hang around the same rock, only not too close together. They need their space. I also think two of the 10 year old or so hermits are spawning. It's hard to tell with them as they do it in their home.
Have a great day.
Paul
PS there are no frags in this picture as it is old
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