CADlights 39g Pro build thread

[reeftivo]

new pics!:

Jaws vs. Clownfish. i never get tired of this.

Grommet in actinics.

and, my first SPS frags! all looks well so far.

green slimer. pretty good color, though it's a little taupe-y in the flesh, and i'm not getting great polyp extension yet. polyps are very nice and green, though. it's longer than i originally thought -- 6" or so. it's stick-like, but i think it'll figure itself out.

orange digitata montipora. not much polyp extension here, yet, either. its mother colony was under t5s, so it needs to adjust to the halide, probably. i'm running the halide 6 hours a day to start with, and i'll probably work it up to 7 or 8 (any thoughts here from more experienced SPS keepers?).

FTS, now with SPS!

I think that slimer is in the perfect spot-plenty of room to branch out.

Have you tried a long spine urchin for the GHA. I think you mentioned that you have but I'm not sure. The sea hares will munch on it but I dont recommend those because they can poison your tank. I had one ink on me and it shut down my skimmer. I also couldn't see into the tank for hours-not good.

 

[Gillundr]

A tip with sps...they take a little more time to adjust to tanks than lps do. I always put my sps frags in the bottom of the tank on the sand bed for the first week to 3 weeks and let them acclimate there. They will be fine with out tons of light during this time. Once they have had time to acclimate slowly move them up to where you want them. Once there, LEAVE IT ALONE. It's not good for corals especially sps corals to move around all the time and it will stress them. They will acclimate to light and flow provided you have decent amounts of both in the tank. It's natural for parts of your tank to have less light and flow in certain areas. SPS will grow differently according to each. High flow will give you a tighter cluster and thicker branches generally speaking. That slimer will grow like a weed. My suggestion is to put some place in the bottom half to bottom third of your tank. It will start growing out of the base before it grows up any more, kind of like a plant needing to establish a root system. I see you have both cemented down already so you can leave them there if you like but try to use these rules in the future maybe. The slimer will not cluster up much though it will grow longer fatter branches than something like a birds nest. You did fine. You will need to provide good flow for sps but you don't have a lot of stuff in there to block flow either so should be ok. As your corals grow in and start to fill in you are going to need to move the flow around or add more to make sure you keep flow to the base of denser corals like birds nests and things like that. I have had sps corals not do much for about a year before they started to take off. But once they decided to grow there was no stopping them. They take time to adjust and the best thing for them is usually leave them alone, and keep good husbandry habits. Your tank is looking great by the way. Be patient. That slimer will be growing out of your tank in no time I promise. Thats another reason why I put my slimers towards the bottom of the tank. They grow up with long branches and don't pack in tight so to get the most dramatic look from them it's best to make sure they have the room to grow in the future. If you want more branches down lower you can cut it if you want. Another thing you can do is when you cut off a piece, instead of mounting it standing up like you have now, you can mount it laying on its side. This will make the base layer encrust more and you will have more branches sprout up. Granted it doesn't look as neat until it grows which can take a while, but it's usually the best way to get a good bottom growth faster. Up to you buddy.

 

[reeftivo]

good advise! I'll practice that myself in the future.

More pics please(-:

 

[mkregs]

Nice pics Tim!

Just thought I would post a few pics of what has been going on in my CAD39Pro. Some of you know that I have a pair of h. Erectus Seahorses in my CAD. Yesterday morning, the male gave birth to approx. 100 fry. These are some pics of the nursery I am building in my basement....

I will be adding a 29g grow-out tank when the fry are large enough to be moved into it.

So far, things are going pretty well. I will be busy with hatching bbs, multiple daily feedings, siphoning the tank bottom daily, and replacing water siphoned with freshly mixed saltwater.

Mark

 

[CalmSeasQuest]

Wow - Congrats, Very cool Mark

 

[timdanger]

holy crap Mark!

look at all those seahorses!!!!!

congrats!!!!

 

[timdanger]

A tip with sps...they take a little more time to adjust to tanks than lps do. I always put my sps frags in the bottom of the tank on the sand bed for the first week to 3 weeks and let them acclimate there. They will be fine with out tons of light during this time. Once they have had time to acclimate slowly move them up to where you want them. Once there, LEAVE IT ALONE. It's not good for corals especially sps corals to move around all the time and it will stress them. They will acclimate to light and flow provided you have decent amounts of both in the tank. It's natural for parts of your tank to have less light and flow in certain areas. SPS will grow differently according to each. High flow will give you a tighter cluster and thicker branches generally speaking. That slimer will grow like a weed. My suggestion is to put some place in the bottom half to bottom third of your tank. It will start growing out of the base before it grows up any more, kind of like a plant needing to establish a root system. I see you have both cemented down already so you can leave them there if you like but try to use these rules in the future maybe. The slimer will not cluster up much though it will grow longer fatter branches than something like a birds nest. You did fine. You will need to provide good flow for sps but you don't have a lot of stuff in there to block flow either so should be ok. As your corals grow in and start to fill in you are going to need to move the flow around or add more to make sure you keep flow to the base of denser corals like birds nests and things like that. I have had sps corals not do much for about a year before they started to take off. But once they decided to grow there was no stopping them. They take time to adjust and the best thing for them is usually leave them alone, and keep good husbandry habits. Your tank is looking great by the way. Be patient. That slimer will be growing out of your tank in no time I promise. Thats another reason why I put my slimers towards the bottom of the tank. They grow up with long branches and don't pack in tight so to get the most dramatic look from them it's best to make sure they have the room to grow in the future. If you want more branches down lower you can cut it if you want. Another thing you can do is when you cut off a piece, instead of mounting it standing up like you have now, you can mount it laying on its side. This will make the base layer encrust more and you will have more branches sprout up. Granted it doesn't look as neat until it grows which can take a while, but it's usually the best way to get a good bottom growth faster. Up to you buddy.

thanks for all that information!

i'm going to have to re-read it a few times and think about how i want to approach this for the current corals. maybe i should add a frag rack lower in the tank so that i don't have to find places to acclimate future SPS? there isn't a whole lot of useable "storage" room.

i'll think about this stuff, though, and get back to you.

 

[reeftivo]

Nice pics Tim!

Just thought I would post a few pics of what has been going on in my CAD39Pro. Some of you know that I have a pair of h. Erectus Seahorses in my CAD. Yesterday morning, the male gave birth to approx. 100 fry. These are some pics of the nursery I am building in my basement....

I will be adding a 29g grow-out tank when the fry are large enough to be moved into it.

So far, things are going pretty well. I will be busy with hatching bbs, multiple daily feedings, siphoning the tank bottom daily, and replacing water siphoned with freshly mixed saltwater.

Mark

I want a basement! There aren't many in So Cal.

Very nice job. Obviously you've created a very stable environment if they have bred already.

Very impressive! Great job!!!!

Count those little guys because that looks like more than 100. You can make some serious cash breeding those animals $$ and you obviously have the touch.

 

[Gillundr]

mkregs that is awesome! Can you please post some pictures of your CAD? Or point me to your build site or whatever site you post?

 

[mkregs]

Thanks for the nice comments all!

mkregs that is awesome! Can you please post some pictures of your CAD? Or point me to your build site or whatever site you post?

As requested...here is a FTS

and a picture of a few of the little guys from today (the thermometer will help to give you some perspective as to how small these guys are)...

 

[timdanger]

that's fantastic, mark!

 

[Gillundr]

That is soo cool. I love it. Thanks for the picture of the CAD too. If you have some time take some more of the CAD. I love the rock work and all. Would like to see some other shots, but very awesome and GREAT job!
Hopefully a lot of the fry will live and you can spread the love around! It is so great for people that can raise life in tanks and pass it along to other tank owners rather than taking animals from the oceans. Corals, fish, etc etc. I love it and keep up the great work!

 

[reeftivo]

tanks doing better than ever.
moved things around a little. The NAC6 skimmer pulls more solids than the others I've tried and keeps the water crystal clear. The pic is only 18 hours after cleaning the cup.

Not bad!

 

[Gillundr]

That looks great Tivo, I have been thinking more and more about doing a little "rearranging" myself lol. Get the hankering to look at something different after a while.

 

[Gillundr]

OO is that a Turaki, or Granulosa at the very upper right? If so, you might want to move it down. Hard to tell from the picture but looked like it.

 

[reeftivo]

Seriatopora (birdsnest). It's has great extension but I'm not super happy with the placement yet.

 

[andrik]

Nice FTS man.

 

[reeftivo]

Nice FTS man.

Thanks,

Still using my cheap camara that doesn't get good close up shots (fuzzy)

side shot

 

[NaClCrocodile]

Well, I think I'll be getting this tank next. Looks fantastic!

 

[Highlandjedi]

Do you think that 1 of the LED modules would have been enough coverage if it was raised a bit higher? Say maybe 8in or so above the water.