Part 1
In October of 2006, I began the process of completely dismantled my entire reef tank. My system had reached maximum growth and my corals were beginning to grow onto and into each other. Some were being stung/irritated, and many of corals were no longer receiving the proper lighting from the excessive growth which began to shadow a lot of my colonies. I had reduced my photoperiod to curtail the growth and I felt that starving them of the photosynthesis they needed was wrong. I hate getting in there chopping pieces off the reef, so I felt the time was now.
My taste in what I wanted to collect has changed so I felt I could achieve a lot with this breakdown. I got rid of all my Florida ricordea and many of the zoanthids and palys from the 2003 picture below. I wanted to do something different. Instead of the Zoanthid, Palythoa and Ricordea tank, I chose to now collect the uncommom pieces that would be more of a challenge. Hard to find polyps and rare mushrooms along with crazy blastos are what holds my interest now. Hopefully I will be able to post a picture in August once all of the new corals have filled in. It is my sincere hope to have the new 210 up next year completely stocked with over 300 different zoanthids and Palythoas along with many rare mushrooms and blastomusa. Below are 2 pictures that I took four years ago.
Hopefully I can post a picture of the new system completly grown out in August of this year.
Mucho Reef
In October of 2006, I began the process of completely dismantled my entire reef tank. My system had reached maximum growth and my corals were beginning to grow onto and into each other. Some were being stung/irritated, and many of corals were no longer receiving the proper lighting from the excessive growth which began to shadow a lot of my colonies. I had reduced my photoperiod to curtail the growth and I felt that starving them of the photosynthesis they needed was wrong. I hate getting in there chopping pieces off the reef, so I felt the time was now.
My taste in what I wanted to collect has changed so I felt I could achieve a lot with this breakdown. I got rid of all my Florida ricordea and many of the zoanthids and palys from the 2003 picture below. I wanted to do something different. Instead of the Zoanthid, Palythoa and Ricordea tank, I chose to now collect the uncommom pieces that would be more of a challenge. Hard to find polyps and rare mushrooms along with crazy blastos are what holds my interest now. Hopefully I will be able to post a picture in August once all of the new corals have filled in. It is my sincere hope to have the new 210 up next year completely stocked with over 300 different zoanthids and Palythoas along with many rare mushrooms and blastomusa. Below are 2 pictures that I took four years ago.
Hopefully I can post a picture of the new system completly grown out in August of this year.
Mucho Reef
