Learning/rebuilding from my epic fail

[reefmutt]

that is one sexy tenuis Matt, OP I presume? Great colors you are pulling on your acros, congrats man!
Cheers,

Hey Perry, thanks!
I'm going to post a few more shots of said tenuis. It is a named coral.. Please tell me what you think it is..
And anybody else who has an opinion. I'm curious to know what people think this coral is..
I have two pieces of it.. Here's a couple top downs of each one.

Close up:

The other one up close.

Farther back with my OT on the left.

Just wondering, if you had to guess, what would you call this tenuis?

 

[reefmutt]

For fun, here's a timeline for that piece..
09/23-15

10/14

12/12

01/03-16

02/11

02/20

03/14

Today

 

[mhucasey]

Hey Perry, thanks!
I'm going to post a few more shots of said tenuis. It is a named coral.. Please tell me what you think it is..
And anybody else who has an opinion. I'm curious to know what people think this coral is..
I have two pieces of it.. Here's a couple top downs of each one.

Close up:

The other one up close.

Farther back with my OT on the left.

Just wondering, if you had to guess, what would you call this tenuis?

Pretty?

 

[tomae]

OMG!!!! I love this colors , very very bright

 

[wheelman76]

Possibly Ultimate OP ? Which I think is very similar to OP but has maroon coloured polyps instead of orange.

 

[reefmutt]

pretty, absolutely, Matt
Leo, thanks!
Wheelman, it was sold to me as pink matrix... Sure doesn't look like that...
Oh well.. Still pretty.

Here's a group of shots starting close and moving out..

 

[reefmutt]

Gonna post a few close ups..
Here's my jaw dropper.. Still looking photo inhibited a bit.. Not sure why.. It's supposed to be a par monster.. Could have been my LEDs.
I have since reduced white less from around 25% to 5%. I've also reduced blues from around 70 to 20%
I have also reduced overall photoperiod.
Anyways here it is.. Hopefully I can fill in the white patches with more red!

Tips:

Body:

My Oregon Tort (I think..)

Cali tort.. I know I just posted a similar pic but I couldn't resist. It's such a nice coral..

This is a deep water plating coral. Recently really pushed out this section.

This guy gets prettier and prettier..

First time I'm showing this coral. I've had it for many months. Maybe a year. I bought the frag because of its intense blue purple.. Well that never materialized.. But I can't remove it. I still it will do something crazy..

Another underperformer. Should be more red. It just hasn't colored up for me. I'm patient..

 

[MichaelW]

Hi matt, I get some of those white, bare, patches on some of my acros 2. Any idea what it is? Some of mine are right down low in tank so I wouldn't think it's too much light. Especially as I have rather low par numbers to start with.

 

[scrapz]

I picked up this tenuis 3 weeks ago I believe it's the same as yours. It came in pretty much brown but is slowly lightening as the weeks progress. I'm much more excited about this one over the WD that I picked up at the same time. Hoping it turns out like yours. Great collection!

 

[DiscusHeckel]

[/URL]

I love these pieces Matt. Do you happen to know their Latin names? I have not seen the acro on the right in the first picture before, but I am sure my lfs has advertised the piece in the second picture recently. I will pay a visit to get it.

Are the white patches on one of the acros bite marks?

 

[FloformAustria]

Great pictures Matt :bigeyes:

 

[Piper27]

Hey piper, I really don't know why I have had consistantly low k levels.. I don't use a lot of carbon dosing but I do wet skim..
I found kz to be lacking in their potassium supplements. Currently, I'm dosing kno3 (seachem flourish nitrogen) but haven't really dialed in a dose to maintain both nitrates and potassium.. I'm playing with that..
The strongest potassium supplement I have used is a crystal form. I have a bunch of Brightwell's Potassion-p. Before Bayer, I used to use it for dipping new corals for aefw..
No liquid potassium supplements will be as strong as the solid forms.. I think you'll have to play with the amount that will dissolve in water before becoming saturated... But it sounds like you are going through a lot of potassium....
Which test kit do you use?
I recently bought the salifert kit and I will never use another kit again! It's so easy to use..

I used to use salifert, I am about to order it again from china. When it was out of production I was using the red sea kit but the color change was hard for me to read since I am partially color blind. I rarely even test for it anymore especially since the red sea takes so long to do. I just look out for signs of overdose on the certain corals which I know burn first. It's so hard to get the level above 430 that it never happens anyways. I can't wait for the salifert kit to get here but it takes two months.

 

[M007]

Pretty tenuis but not the typical PM colours I have or have seen. Basically the PM I'm familiar with have the typical blue tenuis coralites but with pink polyps. Under MH and BP the blue coralites wash out giving it a more pinkish/purple appearance when the polyps are extended. Kind of underwhelming if you ask me, yours is far most attractive :bigeyes: As for the jaw dropper, good luck with getting it to colour up as advertised. I've seen it once in person in all its glorious colours, even bought a frag, but never saw another again. Needless to say my frag flamed out in 2 weeks. My experience with named acros is that their full potential won't reveal itself until it matures into a small colony of larger. PC is a perfect example, starts out kinda cute, but really nothing special until it grows out. You have some outstanding sticks, look forward to the outrageous colonies they will become :beer:

 

[reefmutt]

Hi matt, I get some of those white, bare, patches on some of my acros 2. Any idea what it is? Some of mine are right down low in tank so I wouldn't think it's too much light. Especially as I have rather low par numbers to start with.

Hey Mike, you're not going to like my response but personally, I think they are directly related to LEDs..Some corals just react this way to LEDs.. I really don't know why.. And they have a lot of trouble recovering from this condition..
My frag tank is all t5 (4b+,F. Purple, kz coral light) and I have another mini colony of jaw dropper. It is more red in the branches and has none of the white patches.. Actually, I'm happier with a lot of corals in frag system since they are looking better than in my display.. I have a piece of orange passion that has pretty nice orange polyps and incredible pe but the piece in my display doesn't have the orange polyps.. I do however have a dwarf golden angel in the dt who has decided to pick constantly at my sps so the pe is not nearly as good as it used to be..
Other than reducing light, I really have no idea how to let the coral recover from the whitening..

 

[reefmutt]

I picked up this tenuis 3 weeks ago I believe it's the same as yours. It came in pretty much brown but is slowly lightening as the weeks progress. I'm much more excited about this one over the WD that I picked up at the same time. Hoping it turns out like yours. Great collection!

This tenuis looks a lot like Jackson 's crazy tenuis he had with the red highlights..
Nice! Can't wait to see that baby grow out.. Reeflover has a piece now as well
That's what's so neat about all the tenuis corals floating around, they can be so variable.

 

[reefmutt]

Great pictures Matt :bigeyes:

Thanks flo!

I used to use salifert, I am about to order it again from china. When it was out of production I was using the red sea kit but the color change was hard for me to read since I am partially color blind. I rarely even test for it anymore especially since the red sea takes so long to do. I just look out for signs of overdose on the certain corals which I know burn first. It's so hard to get the level above 430 that it never happens anyways. I can't wait for the salifert kit to get here but it takes two months.

There is no K test kit that is as easy and definitive as the salifert.
I'm not sure why you would want to go over 430ppm.. Or even 400 ppm for that matter. Reefvet recently posted a list of the composition of seawater in Matt's thread, it listed potassium as 380 in natural seawater.. Not above 400 will be my target going forward.
I honestly don't see the point of maintaining any elements higher than natural seawater levels.. It just gives the potential for imbalances..

Pretty tenuis but not the typical PM colours I have or have seen. Basically the PM I'm familiar with have the typical blue tenuis coralites but with pink polyps. Under MH and BP the blue coralites wash out giving it a more pinkish/purple appearance when the polyps are extended. Kind of underwhelming if you ask me, yours is far most attractive :bigeyes: As for the jaw dropper, good luck with getting it to colour up as advertised. I've seen it once in person in all its glorious colours, even bought a frag, but never saw another again. Needless to say my frag flamed out in 2 weeks. My experience with named acros is that their full potential won't reveal itself until it matures into a small colony of larger. PC is a perfect example, starts out kinda cute, but really nothing special until it grows out. You have some outstanding sticks, look forward to the outrageous colonies they will become :beer:

Thanks! That's the beauty and attraction of these dumb little sticks.. You just never know when they are going to reward you with some crazy growth or colour.. I'm not expecting that much more out of the Jawdropper except maybe more uniform red coloration.
Hopefully you are right, when they get bigger they will reveal more colours.. We shall see!

 

[reefmutt]

I love these pieces Matt. Do you happen to know their Latin names? I have not seen the acro on the right in the first picture before, but I am sure my lfs has advertised the piece in the second picture recently. I will pay a visit to get it.

Are the white patches on one of the acros bite marks?

Hey Bulent, sorry, no Latin names. The larger one, I got as a mini colony that I can't remember if it was a wild or cultured.. Maybe if March is looking, he'll remember.. It came from him..
The other piece, I also don't know if it was a frag from a cultured or wild piece.. I got it from Raging Reef, a local vendor. You can see what the frag looked like before it decided to shoot out.. It is very different looking that the new growth..
I think that's what makes id ing corals so difficult. Their growth forms can vary so dramatically from one tank to the next..
I have a couple similar pieces of that larger coral..
In the following photo, another similar frag from Raging reef is growing out between the green corals, on the left.

 

[maxxII]

I know you guys know your stuff, but this "tenuis" looks like A. vermiculata to me.

The corallites have some pretty heavy exposed ridges which is typical of A/ vermiculata IME.

 

[reefmutt]

Ok.. I'm going to post the last of my photobomb..
Here's my dragon forest. They will begin touching soon..

Few wider top downs.. I guess I take this shot a lot.. Shows good colour variety. Right side of centre section..

This is upper right of left hand side of tank. The Blueberry Wine from March (from a Toronto reefer) is at the top of the photo. Since I pulled out from under a rock and placed it up high to recover, it is starting to grow.. Looking forward to it taking off..

And this is centre up high..

There I think that concludes the photobomb!
I hope you enjoyed!

 

[markalot]

Great pics Matt, looks like the tank is in the zone. Need more pictures.

Dragons posted while I was writing the above ... but still need MORE. Everything is looking just perfect!