Mark's 150 gallon

[markalot]

Excellent!!! By the sounds of it you have truly been bitten by the SPS bug and certainly your tank is showing it. Great pics and your corals look very healthy and are showing signs that you have a great handle on things in your system.
GREAT JOB!!!

Thanks!

 

[this is me]

Some beautiful pieces of SPS. Very good colors and polyps extension.

 

[markalot]

Tried some topdown shots and mostly failed, with a few exceptions. The color from the top is so much better than from the front, maybe because I just have normal glass? I've got a porthole thing coming from Avast marine which should help.

I think the bubble algae looks better from the top as well. :clown:

 

[biggles]

Tried some topdown shots and mostly failed, with a few exceptions. The color from the top is so much better than from the front, maybe because I just have normal glass? I've got a porthole thing coming from Avast marine which should help.

Until you have something to let you shove the camera 'underwater' such as your porthole thing it's difficult to get sharp top downs. I use a 1/2 gallon flat bottomed acrylic bug/fish tank for my top down box. It's 5"x7" with 5" high sides so i can basically get to any coral for a good closeup. I did have to shell out $3.50 for it but sometimes you just pay the big bucks to get professional equipment on a budget...........
Make sure you go stupid with that porthole as soon as you get please Mark as you have a very nice collection of beautiful colonies in waiting to grow out and color up :beer:

 

[markalot]

Make sure you go stupid with that porthole as soon as you get please Mark as you have a very nice collection of beautiful colonies in waiting to grow out and color up :beer:

I don't think I'll have any problem going full stupid once I get it. Only question is, will I accidentally drop the camera in the water?

 

[Fishy 1]

Only question is, will I accidentally drop the camera in the water?

That is the question we are all wait to have answered:lmao:

I think the bubble algae looks better from the top too

I completely lost it when I read that:lolspin:

 

[markalot]

Had a small frag, one that's been in this tank but not growing for months, RTN over night. It had some recession at the base last month and now it appears to be kicking the bucket. Hopefully it's isolated. There seem to be certain types of acros I can't grown, smaller branched and deeply colored always give me issues. I have a similar looking frag on my frag rock I haven't mounted yet because it looks at me funny.

It's the little purple nub in this photo, in the upper left, to the right of the turd which I've moved up to better enjoy it's browness.

So I mounted most of my frags, which required me to trim the slimer and the big purple stylo. Took two hands to clip the stylo and I broke off a little more than planned.

Just a few frags.

Right side with the frags scattered around the rocks.

FTS

 

[jroovers]

Things look good to me! Sometimes I've found that pieces can go up in smoke for no apparent reason. As long as its an isolated incident, I wouldn't worry about it... if two, three or more pieces, and/or established pieces, starting following suit, then time to be concerned.

 

[Fishy 1]

Tank looks great Mark. Sorry about the Acro troubles, were in the same boat with that one.

 

[markalot]

Things look good to me! Sometimes I've found that pieces can go up in smoke for no apparent reason. As long as its an isolated incident, I wouldn't worry about it... if two, three or more pieces, and/or established pieces, starting following suit, then time to be concerned.

Thanks for the reassurance. I haven't lost a coral in so long it took effort not to freak out. I ran the gamut of tests and found a few issues.

Alk 9.6 -- this has been slowly creeping up from 9.1 over a week ago and my goal is 8.5 so I reduced the daily dose another 5ml for both 2 parts. I measured 9.3 yesterday but that's probably a testing or timing issue.

Calcium 450 -- I always dose equal two parts so I let this drift where it wants.

Magnesium ~ 1650 - woops :worried: I guess I'll stop adding it weekly and let it drift down.

I've also started adding 25ml/gallon of vinegar to my topoff Kalk mixture to increase the potency and save me $$ and this might be the reason Alk is rising.

Here's the coral. It was a very nice purple with green outlines around the polyps. It looks to have stopped losing skin, for now.

 

[markalot]

Tank looks great Mark. Sorry about the Acro troubles, were in the same boat with that one.

Thanks Rory. Silly acros anyway.

 

[Fishy 1]

Thanks Rory. Silly acros anyway.

Yeah who needs them anyway:lol:

 

[biggles]

Thanks Rory. Silly acros anyway.

The words silly and acros do not belong in the same sentence Mark, i'll let it slide this time................

Yeah who needs them anyway:lol:

Oh that's good to know Rory, i'll chuck your frags down in the sump for Barry to munch on then will i ?

We can all joke around and have a good old time but don't be slagging acros........... not ever....... :strooper:

 

[Fishy 1]

Haha lol, I was only joking mate. So please don't go chucking said frags to the muncher :eek1:. I intend to have a SPS dominant tank eventually (when I can keep them alive). So when that time comes I will be anything but a Acro joker and will defend all things Acro with passion.

 

[biggles]

Lol don't worry mate, your frags are safe under a blue force field - 400W Radium

Btw Mark, i forgot to mention how good the colors are on your corals and how healthy the whole display is looking - good work mate.
How much Mg are you dosing compared to your alk dose. For my system it's about 30ml for every 130ml of alk and calcium. When i wasn't doing weekly 20% water changes it was more like 30ml to 100ml. I keep 7.5, 410 and 1300 pretty solidly atm with just measurable nitrates.

 

[markalot]

Lol don't worry mate, your frags are safe under a blue force field - 400W Radium

Btw Mark, i forgot to mention how good the colors are on your corals and how healthy the whole display is looking - good work mate.
How much Mg are you dosing compared to your alk dose. For my system it's about 30ml for every 130ml of alk and calcium. When i wasn't doing weekly 20% water changes it was more like 30ml to 100ml. I keep 7.5, 410 and 1300 pretty solidly atm with just measurable nitrates.

Thanks Biggles!

Wait, I'm supposed to measure? :spin3: I was doing a glug or so a week from my big jug of Tech-M. I'll start measuring I suppose ... if I have too. I'm going to bring my Alk slowly down to 8.5 and then think about going a bit lower depending on how things look. Thanks for the info on your Mg ratio, that's a big help and a great place for me to start.

The little coral nub didn't lose anymore skin last night. /shrug

 

[markalot]

Barry ...

I had a Flame Angel way back when I had my 40 gallon running. Beautiful fish that nipped at every stick in the place. I had even nursed it back to health from a bad case of popeye and some kind of discoloration on it's skin.

Look at baby Clown and baby slimer.

I took him back to the LFS where he sold for $70 and got a few free frags, most of which are long gone. :facepalm:

Also learned a good lesson about Hydnophora. :angryfire:

Even my Pipe Organ is in this one, which was reduced to just a couple of polyps by a huge aptasia infestation and then one of my two bad tank crashes. Now it's bigger than ever and growing fast. Pipe Organ is one of those corals that will do well in less than ideal conditions but really take off in good conditions.

 

[markalot]

Top down photos.

One of my few frags bought from another reefer, this is the best looking acro in my tank, hands down. It doesn't look nearly this good when viewed from the front.

Best guess is either nasuta or subulata

sarmentosa?

I think jacquelineae? The white spot bothers me. There is skin there but it's very light.

ORA Plum Crazy .. bleached, browned, recovering. I had one of these in an older bowfront tank and threw it out because it appeared infested with AEFW. Ha, oops, looks like it has an interesting habit of forming white clear corallites on the stem.

New unknown $10 frag with bright blue polyps.

Purple Fuzz (A&M) unknown

I really like this one, a random frag with bright blue tips and the blue is spreading down the branch.

Another random frag, intense green under blue lights.

UC "Rainbow" milli starting to color up

Random milli frag. This thing grows fast!

 

[markalot]

A few non acros ...

My favorite Poci, green with a bright yellow base. Of course it doesn't spread while the others bail out on a regular basis.

ORA Ponape birdsnest

My oldest SPS, Purple Stylophora.

Thanks for looking!

 

[Fishy 1]

Very nice Mark, before I had my Acro disaster I had a Sarmentosa and it looked just like your one (not the color). I love that poci, just stunning