Mark's 150 gallon

[mhucasey]

Just an observation- Mark with a blown out disc in his back posts more pics of his tank than Sahin:lol: Well even limited those are some great shots and the tank is looking really lush! The stag section in the center is totally awesome and I love the cyphastrea!

 

[glaukos]

I have come to the conclusion that our tanks don't like us much
Tank looks awesome:inlove:

Heal fast and well buddy:beer:

 

[plyle02]

Mark,
Beautiful display, you have some large colonies in there, I can tell when the mini-colonies grow for another 6 months or so, your tank is going to be even more stunning. Great job of spreading growth structure, color, and coral types to add balance to the eye. Hope all is well your way

 

[joshky]

Get better Mark, my dad has had back issues my entire life and I hope I never meet the same fate.

The algae on the frag rack looks annoying for sure, but otherwise your tank is looking fantastic. I love when I go on vacation and come back home to my reef, things just look so much better. Perhaps I'm just overly elated everything made it okay. I think we definitely mess with the tanks too much, my brother was getting on me this week for moving things around to take pictures, "Stop messing with the acros!!!" haha.

 

[markalot]

Wow,

thanks for all the support everyone, I really really appreciate it. Recovery continues to go very well and I feel really lucky it wasn't worse. The exercises are a bit odd, especially the one with me on my back, legs bent, holding a giant pink ball ......

 

[Renton777]

Tanks looking great Mark, lost of great pictures. This is my favorite, love the large branches.

 

[reefmutt]

Wow,

thanks for all the support everyone, I really really appreciate it. Recovery continues to go very well and I feel really lucky it wasn't worse. The exercises are a bit odd, especially the one with me on my back, legs bent, holding a giant pink ball ......

Yeeeeeah..... I'm sure you're a great guy and all, Mark... but I'm not sure I needed that visual... :facepalm:

 

[markalot]

Yeeeeeah..... I'm sure you're a great guy and all, Mark... but I'm not sure I needed that visual... :facepalm:

:clown:

I'll use the blue ball next time.

So I am a little better every day, and today I broke out the Tamron 90mm macro lens to try and see if the little AEFW are on the move or not. I know most folks like to post only good pretty pictures here on RC, and that's fine, but I like to bore the hell out of everyone with diagnostic pics, brutal closeups, and other ugliness. Maybe it might help someone unlucky enough to stumble on this thread, who knows? Besides, I'm rather short on good looking pictures at the moment. :sad2:

Starting with the worst, most of these taken at 3200 ISO and with the aid of a flashlight.

This acro is receding at the base and I assumed I would find AEFW but I can't, which makes me quite happy ... except I'd still like to know why it's receding. Is the blotchiness bite marks? I assumed this would do ok in lower light but perhaps not. PAR at this location is ~ 220.

You'll notice a theme with this pictures. See the blotchiness in the skin above the dead area? I have a few acros that have this same blochiness, which from a distance looks like bites.

This is the Jacquelinea, which always has these blotches and is growing very quickly at the moment. Sure looks like bite marks, doesn't it?

Super closeup of a Lokani branch. See the scratch marks?

The dwarf valida, more blotches and a few scratches.

Red Robin, with a few blotches but nothing that really stands out up close.

Rainbow acro, which has lost a lot of color and has some recession, yet nothing alarming shows up when looking close.

Last one for this batch. The Red Dragon is growing, but IMO isn't 100% healthy. Again, blotchy.

So yea, these are all very close and I'm probably paranoid but I feel better about it. Whatever is going on it's slow.

 

[markalot]

I moved the frag rack down, further away from the MP40, and shazam.

I've been losing LPS in this tank, the first to go was a large colony of purple Duncans, which closed up one day and then started to wither away. I fragged where I could (really needed a band saw for this) and was able to save a few clusters of heads. This is the biggest on the other frag rack.

After this I lost my gold torch, half of one of my plate corals is dead, and two chalices receded. Stupid flubber anyway.

Back to SPS ...

Patiently waiting for this one to get bigger. When water quality is at its best the skin is more sky blue than green.

The Horrida is getting better color slowly but surely. Supposedly, when healthy, skin is a good blue with reddish (I suspect brownish) polyps. Polyps do glow green under blue light.

I assume this is a stylo of some sort. Very slow grower, green polyps with pink skin, and unlike every other stylo refuses to encrust. Hrmph.

... and while I was taking pictures the cyphastrea decided to puff up it's polyps. Odd but reliable coral.

Did some testing today as well. Nitrates down to undetectable, so dosed a little Ca NO3. Mg was 1250, woops, it's been a long while since I tested, so I'm bringing it up. Alk 7.8 and staying rock steady.

I have been adding ~20ml of vinegar to topoff with 2 tsp of Kalk per gallon of RODI. Evaporation is aprox a gallon a day. Some stringy white stuff is hanging off one of the return nozzles so I decided to cut the output from the bio-pellet reactor in half and let that ride for a while to see what happens to NO3 and PO4.

 

[markalot]

Forgot one.

My green cap with blue polyps is coming back again. MEN couldn't kill the entire thing before they vanished, never to be seen again. I've always liked this cap but it needs really good conditions to show with a good green and the blue polyps. And, of course, it's yet another cap I don't have room for.

 

[M007]

Nice pics. I once had a Horrida with white polyps but lost it and was never able to find one like it again, that was 4 years ago. My current colony has the typical browny/gold polyps but the blue is quite nice :thumbsup:

 

[Art13]

Nice pics. I once had a Horrida with white polyps but lost it and was never able to find one like it again, that was 4 years ago. My current colony has the typical browny/gold polyps but the blue is quite nice :thumbsup:

unique corals has some frags of them for sale atm if you were still looking for one.

 

[Art13]

Is it possible you have any crabs in the tank that might be walking on the coral and causing the marks? Just a thought, if you have good polyp extension and can't find a predator, it doesn't seem to be bugs. I only suggest crab as i have one that likes to hang onto my acro's from time to time and just sit there, i've never actually checked for marks on the coral though.

 

[markalot]

Nice pics. I once had a Horrida with white polyps but lost it and was never able to find one like it again, that was 4 years ago. My current colony has the typical browny/gold polyps but the blue is quite nice :thumbsup:

Thanks, sorry you lost the white polyp Horrida. It's an odd acro and I have issues keeping it 100% healthy.

Is it possible you have any crabs in the tank that might be walking on the coral and causing the marks? Just a thought, if you have good polyp extension and can't find a predator, it doesn't seem to be bugs. I only suggest crab as i have one that likes to hang onto my acro's from time to time and just sit there, i've never actually checked for marks on the coral though.

I do have 10 peppermint shrimp, or at least I added 10, I only ever see 2 of them. Good suggestion, I might have to do some night stalking.

 

[reefmutt]

There is no conclusive evidence of aefws in those picks, imo..
I'd suspect the low nutrients making the acros' skin thin..
Might even explain some of the lps losses?
Just noticed you say you have peppermint shrimp..
If they get hungry, they are perfectly capable of eating sps flesh..
I have about 15, that I can count at any feeding time (of 40 I added many months ago). Mine have not eaten any corals, to my knowledge..
I have discovered very recently hat I have a nasty crap that likes to eat acro flesh, however.
Here's his favorite coral to snack on:

The base and half way up the coral is all scraped away.. I'm going to have to find a way to kill the little bast*+d!!
Maybe you have a crab in there..

 

[mhucasey]

That looks similar to what I was seeing when my nutrients were too low due to over skimming. Bump up the nitrate and keep it above zero and set your skimmer to skim drier would be my suggestion.

 

[M007]

Another example of easy for some and hard for others, A. Horrida has been an absolute trooper for me. The loss of my previous colony was due to a 48 hour power failure, tank was at 68 when the power finally came back, can't fault the coral for that. Since then some up and downs, even went dormant for half a year, but in the last 6 months it's exploded with growth and PE.

 

[markalot]

Another example of easy for some and hard for others, A. Horrida has been an absolute trooper for me. The loss of my previous colony was due to a 48 hour power failure, tank was at 68 when the power finally came back, can't fault the coral for that. Since then some up and downs, even went dormant for half a year, but in the last 6 months it's exploded with growth and PE.

This one was an Aussie, I bought it maybe 48 hours after arriving here, which is one of the many dumb things I've done. If I can keep it alive for another year it might do something.

 

[markalot]

There is no conclusive evidence of aefws in those picks, imo..
I'd suspect the low nutrients making the acros' skin thin..
Might even explain some of the lps losses?
Just noticed you say you have peppermint shrimp..
If they get hungry, they are perfectly capable of eating sps flesh..
I have about 15, that I can count at any feeding time (of 40 I added many months ago). Mine have not eaten any corals, to my knowledge..
I have discovered very recently hat I have a nasty crap that likes to eat acro flesh, however.
Here's his favorite coral to snack on:

The base and half way up the coral is all scraped away.. I'm going to have to find a way to kill the little bast*+d!!
Maybe you have a crab in there..

Thanks, good stuff to know.

 

[markalot]

That looks similar to what I was seeing when my nutrients were too low due to over skimming. Bump up the nitrate and keep it above zero and set your skimmer to skim drier would be my suggestion.

Thanks Matt, always nice to have folks with more experience looking over my shoulder. With the reduced feeding and low nitrates this makes sense.