Mark's 150 gallon

Thanks DT.

Had to glue hairy horrida back together in a few spots but all in all no big problems. EXCEPT THE SMELL AND THE SLIME, GOOD GRIEF. :hmm4:

Just curious what you use for your underwater glue work? I've been trying to glue some frags to live rock underwater with aquastick and its been not so sticky.

Awesome tank BTW!
 
Wow! That's impressive. The tank doesn't quite have the "pop" without the bright green, but looks a lot less crowded. I think the change looks good.

Thanks. I miss the green so I'll probably let one branch go up again, but just one.

I think the tank is looking far better now. My eyes are drawn to different corals, whereas before they focussed on the slimer.

I may be going through the same motion by removing my A. gomezi colony, which is looking huge in proportion to the size of my display.

Thanks Bulent.

Beautiful stuff man! I am a huge stag fan and have a solid blue stag that stays solid blue in any conditions, as well as a red one. Both are true staghorns as well, the red grows so slow though. I am very sad to see no one appreciates these corals anymore. I would love to see how they grow in a tank like yours.
I love how you let the slimer grow out so nice and large, tank looks just as good without it too :). Seeing tanks that have such nice staghorns really makes me want to keep a tank going right now just for staghorns. Like that one cube tank that was a stag forest on here years back. I wish I could remember the thread.

Thanks. I seem to remember it as well ... will share it if I find it. I need to find another color stag. My Red Robin is not a stag, but I've seen other pictures of Red Robin growing in more of a stag form. My remaining known stag form acros are:

Slimer
Unknown Blue Stag
Hairy Horrida (wild caught)
Miami Orchid (ORA on plug when purchased)
Unknown Blue Tip Green Stag
 
Thanks DT.

So the deed is done, I will never let it grow that much again, but unfortunately one does not just get rid of a slimer. The base is everywhere, it will be back.

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Had to glue hairy horrida back together in a few spots but all in all no big problems. EXCEPT THE SMELL AND THE SLIME, GOOD GRIEF. :hmm4:

Dropped the doser by 100ml both parts, that should prevent a spike. KH 6.4 to start, running low again and everything loving it. Water in the sump dropped over an inch after the slimer was removed.

Amazing. The end of an era.

I see that you are running KH at the lower levels again. Will you maintain it like that?
I believe it is Bulent who also runs it low with the same amazing results.
 
I think the stag forest was from Leonardo maybe? I just picked up a Miami orchid hoping it will be a good one but the growth isn't looking very staghorn like even though the pics on the net look good. It is on an orange plug too but might just need more time to get thicker branches. Got a pic of yours?

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Amazing. The end of an era.

I see that you are running KH at the lower levels again. Will you maintain it like that?
I believe it is Bulent who also runs it low with the same amazing results.

Not really on purpose, my target is 7 but I never seem to get above 6.5. It fell to 5.1 again, yikes. Massive growth spurt going on and I should have tested sooner. It's back to 6.5 and no acros are showing any signs of distress.

I'v been remiss in my forum wandering. Doing some reading this morning. Nice work on the tank!

Thanks, and thanks for stopping by.

I think the stag forest was from Leonardo maybe? I just picked up a Miami orchid hoping it will be a good one but the growth isn't looking very staghorn like even though the pics on the net look good. It is on an orange plug too but might just need more time to get thicker branches. Got a pic of yours?

Sorry for the late reply, here's a shot of it from yesterday. It's a rugged rugged coral ... I just dropped it into this spot and it encrusted and has grown steadily.

Y09BpmYh.jpg


What lights are you using?

Hi ABz,

It's a T5/Nanobox hybrid made from a 6 bulb fixture. It supports 4 T5's plus 8 Nanobox arrays. I also use two BML high output strips to supply blue and violet LEDs. Note I have recently changed to running just 2 T5 bulbs, both blue+ for 7 hours a day where I used to run 4 for 5 hours a day. The tank obviously liked this switch as both colors and growth improved.

Latest pics, sorry no top downs Matt. :)

GDIYQnJh.jpg


The blue stag has woken up. Was the slimer causing it issues?
7ZXrfCyh.jpg


Lokani
S4JVuJQh.jpg


and frags
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Hairy horrida
j1radMsh.jpg


PMT5Xq4h.jpg


-click for original-
 
Wow, I love the acros growing at the top left causing the shadow area underneath, gives a nice look. Though the photos show up very dark on my phone so the colors are hard to see. Can't wait to see things in a few months :)

Sent from my Moto Z (2) using Tapatalk
 
Wow, I love the acros growing at the top left causing the shadow area underneath, gives a nice look. Though the photos show up very dark on my phone so the colors are hard to see. Can't wait to see things in a few months :)

Sent from my Moto Z (2) using Tapatalk

They are dark here at work too, not sure what happened.

That's the peach dragon, grows like a weed, I stuck a stylo on top of part of it and it's growing out and around the darn thing. lol If this was a red dragon it would have died long ago, naturally. It does have a solid tan/orange glow under blue LED, which is pretty cool looking.
 
Wow, I love the acros growing at the top left causing the shadow area underneath, gives a nice look. Though the photos show up very dark on my phone so the colors are hard to see. Can't wait to see things in a few months :)


Edited in IMGUR to increase brightness. It worked, without me having to repost. Consider this a plug for IMGUR!
 
Lookin good Mark:thumbsup::thumbsup:


I looooove that middle section red/pink coral grouping and then across to the right upper area of corals in your full tank shot.
 
Man, Mark, even after the deforestation, your tank is still looking so dense and mature.
So good!
I second the top down request.. strong request. I second strongly!!! :)
 
I didn't go through the whole post but I was reading the first few pages where you were talking about not getting the color, did the t5 fixture change that or just maturity over time.... Just wondering. Beautiful tank btw.
 
I didn't go through the whole post but I was reading the first few pages where you were talking about not getting the color, did the t5 fixture change that or just maturity over time.... Just wondering. Beautiful tank btw.

T5's, stability and maturity IMO. Thanks! I'm only running 2 T5's (blue+) at the moment and color is terrific.
 
What lighting are you running. From the pic I assumed t5’s.

It's in my signature but I don't think it shows up on mobile.

ATI SunPower T5 / NanoBox LED hybrid 60" x 4 + 8 NanoBox v3.1 arrays

It can run 4 T5's along with the LED arrays. I also have two BML LED strip lights running just blue and violet channels. The 3.1 arrays have Lime and white, I run mostly Lime for the white channel. Lime is similar to white without the blue spike.

In my opinion at least some T5's are needed for better color and coverage, but it's not a simple answer because it will vary coral to coral as far as how they respond to the light. Heavy blue is key, with the trick being getting the tank to look whiter to our eyes without flooding the tank with a spectrum the corals can't handle. T5's are good for this because they have a very narrow spike in the green wavelength which our eyes are sensitive too, making the tank look much whiter than it really is.

An even combination of Blue+ and Coral+ are perfect for this and that's the combination I used for years (BigE uses this combo exclusively and you should check out his thread). I stopped using coral+ and instead use a combination of white and Lime LED's to try and simulate the same visible color. It seems to be working as the coral colors have remained good, which means I have managed to keep the actual spectrum in a good range and also make the tank appear whiter. It's not perfect, LED's frankly suck at this, but it seems I've lucked into a good combination.

If you use LED only and want good results I think, and this is just my opinion, you have to go with mostly blue blue, violet, and more blue with just a touch of green and maybe a little red. For the green and red (white) the new Mint LED's do this better than Lime's and look better to the eye. I have a newer Nanobox fixture over my 40 gallon that use Mint LED's for the white channel and no White LED's. Using only LED the look is very pleasing compare to either white or lime. It's still very blue because it has to be for coral health, but it's less of a Windex look than the typical LED fixture. This tank looks like a toilet bowl running only LED with the Lime and White channels turned up.

There is more opinion than anyone ever wanted. :hmm3:
 
Lookin good Mark:thumbsup::thumbsup:


I looooove that middle section red/pink coral grouping and then across to the right upper area of corals in your full tank shot.

Thanks Ed, and thanks for stopping by. I'd like to claim I planned that grouping, but not really. :D

It is simply breathtaking. Hopefully one day, my tank can look something like this lol

Thanks ABz, good luck with your tank. Steady as she goes.

Man, Mark, even after the deforestation, your tank is still looking so dense and mature.
So good!
I second the top down request.. strong request. I second strongly!!! :)

Yea yea, thanks Matt. :beer: Hopefully this weekend for the required top downs.
 
It's in my signature but I don't think it shows up on mobile.

ATI SunPower T5 / NanoBox LED hybrid 60" x 4 + 8 NanoBox v3.1 arrays

It can run 4 T5's along with the LED arrays. I also have two BML LED strip lights running just blue and violet channels. The 3.1 arrays have Lime and white, I run mostly Lime for the white channel. Lime is similar to white without the blue spike.

In my opinion at least some T5's are needed for better color and coverage, but it's not a simple answer because it will vary coral to coral as far as how they respond to the light. Heavy blue is key, with the trick being getting the tank to look whiter to our eyes without flooding the tank with a spectrum the corals can't handle. T5's are good for this because they have a very narrow spike in the green wavelength which our eyes are sensitive too, making the tank look much whiter than it really is.

An even combination of Blue+ and Coral+ are perfect for this and that's the combination I used for years (BigE uses this combo exclusively and you should check out his thread). I stopped using coral+ and instead use a combination of white and Lime LED's to try and simulate the same visible color. It seems to be working as the coral colors have remained good, which means I have managed to keep the actual spectrum in a good range and also make the tank appear whiter. It's not perfect, LED's frankly suck at this, but it seems I've lucked into a good combination.

If you use LED only and want good results I think, and this is just my opinion, you have to go with mostly blue blue, violet, and more blue with just a touch of green and maybe a little red. For the green and red (white) the new Mint LED's do this better than Lime's and look better to the eye. I have a newer Nanobox fixture over my 40 gallon that use Mint LED's for the white channel and no White LED's. Using only LED the look is very pleasing compare to either white or lime. It's still very blue because it has to be for coral health, but it's less of a Windex look than the typical LED fixture. This tank looks like a toilet bowl running only LED with the Lime and White channels turned up.

There is more opinion than anyone ever wanted. :hmm3:

I currently run leds only and have almost took advantage of a t5 retro fixture that has 4 t5s and would incorporate my current fixtures for a hybrid. Didn't pull the trigger just because I'm cheap but still debating it. Been debating adding the t5s or one 250w halide in between the leds. Just don't know and not rushing. For the t5s I was going to go with 2 blue +, 1 coral +, 1 actinic. But like I said just doing my research. I know it couldn't hurt but things are growing as we speak just trying to see better color more so for my own eyes.
 
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