Maroun 150g Build Thread

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6-7 years old Elefantenohr Rhodactis 4 mushroms on one rock grew like crazy and never multiplied. one of them just detached and dropped on a new rock

Cabbage leather corals

those will for sure not make it to the next tank as they look ugly and grow very very fast.

some more zoos palys and mushrroms on RT side

 

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Leather coral

GSP

And finally my 2 favorite softies in the tank
the bright red rhodactis

and my RBTA which is making a great come back after it bleached and lost most of it's volume

and one of its 2 micro clones

And an orange sponge in the tank for around a year now with no growth

LPS to follow shortly

 

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LPS

My 2 Galaxea colonies growing very fast despite lots of fraging

Candy cane and its frag not doing so good since some time now but improving a bit lately

Double headed lobophylia

single headed lobophylia

Chalice

Frogspawn

Favia

Red favia recovering colours

 

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Scroll coral

and a frag from it. wish the mother colony looked as good as its frags

Pagoda cup 1

Candy Cane from Switzerland. Looking bad after spending one week head first in the sand while I was on travel recovering fast though

Still waiting for exact ID on those two not sure if they're both favias or not?

Acan

red Favia recovering it's colours

 

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Another small chalice I have that is also growing rather fast but still no mouths appearing asme as the big one. is in a tough place to image.

a more recent pic of my candy cane showing improvment

Frogspawn I picked up from Switezerland

The new Euphilia collection I received 2-3 weeks ago from a friend, hopefully they will make a nice Euphilia island in the new tank.

this one arrived with only 1 head out of three alive so hoping it'll continue to grow . Looks well so far

 

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this one arrived nearly dead with only two small parts barely hanging on the skeleton. looking better every day, wonder ifit'll fill the dead spaces or if I should just cut it.

And a Blasto I added last week with a couple of nice coloured mushrooms that came on the same rock

And SPS to follow

 

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Orange Monti Digitata from switzerland too.
grew very fast initially and then slowed down on groing still PE is excellent

Hydnopora

was continuously receeding for months but for the last two months it seems to have stopped and is looking better. still no growth.

next to it a frag from another Hydno I just got

green Monti cap growing very fast

a positioning mistake, an encrusting monti that I placed on a plug next to the cap and it encrused the rocks over the plug and is moving towards the cap not sure If I should interfere somehow. worst case scenario I'll just cover it with epoxy or maybe pull the cap as it's loose on a plug.

red monti with visible epoxy signs after the mille fell on it and broke it in pieces

not sure of the ID of this one (Stylopora or seriatopora) but it's doing great and growing and not loosing colours in the same postion where my ORA green birdnest and another one just like it bleached and then RTNd months ago...

a very nice accro I got from spain with turquoise green color and light bluish growth tips very hard to capture the true colour as it's under my 22 K gieseman bulb. growing rather fast.

 

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an accro that grew from less than 1 inch frag ,very fast to encrust and also to grow wonder if it'll table or branch finally

Accropora Suharsonoi from Spain

2 brown SPS I Picked for 20 Euro Each in Spain, turned out to be a good choice as they're both turning into darke purple,

Olive green accro I got from Holland growing fast with nice PE

one of my favorite accros ORA Blue Oregon tort. finished encrusting the plug with no vertical growth and suddenly started growing up rather faster than I expected it would.

 

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ORA red planet, whole whitish growth from a single branch since March 2009. potential problems as it's encrusting the rocks towards my ORA blue ORegon tort. should I do something About it? the tort is barely attached tot he tank rock so I can still pull it out but would that stop the growth it's getting?

a Frag from avery nice Blue Accro I got from holland for a friend which Stnd and had to be fragged. Luckily we were able to save a few small pieces of it.

Green Accro I got from Germany with a resident crab in it

Red Millepora with the epoxied branches that broke off after it fell, always showing growth tips even when other corals are in STN, crazy PE

Green Pavona growing but much slower than 2 brown frags I got from the states. or one I got from Spain, also not showing the typical growth pattern for some reason.

 

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a frag of a table accro froma wild colony

green accro that puzzled me. few weeks ago I broke a small tip wile reaching in the tank and just epoxied it close to the frag. a couple of weeks later the larger frag becomes brown all of a sudden while the brolen piece remains green!!! they're both in the same flow same light and same water paratemeters!!!

Another accro that's not really happy, for some reason it turned from yellowish to greenish and to brown and has an STN line that extended from below all the lenght of the branch

Brown montipora that grew from a 90 % dead colony. gave a small frag to a friend starting in SPS and it gave reallly nice PE and colored out to a nice beige color. a frag of It in my frag tank did the same. still mother colony looks ugly

Montipora confusa? from spain

and a smaller one also from spain

dark green millepora from spain too starting to grow fast

 

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Another red monti cap

and my Blue haze Superman montipora that bleached to a total white ofor weeks and then STN hit all the part of it that came on the plug just started recovering for no clear reason, colored up nice and growing on the ugly cement support it's on. placed a bit of epoxy on the sides tot ake out frags and place them on some LR. one of my favorite SPS in the tank.

a Deep see accro? got a frag from a friend from a wild colony which RTNd few weeks later. the frag looks fine and has grown a bit.

a thick green accro frag I got from Switzerlan, very thinck braches wonder how it'll look after some growth

the fours broken branches from my fallen red mille. if those grow as fast as the mother colony I'm sure they'll fill up this rock in few months.

a light yellow accro frag that turned green and then browned for some reason

Lght colored accro with dark blue polyps from switzerland, was never happy in my tank and has been in STN since I got it ...

 

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More recent pics of the mille ecrusting over the epoxy for the broken parts. thismille has fallen so many times managed to epoxy thehat the front part is now deformed. finally managed to epoxy the big mariculture plug to my rocks.

Another red monti cap

and my Blue haze Superman montipora that bleached to a total white ofor weeks and then STN hit all the part of it that came on the plug just started recovering for no clear reason, colored up nice and growing on the ugly cement support it's on. placed a bit of epoxy on the sides tot ake out frags and place them on some LR. one of my favorite SPS in the tank.

a Deep see accro? got a frag from a friend from a wild colony which RTNd few weeks later. the frag looks fine and has grown a bit.

a thick green accro frag I got from Switzerlan, very thinck braches wonder how it'll look after some growth

the fours broken branches from my fallen red mille. if those grow as fast as the mother colony I'm sure they'll fill up this rock in few months.

a light yellow accro frag that turned green and then browned for some reason

Lght colored accro with dark blue polyps from switzerland, was never happy in my tank and has been in STN since I got it ...

 

[Aquafred]

Great Picture taking. Your coral collection is growing very very quickly. its amazing how each SPS coral in your tank came from a different country and you still managed to collect an impressive collection.
Can't wait to see how your tank will look after a year of growth!!!
I'm impressed by the recovery of the Superman Montipora i still remember how bleached it looked, wouldn't have imagined it would recover.
Its a shame to have that red mille fall and break, it is good you finally epoxied it and maybe you should have done it months before!!! the good thing about it is the frags you got and I'm sure the mother colony will fix itself given some fall free time:lmao:
Concerning your Ora blue tort and the Ora Red Planet, the growth of the red planet is impressive but I'm wondering why it's only growing from one side or one branch?sorry can't help with the encrust issue but I feel it's wishfull thinking that the encrust will just stop when it meets another coral and I'm positive the red planet will win. If I'm not mistaken the red planet is similar to a millepora and those are close to fire corals so they can burn other corals really bad. how close are they to each other anyway? it is recommended to leave 4-5 inches between frags usually.
Please post some FTS.

 

[Joeee]

Love the pictures.
I find it weird that some of your corals are recovering and growing while others are in STN???
Can you share your parameters?
Any frequent changes or instability in temperature, PH, ALK that could be causing this?
I second the request for a FTS.

 

[maroun.c]

Great Picture taking. Your coral collection is growing very very quickly. its amazing how each SPS coral in your tank came from a different country and you still managed to collect an impressive collection.
Can't wait to see how your tank will look after a year of growth!!!
I'm impressed by the recovery of the Superman Montipora i still remember how bleached it looked, wouldn't have imagined it would recover.
Its a shame to have that red mille fall and break, it is good you finally epoxied it and maybe you should have done it months before!!! the good thing about it is the frags you got and I'm sure the mother colony will fix itself given some fall free time:lmao:
Concerning your Ora blue tort and the Ora Red Planet, the growth of the red planet is impressive but I'm wondering why it's only growing from one side or one branch?sorry can't help with the encrust issue but I feel it's wishfull thinking that the encrust will just stop when it meets another coral and I'm positive the red planet will win. If I'm not mistaken the red planet is similar to a millepora and those are close to fire corals so they can burn other corals really bad. how close are they to each other anyway? it is recommended to leave 4-5 inches between frags usually.
Please post some FTS.

Thanks Fred
It is actually painfull that I had to ship more than 95% of my croals from travel. it's always the stress of airport troubles, lost luggage, losses from shipping, ruptured containers spilling seawater on my clother.... still makes for a nice story on how each coral came.
Well it won't be this tank as I'm suposed to upgrade and move it in few months and then the bigger tank will even require more time to mature.
The Superman recovery is surprizing indeed. Didn't want to epoxy my corals to rocks so taht I can move them easily in the coming move but eventually I decided I was loosing a lot because of corals falling when I'm not aroudn to fix them so now most corals are epoxied or fixed in the rockwork...
Red planet growth is indeed really fast and in only one direction so only one branch is growing... it is placed 4-5 inch away from the tort but closing in fast.guess I'll just have to dislodge the tort and place it elewhere which is somthing I prefer not to do as it's doing great where it is.

 

[maroun.c]

Love the pictures.
I find it weird that some of your corals are recovering and growing while others are in STN???
Can you share your parameters?
Any frequent changes or instability in temperature, PH, ALK that could be causing this?
I second the request for a FTS.

Thanks Joe.
it is indeed weird but I was constantly told that some corals just won't live in some tanks and that's the only theory I have.
Temp has always been stable, did fluctuate around 77-80 lately as one of my heater was bad but that's been fixed and even a 77-80 daily flutuation wouldn't casue this.
Alk has been around 8.2-8.6 for the last month with very very slow variations. my water change water is around 10-12 DKH so wondering if my monthly 30-35 G water change is shocking the system.
Ca was around 380 for the last months and I recently upped it to 420-430 should check when I go home this weekend to see if it's holding above 400 or not Mag was around 1000 and I upped it to 1280 1 month ago and now I supplement my water change with Ca and Ca as my RC water was causing a drop (390 Ca and 1100 Mg on last bucket fresh mixed water)
my only problem is with nitrates which went up to 25-30 and I brought it down to around 10 actually and still working on getting it to 0 my phosphates were always 0 but last month I saw 0.1 so working on dropping it now and its close to 0.03
Finally my fuge is growing with a new type of caulerpa I got from Spain and I pruned it for the first time in 10 years. I also have some chaeto growing but very slowly in there. So hopefully this will cause the no3 and PO4 to dropp faster. finally my tank was moved andhte DSB restarted last April so it is now about time for the DSB to kick in and start eliminating a bit of those too.
Still struggling with my Cat 1 as my sump level varies a bit and I should be starting my ATO or make sure the water level gets adjusted very frequently during the day to get it stable enough for the skimmer to perform optimally, still I'm getting good skimmate.
Loads of FTS coming afterwards but I have to post some pics of fish and inhabitants first

 

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and some pics of my fish and critters:
-2 yellow tangs
-2 hyppo tangs
-2 maroon clown and another female in the frag tank
-2 yellow cories 1 in the frag tank
-3 cleaner shrimps and another 2 inthe frag tank
-3 Anthias
-1 Coral Beauty
-1 fire shrimp
-1 anemone crab

Clown pair in their anemone

male clown trying to host the micro RBTA

 

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Female and male

Garding their biweekly production

Hyppo

Coral beauty recovering very slowly from something on her face bilaterally

anthia

shrimps posing for me notice the eggs on some

 

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Anemone crab

 

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some pics of my frag tank. 20 G cube in stand connected to tank. lit by 1 150 W 10 K MH and supplemented by 1 Actinic T8 and 2 14 K T8. will reolace the 14 K t8 by actinic T8 or T5 if I can find smaller ones for some more blue.
growth in frag tank is crazy and so is PE much better than in the tank maye because of the intense lighting or smooth flow or maybe lack of fish to nip...
for the complete list of corals pics:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1789342

Lighting

FFS

and some pics of my favorite corals in there:

Palytygra?

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