Mhucasey's SPS obsession

[Piper27]

Thanks for the comparison.
What's the piece, lower right, on its own.. Is that the bali shortcake?
I want that..

I noticed this piece quickly too keep us updated with it. Did you get it from aquasd?

 

[plyle02]

Matt I love the shots with all the corals in it, especially seeing all those beautiful fish interacting on the reef, just beautiful man! Your colors are also beautiful as well, and obviously the corals appear to be growing quickly too Thanks for the update, hope all is well these days Cheers!

 

[mhucasey]

Not an SPS, but very jealous of your powder blue tang! I had one a long time ago and haven't had a large enough tank since I broke that one down. One of my favorite fish for sure.

"George" is a bit of a bully, but he is an awesome fish. He loves to photobomb me when I take pics

I noticed this piece quickly too keep us updated with it. Did you get it from aquasd?

Yep, I've had it for a little over a month now. Here is a top-down I just took, the white spots are where I killed barnacles with a syringe full of Aiptasia-X:

Matt I love the shots with all the corals in it, especially seeing all those beautiful fish interacting on the reef, just beautiful man! Your colors are also beautiful as well, and obviously the corals appear to be growing quickly too Thanks for the update, hope all is well these days Cheers!

Thanks Perry, Growth is really taking off since ditching the LED tubes and balancing the big three macroelements

 

[chercm]

any videos on the flow in the tank ?

 

[Piper27]

Yep, I've had it for a little over a month now. Here is a top-down I just took, the white spots are where I killed barnacles with a syringe full of Aiptasia-X:

Hey now that I see it up close I think I have a frag of the same coral. I have mine high up and it is getting an orange base and yellow tips. What color is the Bali shortcake supposed to be? Maybe mine is different, it's hard to remember what was what with all the frags I have from them. Some names were used twice on different pieces so I don't really follow their labels.

 

[plyle02]

Hey Matt, glad to see things worked out! I love the quick chart you posted on page 114, it is a good model to use Thanks for that info, hope all is well, and have an awesome weekend

 

[fessoclown]

Ok Perry and Sahin, it's keep up with the joneses time for me:

That's more like keeping up with the Gates's!!!

A photobomb?


The LEDs have been out for a week, just tons of Blue plus goodness!
Here are some FTS for you though:

This picture hurts my fragile pre-coffee brain... overload... can not compute.

Fiji purple all the way! I would set it up like so:
c+-B+-b+-fp-b+-b+-c+-b+

Move the coral plus to position 2 if it is too white for you.

Interesting that you ditched the E5s.
I need to start changing out my tubes and was considering them last week, I did a little more research and decided against it.... you ditching them confirms my decision.... it was you that gave me the idea in the first place.

What would you run if you had only 6 bulbs? Currently I run 2XB+, 1x C+, 1xP+ and 1xATI Actinic

I know for sure I am switching out the Actinic as I have a DIY actinic strip (similar to a Reefbrite)

Also can you please post a link for the iphone filters.... I need one!

Your tank is indeed looking amazing! Happy Saturday!

 

[reefmutt]

Yeah. That's a serious group of top downs.
I really love the first one. It's pretty awesome.
And the nice red extended polyps on the ssc..
This is a really nice group of shots!

 

[mhucasey]

any videos on the flow in the tank ?

You can see the flow pretty well in this video:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/l6hUVhJzAUo" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

[mhucasey]

Hey now that I see it up close I think I have a frag of the same coral. I have mine high up and it is getting an orange base and yellow tips. What color is the Bali shortcake supposed to be? Maybe mine is different, it's hard to remember what was what with all the frags I have from them. Some names were used twice on different pieces so I don't really follow their labels.

The base is yellow or pink, with green along the edges, and blue tips. I just wiped out three blue tips eradicating the barnacles before this picture was taken.

Here is the same colony before that:

 

[mhucasey]

Hey Matt, glad to see things worked out! I love the quick chart you posted on page 114, it is a good model to use Thanks for that info, hope all is well, and have an awesome weekend

Thanks Perry, it has been a great weekend so far, nice and mellow The Chart is a good thing, since I got the Alk and Calcium in balance, the bubbling has gone away, and all the affected corals are recovering. I don't know where the tipping point was but I didn't change any other dosing, light schedule, etc, just brought Calcium and Magnesium values down and the bubbling stopped.

 

[mhucasey]

That's more like keeping up with the Gates's!!!

This picture hurts my fragile pre-coffee brain... overload... can not compute.

Thanks! Lots of corals and fish make my brain overload a bit too!

Interesting that you ditched the E5s.
I need to start changing out my tubes and was considering them last week, I did a little more research and decided against it.... you ditching them confirms my decision.... it was you that gave me the idea in the first place.

What would you run if you had only 6 bulbs? Currently I run 2XB+, 1x C+, 1xP+ and 1xATI Actinic

I know for sure I am switching out the Actinic as I have a DIY actinic strip (similar to a Reefbrite)

Also can you please post a link for the iphone filters.... I need one!

Your tank is indeed looking amazing! Happy Saturday!

Well I had great hopes for the E5s, at least as a supplement. The problems with them were in the slightly narrower spread compared to a T5 tube - you can see some banding with them - and they are dimmer than a blue plus by far. Then when I saw the coral color impact i pulled them right away and replaced them with Blue Plusses from the Flubber tank. Within few days I had growth tips popping out everywhere. Color on the affected acros is coming back to normal.

I put both Blue pops into the 6 bulb fixture on the flubber tank to see if the same issue occurs there. The LPS there seem fine with them but I'm watching the acros that are there closely for effects. I don't think that LED fluorescence is all that its cracked up to be, so I won't be adding LEDs back to the SPS tank in any form.

If I was running six bulbs it would be 3 Blue Plus, 2 coral Plus, one Fiji Purple.

 

[mhucasey]

Ah, I see this with both bulbs. For me it depends on the combo - sometimes I can have a FP/P+ in the combo, sometimes I can't stand it.

As close as the spectrums seem, there are differences between the different purple bulbs. From Jedimasterben's very good thread:

https://docs.google.com/document/u/1/d/1WHuol0uRn2W7Jk-rxYWmtNgUF-lkY_VlUpAiNsMwME4/pub

2 Purple Plus:

2 Super

The "Flat" red of the Purple plus ends up throwing the whole thing off for me when they are in the mix.

 

[mhucasey]

Finally, an update:
Last Sunday I performed the media changeout. I am running 900mL Zeolites, 500mL carbon, and 600mL Phosphate minus in the reactor. Changeout went very smooth. Half-flow for one day after the change, then ramp up to good tumbling of the Phosphate Minus.

Testing:
Alk:7.3-7.7
Ca: 425
Mg: 1440

I am out of Iodine and Flourine from AF so I am using up the FM Color Elements Red/Purple which is a PIF complex. I also did a half dose of the Blue/Purple color elements as it contains several trace elements not contained in the AF MicroE.

Dosing is currently:
39mL NP Pro(Diluted version for dosing pumps) split between 3 doses per day
8 drops ProBio S/day
8 drops Coral E/day
6 drops Micro E/day
7 drops Zinc Sulfate solution/day
2 drops Manganese Chloride solution/day
8 drops AF Potassium/day

every other day:
8 drops Coral A
8 drops Coral V

Blue tabling Acro with bright orange polyps:inlove::

Have a great rest of the weekend everyone!

 

[RBKKREEF]

Wow! That is a beauty! Glad to hear everything is going good, and thanks for the update

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[Diesel3443]

Looking great. I need to start dosing some zinc!


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[Myka]

As close as the spectrums seem, there are differences between the different purple bulbs. From Jedimasterben's very good thread:

https://docs.google.com/document/u/1/d/1WHuol0uRn2W7Jk-rxYWmtNgUF-lkY_VlUpAiNsMwME4/pub

2 Purple Plus:

2 Super

The "Flat" red of the Purple plus ends up throwing the whole thing off for me when they are in the mix.

I'll check out the link, thanks for providing. I'm not familiar with the "super" bulb.

 

[mhucasey]

I'll check out the link, thanks for providing. I'm not familiar with the "super" bulb.

Sorry, that said "super purple" but was cut off somehow.

 

[mhucasey]

Wow! That is a beauty! Glad to hear everything is going good, and thanks for the update

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Thanks! That coral was confusing me - whole colony pictures looked purple but when I zoomed in the coral turned blue. To my eye it was more blue as well. The bright orange polyps were where the purple was coming from - from farther away the orange and blue were mixing.

Looking great. I need to start dosing some zinc!


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Thanks! Note that if you are dosing MicroE or KoralColor you will be dosing Zinc.

 

[K.C.]

Dosing is currently:
39mL NP Pro(Diluted version for dosing pumps) split between 3 doses per day
8 drops ProBio S/day
8 drops Coral E/day
6 drops Micro E/day
7 drops Zinc Sulfate solution/day
2 drops Manganese Chloride solution/day
8 drops AF Potassium/day

every other day:
8 drops Coral A
8 drops Coral V

Just curious. No Coral B, or builder as it's now called ?