Mhucasey's SPS obsession
- Thread starter mhucasey
- Start date
reefmutt
Active member
That's better... I was jonesing all night..
Nice!!
Matt I assume that the rocks aren't that heavy. Did you have issues balancing the corals when placing them on the rocks? I assume everything had to be properly counterbalanced to keep from falling over.
You would never know that they are not real rock..
I gotta do a video... I'll wait until the rest of my aptasia are gone..
What was the music playing in the latter part of your vid? Was interesting..
Nice!!
Matt I assume that the rocks aren't that heavy. Did you have issues balancing the corals when placing them on the rocks? I assume everything had to be properly counterbalanced to keep from falling over.
You would never know that they are not real rock..
I gotta do a video... I'll wait until the rest of my aptasia are gone..
What was the music playing in the latter part of your vid? Was interesting..
mhucasey
Acros & wieners, oh my!
I love your mandarin Matt, didn't realise you had that little guy in there mate. Once i have the sand back in and settled i intend getting one for the peninsula. They're so cool to watch hovering around all day and i've never had a problem keeping one with the high flow usually associated with SPS displays. They soon work out the paths to take between rock structures to avoid strong currents.
I love the Mandarins too, its amazing how he can hover like there is no current at all. He is a bit skittish though, every time I tried to take a pic he went to the other side of the tank
mhucasey
Acros & wieners, oh my!
Great video Matt, now that I can see it.
Thanks everyone, the video shows the rock work better than any picture I have been able to take.
Matt, the rocks are not as heavy as regular rock, but they aren't light either. Is pretty much identical to attaching frags on regular live rock, except the glue seems to stick better. They are very realistic, for sure - they were molded using real live rocks as the template.
I thought I had stripped out the sound, but I was playing music at the time, better than someone yelling or dogs barking I suppose
The artis is the amazing Ben Howard, from the deluxe edition of "Every Kingdom", the song is Burgh Island. Take a listen to "Old Pine" or "Only Love": https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/every-kingdom-deluxe-version/id575330641Ben won the British equivalent of the Grammys a few years ago for this album, best new artist and best male vocal.
mhucasey
Acros & wieners, oh my!
Well Salifert isn't making the potassium test kit any longer, and I hate the Redsea test with a passion. So I will be the guinea pig for trying something new:
http://www.coral-shop.com/news.php?id=241
The shipping is more than the test kit, ouch. However, this kit appears to be similar in approach to the Salifert test, so hopefully it will be a definitive color change test.
http://www.coral-shop.com/news.php?id=241
The shipping is more than the test kit, ouch. However, this kit appears to be similar in approach to the Salifert test, so hopefully it will be a definitive color change test.
mhucasey
Acros & wieners, oh my!
If it was from anywhere but Germany I'd probably have chickened out....
JB NY
Active member
Hey Matt the tank is looking good. Did you get the STN under control? I know you were looking at Iron, for me I have never been able to associate any problems with excessive iron, in my tanks it has always been used up so quickly that it was never detectable in a test. Even now that I dose Iron on a daily bases even Triton tests have come back with undetectable for iron. I bring it up because, for me unless something is really messed up in my tank or some kind of bugs or AEFW, STN at the base has always been a flow problem in the area of the effected coral. Absolutely could be different in your tank but wanted to throw that out there for you.
Either way everything is starting to look nice!
Either way everything is starting to look nice!
mhucasey
Acros & wieners, oh my!
Joe, the thing that has been happening is actually a little different from STN, although there has been some of that too, notably on two different echinata pieces. What I've seen is bases paling and looking dry, like the tissue is thin. Over the course of a few days, it's like the tissue melts into the skeleton and at some point you can tell the acro is dead there. There isn't the peeling tissue of STN. It's only some of the sos, and it's in shaded spots.
I've dug up that it could be a reaction to something toxic- though it's not happening in the flubber tank. Even so, I've gone very conservative on my trace elements dosing. I think I'll throw a poly filter in for good measure.
It could be too much light combined with too low of nutrients-so I have raised the lights and reduced the red in the mix somewhat. I've been feeding corals, dosing amigos, and monitoring nitrate, as well as turned the skinmer down somewhat.
I have also seen low alk blamed but I'm running at 7-7.3 which is right where I've been for a long time. I checked my kit vs the standard and it was right on.
Last night I performed the controversial honey and milk treatment. This morning I see some pale bases have regained some color. Too many variables in play to say that any particular thing helped, so who knows.
reefmutt
Active member
I remember that guy using milk and honey.. I kind of get that the milk has fatty acids and aminos etc.. I thought the honey was basically a carbon source for reducing n..
Just wondering what your rational for using milk and honey is..
If you feel the corals are slightly starved, why not back off on the flow through the pellets a tiny bit?
Just wondering what your rational for using milk and honey is..
If you feel the corals are slightly starved, why not back off on the flow through the pellets a tiny bit?
mhucasey
Acros & wieners, oh my!
Its more in the shaded areas, but not exclusively. It isn't really bleaching either, its like the tissue is thinning until its gone. Here is a pic of a couple of pieces:
mhucasey
Acros & wieners, oh my!
I have backed off the flow and reduced the pellets to 3/4L. The item i seized on with the honey and milk besides the items you stated is that there is calcium phosphate in the milk as well. The phosphate in my system is loooow. Possibly that is what the corals appreciate. I have seen improvements after dosing, especially on struggling acros.
mhucasey
Acros & wieners, oh my!
Its certainly possible, its also possible its all useless. I've done just the milk but didn't see the same benefit from the corals. Since its pretty subjective(my assessment of improvement) I can't really say. Perhaps the extra carbon from the honey cleans up any extra phosphate from unconsumed milk. It doesn't seem to drop nitrate at all when I've tested it.
mhucasey
Acros & wieners, oh my!
May I refer you to Dr Biggles for more on the subject: http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showpost.php?p=23880927&postcount=1041
mhucasey
Acros & wieners, oh my!
Thanks very much, maybe we need a new acronym for this as it isn't really STN...Acropora Wasting Syndrome...AWS?
Similar threads
