Mhucasey's SPS obsession

[mhucasey]

I don't believe anything matt....pics of the frags,in the tank buddy....and one fts too,please

Says the guy whose last picture update was 8/21:lol:

 

[mhucasey]

Nice set up out doors. How does he deal with the heat?

His main problem is with keeping the tank warm, which he achieves with a gas powered heating system, but there are some fans to blow across the surface when the temperatures rise. He's been coral farming since 1998!

 

[jroovers]

Wow, that is a crazy number of acros

 

[markalot]

I just re-read the coral descriptions at the acropolis. Hopefully he keeps it up to date. No shipping.

 

[mhucasey]

Here you go Mike, pics of the frags I just got. The pics aren't very good, I need a real camera. The Frags also need time to color up under the T5s:

Blue Hyacinthus(Half the frag, I made two out of it):

Rainbow Hyacinthus:

Subulata:

Ultimate Stag:

Acropora Aspera:

Other Recent notables:

Pearlberry:

Pink Lemonade:

Lighthouse Aquatics Frag:

FTSs:A

 

[mhucasey]

I just re-read the coral descriptions at the acropolis. Hopefully he keeps it up to date. No shipping.

He has everything on the site plus several more. He is just doing it as a hobby so I'm pretty sure the numbers of available frags are not kept up very well. The site is a good resource for coral identification. Its a bummer that he doesn't ship but i think dealing with shipping and associated losses would push him out of the hobbyist enjoyment zone...

 

[glaukos]

Says the guy whose last picture update was 8/21:lol:

:lolspin::lolspin::lolspin:
Will change that soon

wow matt,you got some amazing new additions:eek1:
I'm sure they'll color up very fast in your tank.
FTSs looks really cool:beer:
Has the powder blue grown a bit since the last update?That guy looks awesome!
Is he calm towards the other fish?

 

[Ray68]

Looks great

 

[mhucasey]

:lolspin::lolspin::lolspin:
Will change that soon

wow matt,you got some amazing new additions:eek1:
I'm sure they'll color up very fast in your tank.
FTSs looks really cool:beer:
Has the powder blue grown a bit since the last update?That guy looks awesome!
Is he calm towards the other fish?

Yep, all the fish have grown noticeably. The Powder blue is a bit of a bully when new fish are added, then gets over himself after a few hours. I'd like to add a Regal angel but I'm a bit worried about that aggression:worried:

 

[joshky]

Looking good! Your new additions look like they are going to be beautiful.

 

[Reefvet]

Steve Garrett is a really nice guy and any time I can get corals from him I will take advatage. ....That makes 9 Acropora species I have from Steve, plenty more to collect!

Steve is a unique guy in the hobby and his system is always fun to check out. I particularly like his homemade frag plugs.

If you've never had any of his frags before you're in for a particular treat as you watch them transform under your T5s.

You're fortunate to be so close to Steve. You can make it a regular trip :fish1:

 

[mhucasey]

Steve is a unique guy in the hobby and his system is always fun to check out. I particularly like his homemade frag plugs.

If you've never had any of his frags before you're in for a particular treat as you watch them transform under your T5s.

You're fortunate to be so close to Steve. You can make it a regular trip :fish1:

Those frag plugs are a treasure. I actually have corals from Steve going back over three years now - one of the best things about his corals is his knowledge about the species he has and their lineage. I don't worry about what they look like at the time of purchase, since I know what they can transform into give the appropriate conditions.

 

[reefmutt]

Just got to sit down and go through the pics from Steve G's grow out op. Very cool! And those are some nice frags you got.
Again I am so jealous of what's abundantly available in the US.. Yes we have some good sources in Canada but it's so abundant down there.
It's funny how we often struggle to keep our little tanks clean and healthy and then there are these huge systems with corals growing everywhere doing so well. There were some monster colonies in his system!
I'd love to check that out..
Heck, I'd love to do the same thing... If I every win the lottery... It would be tough to do that in this climate.. Need a greenhouse.... Note to self: build greenhouse with lottery winnings..
Nice fts Matt!
Things are looking really good

 

[mhucasey]

Just got to sit down and go through the pics from Steve G's grow out op. Very cool! And those are some nice frags you got.
Again I am so jealous of what's abundantly available in the US.. Yes we have some good sources in Canada but it's so abundant down there.
It's funny how we often struggle to keep our little tanks clean and healthy and then there are these huge systems with corals growing everywhere doing so well. There were some monster colonies in his system!
I'd love to check that out..
Heck, I'd love to do the same thing... If I every win the lottery... It would be tough to do that in this climate.. Need a greenhouse.... Note to self: build greenhouse with lottery winnings..
Nice fts Matt!
Things are looking really good

I'd be lying if I said I hadn't considered trying the same thing as well He is doing it right though - he considers it a hobby that pays for itself and his daughter's piano lessons/recitals/travel. If it grew into a job, he said that would be his signal to stop.

The biggest problem with farming is you need enough stock and variety to keep your prices up. If you get the most amazing Acros and grow a bunch of frags, the law of supply and demand will push your prices down. Eventually you will saturate your market if your selection is not constantly evolving. Steve keeps a core selection of corals and doesn't gouge on price - lots of 20-40 dollar corals, which in SoCal is very reasonably priced.

 

[mhucasey]

Update: Coral growth and color is really good, but you know how this hobby is - we can't leave well enough alone:lolspin:

After seeing the results that Tom has had in his tank, I wanted to increase the blue light exposure for the SPS reef. Since I'm only running 8 Blue and 4 purple, I just swapped locations of the bulbs so that the 2 bulb circuit in each fixture has the purple bulbs.

I then swapped the photoperiods - 8 Blue bulbs are now on for 10.5 hours and then the 4 purples turn on for 6 hours during prime viewing time. To quote Biggles, "Give your acros the spectrum they'd receive at say 30mtrs deep but at a PAR level more like at 10mtrs.......... lots of intense blue light"

I've seen enough tank setups to for the conclusion that dialing in the proper intensity and photoperiod is really about the intensity and photoperiod of light with red and orange wavelengths in it. I left my lights at the same height above the water and I will limit the red to 6 hours a day. It's cool to be able to turn off the red and the tank is a lot better for viewing with the 8 blue bulbs rather than only two. We will see how it goes

 

[BrentH]

i live 30 min away and agree his frags seem to be hardier i think do to them being used to harsher elements ?either way his frags are strong and he is a very patient and nice guy! everyone loves steve lol only thing he told me he had no pearlberry ? anyway nice pick up u got there

Steve is a unique guy in the hobby and his system is always fun to check out. I particularly like his homemade frag plugs.

If you've never had any of his frags before you're in for a particular treat as you watch them transform under your T5s.

You're fortunate to be so close to Steve. You can make it a regular trip :fish1:

 

[mhucasey]

i live 30 min away and agree his frags seem to be hardier i think do to them being used to harsher elements ?either way his frags are strong and he is a very patient and nice guy! everyone loves steve lol only thing he told me he had no pearlberry ? anyway nice pick up u got there

When I got the Pearlberry he told me that it was the only one he brought to Reefapalooza - apparently they haven't been coloring up as much as he likes. I agree about the hardiness of his corals, generally I see polyp extension minutes after putting them in the tank, and the new frags I got are already showing growth

 

[reefmutt]

The lfs where I buy most of my sps frags from has an 8 bulb t5 fixture with, if I'm not mistaken, 6 blue plus bulbs that are on for all store hours and then he has a purple plus type bulb and maybe a coral plus that he turn on for a few hours a day. He runs uln and the colour and growth he gets is insane.
Sometimes the corals I get from him become even more spectacular as they get more intense colours and sometimes they turn brown and go dormant..
But I hear more and more about sps keepers running soooo much blue, almost exclusively..

 

[mhucasey]

The lfs where I buy most of my sps frags from has an 8 bulb t5 fixture with, if I'm not mistaken, 6 blue plus bulbs that are on for all store hours and then he has a purple plus type bulb and maybe a coral plus that he turn on for a few hours a day. He runs uln and the colour and growth he gets is insane.
Sometimes the corals I get from him become even more spectacular as they get more intense colours and sometimes they turn brown and go dormant..
But I hear more and more about sps keepers running soooo much blue, almost exclusively..

I'm a big fan of the look with both the blue and purple bulbs working, so most of my viewing hours I have those going. My experiment is really an attempt to pump up the intensity of the blue because of the results I saw in Tom's tank. With the massive amount of blue light there wasn't a shift toward green pigment - reds and yellows and blues are intense as well. I'm not going to make any other changes to the tank for at least a couple of weeks to see what happens:thumbsup:

 

[mhucasey]

Some FTS from yesterday:

I'm hoping to add a Regal Angel this week, for my birthday:hb2: