My 65 Gallon build

[sde1500]

I'm resolving this winter to learn photography better, I have a decent DSLR that I really should start using for this thread.

 

[sde1500]

Testing a few pics from only blues being on.
Utter Chaos. Have had these for a while. Lost many of them as the tank struggled along. Starting to come back as 4 mature polyps popped out 6 babies in the last 2 months.

Rastas finally starting to multiply. They've been around as long as my UC and just didn't grow ever.

Ring of fire. These things just keep growing and I keep loving them.

Eagle Eye and radioactive dragon eye. These had a set back recently but are starting to fill out the rock and look like they may expand off the plug soon.

Kind of a crappy pic, orange crush acan echinata. Slow grower but it is growing. Interesting to watch, couple months ago it lost all its orange color after I failed to refill my saltwater bin and my daily AWC was stopped. Came right back within a few days of turning it back on thankfully.

 

[sde1500]

Duncan coral finally showing some growth again. Been sitting with 6 heads for a while now. Recently noticed they seemed to be starting to branch out farther and get a bit bigger and now two small heads are showing up underneath.

 

[sde1500]

Group shot of my gobstoppers, RBTA, and perched starry blenny.

 

[sde1500]

Mixed day on the reef today. Wife got me a icecap 1k for Christmas, and just picked up a frag rack. So did some cleaning and added them into the tank. Bumped the rock my torch was on and the whole colony crashed to the sand. Barely hit it but the base seemed a bit brittle. Tons of super glue and epoxy later, I'm out of both and couldn't get the torch back on the rock work. So it's resting on the sandbed for now til I get more epoxy. Ugh.

Added some new life to the tank too. After waiting and waiting pulled the trigger on a green mandarin today. Very excited, one of my favorite fish. Plus a cleaner shrimp and couple scarlet hermits. So really if it wasn't for dislodging my nice and big torch colony it would have been overall a real good reef day.

 

[sde1500]

First FTS for the year. Got the torch repositioned and everything is looking pretty good today.

 

[sde1500]

Minor setback recently. Not 100% sure of the cause, if it is due to my water change pump heads not being perfectly in sync, or if I screwed up mixing up NSW once before I ran them for a while. But my salinity had fallen to 1.020. Noticed a small branch of my light purple acro had died, but needed to travel for work so didn't have time to really look into it when I noticed it. Came back to it completely RTN'd and dead. Zoas seem to have melted back a bit as well. Interestingly, those seem to be the only ones having suffered so far. Added some saltwater to the top off, plus mixed up the new saltwater batch at 1.03 to bring it back up to target. I'll be watching salinity going forward like a hawk now. Hopefully just a one time setback, I have enjoyed using this pump for water changes and up until recently the tank has done well thanks to it.

 

[sde1500]

In a stroke of terrible timing the torch coral that got beat up last month has Brown Jelly on it. Lovely. And Frag Farmers Market is tomorrow. Cut all power to the tank, Pulled it out of the tank, fragged off any dead/dying/slightly bad looking heads off. Took the opportunity to frag some heads that had been getting shaded too much as well. Then iodine bath. And back in the tank. We'll see how it goes. Not letting this keep me back from the swap. Neither is this snow that's camping dangit! So expect some new pics of shiny new corals tomorrow!!

 

[sde1500]

New BJD showed up on the torch. Pulled the colony to prevent it from continuing. Sucks because it had been so nice and big and it's one of my first corals. Still have 4 frags of it on the rack so if they hold up that will be good. Heck of a frag swap today with FFM. Bunch of new corals and a clam. Teaser shot I got. The rest are still acclimating.

 

[sde1500]

My 65 Gallon build

Hmm. Picture looks a lot more heavily processed on my computer than my phone. Really need to take some time to familiarize myself with picture taking with my DSLR. But for now, my new clam!

Edit. Man even this one looks terrible lol. Looks great on my phone. Grr

 

[sde1500]

Tank is looking good. Got a bit of GHA, and some cyano on the sand but most corals are happy. Moved a Blastomussa I've had for 3 years now that hasn't grown at all. Recently looked to have almost lost a polyp to cyano. Moved to the shade and what do you know barely a week later I'm seeing 4 new polyps showing up. Impossible to take a picture of though. Getting some new corals in today and will have to start planning a more permanent placement for the ones I got the other week.

 

[Diana A]

Enjoyed reading your whole thread today. The shape and size of your digi is insane!

 

[sde1500]

Enjoyed reading your whole thread today. The shape and size of your digi is insane!

Thanks! It's probably the best growing coral in my tank right now.

Haven't updated much recently. Tank is going pretty well. I've mostly eliminated the cyano. And now I'm working on eliminating the scourge of astrinea starfish from my tank. They've turned into a problem, eaten most of my rainbow incinerator polyps, I may have saved one, along with many of my Yodas and recently started on my utter chaos. I've pulled hundreds of not thousands from the tank in recent weeks. Not many visibly left and they will be pulled as well. Don't think I'll ever get them all, but hopefully most. After that I'll turn my focus to aiptasia, never were much of a problem but recently have really multiplied and are starting to irritate some corals. Always something.
Few shots of newer corals:
New stunner chalice:

Yodas

Red deaths

Smoldering cauldrons

 

[sde1500]

FTS from today.