Green chromis are the fish equivalent of green acros, you'd never have to worry about me pinching frags from your tank if you stocked that crud Bello lol. What's up with the flame angel mate, sounds like you gave him the 'slap' treatment.......... I'll chase up how your systems are going in your reef journal as i see you have some cool growth shots up
Hey Troub, your suggestions are always welcomed mate and i want to put some non photosynthetic life on the dark rock under hangs. I found a nice orange sponge growing on the back of the chalice that i dumped in the sump so too bad for the chalice as he's going to get chopped up and stuck face first on the rocks soon lol - he's taking one for the SPS team so to speak (he's green btw)..........:lmao:
Thanks for the nice words Quintis We have all types of SPS systems covered here, i do mixed colors, Bello loves green crap and Troub is still tweaking his dry invisible SPS system.........:dance:
I've had a healthy population of pods from day one as i used good live rock at the start. Since about the second month i've also had a thriving mysis population in the display and all over the sump. As you know i have the frag/coral dump section and it makes life very easy when fiddling with the display as it's a great place to temporarily place stuff and acclimate things to temp and water conditions.
I rely on feeding the corals more directly rather than keeping the water a bit dirty like most so i feel strongly that all these critters are breeding and putting food into the water column continually - i've always had fuge life in the sump and don't know that i could keep the colors i do if i ran zero measurable nitrates and phos without so much natural life and food in the system.
If you put a 120W full spectrum LED over your fuge rather than the blue white one i have you could use that section to grow corals or algae or anything you want just by adjusting the spectrum so i think you should go for it if you can. That red macro algae at the front of my display has been pruned back to nothing 3 times so far and is a colorful water pollution sponge just like others keep in the sump.
As you know i rely on the natural processes to keep my tank healthy rather than mechanical intervention so anything that adds to the micro diversity in my system is a good thing for the corals :thumbsup:
Have you got a journal going yet (one involving water) as i'd like to follow your tank and help out with advice if you need it ever, Troub will handle air related queries and Bello can show you how to create a bloody lettuce garden in your tank.........
Looking really good Biggles! The colors of the corals are looking superb, you make even the greens look good
Love the full tank shot, if this is 6 months cant wait to see it progress
Fine.... I admit it..... I like green corals!!!! So there....Not really a fan of chromis though :lol:
The flames got a swelling below the lip, possibly lymphocystis. So far, he's eating normally, and that includes NOT touching the Acros. I really wanna help it out, its always difficult to get a model citizen angel
BTW, despite the recent cyano outbreak, I'm moving towards a more natural system too ...Yea yea don't say that I'm plagiarising your work
Wow, your tank is truly spectacular!
Thank you for the very informative reply! I will for sure have a fuge section in my sump then (as large as I can make it). I also have a 120w full spectrum Reefbreeder LED fixture I can put down there for the lighting like you suggested. I don't have a tank thread yet as I haven't set up the tank yet, but I may start it soon as I have done a couple cool projects to get me on path to my new tank. I currently have a 16g nano tank and am upgrading to a 112g system, so I had to beef up my RO/DI system and I put a water-mixing station in the garage since my water changes will be much more than 5 gallons, lol. I also am almost finished building my stand for the tank, so I would have some things for the thread.
Thanks mate, i should see some good growth over the next six months if i keep it simple and don't mess with things
I'm glad you came out about the green coral 'thing' you have going on Bello, hopefully you haven't passed your affliction onto the little guy.........
Your angel will probably repay your kindness in repairing his lip by using it to eat your acros......... you're well aware how stuff goes down in our reefs Bello so let's not kid ourselves that you and i aren't going to be cursing the day we added angles at some point in the near future. Even knowing this i'm still going to do it because i'm an SPS reefer and that's the weird way we roll........:dance:
Natural is good
Thanks very much FlyinggFish, i'm happy with how most things are looking but it's still very 'young' looking and should look a lot better at the 1 year mark.
Glad to hear you've made a start with the setup Quinits, that fixture sounds perfect for your fuge area and being full spectrum you'll have the option of growing anything down there including frags :thumbsup:
What are the actual tank dimensions of your new 112g display mate, have you decided on your display lighting yet. I have to warn you mate that now we know you have a reef in the works you're going to cop some flack if you try to pull a 'Troub' on us.........:mixed:
Need to do something about the frag/dump section as it looks pretty ordinary when i look at the display and then down to that, just gotta decide what to do exactly :hmm2: I gave all the pumps a vinegar bath and cleaned the black back panel and weir up a bit. I've always let coralline grow in previous tanks but keeping it clean certainly adds to the visual impact of your display imo but it does make the display look younger than it really is.
I've upped the temp a degree to 27 C now to speed things up a bit and i'm feeding the corals 5 times a day now along with the mysis pulp every second night. Alk draw is 2.5 dKh every 24 hours now so the corals are starting to get hungry for bricks and mortar which is always a good thing.
Really nice set up , bravo mate.:thumbsup:
How come you don't seem to have any coraline algae issues, you clean often?
My dims are going to be 50"x 26"x 20". I went around and around with lighting options and finally decided on T5. I was going to use a 6-bulb Sunpower and add two LED strips to the fixture, but my favorite LFS has a 8-bulb Power module in like new condition with new bulbs in it that someone traded in to him (to go LED) that he is giving me a great deal on. So the 8 bulb PM will be my lighting. I have a question about running the fuge for you. The fuge section in the sump will be a nice size, 19" long and 22" wide. Should I stuff that section full with macros and some sand/miracle mud, or use it for a frag type section as you have? With the size I could maybe do both, like have the macro in the back and some frags up front. I will start my thread soon, I have my skimmer coming in this week. :dance:
The tank is looking mighty good to Biggles! Although if it's wet, it looks good to me :facepalm: :lmao: I like that recent shot with the tank and frag grave yard down below.
I saw you mention that you haven't done many water changes at all. Is that mostly because you're dosing supplements so you don't need the water changes to replace spent trace minerals and such for all that sps reef building?
When you do change out some water, is it only NSW for you? Or do you use any salt mix / artificial seawater ever? If you do use a salt mix, which is your preference? If you can't tell, I'm ordering up a couple 175 gal buckets of salt mix :-D So I'm all curious about these things right now.
Would you be willing to share your target levels of "the big 3"? I'm pretty solid in my understanding of CA and MG... but what is your choice levels on Alk? That seems to be the biggest differences in salt mixes that I have available to me (what the final mix settles in Alk levels) and I'm still trying to wrap my head around maintaining whatever level of Alk.
Anyway, thanks for all the good info and pictures. One day, I'll have water and critters in my system that I can more actively contribute to the conversation. . . One day. . .:strooper:
Your reef is turning into a real beauty Biggles, with some gorgeous corals. Surprised how similar your setup is to my own.
Good luck with the Multibar if you manage to get hold of one, I kept one for 25 months before he/she went belly up, a beautiful little fish and they can develop a great personality. Keep up the good work :thumbsup:
awesome
I'm looking forward to following your build Mudbeaver so i hope things go speedily for you mate :thumbsup:
That algae shot was from months back when the system was well and truly going through the algae cycles, that all finished a few months back and i now have the very fine brown algae which lets me know how my nutrient levels are going - your corals behavior, colors PE etc and the algae growth in your system are just as good as test kits once you have an experienced eye for it, unfortunately i subjected my corals to quite a bit of abuse over the learning years gaining this 'experience eye' lol.
Ayer's Rock - 47oC i still remember my mom sending me off to school when i was 10 or 11 saying ' now it's going to be 45 today so keep cool and dont run around a lot ' I've been in 50oC once and have no idea why you went to climb on top of a big fry pan in the middle of a desert in 47oC temps - i'd need a gun at my back to make me go and be cooked on a big red rock and i live here lol.
I don't have any racks in the tank at all now and i'm working on removing the frags that are strewn all over the bottom. I enjoy your rock work thread a lot and use my bonsai experience when working on the design aspects of my reef as the two compliment each other well :thumbsup:
Tank just before ni ni's tonight, if you squint you can see some more stuff stuck on the raft - no new stuff just tweaking things and using frags up lol.