My 65 Gallon Mixed Reef

Awesome Biggles! I love the War Story! :uzi: Interesting stuff to see and hear about.

And of course the pictures are the best. So here's a photo challenge for you. Can your little micro iphoney lens accomplish a timelapse!?!? I for one would be interested in seeing a time lapse of small branch or tip grow out over a month or two. Hehehe. Lets see what skills that iphone arm appendage really has! ;-)

Super interesting stuff as usual and looking great!
 
Thanks Bello :)
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I have read your whole thread and have been following along for the last few weeks. Great thread and tank!!! :thumbsup: Really amazing macro shots too for an iphone!

I ordered the same macro lens for my iphone, inspired by your thread. However, I can not take that good of macros being that you have to be like 1" (inch) away from the subject that your taking a picture of... Are you using it under water to get so close or are those just close to the glass of your tank?
 
Very animated and informative.

Many thanks.

I'm glad you found some useful info amongst my ramblings mate :)

Awesome Biggles! I love the War Story! :uzi: Interesting stuff to see and hear about.

And of course the pictures are the best. So here's a photo challenge for you. Can your little micro iphoney lens accomplish a timelapse!?!? I for one would be interested in seeing a time lapse of small branch or tip grow out over a month or two. Hehehe. Lets see what skills that iphone arm appendage really has! ;-)

Super interesting stuff as usual and looking great!

Hey Troub, you have me thinking now. It'd be easy to tape the phone to a spot on the glass and position a coral in view but i need to use the phone lol. I'm thinking i could tape a bracket to the glass that the camera would rest in exactly the same spot each day i took a pic.........hmmmm that's a bloody good idea Troubster :thumbsup:

HAHA, that made me laugh! As always, interesting stuff. Keep it up biggles!

Hey mate, i knew that would tickle your bones lol. Tonight i hosted 'Feed Club'........... ;)

I have read your whole thread and have been following along for the last few weeks. Great thread and tank!!! :thumbsup: Really amazing macro shots too for an iphone!

I ordered the same macro lens for my iphone, inspired by your thread. However, I can not take that good of macros being that you have to be like 1" (inch) away from the subject that your taking a picture of... Are you using it under water to get so close or are those just close to the glass of your tank?

Thanks for the kind words mate, glad your following along as it's never boring on biggles atoll, all manner of misadventures befall the SPS during 'speriment' time.......
I use frags placed close to the glass as a focal range of 10-20mm is annoyingly limited. If i had a colony i wanted to show a macro of i'd simply snip a small branch tip off - 1/2" long will fill the screen btw. You simply glue it to the outside edge of a frag disc or whatever and place it up close to the glass and let it settle for a day then macro the you know what out of it. We're talking tiny pieces only and if you want you can just glue it back after you've finished or drop it in the branches where it'll fuse back onto the colony by itself.


Sooooooooo, i thought i'd show you why i feed my acros pulverized frozen mysis and what better way than to macro video an acro polyp chowing down........
The macro lens only only has clear focus on about 4mm of depth in the shot, i crop most of the images you've seen down by 50-70% of the actual image i take from the video as a large portion is out of focus unless you're shooting a surface that remains equal distance from the lens over the entire frame. To maximize the number of polyps i could cover in the shot hopefully to see something cool happen you'll notice that no one part of the video is super sharp, everything is in clear enough focus though so sorry but i can only do so much with an iPhone lol.

The red arrow is just to point out that each polyp has a mouth in the center which is why we feed our corals even when they look like sticks........
Watch the polyp i circled in blue, i had the phone in one hand and poured a block of pulverized frozen mysis into the sump dump with the other - acro polyps don't feed like anemones and many LPS, they don't catch things with their polyps and ease them down into their mouths. They behave more like venus flytraps and snap shut when the polyps get hold of food they like. Most times they snap shut and leave the food outside as it's caught against the outside of the polyp. They then open again and wait for the water movement to shift the food around, snapping shut again when they sense it's better placed. I've watched one try 3 times and then give up, releasing the mysis (loser polyp)
Anyway, on with the show - staring a chunk of green monster i hacked off the colony the other day. He's still a hungry boy.

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This weekend i'm going to feed a blue polyp acro branch tip so just one big polyp in view and hopefully get a decent video of him chowing down. :) I'll most likely be moaning about the algae outbreak i get in a week from all this 'sperimenting'............
 
Hi Biggles,

Have you ever used live food like rotifers to feed your sps corals?

I am seriously considering starting to culture my own rotifers along with copepods. I read that rotifers remain stable if they are cultured along with copepods. I do not know why this is the case though. Do you have any experience on the use of live food to share with us?

Moreover, having read your response to GB530's question on the limited range of iPhone macro lense, I have decided to shelve the idea of purchasing a macro lense.

Finally, What glue do you use to attach your corals to plates and/or rocks?

:beer:
 
Thanks for the war explanation biggles, I want to discuss it further, but we don't talk about acro fight club :p

Really didn't know all of that, and a nice explanation with pics to boot :thumbsup:

Awesome feeding macro too :thumbsup:

Think my nutrients are getting kinda high, need to look into it now, before the corals get poopy :p
 
Hi Biggles,

Have you ever used live food like rotifers to feed your sps corals?

I am seriously considering starting to culture my own rotifers along with copepods. I read that rotifers remain stable if they are cultured along with copepods. I do not know why this is the case though. Do you have any experience on the use of live food to share with us?

Moreover, having read your response to GB530's question on the limited range of iPhone macro lense, I have decided to shelve the idea of purchasing a macro lense.

Finally, What glue do you use to attach your corals to plates and/or rocks?

I've never used live food to feed my tank as i always have a heap of micro life in large numbers throughout the display and sump due to lots of feeding and there's a constant supply of acro polyped sized baby mysis and pods in the water, i can see them with the macro lens when they're actually almost invisible to the eye. That being said i think you should go for it with the rotifer culture as the more size targeted food in the water the better imo.
To glue corals onto the rocks and montis etc i use the super glue gel, epoxy, super glue gel method like a lot of guys. I mix Selley's aqua kneedit putty and let it rest for about 10 mins so it's dry enough to hold firmer shape, when freshly mixed most epoxies are too soft to use so let them rest and check the consistency every few minutes - some go hard in 10 mins whilst mine takes about 20-25 to harden. Put a good blob of super glue gel on the coral and then place a blob of putty over the glue - i make the putty blob concave or 'dished' where the frag goes on so the glue doesn't all squirt out on contact. Then i put another good amount of super glue gel on the bottom of the epoxy and stick it where you want it.
If i need to i use props to hold a branch in place while the epoxy and glue set for 30 mins. For very small 1-2" frags i sometimes use just the super glue if i have a hole or crevice to wedge the frag into.
A couple of tips when using the super glue gel i've learnt through stuffing up lol.

Don't place a frag with a big blob of super glue on its bum in the path of a pump when trying to place it - the glue blows off in long tendrils and straight into you most prized bloody acro. Don't try to remove it for about 20-30 secs until it skins enough that tweezers will lift it out as it won't stick to the coral unless you mush it in a panicked rush to get it off lol. Turn off any pumps nearby to avoid this and that also helps to let a frag dry without being blown by hard currents for 15-30 mins.

Be careful when placing a frag using just the super glue gel as i normally hold it in place for 30-60 seconds and i have actually glued my bloody finger to the rock and frag a couple of times - hurts a tad when you yank your finger free lol. If you have a skunk that chases you around the tank make sure they dont get near the glue until it sets for 5-10 seconds, mine rushed in once and got a claw in the glue and quickly yanked it away and took off. I freaked and chase him away when gluing a frag now as he likes to rush in and get my skin cells off the frag, he molests all the stuff i glue down when i let him.

A Dremel is fantastic for frag work and any work cutting SPS, cutters can shatter branches in unexpected places and the Dremel allows you to cut flat bases or any other shape to best fit the angle you want to mount the coral at. I notch the bases also to give the glue something to grip. before gluing i wash the cut with a tooth brush as there's wet chalky residue from the cutting wheel and you want a clean surface for the gel.
If you're doing some major cutting work on a branch or new colony make sure you dip the piece in a small container of tank water every now and then as the cutter heats up the skeleton from the friction and will 'cook' the nearby tissue if you don't keep the heat from building up.
Dremel wheels cut your fingers and finger nails really well........ so be careful. You can get cheapo copies of the Dremel for bugger all and they all work just as well. I use the quick attach wheel holder and find the plastic cutting wheels work best and last ages, i have a diamond wheel but you don't need it at all - $35- whereas a pack of 5 plastic wheels is about $12- and will last you many months.

Sorry for the long reply mate but i thought i'd save anyone reading the trial and error i went through along the way :)


Thanks for the war explanation biggles, I want to discuss it further, but we don't talk about acro fight club :p

Really didn't know all of that, and a nice explanation with pics to boot

Awesome feeding macro too

Think my nutrients are getting kinda high, need to look into it now, before the corals get poopy

You're very welcome Bello, that's just my understanding of the whole thing but i could be totally wrong - you know that never stops me.............:p
Getting onto that water quality issue is a good idea, we both know how long pooped out acros take to recover once they've spat the color dummy. It's a fine line between balanced food in and out of the reef and nutrient soup but i still think your eyes are way better for tweaking things than any test kit.

I moved a humilis branch that was too upright in growth over to another humilis piece i wanted more horizontal splaying of branches on. I just put super glue gel on the cut branch end and stuck it onto the other corals main stem. You can see the upright branch on the left colony in the first pic and where i stuck it on the right colony horizontally down the bottom right in the second pic. I snapped off 1/2" from all the upright growing tips before gluing to encourage multiple branching, you can see they've all been beheaded in the pic lol.

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SSC frag still coloring up.

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Not SSC Bello but bloody pink, i must have forgotten to show you this one mate - bit like the ones you had hidden away............:p Just remember who started this sneaky crap Bello........

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That green monster frag rolled onto a bit of monti overnight and when i lifted the sneaky assassin off his victim the acontia was very visible.

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Here's the poor monti lol, the pods love to chow down on dead and dying coral tissue - must be yummy to them.

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I have a nice orangey yellowy sponge growing on the back of a stupid green chalice that's in the dump tank and i want to spread it under my rock ledges in the display. I pushed a frag rock against the sponge and let it sit for a month and when pulled off it has a nice little sponge frag attached. I'll let that grow for another month under a rock ledge and then slice it off with the Dremel and glue it in a visible shady spot to add color even to the unlit rock work.
Thought the idea might interest any of you who have a nice sponge you want to spread around the display. As you can see i have 3 more frag rocks getting spongefied now. :thumbsup:

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Acro versus monti - no contest.........

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Just glued this little frag onto the back purple monti on the raft rock.

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I'm wondering if the new blue growth that matches the encrusting edge color is a branch forming as it's nothing like the other pink lipped corallites.

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Also has nice fluoro lime highlights in places.

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Not SSC Bello but bloody pink, i must have forgotten to show you this one mate - bit like the ones you had hidden away............:p Just remember who started this sneaky crap Bello........

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I remember this piece.....isn't this the one you got about 4 months ago, placed on the left raft that looked like it had the same structure as the SSC? Still looks pretty good IMO.

Seems like you're going for the coral overhang look on the main raft, looks good :)

I'm getting a bit burnt out by the constant mucking around with the tank, taking a bit of break, and no more sneaky acro purchases :p, but nobody said anything about sneaky fish purchases, eh?
 
Thanks for the kind words mate, glad your following along as it's never boring on biggles atoll, all manner of misadventures befall the SPS during 'speriment' time.......
I use frags placed close to the glass as a focal range of 10-20mm is annoyingly limited. If i had a colony i wanted to show a macro of i'd simply snip a small branch tip off - 1/2" long will fill the screen btw. You simply glue it to the outside edge of a frag disc or whatever and place it up close to the glass and let it settle for a day then macro the you know what out of it. We're talking tiny pieces only and if you want you can just glue it back after you've finished or drop it in the branches where it'll fuse back onto the colony by itself.

Thanks for the tips on getting a great shot biggles!.... Ill still be lurking around your thread so you may near from me in the future :lol:
 
Not SSC Bello but bloody pink, i must have forgotten to show you this one mate - bit like the ones you had hidden away............:p Just remember who started this sneaky crap Bello........

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I remember this piece.....isn't this the one you got about 4 months ago, placed on the left raft that looked like it had the same structure as the SSC? Still looks pretty good IMO.

Seems like you're going for the coral overhang look on the main raft, looks good :)

I'm getting a bit burnt out by the constant mucking around with the tank, taking a bit of break, and no more sneaky acro purchases :p, but nobody said anything about sneaky fish purchases, eh?

Lol Bello, close but not quite right. That's a piece of the red table that i chopped off the side when i first bought it so i could glue it where i wanted to. It was brown when i chopped it off and shows colors that the parent doesn't at the moment.
I really like the overhanging acros suspended over the sand, makes the reef much more dramatic and wilder looking for me. Just my personal preference in coral scaping, the way you place some SPS can dramatically accentuate its growing style or shape and also best display the colors. Many acros look better from the front or back perspective, i find most milli's and prostrata's are best pointed so they grow away from you towards the back of the tank as the inside branch colors are much more saturated than the outside, a bit like the top down perspective. The way you've placed the acros in your systems is exactly what i'm talking about as your overhanging acros look bloody awesome now compared to many month back when you had a more common layout. :thumbsup:
Oh you better not have a cool fish Bello........... i'm starting to get really pee'd off with how this tank battle is going lately. I wish i'd scored that awesome SSC piece that Rodney posted in the SSC topic - i'd plaster that all over your bloody journal Bello :p

Thanks for the tips on getting a great shot biggles!.... Ill still be lurking around your thread so you may near from me in the future :lol:

Thanks for saying hello mate, glad you found the piccy info helpful. :) Feel free to lurk away buddy , better than being a dirty sneaky reefer like someone i won't name to protect your identity Bello........:p


Sooooooo, had a slight mishap or two with a couple of small acros which resulted in a few unexpected coral placement changes. The catalyst was dropping my cutters onto the fluoro acro at the tip of the front rock ledge, it all went downhill from there tbh.......swearing a great deal helped ease the tension somewhat. Old pic but the stunning graphics i added more than make up for that........

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I dropped the cutters on the acro circled in red knocking the whole thing off the rock tip. Then i notice the piece of blue polyped acro i have too much of to the right of the red table circled in yellow is getting stung badly by the red table so i think i'll pry it off and send it to the sump and then put the fluoro lime acro up top safe from the table.
Whilst prying the well encrusted blue polyped acro off the rock i managed to slip and smash two branches off the delicate purple tipped acro circled in green. At this point there was a 5 minute intermission while i made a coffee and took a lot of deep breaths and gave the tank a few filthy looks.........
In the end i chucked the blue polyp'd acro in the sump, stuck the fluoro lime piece i knocked off up top near the table and then glued the 2 small branches i broke off the purple tipped acro down where the bloody lime acro was to begin with.
The lime acro is a tad sulky about the sudden massive light increase, he needs to be a team player and suck it up for the good of the reef.
 

Nice play design coach! I think I got it...

So the delicate purple tipped acro comes out of the reef to set a pick on the yellow tang... This frees up the fluoro lime acro to swing up and send the blue polyped acro to the bench.​

Go team, go!!! :bounce3:


Hehehehehehehehehe :fun2:
 
What do you feed your yellow tang?

Marty

Hey Marty, i feed the tang and clown the small sized formula one marine pellets morning and evening along with nori twice a day. The clown has started eating the nori now since watching the yellow tang go nuts for it every day lol. The shrimp loves the pellets too and gathers up any missed by the fish.

Nice play design coach! I think I got it...

So the delicate purple tipped acro comes out of the reef to set a pick on the yellow tang... This frees up the fluoro lime acro to swing up and send the blue polyped acro to the bench.​

Go team, go!!! :bounce3:


Hehehehehehehehehe :fun2:

Lol Troub, yeah it does look like some bad play on the footy field. 'Benched' does sound better than dumped in the frag tank and i do occasionally let them back on the field for another team tryout. Obviously the SSC is the quarterback :)
 
Lol Bello, close but not quite right. That's a piece of the red table that i chopped off the side when i first bought it so i could glue it where i wanted to. It was brown when i chopped it off and shows colors that the parent doesn't at the moment.

Many acros look better from the front or back perspective, i find most milli's and prostrata's are best pointed so they grow away from you towards the back of the tank as the inside branch colors are much more saturated than the outside, a bit like the top down perspective.

Oh, you fooled me :p. It's funny how sometimes the frags look completely different from the parent colonies, in terms of color.

Interesting note about the millies/prostrata. They're giving me maximum problems at the moment. I'm tempted enough to consider converting the drop off into a zeo tank, just to get these bastards to color up....but I've got too much flubber that I don't know what to do with also, so its on hold for now.

Your macro feeding experiments are pretty awesome, makes you realize how greedy the sps can be :p. Found it very interesting that they didn't quite enjoy the taste of detritus/poo.

And Troub, that was funny :p :lol:... Coach Biggles :lol:
 
Oh, you fooled me :p. It's funny how sometimes the frags look completely different from the parent colonies, in terms of color.

Interesting note about the millies/prostrata. They're giving me maximum problems at the moment. I'm tempted enough to consider converting the drop off into a zeo tank, just to get these bastards to color up....but I've got too much flubber that I don't know what to do with also, so its on hold for now.

Your macro feeding experiments are pretty awesome, makes you realize how greedy the sps can be :p. Found it very interesting that they didn't quite enjoy the taste of detritus/poo.

And Troub, that was funny :p :lol:... Coach Biggles :lol:

Hey Bello, looking at your journal pics i can see you're getting bloody close to where you want to be. Growth and health look great but i do see the lack of saturated colors overall you're referring to mate. You don't think the LED's are still too bright do you, just an idea as everything else looks to be spot on.

Coach biggles went recruiting at the LFS yesterday...........:p

I read on another thread your getting another tank. Any info yet?

Marty

Hey Marty, no action on that front only because funds are seriously lacking. I hope to get the ball rolling early in the new year mate.

Big,
I don't know if you have read this thread. It is an interesting read. But you might be able to find something like this in Australia.

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1965880

Marty

Thanks for that mate, i'll have a look at what i can get here in Aus but tbh i highly doubt i'll dip my acros in poison any time soon...........

Pair of banggai's - always wanted to try these but never have so i finally took the plunge. They look super cool hanging out under the overhanging acros.

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Poopy 4" table, pretty browned and drab but i think it's red. Made a new rock outcrop and mounted it 3" off the bottom so i'll have to watch and see if there's enough flow and light down that low for it.

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Every SPS tank i keep i always buy a fluoro hydnophora and at some stage it'll burn the crap out of one of my acros even though i think it's far enough away to be safe.......... it's a bit like when someone tells you a cattle fence is electrified and you touch it just to check - BAM ! hydno's are a bit like the fence, i know it's a nasty dangerous stinging bastard but i still need to touch it..........:debi:

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Is that coral green?

Marty



Every SPS tank i keep i always buy a fluoro hydnophora and at some stage it'll burn the crap out of one of my acros even though i think it's far enough away to be safe.......... it's a bit like when someone tells you a cattle fence is electrified and you touch it just to check - BAM ! hydno's are a bit like the fence, i know it's a nasty dangerous stinging bastard but i still need to touch it..........:debi:

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