My 65 Gallon Mixed Reef

[Fishy 1]

Excellent info, Biggles and Sahin :thumbsup:

And biggles, thanks to your silly anthias ideas, I've just bought a trio of them. I blame you, obviously

While not as awesome as before, the acros still look pretty good :thumbsup:. Looks like the tank is on the road to recovery :thumbsup:. I'm still waiting to turn things around with my tank, getting bummed looking at the displays and the lousy colors.

Just get a queen angle

 

[FastUno]

Biggles, what gives??? Was this at an earlier stage of your LED experiment & it was too early for you to see the "true" outcome???

Even though i don't use LED's over my halide/T5 display i do run a 120W 50/50 blue/white cheapo ebay unit over the forgotten corals section of my sump. There is nearly no circulation in the LED area, just the feed pump outlet and a rattling 250gph 'old fashioned' powerhead plonked in a corner - terrible water movement with lots of dead spots etc.
The tank is 4 months old and i know next to nothing about LED lighting but i see lots of people on here blaming LED's for an inability to keep SPS colored and/or alive.
I'm not really interested in LED's yet but i will say that anyone who can't keep SPS under anything from my non full spectrum LED unit up to the high end full spectrum LED fixtures like radions etc has their hand on it. I don't care one toss if i upset anyone tbh - i am an experienced SPS keeper and have had this LED unit running for months to see what all the fuss was about and i know what i'm doing when it comes to SPS and how to keep them successfully.

All these corals are wild collected and still acclimating to artificial lighting but i can assure anyone who cares to listen to my opinion that if your corals are all slowly dying under LED's - it isn't the light that's doing it. I run the LED's at 100% 10 hours a day. The sump pic is not sharp because i haven't cleaned the glass in 2 weeks so it is crazed with snail grazing tracks, i really don't care about the sump section or the corals in it tbh.









The colors in both tanks are obviously much better in real life but you can see frags in the LED area and the same corals up above in the display. I really don't get this whole SPS are super hard to keep thing btw - the ones in the sump are in terrible flow conditions, they're not receiving a light spectrum anywhere near full yet they soldier on......... get your water right before you blame your lights.

Proof is in the pics

Halide and T5 display:

Blue/white LED sump section:

 

[troubadour11]

So what type of anthia's are you all getting now? How big do they get up to full grown? We've been searching for a schooling type fish to put in our 90 mixed reef. Anthia's have been one option we were considering. But I'm not sure if we would have enough space for a group of 5.

We are at the point of deciding which stocking choice to move onto next. Could be a small school of something, could be a clownfish pair. Something along those lines.

Thanks for the flubbercan pic you posted a bit ago. I showed them off to my better half. Told her you thought we'd enjoy some acans. She liked the magnet mount on the glass you have for them :thumbsup: Then we promptly browsed through our local selection on-line just to see what was out there and easily available. Is it best to keep them isolated on an island rock? Do they spread and out compete other stuff easily? I'll admit, I've never really looked into them that much.

I'm also curious to see what kind of results I get between you're tutelage and the LED set up I'm building. If I ever complete it that is. :mad2: But I'm betting my rig will hopefully yield some better results then you're blue/white graveyard light. If I end up having to supplement some t-5, so be it. But I really want to run the system for a good time first with just the new LED fixtures. We will see what it can do. But I'm guessing the coral color is more to do with what's in the water then the source of light. Given certain assumptions about the light source of course (adequate amount/power, spectrum, etc). I think I might be off to put in a little more effort on those lights again today. Fingers crossed something gets done... I'm finally feeling on the upside of this stupid cold. :blown:

And how are you liking the new sand now that it's settled in a bit? Blowing around less? I can finally come back and post here... being sick and having to stare at your bare bottom all the time was just to much to handle at once :lol: So glad to see it covered back up again :fun2: But that's just me, I like the sandy look

Oh shoot... I'm going to get sidetracked on those articles now. I forgot about wanting to read them. Time to :reading: up on some nutrient levels first. Then off to some tank dabbling for me!

 

[Bello]

Sahin, you're becoming quite the photoshop genius, I daresay....much like biggles, himself

Don't worry about the frags when we invade biggles's place...... I've already got the insider info (Kevin's easy to bribe with a few gum leaves )

Hope all's well biggles, I'm busy making a mess of things myself....rollercoaster style :headwally:

 

[sahin]

Sahin, you're becoming quite the photoshop genius, I daresay....much like biggles, himself

Bello, please do not insult Kevin this way!!!...this is not photoshop at all. This is a genuine photo of Kevin driving one of the neighbor's car...I think Kevin mentioned something about the Trochus Snails in Biggles's tank having fun...so he Kevin thought he might do something as well...

Don't worry about the frags when we invade biggles's place...... I've already got the insider info (Kevin's easy to bribe with a few gum leaves )

Do you reckon he can get us that new Echinata Biggles got coloured up all nicely? We will split it 50/50.

 

[biggles]

Quick update - haven't killed anymore acros lately and the sand i put in is #^$%#@ me right off. Took a pic under the 3 x B+, 1 x Coral+ and the LED bar first thing this morning so it's bloody hard to fix the color wash.
I will point out that checking Mg so it doesn't hit 1150 is probably advisable if you want your acros to grow........ :facepalm:

The tank is getting no love or attention from me lately since i have the sh*ts with it and all the corals.

 

[sahin]

Quick update - haven't killed anymore acros lately and the sand i put in is #^$%#@ me right off. Took a pic under the 3 x B+, 1 x Coral+ and the LED bar first thing this morning so it's bloody hard to fix the color wash.
I will point out that checking Mg so it doesn't hit 1150 is probably advisable if you want your acros to grow........ :facepalm:

The tank is getting no love or attention from me lately since i have the sh*ts with it and all the corals.

Dont be too hard on the tank mate. Kevin tells me you stopped whispering sweet things to the tank before going to bed...I think you need to start that again because the tank was happier before.

But its getting there. At least the STN crap has stopped. Which is a big relief.

Anyway, have somewhat fixed the FTS shot. Looks like Kevin peed in the tank after a night out drinking with the Koala lads... :lol:

Anyway, I photoshoped it as best as possible to how I "think" it looks. :lol:

Tank looks sweet. I'd rather have your tank with its small troubles (which are no more) than my poopy brown turd stick SPS turd tank.

 

[biggles]

Hi mate, yes the tissue loss has abated and everything has begun to color back up finally Growth is still non existent but the low Mg probably doesn't help lol. I've added 900ml of Mg solution in the last 12 hours and it's still only at 1300 - one of these days i need to set up that bloody doser machine........

I see what you mean about my pic, my eyes go wonky after 5 mins of trying to correct the phone pics - i see what you mean about the color on that FTS i posted lol, thanks for trying to fix it up Sahin. I took another pic with all the lights on, you can see how blue the phone pics are i try to constantly correct.

 

[FastUno]

Problem is your load is too big. Chop em up, lighten your load, & send them over to me so that we can see what can be done for them under my LED's

 

[biggles]

Hey mate, yes that was prior to me discovering that whilst you can keep SPS alive with blue white LED's you can't keep the colors anything like those under my T5/Radium lighting. I'm going to replace that LED unit with a 4 or 6 bulb 2ft T5 unit when i have the money so i can play with my stiks in the sump lol.
I've never tried any of the fuller spectrum units to see what they can do, i'd run a Radion Pro if i had lots of money to waste as i'm sure that would give much better results.

This one is for Mr Sneaky - Bello. Since you keep making sneaky additions to your bloody tanks i decided to 'pull a Bello'. I added this 5 weeks ago when it was very pale and washed out down low about 4" off the bottom right under the 400W Radium, so far it's coloring up very brightly and i know it's growing because it stung the you know what out of a stylo i stuck it next to Stylos, pocil and monti's are nothing more than cannon fodder in the acro wars within an SPS tank.

Btw it took me 1200ml of Mg solution to raise my magnesium from 1150 to 1350 over 24 hrs. Now i gotta make up another bloody batch - more work ! :deadhorse1:

 

[biggles]

Look at my poor raft tip fluoro aculeus......... Can't have an SPS tank without glow in the dark acros. In the old days i thought actinics made them look cool but with the advent of RB LED's they're just ridiculous. You guys must all source an Aus fluoro aculeus !

Ok it's time for a short ramble about commensal crabs. There's lots of info out there on them and the more you have the better it is but don't ever kid yourselves that the puny little specimens you have living inside your acros can ever compete with the beast that i've been training for battle. He's 2.5" across with claws outstretched and is too big to hide in anything now so he just stands on the horrida i moved from the front. He has no need to hide anyway and will swipe at any of the fish that come too close to his horrida.

If any of you want to pick your toughest acro crab out and bring it around we'll drop it in the horrida and watch my boy kick the carapace out of it. His name is KONG :strooper:

Not only do i have crabs, i have a very big one too........... that is all i have to say about crabs.

 

[Bello]

Damn, that's a big a$$ crab biggles :lol:

Nice acro you picked up, ya sneak!. Looks nice and pink. But too be honest, I'm far more relieved that the aculeus is still around. There's really no point bribing Kevin (he's getting expensive........ you're spoiling him biggles), if there's no aculeus for us to steal .

Tank looks like its recovering nicely :thumbsup:. Since we do have a few similarities given where we are now in terms of pooey coral colors on a few corals, what's the plan? Reduce nutrients and then work on color? Feed less? Mine have taken a beating with the dips, and some alk fluctuations. My SSC makes yours look like a hottie

 

[glaukos]

Amaaaaaaaaaazing tank biggles buddy!:beer:
Tha last "sneaky addition"-will leave bello out,out of respect for him - made me shed an envy tear:smokin:

 

[biggles]

Damn, that's a big a$$ crab biggles :lol:

Nice acro you picked up, ya sneak!. Looks nice and pink. But too be honest, I'm far more relieved that the aculeus is still around. There's really no point bribing Kevin (he's getting expensive........ you're spoiling him biggles), if there's no aculeus for us to steal .

Tank looks like its recovering nicely :thumbsup:. Since we do have a few similarities given where we are now in terms of pooey coral colors on a few corals, what's the plan? Reduce nutrients and then work on color? Feed less? Mine have taken a beating with the dips, and some alk fluctuations. My SSC makes yours look like a hottie

Yes he certainly is a big boy Bello, he doesn't back away from my hand if it goes near him either - not that i'm scared of him but i've decided to let him do whatever he wants in the tank..........

That aculeus looks disgusting now with the algae covered dead patches and the blue/purple acro is in the process of encrusting over its base. I'll have to do something to rectify that soon before the blue thing kills too much of the aculeus base - it's in the too hard basket for now.......

I'm starting to see better PE on things at night slowly so i'm fairly certain that the system is on the road to recovery. Over this whole period where most of the acros have been right on the edge of losing tissue i have kept a good amount of food up to the tank. This is what i've been feeding the last few weeks:

Fish get 3 feeds a day - morning is flake and nori, afternoon is mini pellets and evening is a whole rinsed mysis cube.
I put a pinch of reef roids in a few hours after lights out and a big pinch of cyclop-eeze in before i wander off to bed.

Your acros aren't brown from living in dirty water or under poor lighting Bello so make sure they get plenty of nutrition to get through the stress as i'm quite certain the health of my corals is why i haven't suffered a major disaster. Be careful with your lights when you rescape because stressed acros burn tips a lot easier than happy ones. I had the 250W back over the display for a couple of weeks when everything up high began slowly showing signs of tip burn. I have the 400W running again now and i swapped a blue plus tube for a coral plus just because my SPS LFS now stocks ATI bulbs :celeb1:

When i got those last acros i informed Dave who is the best LFS guy in the best reef store in Melbourne that the new SPS holding tank whilst impressive at about 10ftx3ftx18" is a complete fail due to the pathetic LED lights they put over it - it has 4 of those kessil 360 things and made everything other than green and blue dime a dozen acros look good. Everything red or pink looked brown and drab which is how i tricked Dave into knocking $10- off that ripper pink table lol.

Ramble on tips for spotting cool acros and the correct procedure to ensure you get them.........

* When you enter a store looking for SPS go straight to the display - don't talk to the bloody staff just say hi and get to the tank and make a quick 15-20 second scan for anything drop dead beautiful. If there is anything in there that you want and is cool looking enough to be spotted by an SPS thief ( other SPS customers ) you MUST call a sales guy over and inform him you want them but you're going to keep looking for more. Don't find a treasure and then wander off to check out the fish before buying stuff - someone like me will walk through the door and score all your stuff within 30 seconds ! When i spotted that blue tipped echi 10 seconds after opening the shop door i yelled - yes yelled at Dave across the shop ' This blue echi is mine Dave, MINE ' - Dave is used to me so he just shook his head and laughed and said ok. It happened to me years ago before i realised the correct manner to carry out acro hunts.

Your camera phone is your best friend when acro hunting for two good reasons. Take a cell pic of the store acros and it will be totally washed out blue as usual but i want to remind you guys that everything with fluoro pigments and or polyps even if not visible to your eyes will light up like a xmas tree on your phone camera pic - if you ask nicely and even explain what you're doing the store won't mind as you're trying to find stuff to give them money for......
The light browny looking table was poorly lit by blue white LED's and i already knew those lights hide reds and pinks badly, $50 means it must have been pretty when it arrived or the lights were masking colors. Out came the phone and i turned on the flash light so it was a white torch and shone it over the acro - i spied pink hues

Me - Hey Dave i'll take this little brown table if you drop ten bucks off it.

Dave - let me look, hmmm yeah ok i can do that i can't remember what that looked like when it came in.

As soon as Dave lifted the acro out of the water he saw what i had seen and turned slowly to me and said ' you bastard you knew that was pink '

I explained to Dave that it was their own fault for using lights that weren't up to the job. Dave then informs me that they're actually going to pull the 4 kessils and put halides back as they came to the same conclusion a couple of months after changing to blue/white LED's over the SPS.
Everyone worries about the poor newbs being screwed over by cut throat LFS guys - let's all take a moment to consider the poor LFS guys who are themselves 'taken down' at times by a seasoned purveyor and procurer of SPS treasures......... :smokin:
I did offer to pay the full price but Dave has acro honor and knows when he's been bested in an acro joust and to the winner go the spoils...... Dave will lift all brown acros out of the water before giving me a price if i try that again so it's kind of a one shot deal lol.

Amaaaaaaaaaazing tank biggles buddy!:beer:
Tha last "sneaky addition"-will leave bello out,out of respect for him - made me shed an envy tear:smokin:

Thanks mate, speaking of Bello that reminds me, what type of anthias did you get Bello - you miss these things Mike. Bello casually mentions getting 3 new fish with no details or pics and i have to drag the info out of him as always............ Bello is always up to secret stuff.

 

[glaukos]

[/QUOTE]Thanks mate, speaking of Bello that reminds me, what type of anthias did you get Bello - you miss these things Mike. Bello casually mentions getting 3 new fish with no details or pics and i have to drag the info out of him as always............ Bello is always up to secret stuff.[/QUOTE]

:lmao::lmao::lmao:
But he is still a great guy like us!:beer::lolspin:

 

[sahin]

Hello sir. :mad2: I saw the poo tank comment in that other thread. :mad2:

Anyway...:uzi:

Nice score on this pink table...but what is what rude looking green acro at the bottom corner? :lol: Have you been dosing too much Polyplabs polyp booster? :lol:

That crabby is a mighty looking thing isnt he? Looks like one of those red Mithrax crabs.

Speaking of PolypBooster...what are your thoughts regarding that product? Chucked in the bin or useful?

Did you work out to any extent why your tank had issues recently? Also, have you stuck the GFO back in and will it be a part of your arsenal of reef products?

 

[biggles]

:lmao: But he is still a great guy like us!:beer::lolspin:

Bello is indeed a great guy and a good mate to me on RC

Hello sir. I saw the poo tank comment in that other thread. :mad2:

Anyway...

Nice score on this pink table...but what is what rude looking green acro at the bottom corner? Have you been dosing too much Polyplabs polyp booster? :lol:

That crabby is a mighty looking thing isnt he? Looks like one of those red Mithrax crabs.

Speaking of PolypBooster...what are your thoughts regarding that product? Chucked in the bin or useful?

Did you work out to any extent why your tank had issues recently? Also, have you stuck the GFO back in and will it be a part of your arsenal of reef products?

No idea what comment you're talking about Sahin, you know i'd never suggest such a thing........ Bello hacks my account sometimes so it was likely him up to no good mate.

Yep the table is cool and that rude acro was snapped just when the flow blew all the polyps backwards lol. Kong came in a stylo when he was a lot smaller but he had to move out of that when he couldn't squeeze himself between the branches any longer. Now he sometimes just squats on it but he looks pretty stupid perched on top like that.

I stopped using that polyp booster stuff way back when things went south but i'm pretty certain it's basically amino acids with some other stuff mixed in. I need to do a macro vid test at some point to see if the acros actually grab anything from it out of the water. I don't think it's needed really as the roids work great on their own.
No GFO, just running carbon to remove as much crap as i can that might have been added with the contaminated RO. The sump has GHA in it since i turned the lights back on so there's plenty of food in the water for the acros, very little algae in the display but the glass needs cleaning daily at the moment so i won't change the feeding until the corals are back to 100% which will be double the alk draw level i'm currently at. I have to say i'm finding it much easier to manage my nutrient levels without the confusing input from phos and nitrate kits which are in the cupboard where they belong if you have an experienced eye. You won't ever get an eye for your reef if you trust the kits more than your eyes so i think the less you use them the better once you have a feel for your system and the corals you keep.
If i think i need GFO to run the food input i want at any stage i'll run it - GFO is good stuff when used for the right reasons.

Can't have too many pink acros i say, this little guy has started to encrust and likes the spot i chose for him. I have pieces of it in about 4 spots to see what happens in different light and flow.

 

[sahin]

An Eye For Your Reef

An Eye For Your Reef

Biggles, since you like ranting occasionally (which I am sure most of us enjoy reading)...can you do us a big favour mate and write a Biggles scientific article titled:

An Eye For Your Reef.

-What does it mean?
-What to look for?
-Nutrients - Excessive and Too Low? - How can you tell?
-Anything else you wish to add

You can reference the article with your own experience, which is just fine for our purposes and perfectly acceptable as scientific evidence.

I give you permission to skip work for an hour or two whilst you write this very important article. If your boss gets annoyed, tell him its Bello's fault.

If you are the boss, then all is good. :lol:

 

[biggles]

An eye for your reef rant hey......... that sounds like a good topic to go into detail over considering it plays such a major role in my SPS keeping methodology Sahin - i will get something together asap mate :beer:

Check out the weird colors on this little SSC piece as it recovers. You can still see the dead tips healing over on a couple of the branches on the right side. This used to be one of my cream and pink SSC bits but everything is green and pink now so i'm thinking the water changes added missing trace elements that were giving me odd pigmentation on some stuff. Those bluey purple tips and bits of pigmentation are actually there not a color caste. Probably a bit more purple than the blue it looks in my pic. Acros do some weird things when you stress them out lol.

 

[Fail_sh3d]

An eye for your reef rant hey......... that sounds like a good topic to go into detail over considering it plays such a major role in my SPS keeping methodology Sahin - i will get something together asap mate :beer:

Check out the weird colors on this little SSC piece as it recovers. You can still see the dead tips healing over on a couple of the branches on the right side. This used to be one of my cream and pink SSC bits but everything is green and pink now so i'm thinking the water changes added missing trace elements that were giving me odd pigmentation on some stuff. Those bluey purple tips and bits of pigmentation are actually there not a color caste. Probably a bit more purple than the blue it looks in my pic. Acros do some weird things when you stress them out lol.

That is one insane looking acro.

I have a couple pieces of the same acros that are completely different from each other now. I'm waiting till they get bigger and if they return to matching colors.