My humble SPS journey - Shallow 80g

[C.Eymann]

Holy cow! Great growth progress, super clean build. Love your fish choices, your tank is definitely on its way to being a stunner.

 

[joshky]

That is a stunning Pink Lemonade! Can you share your thoughts on this corals preferences? How much light, nutrients, does this coral respond to?
In your experience, what conditions bring out the color and growth we see in your photo?

I have seen many pics of green or brown lemonade. Yours seems to really get a true lemon color. Thanks for the photos!

It's been a better looking yellow than it is right now tbh, high light and low nutrients IME helps yellows a lot. I have it in the highest spot I could place it in my tank, it has a green ring where it encrusts but the rest of it is yellow.

Holy cow! Great growth progress, super clean build. Love your fish choices, your tank is definitely on its way to being a stunner.

Thank you, appreciate it.

 

[markalot]

Josh,

I missed so many updates. Tank is looking fantastic! Please grow that Oregon tort enough you can make me a frag.

 

[Reeftanks6]

Joshky, what is that block that is in the third chamber?

 

[joshky]

Josh,

I missed so many updates. Tank is looking fantastic! Please grow that Oregon tort enough you can make me a frag.

Thanks Mark, hopefully I'll get it to a respectable size so I can share a small frag with you.

Joshky, what is that block that is in the third chamber?

Marinepure 8x8x4 ceramic biomedia, I wouldn't buy it again personally. I recently bought some seachem matrix and it seems like a better product for this application.

 

[Bdial]

where at in Ky? Cause if your sharing torts I'm coming over

 

[joshky]

where at in Ky? Cause if your sharing torts I'm coming over

Lol let me back up, I meant trade or sell, I don't see fragging it anytime soon anyways sorry.

 

[Piper27]

BC Ultimate Table

Blizammmm!!! That thing makes me salivate badly! Beautiful growth, how long did it take to grow to that size? Your reds are amazing man! I saw a few frags a few pages back that make me jealous.

Also I can't find a FTS anywhere...

 

[TheFishGuy31]

Great setup! The PE in those last pictures is awesome.

I'd love to keep acros like that but I am struggling to keep a stick of Green Slimer alive.

 

[Bdial]

Oh I get trade and sell. Don't worry bout that. My corals are almost getting to a point where I can start fragging for trades too.

Yes we need a fts. These corals are awesome!

 

[joshky]

Blizammmm!!! That thing makes me salivate badly! Beautiful growth, how long did it take to grow to that size? Your reds are amazing man! I saw a few frags a few pages back that make me jealous.

Also I can't find a FTS anywhere...

This is it from March of this year,

to give you an idea. I've had it since November though, but I don't count that time as my tank was having serious issues. Old FTS can be found on page 15, I just uploaded a new one but I reaquascaped etc..

Great setup! The PE in those last pictures is awesome.

I'd love to keep acros like that but I am struggling to keep a stick of Green Slimer alive.

Stability and patience, I'm still learning myself. Thanks.

Oh I get trade and sell. Don't worry bout that. My corals are almost getting to a point where I can start fragging for trades too.

Yes we need a fts. These corals are awesome!

Haha ok, well I probably won't frag the oregon tort anytime soon as I'm scared the growth will come to a complete halt, perhaps when it gets a bit larger I'll have the courage.

Old FTS can be found on page #15.

 

[joshky]

Well my tank is going through some issues, nothing too concerning just my acros have been consistently paling and I'm having a decent amount of cyano growth on sand and rocks. The cyano is bottoming out my nutrients, both Nitrate (Salifert) and Phosphate (Hanna ULR) are reading 0, I've mostly been sitting back and just keeping up the status quo as this is still a fairly young tank and I don't want to make any knee jerk reactions; but I have started to dose KZ Sponge Power in the hopes of some of my sponges, tunicates, and sea squirts from the TBS live rock would return and help me make a biological shift.

I got in some other things from Amazon recently as well, some more sand, matrix, and an Eheim Quick Vac Pro. If you're like me you probably just laughed about that last one, but after using it to suck detritus out of my sump I'm sold. I love the thing, it's so easy to use and clean and does a great job, it can even be used in shallow sand beds with larger sand granules.

I didn't feel comfortable about this next change in my reef, but I mustered up the courage to do something I've been thinking about doing for a while now. I didn't want to do it because of the issues my tank was already facing, but if I had waited acros may have encrusted too much and I may have never done it, so.....

I'm trying to source a nice healthy Heteractis magnifica for the top of the right rock structure, I thought I could have a reef without one but I really miss my brother's old mags and with my tank slowly coming into maturation I feel like the time has come. It may take a little while to find the right one, but I'm really excited to have a spot ready when I do find one.

That's about it for now, thanks for reading.

 

[FloformAustria]

:thumbsup:

still looking good!

i am battling cyanos myself... but in your case i would do the same and sit them out with a young tank like yours!!

Cheers

 

[kainic]

What's your fish list? It looks very light loaded to me.

 

[reefmutt]

Looks great, Josh.
It'll look very cool with a magnifica up there.
I had a mgnifica in my old tank and loved it. Once they find their spot, they never move.
Actually, in its first life, my current tank had a magnifica, too, but I removed it as my sps addiction hardened and I needed the real estate for acros..

 

[joshky]

:thumbsup:

still looking good!

i am battling cyanos myself... but in your case i would do the same and sit them out with a young tank like yours!!

Cheers

Thanks Flo, I had a small patch of cyano growing back in June and it's only gotten worse from there. Technically this tank is only 6 months old as I had reset the entire ecosystem with all new live rock back at the end of February. I'm not really surprised I'm having some issues when I think of it that way.

What's your fish list? It looks very light loaded to me.

I wouldn't necessarily say light, most of my fish were hiding from me cleaning the tank etc. for the photos. I do have plans to add some more fish eventually.

Cirrhilabrus lyukyuensis
Cirrhilabrus solorensis
Cirrhilabrus katherinae
Paracheilinus flavianalis
Macropharyngodon geoffroyi
Macropharyngodon ornatus
Halichoeres melanurus
Siganus doliatus

Looks great, Josh.
It'll look very cool with a magnifica up there.
I had a mgnifica in my old tank and loved it. Once they find their spot, they never move.
Actually, in its first life, my current tank had a magnifica, too, but I removed it as my sps addiction hardened and I needed the real estate for acros..

Thanks Matt. I need to get my hospital ready for when I do find a mag, unfortunately getting them healthy is one of the hardest parts to them.

 

[Wrangy]

Damn Josh!! Just damn the tank is looking fine!! :inlove:

 

[joshky]

Found what I was looking for for the top of the right structure, a purple mag with light yellow tips and a red foot. I have it in a hospital tank right now, might do some photos tomorrow.

Damn Josh!! Just damn the tank is looking fine!! :inlove:

Thanks Dom.

 

[reefmutt]

Nice! I'd love to see it.

 

[markalot]

Josh,

I am going to frag my Lokani this weekend, if I can get up the nerve, and after it encrusts (a few weeks?) give it to someone who can grow it out and share. We are going to have to plan to meet somewhere in between if you can keep a space open.