Pics of my 'new' reef

[sonofgaladriel]

As some of you know, I lost a ton of my nicer SPS corals over the last several weeks (although some have survived and appear to be coloring back up nicely). But, I have decided not to be a 'purist' any longer and to move back to a mixed reef, focusing on sinularias of various colors.
Here's a few pics of the new reef as of today. Going back to a mixed reef will also allow me to add a few more fish
Check out the 3" Marine Beta and the 2" baby Regal Angel!

 

[sonofgaladriel]

 

[sonofgaladriel]

 

[binaryterror]

Jeez, lol, got enough corals in there? Looks great man! Glad to hear you are still going strong!

 

[BigRick08]

Very pretty! Nice tank man!

 

[sonofgaladriel]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8078471#post8078471 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by binaryterror
Jeez, lol, got enough corals in there?

Things grow fast All but a few of the recently added sinularia started out as small frags or very small store bought corals. Nothing was huge when I bought it. I truly expected some of the coral frags to not make it, thus giving other corals room to grow as some died off. But, most of the frags survived to my surprise and actually grew pretty fast and filled in the tank. All the rose BTA's are from a single clone of 5 years ago.

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8078641#post8078641 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by BigRick08
Very pretty! Nice tank man!

Thank you!

 

[Cole2k3]

very cool

 

[Aqua Keepers]

Awsome colors. Tell me more about your set up.

 

[sonofgaladriel]

Thanks!
My tank is a 240 gallon acrylic cube (1" thick without top bracing) built by Scott at Aquatics Systems Designs, 90 gallon sump/fuge, 2 48" AquaMedic Oceanlight pendants with dual 250 watt 20K XM DE halides with T5 actinics, 2 closed loops supplied by Sequence Darts each running an OceansMotions 4 way and 8 way units, GenX PCX 40 return pump, 8200 gph total flow.
I was running a Reef Tek dual chamber calcium reactor but took that offline and sold it. I'll drip Kalkwasser only now. I have a nice recirculating skimmer made by Aquatics Systems Designs. Running a 36 watt UV sterilzer.
And...that's about it really. Nothing else fancy running this system.

 

[Aqua Keepers]

I guess I could've read your sig for that info, but thanks for posting. I can't tell from the pics, are you running BB? Also whats the bioload like?

 

[sabodish]

beautiful as always...i finally got my 36x36x30 cube last week. like i told you before, i modeled my system after yours. will be making a build thread pretty soon.

 

[McGinnis]

I have always considered this one of my favorite tanks! Sorry to hear about the previous troubles, but your system still remains one of the most impressive tanks around! Great job.

 

[Paikuhan]

Very nice, Great looking corals

 

[hawaiianwargod]

very nice!

 

[sidog1]

very nice! where did you get the regal?

 

[FloodXL]

great stuff, continually inspiring! corals look awesome!

 

[myusername]

very nice, grate color.

 

[sonofgaladriel]

Thank you all very much for the compliments. The colors are really popping under these 20K XMs.
sidog1-The baby regal came from one of our best LFS called 'Fish World'. He has a great supplier and gets his fish directly from a Hawaiin supplier so there is no layover in LA. His Regals come from a guy that gets them eating 90% of the time before shipping them out. I won't buy a fish like this from any other place in town.

 

[McGinnis]

Can I ask what caused you to lose so many SPS?

 

[sonofgaladriel]

My SPS problem started a few months ago now when my 12"+ rose anemone died undetected for several days. It disappeared for a couple of days and I just thought it was splitting like it usually does. Well, after about a week, it didn't return and my water turned somewhat cloudy. I didn't do any water testing while I was waiting for it to come back as there were no real signs that anything was wrong and before I knew it, I had a fairly moderate tank crash happening. I'm sure I had an amonia and nitrite spike, followed by a nitrate spike AND phospates went way up which the SPS obviously didn't like. This created what I believe to be the snowball affect and, even after many water changes, carbon, and ROWAPHOS, many of the newer aquacultured SPS corals that hadn't become established in my reef started dieing off.
So, here I am back to a mixed reef, just as fun and a lot less worrysome.