Progress: my 1/2 anniversary of SPS addiction

[ryanjiang]

Addicted to SPS half year ago and decided to take the challeng to convert my 75G soft to SPS dominate, I thought I want to share the progress of my treasure hunting in this half year. Most of my frags are from local reefer and my LFS atlantis aquarium, so it is also an update I am sure a reefer always want to see how is his baby doing in other's tank:rollface: Sorry for the bad photo skill I still don't have a tripod yet.

First, a shot of my wall of reef before I take it down (I still miss it)

A side view of current SPS reef

Steve Elias Stag from Tong(tonggao) and on the back, Purple Monster from Larry(Mr. Pluto)

ORA tri-color Valida aquired as mini-colony from Elliotte(ERB82).

At front 30K Lokani from Taylor (tmantaylor18), on back Raspberry Lemonade from Atlantis, further back on the right ORA belina from Elliotte(ERB82) it is out of focus and blurry.

Cali Tort from Larry(Mr. Pluto) Fire Engine monti from Chris(BerlinMethod.com) , on the back is ORA Verdi aquired as mini-colony from Elliotte(ERB82).

Oregon Tort from Kyle(kvosstra) also got a frag of his wonderful Raspberry Prostatra

Recently addition of Red Robin Stag and Lime in Sky from Macros(smokenax), also got a Icefire frag but no decent picture yet.

Can not wait to see these frags grow to colony and shows the killing color, but man they grow slow you have no other choice but be patient....

 

[Znut Reefer]

Looks good. You'll enjoy watching them grow into colony's.

 

[dvanacker]

awesome collection.......

be patient and cross your fingers as well. Should look swwweeeet. One thing for certain is that its going to blow your softie tank out of the water.

 

[tnyr5]

They only grow slow in the beginning! In another 12 months I bet you'll be cursing them for growing too fast ;-). Just keep it stable and watch the fun.

 

[ryanjiang]

Thanks Guys. I will keep my finger crossed....

I agree, with the diversity and endless combination of color, pattern, fixture... of SPS , there is no compare with softie tank. Softie tank is beautiful for sure it is just not as much of fun.

But from another point of view, it is painful process to look at ugly new SPS tank everyday, with bunch of 1" frag on rocks, for at least a year or two.

 

[mr. pluto]

tank looks good Ryan, that pm got a lot of branches.

 

[ryanjiang]

tank looks good Ryan, that pm got a lot of branches.

Larry obviously you forgot how big was your PM frag, no, no new branches just all branches are bigger so more obvious to see now. But frankly the PM grow faster than I would expect, I think it is due to that your frags are well encrupted and ready to take off.

 

[tmantaylor18]

fts?

 

[spsfragger]

current fts? please

 

[ryanjiang]

I am struggling to get a decent FT, it is hard to get a sharp picture without triopod, and it seems it is much harder to get a good FTS under MH than PC light, metering is off, white balance is off. I need to spend more time to learn how to take good picture.

This is best I can get, looks ugly with too many small frags and too much coralline on the glass that I have no time to clean.

BTW find a pic for purple bonzai (told by owner it is GARF, but who knows?) and better pic for the ORA belina

 

[mutateddogbone]

looks great for being 6mo old. give it another year or so and you'll have to start making frags

 

[Antonais1391]

wow looking great. been thinking about a vortech for my 75 sps dom. whats your opinion?? love that your growing them from frags, dont think getting big colony's is right for newer ppl. you grow more attached when you grow from 1/4 in frags into large colony's IMO keep at it :]

 

[ryanjiang]

Your coral will love the broad and random flow of vortech, that is for sure, the shortside is not reliable enough, after I read more it seems almost 100% issues (such as take apart, loud etc) are tied to wet side, and you can buy entire wet side for about $50 if I remember correctly, so I keep a spare wet side on hand. If anything goes wrong I put the spare on and contact Vortech for warranty. It happened once only and vortech send the replacement wet side.

In fact I started with one MP40W, it certainly generate enough flow for my tank, with no big colonies to block the flow. Then I came accross a very good deal so I bought the 2nd one, make ready fo future tank upgrade . Plus I always want to see how wireless sync mode works.

 

[Lyfey]

Nice collection of corals! I am running a 75 SPS also.. only have 1 Mp40wEs and 2 K4 and return for flow.. It keeps it gowing nice.. I just dont have any SPS on the K4 side yet, waiting to rebuild that side for sps (aquascape) and I dont trust K4's around SPS, too narrow of a flow.

Quick question about your itech. what sump are you running? I am running a Oceanic Model 2 sump and a DAS EX-1 under a pet store stand. Did you have any issues fitting your itech?

Good job btw!

-Chris

 

[ryanjiang]

Thanks!

My sump is a 20L glass, I think it is 30" X 12", no problem fitting my iTech 200. If you don't think upgrade, iTech 100 can handle heavy stocked 75G SPS for sure, iTech may also have version with small footprint, check their website or the iTech club thread on RC here

 

[ryanjiang]

Bored... few fish shots:

Obviously, the toadstool is not ideal house, but one has to compromise, like we spend 600K to buy a tiny house here in bay area:

This one is hard to catch a shot:

 

[ERB82]

Looking good man! Can't wait to see it grown out!

 

[silentscream]

good looking tank, and a wonderful shot of the mandarin! :thumbsup:

 

[ryanjiang]

Looking good man! Can't wait to see it grown out!

Thank you Elliot! Hopefully it won't be too long for you to come back to the hobbyt, you are always welcome to come by and get frags of your baby, let's keep the cycle of life.

 

[ryanjiang]

good looking tank, and a wonderful shot of the mandarin! :thumbsup:

Thank you Justine! I bought it at Atlantis for $15, I like its color and decided to give a try. I was hesitated to get a mandarin because he has 1 leopard wrasse, 1 sixline, 1 yellow coris, 1 milti color to complete live pods with.
But seems the mandarin is happy and well feeded.