slowly switching over to LPS

jimsflies

Member
I've been changing from a zoa dominated tank to an LPS tank the over the past year. Thought I would share a few pics of my collection...


2008-02-17_greenwelsi2.jpg


2008-02-17_topdown3.jpg


2008-02-17_acans.jpg


2008-02-17_wmae.jpg


2008-02-17_topdown1.jpg


2008-02-17_topdown2.jpg


Orange Sherbert....echinos have been slow growing for me, but their color is looking decent:
2008-02-17_orangesherbert.jpg


2008-02-18_welsi.jpg


2008-01-19_acans_sm.jpg
 
A few more...I'm sure if you don't have broadband, you have given up on this thread by now.:p


2008-01-19_redwelsi_sm.jpg


2008-01-19_scoly_sm.jpg


My clowns have taken up residence in the frog spawn:
2008-01-19_clown_sm.jpg


2008-01-19_redblasto_sm.jpg



I've been more into favias lately:
2008-01-19_prismfavia_sm.jpg


2008-01-19_alieneyefavia_sm.jpg


2008-02-17_yellowfavia.jpg


2008-02-17_greenfavia.jpg
 
Mark- It was nice seeing you at the mmmc swap a couple weeks ago. The traveling must have been brutal with the weather we had?
 
It was good seeing you guys again and getting some goodies to bring home didnt hurt either. Preuss still had some nice fish by the time I got there, I wonder what they had there before the crowd hit them?

Yeah getting home was a PITA. I finally said the heck with it and jumped off 94 (12 miles=3 hours) in Kalamazoo and backroaded it to 90. Wasnt bad once I got away from the traffic though, car has AWD and Nokian snows :)
 
You sir.....have a dang fine tank.......and evidentially, a very nice camera also!

Thanks for the cool pics!
 
I upgraded lighting over a year ago from a 150 phoenix with pc actinics to a 250 phoenix with HOT5 actinics. I bought a couple used bulbs from another reefer. Well a few months ago I bought a new 250 phoenix and have spent the past few months thinking I now have too much light. I lost a couple nice aussie acans to what appeared to be too much light. I am now searching for a 20k lower par alternative to run in my 250 de fixture. Any suggestions?

Here is a older full tank shot right after I built the new canopy:

tank_canopy_sm.jpg
 
I just switched over to radiums on an HQI ballast from XM 10k on an M58. Per Sanjay the XM put out about 38% more par, but these radiums are extremely bright (looks quite a bit brighter than the XM lamp). I will monitor the LPS closely to see how they adapt.

Garrett.

Beautiful tank btw. I've always loved your colony of PPEs.
 
Jim, IME you cant easily overlight Aussie Acans. I have some of mine growing in the overlap between two 400 W radiums in Lumenarc reflectors where the PAR is around 550-600+. They are probably getting more light than they need but not showing any ill effects. I attribute it to why they have retained their good color when frags from the same mother colony have faded for other folks.

Could be they shocked in your tank though, that 250 is probably pretty close to the corals from the looks of it and whenever I have shocked something proximity was always a factor. I wonder if the UV attenuates with distance like the PAR does? Anyone know?

I think the XM is lower PAR and a noticable dimmer bulb when compared to the Phoenix side-by-side if you do want to downgrade.

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11908073#post11908073 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jimsflies
I upgraded lighting over a year ago from a 150 phoenix with pc actinics to a 250 phoenix with HOT5 actinics. I bought a couple used bulbs from another reefer. Well a few months ago I bought a new 250 phoenix and have spent the past few months thinking I now have too much light. I lost a couple nice aussie acans to what appeared to be too much light. I am now searching for a 20k lower par alternative to run in my 250 de fixture. Any suggestions?

Here is a older full tank shot right after I built the new canopy:

tank_canopy_sm.jpg
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11910941#post11910941 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Meisen
Jim, IME you cant easily overlight Aussie Acans. I have some of mine growing in the overlap between two 400 W radiums in Lumenarc reflectors where the PAR is around 550-600+. They are probably getting more light than they need but not showing any ill effects. I attribute it to why they have retained their good color when frags from the same mother colony have faded for other folks.

If properly acclimated, the aussies will live under brighter light. However, in my tank they tend to get brighter in color the closer to the bulb they are placed. This might sound like a good thing. But they seem to lose some of the finer details and the more subtle colors. For me they all seem to turn bright red/orange if placed too close to the light. The subtle colors (purples, greens, pinks) are one of the reasons that the aussie acans are so cool so I am trying to figure out the optimal lighting.

Then again, it could just be my parameters causing this to happen. I just don't know. :confused:
 
To illustrate what I have going on, here are a couple pictures.

This one was taken in December shortly after I bought these acans.

2007-12-04_newshelf3.jpg


This one was taken last weekend:

2008-01-19_acans_sm.jpg


Notice in the first picture, the middle frag has some blue/pink in the center. That's the same frag that is on the bottom left in the second picture. Almost none of the purple is left in the center of the polyps.

Also here is another side picture from December. Notice the red with green center larger polyped acans on the left side of the shelf. They have quite a bit of green in the center. Those are the same as the ones in the center of the second photo above...where there is much less green now than there was.

These frags were placed off to the side of my halide and are receiving what I would call "medium" light in my tank. Again, maybe it isn't lighting but water quality and minor bleeching that is causing this color shift?
 
The lps conversion is nearly complete...only a couple montis and softies still left that I plan to leave in the system.

I reworked my rocks and this is how it is looking now:
Full tank:
2008-03-20_full_tank.jpg


2008-03-20_front1.jpg


Wished I could have got a focus shot, but this shows the acan vally in the center:
2008-03-20_front2.jpg


2008-03-20_top_down1.jpg


2008-03-20_top_down2.jpg


2008-03-20_top_down4.jpg
 
Very nice man! That watermelon chalice is awesome. Since your adding more favias i would add the babys breath. Its one of my favorites.
 
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