The Acropora Gorge - 82g SPS reef

[justinky]

Hi, my name is Justin. I have been reefing for a little over a year now as I started last January. When I first started I was feeling out the hobby pretty much and I had a mixed reef but as time went on my fascination with anemones grew and I ultimately went with a full anemone clownfish harem tank. Last November I bought a new carbon reactor from Blue Life USA and it came with their carbon. I ran a gallon of water through it until it ran clean and then started using on my tank, the next morning all of my filler SPS were completely RTN'd, 2 of my fish died and all my anemones looked like they were dying.

In the end I ended up saving my 13 Clownfish, Eibli Angelfish, one H. Magnifica & one Red/Pink LTA. But I lost two S. Gigantea Anemone, one true blue Haddoni, one H. Magnifica from the crash, needless to say I lost a lot of money. I contacted Blue Life and they took fault for their mistake and replaced what they could, most of my SPS were sent to me from them minus 2 large colonies one being my SSC and then the small frags I have.
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Equipment List:

• Size: 82G - Dimension are 42x24x18
• Lighting: 2 chinese LED lights that are soon being replaced with T5s
• Circulation: 2 RW-8s & a Maxspect 150XF Gyre being repaired
• Skimmer: Reef Octopus 150INT 6"

Current Stocklist:

• 13 Percula Clownfish
• 1 Whitetail Bristletooth Tang
• 1 Eibli Angelfish
• 1 Yellow Coris Wrasse
• 1 Melenarus Wrasse

My stocklist will be changing shortly as I am removing the Clownfish Harem as they are too rough on the remaining anemones. I will be replacing them with a pair of A. Bicinctus. I am also getting rid of my Eibli Angelfish due to polyp nipping. I will be adding a few more wrasse and possibly a trio of anthias.​

Here is the tank:


FTS

Left View

Right View

 

[justinky]

Past Aquascapes:

My first aquascape

Second Aquascape - just now getting into anemones

Third Aquascape - Anemone Dominated

Random Past Photos:

 

[Spartanman22]

Very nice tank! The anemone dominant tank was very cool!

 

[justinky]

Very nice tank! The anemone dominant tank was very cool!

Thanks! coral placement is not 100% finalized as I've been coloring up a bunch of the mari/wild colonies as a few came in very bleached. I will be working on that soon when I find the time and plan out the last few frags I'm going to purchase so I have a general color scheme laid out.

 

[coral102]

Beautiful anemones!!!

 

[justinky]

My inspiration for the name comes from Red River Gorge here in the state of Kentucky, I go hiking there as often as I can and eventually when my wallet allows two hobbys I would like to travel and hike other places. Here are a few pictures from Red River Gorge I took last year, I lost a lot of my pictures on my phone somehow so some of my really good pics are gone.

 

[cugly]

Looks good bud great inspiration

 

[justinky]

So tonight one of my newly acquired acropora that I've had for a little over a month is spawning I believe, correct me if I am wrong. I noticed it when I did my nightly check for pests such as AEFW :uzi:. I am not too familiar with this in acropora, how rare is this/rather is it rare?

Here is a picture of when I first received it, it had bleached out badly from shipping stress and has recently regained most of it's zoo.

Beautiful anemones!!!

Thanks! I liked them a lot as well.

Looks good bud great inspiration

Thanks Cugly!

 

[GT350pwns]

Beautiful tank, man!

 

[sahin]

That acro did spawn! Thats amazing! You should make a seperate thread to share this. What is the size of the coral? I thinksize has a lot do to with coral spawning in captivity.

 

[justinky]

Beautiful tank, man!

Thanks, it's a work in progress but aren't they always

That acro did spawn! Thats amazing! You should make a seperate thread to share this. What is the size of the coral? I thinksize has a lot do to with coral spawning in captivity.

It is 5" deep by 3" wide, it's not too big right now I'll make another thread for it so more people can see, thanks Sahin.

 

[cFloor]

Beautiful tank you've got there, and that's really cool about the spawning event that took place

 

[justinky]

Beautiful tank you've got there, and that's really cool about the spawning event that took place

Thanks!


Small update, I got rid of my clownfish harem and my eibli angelfish. Then angel turned into a monster, polyp nipping, ****ing off my blue squamosa(never caught him nipping but he had to have done something as it opened fully the day after getting rid of him). I've ordered a Black Leopard Wrasse, Green Coris Wrasse, Radiant Wrasse and I'm trying to track down a pair of Amphiprion Bicinctus. I'll be taking macro shots this weekend to try and show the color better on some of my acropora.

 

[justinky]

So I've been really busy lately moving family members so I put off a picture update I meant to do, I'll get to it this week but my colors are not where they need to be due to higher nutrient levels so I've been doing 10g WCs every 3-4 days to help bring them down. I also have some GFO on the way that I am going to toss in my CARB FX Resinator as I figured it's the same as running it in a mesh bag in high flow.

The 3 wrasse I ordered all died within days of each other, the radiant and green coris were really small and looked skinny upon arrival and the radiant was on his side during acclimation which was a bad sign to start. The Leopard Wrasse looked fine but sadly had internal parasites I'm guessing as he came out and even ate some LRS Reef Frenzy. Probably the last time I'll order online as I have so much better luck locally and it's cheaper.

Equipment update, I now have Neptune Apex, Tunze Osmolator and Kamoer Dosing Pump which I will be setting up soon. I'm also going to be switching over from BRS 2 part to Randys 2 part once I finish up the last bit of the BRS I have left.

I'm purchasing 6 frags from cunaREEFER which I believe is sadly not apart of these forums anymore. The frags are PC Superman, Oregon Blue Tort, Bubblegum Mille, Raspberry Limeade, Red Dragon and Blue tabling Mille. They should be here this Friday, though I won't have pictures until maybe Sunday as later on Friday I'll be leaving on a 3 day hiking trip in the Red River Gorge, i'll be doing off trail hiking and if you guys would like I can take some pics and post them here.