The Ultimate Eight Foot Softie Reef

Must resist the SPS! :D It's funny how my tank, with the exception of a calcium reactor, is ideal for SPS atm. It's really not the direction I want to take though. The carpet will be HUGE, and I'm really content with the "amount" of things in the tank atm.

In reality, there's not alot of "stuff." I mean, there is variety, but it's a massive tank. What I enjoy is that I have massive specimens. I'm just interested in seeing these things grow out.

My mini carpet anemones are starting to multiply. Very cool. I told my wife tonight with the exception of many some mushrooms, zoas, and ricordia to fill in my softie garden, I won't be adding much of anything else to this tank. In fact some of the recent additions are the first things I've added in months.

I couldn't be more pleased right now!

To the bat cave!

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Reefland Security!

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C4DC- Ty Kindly!

So people were worried I wasn't updating my thread...now I can't stop :)


Few more pics from tonight. I think I have the white balance adjusted even closer:

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Wow - SAUD!!! ( super awesome update day! )

I love that new anemone, and that your clowns are already in it. :inlove:

Thanks for all the pictures, which we sorely needed. A couple of your long angled shots are sweet. Keep up the good work.

Looks like one SPS needs to be lowered in the tank slightly. Or perhaps it will just branch out and become bushier.
 
that Gigantea looks pretty good, is it inflating and deflating often? how tight is the mouth


Tank looks Great Insane...
 
Awesome nem! I'm considering getting one of them! You're not in texas right?:confused: If not too bad, but if so, i'm coming over:eek2:

Gj!
 
Looks great!

Love the variety! I am trying to get my tank more in that direction but I can't seem to stop buying acros :(

You have me thinking now...there is a BRIGHT green S. Gigantea already about 12" at my LFS. So tempting now after seeing yours. Actually they had a blue as well but it was double the price.

Tank is looking great!
 
Awww man.... that blue carpet looks sweet! I'm setting up a tank with similar corals and was wondering how a blue or red carpet would look... now I know it's gotta be the blue one! Your Fiji Yellow looks great too... everything looks good, keep it up!











and resist the sticks! :lol:
 
Sadly I had to remove the dying anemone. It acclimated fine, but slowly went downhill. I'm very disappointed. While I've had a few issues with fish, and the exception of some touchy blue xenia, I haven't lost one coral in 6 months.

These richly colored Giganteas are THAT sensitive. Resist the temptation.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14892319#post14892319 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by InsaneClownFish
Sadly I had to remove the dying anemone. It acclimated fine, but slowly went downhill. I'm very disappointed. While I've had a few issues with fish, and the exception of some touchy blue xenia, I haven't lost one coral in 6 months.

These richly colored Giganteas are THAT sensitive. Resist the temptation.
Click to expand...

Yes they seem to be very hit or miss. I know someone who has had one for 8 years and its the toughest thing in his tank and also other people who loose them after a day.

An experienced keeper of these nems told me that its getting to the one year mark thats important. After that, pretty much bulletproof. He kind of said once you get past about 3 months, your probably going to be ok.

I don't know about down there but here they are just kind of expensive to be experimenting with too much.

Having said that, I picked up the bright green one from my LFS yesterday...we'll see how it does.

Sorry to hear it didn't work out :(
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14893838#post14893838 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by GSMguy
Not your fault justin they are hard nems to get healthy
Click to expand...

Mine? Or was directed at the OP???

Mine is doing really great.
 
Yes, unfortunately the new blue one slowly withered. I had to remove it. I don't think I'll be adding another anemone till the fall. This time I'm going to go with something more durable- like an RBTA. Right now the clowns seem very content with hosting in the Anthelia.

Even though guests marvel at how clear the tank is, I am battling diatoms. There are several reasons for this- water quality, feedings(ingredients), older bulbs, detritous settling, silicates(sand).

I have a bit of a slick on the surface of the central sump and the tank. I think this is from the phyto mixed in the food. I now feed with the blocks directly in the tank, so I think this leeches onto the surface.

I've place an order for two small Mangavore reactors. One will house Elos carbon and the other Rowa Phos. These will operate directly in the central sump.

I also placed an order with Sealife Inc for a couple of seahorses and many refugium goodies. Stay tuned for this.

I'm working with my syringe method to kill one very large Aiptasia that hitchhiked in on LR with the Crocea clam.

As melev suggested would need to be done, I had to move the large Acropora colony to the bottom of the tank. There are three spots where the tips had "blunted" on the surfaced of the water. The two small frags that fell off last month had been glued to separate pieces of LR and have already encrusted nicely.

I'm currently uploading a video from tonight.
 
Here's the short video I took tonight:

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I did another 35 gallon water change and cleaned up both sumps. Shame on me. There was way too much detritus in both sumps and the main overflow. I spent a good 30-40 minutes siphoning it all out.

The tank looks great, but it is not 100%. Here are the changes I'm going to make:

1. Adding 2 small internal reactors as described above.
2. Using filter socks with weekly changes.
3. Regular siphoning of overflows and both sumps.
4. Dosing Kalkwasser via the ATO.

I had remounted both the T5 units in front of the MH pendants in order to add some actinic. Because the units had to be mounted so high, the impact was minimal. They did however provide and excellent night time look. I've since taken them down and will be going to 4 20k bulbs.
 
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Here's the link to that video: Link
When I copy and pasted it into a fresh browser window, it filled the screen and looked great! What camera did you shoot that with? Was it 720p?

Great video. The livestock looks happy. :inlove:

The surface looks like it has a film on it, which I noticed at the end.
 
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