therman's 40B SPS tank, TOTM Oct 2001 and reef nostalgia thread

[therman]

I just looked the stats up in the Paletta book the other night, I will post when I get home. Temp was crazy high, 80-86F or something like that! The room had no A/C and the tank had no chiller, just two fans blowing across the top in the summer.

 

[stikhead]

I remember the adventures of diver Dan and all of your all's old tanks . I've never liked Koalas anyway kinda creepy lol. Thenmans green skull I definitely remember .
Any who how did you keep up your elements in the 40 breeder went thru post can't find info was it just the calcium reactor in the HOB

 

[therman]

Yes, chemistry was kept in line by the GEO v1.0 Calcium reactor. I think phillstone still has the reactor, he should post a picture of it...I used Caribsea Special Grade Reef Sand as media too!

From the Paletta book account of the tank:
Temp 81-84F
SG 1.026
pH ~8.0
Alk 10 dKH
Ca 425 ppm
NO3 0
PO4 0
Instant Ocean salt
10g water change every 6-8 weeks (mainly through bagging frags for people)

It says I used 1 cup of carbon changed once/month, but I don't remember keeping up with it that religiously

 

[Carlos]

Man, back in those days, tank levels were kept differently...

Temp: 81-84F
pH: ~8.0
Alk: 11 dKH
Ca: ~450 ppm

Tropic Marine salt and water changes whenever I saw something wrong with the tank (usually Xenia gave me a hint on what the status of the tank was)

We really did not measure Mg back in those days. We had not really figured out how much Mg influences calcium intake. I did use to add dolomite to my calcium reactor as well as crushed coral.

Back in those days, it was more about reading your tank (you really learned to let your tank and your tank's corals and fish let you know how the tank was doing ) instead of testing all the time.

 

[therman]

Maybe just turning up our temperature will improve our tanks now! No wonder growth seemed faster then.

 

[Carlos]

Maybe just turning up our temperature will improve our tanks now! No wonder growth seemed faster then.

Higher PAR, higher dKH and higher temps will do that to a tank.

 

[brad65ford]

therman, do you have a current tank thread one could follow? Absolutely wish to have a 10th of the success you did with your 40g

 

[reefalot]

Because I felt bad for hijacking the GFO/GAC thread, here is a new one for those of us who were keeping SPS around the time of Y2K. The thread is about the tank loosely, but feel free to ramble about these early days of online reef keeping discussions and chats, or just pop in to post hello if you are a fellow RC "old timer".

This tank was the October 2001 RC Tank of the Month, though it was actually dismantled shortly before being awarded those honors. From what I understand that TOTM account webpage was lost. It is profiled in Mike Paletta's "Ultimate Marine Aquariums" book as well. I still have many photos of that tank and its corals that were never shown in either place and will post them here as time allows.

Here are some photos from a few months before it's last hurrah to start it off:

Enjoy!

Tim

It is great to see some of the "old timers." Look at my join date . These are the remnants of my tank... http://web.archive.org/web/20011006213212/http://members.aol.com/scotsweet/aquarium/ and http://archive.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8732


I have been out of the hobby for quite a few years. When I completed my tank back in 2000, RC was just first started as the web was just coming to be. I was fortunate to have had an article written in Aquarium Frontiers (remember them!?). The tank is long gone thanks to my ex-wife :mad2:

That being said, I am thinking about getting back in to the hobby again and doing my research. The hobby has changed some, but the fundamentals are still there. With LEDs, DC pumps and reactors in full swing, there are options that didn't exist when I did my 450. Nutrient control and auto XYZ has really made it easier.

in 2000, doing a large tank was very much unchartered territory. I spent over a year doing research talking to who many still regard as the experts including Mike Paletta (we talked for a couple hours at a MACNA ). Eric Borneman and I talked when I helped Jim Stime (of LA Fish Guys) host MACNA X in LA and later came to my house to provide comments and tips. How the hobby has changed with the web and this great site to provide information so easily around the world.

Nice to see the hobby flourishing...

 

[therman]

Figured I would dig this thread up since it looks like that Chicago trip might actually happen later this month!

This is not an old photo, but I've been getting back into Montipora the past several months. I was always obsessed with M. confusa back in the day, so here is one I've been growing a while that makes me happy. Rim is a nice deep purple, hard to tell next to my glowing purple hand

 

[stancfii]

Still using just CREE LEDs on that tank?

 

[therman]

The thread is about an old tank, from 1999-2001, which used Iwasaki and VHO. All my current tanks use Crees exclusively for the past ~5-6 years. The M. confusa photo above is from the current system.

 

[CoralKreations]

Great Thread!...Really wish i still had some of my corals from back then. We've seen tons come and go. Been doing this for 30+ years...Thanks for Bringing me back!
We've come a long way errr actually have we? ;-)

 

[therman]

I can only imagine what some of those corals would look like under blue LEDs! Things that glowed under 10k Ushio...sheesh.

 

[therman]

Without getting shut down as a "Want to buy" thread, can anyone out there definitively say they have any corals that originated from that old dorm tank? I was hopeful that Carlos still had a piece of that centerpiece monti, but it turned out to be the RichK confusa instead.

I sent lots of frags out to MrSandman in the LA area, Frisco (in Frisco), JoseyWales in southern Michigan, and probably a lot made it to the Chicago area. Some went to ORA, some went to Sue Truett, some went to about 50 other people I shipped to all over the country.

Been thinking a lot about this green polyped purple digitata lately too. Does it still exist in the hobby? Or that crazy thick lime green and white one.

Funny after 15 years in the hobby I am looking for stinking Montipora digitata...

 

[MrSandman]

Hey Tim. When you and Los flew out to LA to hang out you guys brought a whole bunch of stuff. I remember that green digi and i even had it featured on my old TOTM article here on RC. That was nice for sure. This was back before all the crazy names. In a matter of months I was fragging, trading, giving and selling them to people all over SoCal. I'm pretty sure what you guys brought ended up being named something. Unfortunately, that was 4 tanks ago and almost 14 years? I'm sure they are still around but I've lost complete track of them. Plus, all of the local guys that I actively traded with are out of the hobby now. .

What was the crazy thick lime green and white one?

 

[therman]

Hey Ramon! Are you running a tank these days?

Was back in post #72 of this thread...here's another photo:

 

[Big E]

Tim,

That purple and green one used to be called the ROAB digitata as he was farming it.

You might be able to locate some using that name.

 

[therman]

Thanks, Ed! I will start searching. I think I remembered seeing it called pokerstar digi too, after the encrusting Montipora came in, but that was several years ago and searching for that didn't turn up anything.

 

[MrSandman]

Hey Ramon! Are you running a tank these days?

Was back in post #72 of this thread...here's another photo:

Hey Tim. Yeah. Have a setup that's been up for a little over a year. The link to my build thread is in my signature.

 

[Mark]

Wow, I missed this thread the first time around. Holy DeJa Vu. I actually still have my saki's in a box in the basement. Glad to see some of the original RC crew still keeping reefs. Tim, did you ever find your green potato chip? I have a colony, but they aren't too hard to find. ORA is growing a smaller more intricate species these days, Pavona frondifera.