Top down shots

[ECreefer]

The updates never fail to impress me, your corals are looking better than ever! That orange passion is pure orange, you really don't see that often! The old pieces look like they growing very rapidly and colors are spot on.

 

[mhucasey]

The blue tips are just new growth & yes, mostly waiting. The first pic is what I call "mild shutdown mode" in an acro. Total shutdown, I can't really see the polyps and the skin gets pale, which can lead to RTN eventually over night.

I did have to saw the bottom of that coral twice because it was doing the slow rtn from the bottom.

This happens with most wild corals I've gotten......sometimes they do good for a while ,encrust and then over months slowly shut down. They almost always brown out or change color.

I don't remember doing anything specific with it............just started doing better. It's been in my frag tank the whole time which is plumbed separately from my display.Other times I do move the frags around to try to promote some growth or polyp extension. Sometimes I'll dip them to see if that helps.

Here's another piece, I'm shocked, it's been one month shy of two years. I posted the vendors pic on 1/15/14 post#203.

It was bleached when I first got it in then to this-
3/12/14

6/1/15 moved it to display to higher level and new rock structure I was putting in. You can see it encrusted some but has been shutdown for months.

06/26/15- drastic color change in three weeks.

As of today it's encrusted a bit more but that's about it. I had to move it as I changed the structure. I'll try to post a current pic later today. Most of these type of frags I'll get on sale or cheap, which I don't mind experimenting with or waiting. Any that make it are a bonus.

I have a few like that, one is a sunset Millie that has just sort of existed for a couple of years...polyp extension and color is good but the branches have no terminal coralites and don't really grow. I tried snipping the tips but they just healed to look the same as before:furious:
You have amazing patience but it looks like it has paid off at least in some cases.

 

[sahin]

Looking great Ed. Some stunners there. :beer: That Aussie Echinata looks great.

 

[Big E]

The updates never fail to impress me, your corals are looking better than ever! That orange passion is pure orange, you really don't see that often! The old pieces look like they growing very rapidly and colors are spot on.

Thank you.............the large colonies are growing fast

Looking great Ed. Some stunners there. :beer: That Aussie Echinata looks great.

Thanks sahin, the blue on those tips are more vivid & intense than my camera can pick up.

 

[Bobf216]

Thanks!

I guess I should update with some new pictures. I wanted to wait till I got the whole aquascape worked out but I got a bit sidetracked with other things...............here's a shot of the left side of the tank.

I tried a few cups of rubble for looks and I really liked the look but it trapped too much detritus causing cyano after about 6 weeks, so I took it out. I'm going to revisit ths down the road for some sort of substrate look.

I'm okay with a coralline coated bottom but everytime I get it looking good I get an explosion of those asternia starfish and they decimate the whole thing.......really irritating. I bought a linkia multiflora as linkias will eat the asternias. I'm not 100% sure if the multiflora will eat them but they are much hardier. So far I haven't seen him eat one, but he's only visible half the time during the day.

I've gone the harlequin shrimp route before but I didn't want to deal with feeding it long term.

Since that pic of the left side I have had to separate the colonies more as they got too big, so this left side of the tank has changed some. I'll update with a new picture soon.

The tank is looking awesome! i want to see that other side.

 

[aquavista99]

Love the updated pictures, Big E! Looking forward to seeing how your Oregon tort/Orange montipora experiment does long-term. My previous attempts usually resulted in the montipora corals killing off the Acropora corals ....the only acro that seemed to win the battle was the tabling Red Planet. But if you can get both to co-exist and thrive together, that would be an awesome accomplishment!

 

[Big E]

The tank is looking awesome! i want to see that other side.

Thanks, Bob, I'm working on it.

Love the updated pictures, Big E! Looking forward to seeing how your Oregon tort/Orange montipora experiment does long-term. My previous attempts usually resulted in the montipora corals killing off the Acropora corals ....the only acro that seemed to win the battle was the tabling Red Planet. But if you can get both to co-exist and thrive together, that would be an awesome accomplishment!

Thanks Tim......the Orange Turg. is wimpy......not like some of the other popular montis. My Navy Tort and Paletta trashed it, so I'm thinking the Oregon will do the same....if not I'll try something else. They are a week or two away from touching so I'll find out soon.

 

[Diesel3443]

Tank looks great! Following along

 

[007Bond]

Morning Ed,...nice talking yesterday! Hey on your Skilltle's http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v637/EdFink/Sale/Daves_zpsnaplefmp.jpg ...does it start to encrust and then grow there after?...the pic looks like its base is really spread out.---Rick

 

[markalot]

I think it's past time for more pictures Ed.

 

[Big E]

Hi Rick, it doesn't need much of a base to take off. Glad you were able to make it to LEAR, I enjoyed our talk as well.

I'll try to get something out soon Mark.

 

[007Bond]

:thumbsup:,....next time I'll call ahead so you have my name on some of those bags in your box. :lol:

 

[sahin]

My Red Planet under T5/LED hybrid (was mainly T5, LED's were supplemental) was close to the stunning and vivid colours on as below...however under the Radions the Red Planet turned kinda purple colour...dont like the look anymore. A frag I gave to my buddy a while ago turned the same...he also runs Radions. Blues/greens etc are fine though and look great. I miss how amazing my Red Planet used to look...

Hope to see some more eye candy Ed. :thumbsup:

 

[tcat3rd]

Awsome colors Ed! Your rockscape looks great! Wish i had gone barebottom! Lol

 

[JPMagyar]

Well you sold me, Ed. I'm switching out my Purple Plus, and Aquablue Plus bulbs for Coral+ right now :thumbsup:


If you are ever in the fragging mood put me on the list for a piece of the Wild Raspberry.


Fantastic colors!

 

[007Bond]

Well you sold me, Ed. I'm switching out my Purple Plus, and Aquablue Plus bulbs for Coral+ right now :thumbsup:

Hi Ed,...hey would you elaborate on Joe's post,...I'm still trying to understand lighting,...thought you had B+. Thanks,---Rick

 

[JPMagyar]

I did some par readings on my fixture for anyone interested. I'm overdriving the bulbs on an ice cap ballast.

The new Apogee 200 was used set on "electric" mode.

The numbers are consistent front to back and end to end because I'm using just the two types of bulbs. The measurements are from the bottom up. In parenthesis is the actual distance from the bulbs.

The lights are 6 1/2" from the surface and total water depth is 18 1/2"

1" off the bottom-- 200 (24)
3"- 260 (22)
6"- 280 (19)
10"- 300 (15) This is mid level area of the tank.
11"- 325 (14)
12"- 360 (13)
11"- 325 (14)
12"- 400 (13)
14"- 430 (11)
15"- 470 (10)
17"- 500 (8)

I also took the probe and put it a 1/4" from the bulbs to get a reading to see how potent they were compared to each other.

Coral+- 1000
Blue +- 1100

Methinks perhaps I found something interesting!

So I took my light and turned off the LEDs and the outside four bulbs. The inside group has the same bulbs you are using C+B+C+B+

First I took readings 1/4 inch below each bulb and found

B+ about 1150-1200 PAR
C+ about 1000-1050 PAR



then I lowered my lights to 6.5 inches and measured the PAR 2 inches below the water line

2 inches below waterline - 700+ PAR

so could be meter calibration differences or maybe because I'm using the SUN setting, either way the important thing is that what I see at about 700 in my tank could be equal to a reading of 490 in your tank. To me this shows how careful we have to be when talking PAR and really shows how it might be better to talk about bulb, ballast, and height instead. Also interesting though that the ATI ballasts seem to put out the same PAR as bulbs overdriven on IceCaps.

 

[JPMagyar]

Well you sold me, Ed. I'm switching out my Purple Plus, and Aquablue Plus bulbs for Coral+ right now :thumbsup:

Hi Ed,...hey would you elaborate on Joe's post,...I'm still trying to understand lighting,...thought you had B+. Thanks,---Rick

Don't want to speak for Ed, but from my perspective I decided to change because you simply can't argue with Ed's unbelievable results. I may be slow but eventually I catch on :idea: and Ed's bulb selection obviously works. Others may work as well, but why "mess with success"

 

[JPMagyar]

Just changed my meter to ELEC and got same readings as you at 1/4 inch below the bulbs:

C+ 1000
B+ 1100

but still different at 2 inches

2 inches - 650+

 

[mhucasey]

Just changed my meter to ELEC and got same readings as you at 1/4 inch below the bulbs:

C+ 1000
B+ 1100

but still different at 2 inches

2 inches - 650+

I did this as well when I had the PAR meter and was surprised at the raw power difference between the ATI bulbs and some other brands. All the bulbs I was testing were used about 6 months. The ATI bulbs consistently put out 1000-1100 par up close, while a lot of the KZ and Giesemann bulbs were putting out ~800-900 par. That convinced me that ATI bulbs have the best staying power.