Top down shots

[Big E]

Hey Ed,

maybe it was not that bad that I have had all the problems in my tank, all these delays are allowing my frags to grow in your tank, (a good deal indead)!
I will have some beautifull colonies when I recieve them.

Thanks a lot my friend!

by the way, you said:
"They always brown out after being cut"
can you explain a little more what you meant?
do they brown out because you lower them in height and recieve less light or ..?

best regards

This particular acro really loses color from the stress. Within a few weeks some of the color comes back and then as it grows the colors start to shine through.

Some acros never lose much color and others only the base will be colorful as the frag starts to grow.

 

[Mike de Leon]

Mike, if you're going over the border, you'll have to smuggle some back for me as well!!

Things we would do for this hobby!

 

[sensei]

Hello Ed,
do you still test alk and Calc weekly??
how about PO4 and NO3? how often?

I have made weekly dosing containers for dosing alk and calc with marks of each daily consumption just the way you do it. I fell much more relieved to have something visual were I can validate that dosing pumps are working fine. Thanks a lot for sharing that photo with us.

thanks a lot

 

[Big E]

Hi Jorge,

I try to test alk once a week but it's probably more like 10 days because of the way my bottles are setup and I can see the doser is working correctly.

Calcium way less than alk......maybe every six weeks. If alk is off than I will check it.

P04, N03-- not that often. I check N03 more often maybe once every six weeks. PO4 I check less because my GFO gets changed monthly and it doesn't change.

If I see visual changes, growth spurt, more algae, slower growth, ect. I will check both.

If I add more fish than I'll test more frequently for a while to see if nutrients change.

 

[eastlake]

Hey Ed, I just wanted to take a moment to say that those candy apple reds I got from you at the swap are amazing! They've only been in the tank for just about two weeks and they already have no less than 5 new polyps growing and the colors are fantastic!

 

[sensei]

Hello Ed,
I hope you are doing great!
How much live rock do you have in your tanks?
A lot of your photos are in egg crates so I am wondering if beside an oversized skimmer, and a lot of flow, do you use a lot of life rocks in the tanks? what about rock in the sump? how much ceramic media do you have?
Regarding maintenance,
how often do you clean you skimmer pump? I just realized how important it is to keep skimmer pump clean to keep skimmer efficiency, but I am not sure if cleaning it every 4-5months is fine??
what about cleaning the return pump and the display powerheads?
Thanks a lot

 

[zaireguy]

Ed is a super great guy i could spend hours talking to him and getting advice his corals are awesome was well worth the trip

 

[hbrochs]

Hi Ed,

I just swapped out my one year old t5 bulbs for new ones.
The fixture was about seven inches over the waterline.

Would you recommend raising it for a period of time?
Lower the photoperiod? Shorter photo period, or lower the intensity?

It’s a dimmable ATI fixture.

Also, I tried removing my filter socks but the return is too noisy for my liking.
Do you think a course sponge to quiet the flow would mess with the bacteria getting to the skimmer?

Thanks,

Howard

 

[Big E]

Hey Ed, I just wanted to take a moment to say that those candy apple reds I got from you at the swap are amazing! They've only been in the tank for just about two weeks and they already have no less than 5 new polyps growing and the colors are fantastic!

Sorry for the late reply, that's great to hear, they've probably doubled by now:thumbsup:

Hello Ed,
I hope you are doing great!
How much live rock do you have in your tanks?
A lot of your photos are in egg crates so I am wondering if beside an oversized skimmer, and a lot of flow, do you use a lot of life rocks in the tanks? what about rock in the sump? how much ceramic media do you have?
Regarding maintenance,
how often do you clean you skimmer pump? I just realized how important it is to keep skimmer pump clean to keep skimmer efficiency, but I am not sure if cleaning it every 4-5months is fine??
what about cleaning the return pump and the display powerheads?
Thanks a lot

Hi Jorge,

I've got about 30-35 lbs of live rock and one bag of Siporax in my display & sump combined. I haven't kept a large volume of rock in my tanks for a good 20 years. 90% of my display rock are old coral heads that we used to use for decorations.

I try to clean the skimmer pump about every 4-6 weeks. The impeller magnets can get coated with bacterial slime and they slip causing a lower level in the skimmers and output reducing performance.

This is status quo with most internal skimmers on the market now.

I very seldom clean my return pump.............maybe once a year.

Cheap internal flow pumps have the same issue I mentioned with the skimmers...........Jaebos are the worst with this. This isn't the case with Tunzes or other quality pumps.

Ed is a super great guy i could spend hours talking to him and getting advice his corals are awesome was well worth the trip

Thanks, I enjoyed talking with you as well. I'm hope to share whatever I can so people can enjoy their systems as much as possible.

Hi Ed,

I just swapped out my one year old t5 bulbs for new ones.
The fixture was about seven inches over the waterline.

Would you recommend raising it for a period of time?
Lower the photoperiod? Shorter photo period, or lower the intensity?

It's a dimmable ATI fixture.

Also, I tried removing my filter socks but the return is too noisy for my liking.
Do you think a course sponge to quiet the flow would mess with the bacteria getting to the skimmer?

Thanks,

Howard

Hi Howard,

When I change out bulbs I don't change the height as there isn't that much par lost over time. I change out half the bulbs and the next week I change the other half.

Bacteria is going to get caught up in any filter material, die off and release the nutreints back into the system. For that not to happen you would probably have to change them out daily.

I know there are quite a few designs for noise/bubble reducer type DIY boxes that don't use filter material. They are just cheap plastic small storage boxes you buy at Wamart

 

[eastlake]

No problem and they definitely have grown much more. 10+ polyps for sure.

 

[jonnybravo22]

WOW! You've got some amazing corals and a real knack for this. The photos are amazing, Big E.

I'm working my way through all 38 pages of this thread. I saw a while back you said your lighting is on for 9 1/2 hours full blast. What hours of the day are they on?

I also see you dose low level carbon. I just started, mostly to try to get my nutrients more stable, not really to bring them 'down' if that makes sense.

Was there ever a time when you weren't so good with acros? If so what was the biggest change you made / thing you learned or 'figured out' that made it all click?

Subscribed!

 

[Big E]

WOW! You've got some amazing corals and a real knack for this. The photos are amazing, Big E.

I'm working my way through all 38 pages of this thread. I saw a while back you said your lighting is on for 9 1/2 hours full blast. What hours of the day are they on?

I also see you dose low level carbon. I just started, mostly to try to get my nutrients more stable, not really to bring them 'down' if that makes sense.

Was there ever a time when you weren't so good with acros? If so what was the biggest change you made / thing you learned or 'figured out' that made it all click?

Subscribed!

Hi and thanks!

I run my lights 8 hours a day all on/off.........no dawn/dusk. They are on from 10am to 6pm as this is when I'm around the tank the most. That is basically set to my own personal schedule.

I stopped vinegar dosing about 4 years ago.

I'm not sure there is one thing that made things easier but a lot if it had to do with experience and being patient..........not over reacting to situations that may arise.

Another thing that's important is staying connected to the tank. It's a hobby that takes interactive participation.

I don't jump on the hype bandwagons of new or unproven tech/products. I let other people be the guinea pigs and once something has proven itself over time I may experiment.

I stick to basic fundamentals that never change in reference to chemistry, biology ect. of keeping reefs.

 

[jonnybravo22]

Hi and thanks!

I run my lights 8 hours a day all on/off.........no dawn/dusk. They are on from 10am to 6pm as this is when I'm around the tank the most. That is basically set to my own personal schedule.

Is it in a room that would get spillover from normal room lights in the morning? I'd like my lights to be on a schedule to see them more when I'm around and right now I think I'm accomplishing that with a long schedule.

I stopped vinegar dosing about 4 years ago.

What I get for posting after reading just the first handful of pages.

I'm not sure there is one thing that made things easier but a lot if it had to do with experience and being patient..........

Haha yeah. There's at least two types of patience that I think you might mean here, one is the "stick with it it'll eventually click" patience. On this I'm going on 9 years of attempting sps corals so clearly I'm missing something.

And the other is "it looks like things aren't growing well, but I'm going to wait it out instead of switching stuff up right now to fix it patience". For me this kind of patience usually just ends with bare coral skeletons (STN / RTN).

Anyways, I'll be watching / reading / hopefully learning from your thread!

 

[sensei]

Hello Ed,

I hope you are doing well. I am missing your posts and photos...
can I know how is your homewreker acro doing?
how fast does it grow?
if you could post pictures of how has it grown and colored, it would be great.

best regards

 

[Big E]

Hi Jorge,

My HW frag didn't grow much for a few months mostly due to where I placed it. It wasn't high enough for proper lighting and on a rack where snails seldom roamed. Due to this the bottom would recede slowly.

I cut it a mounted on a rack much higher and bought a 2.5" yellow tang(best move). It's got sprouts all over now and doing well but still fairly small. I'll snap a pic soon when it's worthy.

I haven't taken many pics in quite some time as I've been focused on trying to hack down larger pieces due to growth and trying to make a concerted effort to eliminate racks from my display. I'm using the racks because they provide the best use of space due to my over abundance of acros for this system.

 

[Big E]

Here's a few pics for now--

Rcky Mtn Crown Jewel Table

Massive Navy Tort branches before I pruned them off

Candyland

Carpenter wrasse...........this guy is really that intense. Snapped this during a water change when he wasn't moving. It's the only time I can get good fish pics..........when they pose for me

SC Orange Passion

Pink Cadillac

 

[AkoAung]

Sweet!

 

[sensei]

Hi Jorge,

My HW frag didn't grow much for a few months mostly due to where I placed it. It wasn't high enough for proper lighting and on a rack where snails seldom roamed. Due to this the bottom would recede slowly.

I cut it a mounted on a rack much higher and bought a 2.5" yellow tang(best move). It's got sprouts all over now and doing well but still fairly small. I'll snap a pic soon when it's worthy.

I haven't taken many pics in quite some time as I've been focused on trying to hack down larger pieces due to growth and trying to make a concerted effort to eliminate racks from my display. I'm using the racks because they provide the best use of space due to my over abundance of acros for this system.

thanks for the explanation on the HW, I always learn from you.

when you hack down larger pieces do you reduce for alk dosage as well or do you wait for test to reflect a lower consumption before adjusting?

is it a common practice to hack larger colonies??
I ask since my idea was to keep colonies in my tank as big as possible but I see several experienced cutting them down. Not sure if not doinig that pruning would deteriorate the colony....

Wonderfull pictures posted above. I hope I am able to achive your colors one day....

best regards

 

[reefmutt]

Oh baby!! That op is just amazing!!

 

[Big E]

Sweet!

Thanks!

Oh baby!! That op is just amazing!!

Thanks Matt, It's definately one of my favorites.

thanks for the explanation on the HW, I always learn from you.

when you hack down larger pieces do you reduce for alk dosage as well or do you wait for test to reflect a lower consumption before adjusting?

is it a common practice to hack larger colonies??
I ask since my idea was to keep colonies in my tank as big as possible but I see several experienced cutting them down. Not sure if not doinig that pruning would deteriorate the colony....

Wonderfull pictures posted above. I hope I am able to achive your colors one day....

best regards

Thanks Jorge,

I systematically trim down large colonies so alk consumption doesn't change.

I have to split large colonies up because they kill flow in an 80g tank like mine and it also becomes difficult to maintain good flow for massive pieces.

You have a 470g tank.......let em grow!!

Over pruning can definately mess up a smaller piece and it also looks like crap.