asg

06/02/15 - Reasons why we love reefing As usual, FTV to kick start the update Last one month was not actually smooth sailing for my tank. Due to some "force majeure" intervention to my tank, I believed I have lost my golden torch and is in the process of losing my golden hammer too. What? What is there to be angry? I thought one coral is only $2, you so angry for what?! Next time I wont help you feed your fish, you ask them go buy chicken rice themselves!! (never, never question force majeure). On the bright side, hey, at least I am returning to a tank that will keep me occupy for next next four weeks loh. Some minor upgrade in term of equipment: 1) Bought a 3 stages DI filter, so now I am on 3+1 DI liao. 2) Change my UV from 9w to 36w. Hopefully this helps in controlling algae and ick, else I might be the first reefer in SG to use 3*36 UV for a two feet tank... Oki, time to share some photos. Really feeling good to be back to mixed reef. SPS Frags that are q-ing to be glued. Most likely will sell away the remaining after I glued what I could. Super sun and gonio is ready liao. Just need to wait till I finalise the position of the SPS frags. haha, yes I finally got a yellow SPS that is not "yellow-in-LFS-green-at-home" hammer hammer them. floating GSP island This green digi is showing light blue polpy. Hopefully it is not my hallucination ah. Bought this from a nice bro. Hopefully can keep its colour ah. *There is no reason, love is love.

haha, I also read that feed a lot also help in colour change ah. from white to brown (cover by diatom) to purple (cover by coraline algae). Maybe soon some reefers will start a white reef post, inspired by (you know what)

don't look down on white sps oh... white is also a type of colours ah. So when someone says, I have a nice colour sps and it turns out to be snowyopora. Technically they are not lying loh. technically....

yo bro. Good detail review. But video cannot see ah. Just one question, in the absence, can we change to any alternate mode on timer or have to do it manually?

White is the in colour now ah. Yes, sps will change colour in diff tank. From what to what hard to say liao.

Nice brain. But please leave the top space colourful sticks...

Any bro letting go? Frag or mini colony also can... Price range flexible... very... Contact me at 861two seven182

02/02/15 - Final Report with recommendations Sightly over two months since my first SPS. Have learnt quite a fair bit about SPS keeping, most important of all is now I am more confident in term of knowing which SPS will have a higher chance of making it in my tank. To me, the most fascinating attraction of SPS is the shape and form of it, most LPS/ softies often lack the hard structure of SPS (read: colourful stick). A collection of SPS forming the outline in the tank is a nice sight, especially so with fishes swimming gracefully in and out of it. On the other hand, 99% of SPS can't match the brightest and striking colour of GEM LPS/ softies. Even the most colourful (read: expensive) SPS which I saw during the last two months of shipments arent exactly a close match to those GEM LPS. I might be biased here, but for $80 - $120 spend on a mini SPS colony, I can get more colour varieties and brightest out of the same $. Anyway, like they always say, beauty is in the eyes of reefers. Ok, so back to the conclusion of my fieldwork report, I will highlight the list of SPS and my observation on them. Not really expert views, but I do hope they can help any SPS newbies in deciding on which SPS to get. 1) Super confident Can Make It - digitata (highly recommended to SPS newbie) Have three digi in my tank. One forest fire, one German blue and one normal green digi. PE is always there, growth is slow but visible. Even after two weeks of unintended stress test (read previous post), they are still opening up as if nothing has happened. (if the first thing I saw after the two weeks trip was a dead forest fire, most likely I would totally give up on SPS keeping liao) 2) Super confident Can Make It - BN (highly recommended to SPS newbie) Have two BN in my tank. One normal BN and one radioactive green BN. Both are doing fine two. Growth of the normal BN is visible in two months. When I first got the radioactive BN, half of the frag was beached and covered with alage. It has seem recovered and the PE is nice. 3) Somewhat confident Can Make It - Milli (Odd is with you) Two weeks ago I am very confident that my red and green milli can survive the two weeks. Thanks to the stress test, now I am not so sure anymore (red is still red, but green is becoming half brown). But I believe that with a little bit of extra care, trying out Milli should has a very good success rate (>90%) Red Milli 4) Somewhat confident Can Make It - Stylo (cat paw), monti, unknown Acro (you have the upperhand) Let's just say that for these groups of SPS, colour remains there, PE is still there but somehow the colours did not brighten up as much as the digi that I have. Maybe I will just need to continue with TLC for months and pray for the best. 5) Praying List - Any SPS with blue _-" The blue at the tips remain... sad thing is that the blue is not traveling down to the body... sob sob... luckily the PE is still there. 6) Slow but steady - clamopora (growing growing and growing) For the price of one SPS mini colony, I can get 3-4 of this mini blue clam and the blue is 100 times blue-er than the blue SPS. why why why... Final summary If I have to sum up the last two months of SPS exploring in one sentence. This would be it: 1) Start with frag to know your tank and water 2) Only buy SPS that can live well in your tank 3) Read 1) and 2) ten times before stepping into any LFS... Haha, thanks for following my updates and hopefully I have not waste your time reading. Signing out here, back to mixed reef, see you all ya.

Most likely hide in rock. Try live brine shrimp as first food.

I once have a picasso trigger in my previous four feet tank... the only successful CUC i keep in the tank is the magnetic algae scrubber...

Wah bro, very nice SPS. [emoji106] Maybe instead of moving, can frag and place the bb somewhere at diff location for growth ah.

@Trust based thingy@ @Pay it forward@ Yo yo bros and sis-s, I am lending FOC five salifert test kits to anyone in need of them. -NO3 PO4 CA Kh Mg (expired 2016 or later) -Collect on mon or later -Return by friday -Max use three times each test kit lah (trust based) -Collection at punggol -Can also borrow anyone instead of all five lah Interested contact me at 861two seven one82. Happy reefing [emoji41]

My favourite LFS is: Equipment : ng couples SPS: Iwarna and GO fish: ah beng and TFC

For discussion purpose, let use tropic marine salt as example. They have three types of salt, normal, pro reef and reef actif. All three has 70 trace elements in them. But ca, kh, ph range are all diff, as intended for diff purpose (FOWLR/softies/ LPS/ SPS). Reef artif salt has carbon source in it to help BB (or somethings like that). I personally has used instance ocean and tropic marine pro reef. Instance ocean para moves quite a fair bit. As for pro reef, i gave up testing newly mixed saltwater after six times, the reading are like photocopy. For large established tank, the consumption level wont change a lot, adding one Sps colony into a existing 30 colonies shall not increase the consumption amount by much. Based on my talking with large tank reefers, most of the time they dose is because adding a few caps of thingy is easier and faster than changing a few pails of water loh. But theoritically speaking, if you change 3% of water daily with a good salt, you wont need any dosing or any equipments at all...

Short update before final report. 31 jan 2015: come back to a tank full of macro algae + hair algae. Think until my head upsize for the cause also cannot find... Finally, it is my mrs feeding a cube of frozen mysis unthraw unwash daily instead of my prepared 1/5 cube washed frozen mysis daily. I thought the amount is identical and the fishes look HAPPY when i feed them... she said... Ok... i loss liao... P/s: will update the winning (read: suvival) SPS in few days time...

Cos not all salt are the same. Thus some factors to find out before buying: 1) consistency of main para. This batch ca 380, next ca 440, then 400. Not good. 2) present of trace elements. Enhanced level of trace elements which enough to last for a week of coral makan. Of cos they will be salt that claim they are reef ready but no matter how many chances u give them, salted coral is the only product...

Bro, go buy some filter floss to trap all these fine particles, else have to do WC.

Bro, u using any filter floss to trap the debris? Or is it flow too strong these are flying sand?

Bro, how old is your rocks in your tank liao? I dont think they can leach that long loh. I suspect it is more of decaying somethings, maybe macro algaes or LS or coral. the other possible source is food, uneaten food particularly... Bro, did you try test your PO4 before WC, then test again one hour after your WC? this is to determine the effect of WC.

it depends on the media you intend to put in the FR. Usually the media will have recommended flow rate one.

Suggest you buy a blue light/ white light to act as in between, fish/ coral takes darkness as a signal for night where it will be trigger into hunting mode, too long a dark period is unnatural to their well being.

test kit can at least give an indication lah

Bro, dont add any more fish till you bring your NO3 down to about 10ppm. Else you will only get salted fish...

All coral need some level of NO3 or PO4 to grow. Since most of us are using hobbyist level test kit, although the reading is undetectable, there is bound to be some level of NO3 PO4 present in the tank. Even for SPS tank, the recommended level of PO4 is 0.03 and NO3 is 5-10ppm. Having too clean a water and you risk your coral die out of the blue after months.

Bro u try WC? and change new rowaphos? Else might be some decaying LS somewhere in the tank...