Angry Ang Mo's Shallow SPS

[cool guy]

ZOAS

I have a question for you more experienced reefers. I have a zoa that I would like to frag. The only problem is that it is on a small rock and the zoas cover all sides of the rock. Any suggestions to frag it without causing too much damage?

Jus take a scissor n cut in between e zoas bro. If u still having difficulty, u can bring down to irwana n i will teach u how to frag. But got to mk appointment k. Coz im seldom at irwana too... Cheers bro...

[brent]


any pictures? im already excited by seeing your detailing of every part of setting up!


Thanks bro. Right now it's just live rock without a scape. In fact, I haven't even wired my fans to the LED heatsink. I'll make sure I post progress photos as it unfolds.


Jus take a scissor n cut in between e zoas bro. If u still having difficulty, u can bring down to irwana n i will teach u how to frag. But got to mk appointment k. Coz im seldom at irwana too... Cheers bro...


Thanks for your offer bro. I’ve fragged a flat clump of zoas before. It’s just the round rock that’s throwing me for a loop. I’ll give it a try with some scissors and if it doesn’t work out, I’ll let you know


Cool. When you eventually upgrade to a larger tank, I would recommend a titanium drop-in coil cooling unit which utilizes an aircon compressor for heat exchange.


That sounds ideal. No extra heat in the room and less sound.

ATTACK OF THE KILLER WORMS

In my RSM130, I've been having problems with coral parasites. I actually didn't know that there were parasites until Cedric recently advised me to look for worms & other parasites whenever something looked wrong with a coral. It was great advice. It turned out that I had parasites on almost every one of my corals that weren't thriving. I wanted to make sure that I eradicated all parasites before transferring anything into the new tank.

Montis in particular were being targeted by the parasites. Most of my montis had strange growths or had started losing color. After I cut into the discolored areas, the inside of the coral was greenish black and gooey. Disgusting

I decided to redip all of my corals with Revive. On one of the corals, a scary looking tan worm with a tuft on its head emerged.

On a chili monti that had been losing color, a red skinny worm came out.

I always dip my corals with Revive before putting them into my tank and so they must have come in on the live rock or from not diping them long enough.

In the end, I also decided to dose my shallow tank with Prazi, which I picked up from Iwarna. It's a dewormer that is supposed to be completely reef safe (except for fan worms which isn't a big surprise since it's a dewormer).

I also used it to treat my purple tang that had intestinal worms.

Of course, the tang waited until after going through three weeks of quarantine to reveal the worms. Hopefully, I'll be worm free in my shallow tank by next week.

While I’ve managed to take out most of the montis from the RSM to dip them, I don’t really know what to do about the montis that have encrusted to live rock.

They should also be dipped, but I don’t want to damage them. I can’t dose my RSM with Prazi since it has a ton of fan worms that I don’t want to nuke.

AQUASCAPING

I have some decent live rock from CF but I'm at a complete loss about how to do a nice aquascape in tank full of frags without it looking like a frag tank. I've decided to forgo white eggcrate but I might use black eggcrate if I can source some locally. Any idea where to find it?

Any suggestions on examples of nice tanks that can support lots of frags while not looking like a frag tank?

I'm planning to use acrylic rod from Dama but I need some inspiration.

FISH

I have 5 fish that I've picked for a number of reasons.

Purple tang - I've always wanted to have a purple tang but my RSM had barely enough room for a yellow tang let alone a second tang. Also, there was no way the yellow tang would get along with a purple tang and the last thing I wanted was a tank war. Hopefully, the purple will keep the algae in check while looking very stylish.

6 Line Wrasse - I've always liked the looks of a 6 line but they are notorious for having bad tempers. I figured that I had the best chance if it was introduced with the other fish. So far it is working out fine. They are reportedly one of the best fish for keeping worms and other parasites in check. My biggest concern is that my tank is rimless & hoodless. Hopefully, the wrasse will stay in the tank.

Copperband Butterfly – Even though this is supposed to be the safest butterfly fish for a reef, this one is still a bit of a risk since it still is a butterfly fish. While looking graceful, these also take care of aiptasia.

Long nose hawk fish - These are cool looking and are also supposed to be good for keeping parasites in check. I would like to get a photosynthetic gorgonian for my tank and hopefully it will hang out on the gorgonian instead of on the corals. For the near future, I just have frags and so it should be fine.

Swalesi basslet - I can't think of any reason to get this other than I like it and it's reef safe. I already had an unfortunate accident with my first Swalesi where it went down my overflow and into my skimmer. L Poor guy. I’ve added some 1/4“ mesh netting on the overflow pipe to hopefully prevent further disasters.

I fully realize that I took some risks with my selections but hopefully it will work out.

[Zac]

Nice thread! For a sec I thought I was at RC

[sherman]

Bro,

Nice and great thread.

The picture of LED I think the white balance is wrong.

Most camera you cannot use auto white balance if you have LED light

Cheers

[brent]

Nice thread! For a sec I thought I was at RC

Thanks bro. I guess it makes sense considering I am an American.

The picture of LED I think the white balance is wrong.

Most camera you cannot use auto white balance if you have LED light

Thanks bro. Any suggestions to manually tweak my light balance for the LED?

[brent]

The picture of LED I think the white balance is wrong.

Most camera you cannot use auto white balance if you have LED light

I'll give this a try and let you know if I am still having problems:

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-03/gr/index.php

Does anyone know if there is any way to get more than 7 posts per day? Thx

[sherman]

Hi brent,

You go to white balance on yout camera menu and set between 9000- 10000

and see the result.

Or you can adjust in photo editing software

[peacemaker]

Petmart sells black egg crate. Give them a buzz to check on stock availability before heading down.

[brent]

Hi brent,

You go to white balance on yout camera menu and set between 9000- 10000

and see the result.

Or you can adjust in photo editing software

Petmart sells black egg crate. Give them a buzz to check on stock availability before heading down.

Thanks bros

[honkit]

Regarding parasites, a good way to identify them on your sps frags is to use the macro setting on your camera (or a macro lens if you have a DSLR camera) and with the appropriate magnification, any parasites or pests can be easily spotted.

[brent]

Regarding parasites, a good way to identify them on your sps frags is to use the macro setting on your camera (or a macro lens if you have a DSLR camera) and with the appropriate magnification, any parasites or pests can be easily spotted.

Thanks bro. Good advice.

[honkit]

By the way, what sort of sps frags (species and color) do you have in your tank? Are they all frags or a mixture of colonies and frags?

[brent]

They are a mixture of acros, poccis, digis, montis, and milles.

I don't have enough skills yet to be picky about types or colors.

Almost every piece will be a frag. I have a couple of colonies that never seemed to color up nicely that I'll try in the new tank. They are mostly brown acros with colored tips. I'll provide some photos soon since I would like to get some hints.

I have a couple of nice colonies but they are staying in the RSM and I'm only taking frags for the new tank.

Here are some of the healthy small colonies in my RSM:

This yellow BN has grown a lot since I bought the frag from a fellow reefer. Since my YT jumped in front of the only photo that wasn't blurry, I had to crop out 70% of coral.

This is a frag I got from Cedric a few months ago. I think I might be able to snip a small frag for the new tank:

Here is my mystery wrasse who would stay out of the coral photos until I took one of him:

Completely off topic, here is an orange plate coral I bought a couple of weeks ago from AM. It is staying in the RSM:

A majority of the frags come from a birthday gift from my wife, which included 20 frags from Cedric.

Here are the pieces that I picked:

Icy tort

purple Monti cap

nuclear sunset Tenuis

green slimmer stag horn

pink seduction acro

Ora Roscoe blue Tenuis

Rose Mille

Desalwii

pink Monti cap

Rainbow pocci

jade green digi

sunset Mille

Latistella

Rouge Mille

Rainbow Mille

Setosa

turquoise Gomezi

Neon Green verweyi

Blue Staghorn

salmon pink digi

pink body blue tip Acro

purple encrusting Monti

At this point, the pieces are just trying to acclimate after two tank moves. (from Cedric's to the RSM and then from the RSM to the AAMSS (Angry Ang Mo's Shallow SPS).

Here are a couple of them along with my PT (who also likes to be photographed):

I think that I will need to dig out my tripod since 95% of my photos are blurry. Either that or I need to find my glasses which went missing during the chaos of the tank install.

[honkit]

You have some good looking pieces there in that stocklist of yours.

The green slimer, blue staghorn, sunset millepora and rose millepora will grow fairly quickly if they are located in a high light/high flow area.

The montipora setosa and gomezi are slow growers (at least in my tank!) and the gomezi in particular is a bit finnicky when it comes to water parameters.

[brent]

You have some good looking pieces there in that stocklist of yours.

The green slimer, blue staghorn, sunset millepora and rose millepora will grow fairly quickly if they are located in a high light/high flow area.

The montipora setosa and gomezi are slow growers (at least in my tank!) and the gomezi in particular is a bit finnicky when it comes to water parameters.

Thanks bro. How is it finicky? Any suggestions for maintaining them?

I'm also looking for an ORA Red Planet, Pearlberry and Oregon Tort. Any ideas where I can source some frags? Oregon tort I'm especially interested in since I'm from Oregon.

[honkit]

Thanks bro. How is it finicky? Any suggestions for maintaining them?

I'm also looking for an ORA Red Planet, Pearlberry and Oregon Tort. Any ideas where I can source some frags? Oregon tort I'm especially interested in since I'm from Oregon.

Gomezis appreciate stable dkh levels (more so than most other SPS corals) and don't like sudden lighting changes.

Dr Ang has (or had) red planet frags for sale. I haven't seen any pearlberries or oregon torts in Singapore or Malaysia so far. From what I have viewed in some shipments, there have been several maricultured and wild colonies that are close approximations of pearlberries.

Speaking of Oregon, the master of reefkeeping in Oregon (Steve Weast) is one SPS keeper I truly respect.

[brent]

Gomezis appreciate stable dkh levels (more so than most other SPS corals) and don't like sudden lighting changes.

Dr Ang has (or had) red planet frags for sale. I haven't seen any pearlberries or oregon torts in Singapore or Malaysia so far. From what I have viewed in some shipments, there have been several maricultured and wild colonies that are close approximations of pearlberries.

Speaking of Oregon, the master of reefkeeping in Oregon (Steve Weast) is one SPS keeper I truly respect.

Thanks for the hints.

I already tried the Dr. but he doesn't have any stock. I guess I'll just need to be patient, which is a great personal attribute for a reefer. It's good since it will give me some time to get the new tank more stable.

I try to stick with the aquacultured corals if possible. While I would love to instantly have a tank full of beautiful colonies, I feel better about buying aquacultured corals. It's more of a challenge to raise something rather than just keep it alive.

Also, since they have already survived the ups and downs of living in an aquarium, they seem to be more resilient to the inevitable mistakes of a beginning reefer.

I've also heard that Oregon is a reefer mecca. I'll definitely need to visit some reefers next time I go home to visit family.

[honkit]

Yes, patience and stability are the key words when it comes to long term SPS coral keeping success.

Aquacultured corals have the advantage of being more robust and more forgiving when things go awry (they do!).

This is what Steve Weast's old tank looked like.

http://www.oregonreef.com/sub_aquascaping.htm

I believe he is keeping a coldwater azoox reef tank nowadays.

[brent]

Too bad about oregonreef's tank crash. Some of my frags from Dr Ang are starting to acclimate. Good to see PE return.

[brent]

[brent]

Last night I visited the West and picked up some frags from some nice reefers. Thanks for the hospitality gents

[kt611]

If you want other sps in my tank let me know......lol

[Kakani]

Nice sps frag....

[brent]

I've been working on stabilizing my parameters and I also managed to acquire some new pieces.

Here is a photosynthetic gorgonian that I picked up over the weekend:

I also managed to get some zoas for my Zoa Island:

Recently I also picked up a helfichi firefish and an orchid dottyback from Iwarna which seems like it will be a nice addition. I'll post some photos after they become more outgoing.

[brent]

If you want other sps in my tank let me know......lol

Thanks bro. I'll probably take you up on your offer soon