My Slice of Nature (Part 2)

[Admiraltian]

On 12/31/2015 at 9:48 AM, SubzeroLT said:

Even though my tank is small & it goes through less water than most others, I'm changing the 3 carbon/sediment filters of the RODI unit once a year. Its about $24+ for the set of 3 at Madpetz, which is not that bad.  

This is after around 2500-3000L of clean water out of the unit. 

 

Its been about a month with the new Hydra HD 26 (Product review here : http://www.sgreefclub.com/forum/topic/139052-ai-hydra-26-hd/)

Some of the frags are starting to color up.

 

Previously all green milli starting to show colors. Its supposed to be a red milli. Long way to go....

 

Red monti growing faster :

 

Valida

 

Tabling acro started to show its purple tips

 

 

Some recent addition :

From the last SA shipment. Not able to hold the light pink colors though.

 

Green Goblin

 

Some kind of pocci 

 

 

 

 

The pink acro from SA is a very nice piece. Too bad I hv lost mine due to bad water condition in my tank.

[SubzeroLT]

The pink acro from SA is a very nice piece. Too bad I hv lost mine due to bad water condition in my tank.

Sorry for your loss.

I also wanted to say thank you for graciously letting me have the bigger colony back then. This helped as i was sharing it with several others.

[Admiraltian]

Sorry for your loss.

I also wanted to say thank you for graciously letting me have the bigger colony back then. This helped as i was sharing it with several others.

No worries, bro. It's a nice piece and it will be a challenge to keep its pastel pink body and blue tips coloration.

[true percula]

No worries, bro. It's a nice piece and it will be a challenge to keep its pastel pink body and blue tips coloration.

hmmm... the pink sps you mentioned sounds like one i have as well... was told that the blue tips would come after a while, so far mine did not have any blue tips, but there is a small patch which has turned blue, i placed mine very near the return pipe, so it has very high light and flow, so far, pink has been much better.

[Admiraltian]

hmmm... the pink sps you mentioned sounds like one i have as well... was told that the blue tips would come after a while, so far mine did not have any blue tips, but there is a small patch which has turned blue, i placed mine very near the return pipe, so it has very high light and flow, so far, pink has been much better.

Not very sure if it's the same. Was told by Steven of SA that it's a Bali ssc type of sps. It look something like this...

 

Edited January 1, 2016 by Admiraltian

[SubzeroLT]

On 1/1/2016 at 1:47 AM, true percula said:

hmmm... the pink sps you mentioned sounds like one i have as well... was told that the blue tips would come after a while, so far mine did not have any blue tips, but there is a small patch which has turned blue, i placed mine very near the return pipe, so it has very high light and flow, so far, pink has been much better.

Mine is under moderately strong flow with the MP40 quite near it. Its currently running under about ~500 PAR lighting. Hope to see the blue tips soon.

 

The 'lashes' on the blenny is interesting  :

 

[SubzeroLT]

Quick sharing of additives/gadgets. 

 

1) Selcon -

- Very often new fishes do not take to pellet food or frozen mysis immediately & only feed on live food. One of the few live alternatives is live brine shrimps. However, they are supposedly not very nutritious. First saw this product introduced on Vivid Aquarium videos. I've been using Selcon (contains omega3 fatty acids & vitamins) the past year with good success of keeping newly added finicky eaters alive long enough for them to transition to frozen mysis or pellets.

- Just add a few drops to some brine shrimps. Let them consume it for about 15 minutes prior to feeding to your tank. 

 

 

2) Pure Aquatic Sea Feeder - a very long feeder for corals

- Very well built. Extends from almost 21" to almost 3ft long 

- Opening on the tip is about 1mm. Suitable for target feeding coral food (eg. reef roids) or dropping small pellets during pellet training. Hole is not large enough for frozen mysis.

- The pointed tip is supposedly for putting bits of meat for feeding anemones

 

3) Holder for Ecotech Vortech wavemaker driver

- Had a bad experience of the velcro / double sided tape losing adhesion & the driver almost dropping into the sump

- This holder should resolve it

 

4) Nyos test kits

- Watched some good video reviews on how well built the Nyos skimmers are. Supposedly a good brand from Germany. Trying out the test kits.

 

 

 

[SubzeroLT]

Some progress pics :

Dec 26th 2015

 

 

Jan 15th 2016. Colored up quite nicely. Thanks Alston for this nice frag

 

 

 

---------------

 

Dec 30th 2015

 

Jan 15th 2016

Tips & green starting to show up. Hope my tank conditions can color up similar to that seen on Larry's impressive colony. A long way to go. Thanks for the frag.

 

[Darren Sim]

Nice feeding tube ! Mind sharing where you got it from? 

[JMW]

Wow! Your close up pic of of the frag really shows off its magnificent colors! What acro is this?

[SubzeroLT]

Nice feeding tube ! Mind sharing where you got it from? 

From Madpetz. I've also seen it at Ng Couples

[SubzeroLT]

Wow! Your close up pic of of the frag really shows off its magnificent colors! What acro is this?

Thanks.. but i'm not sure what they are called.

[SubzeroLT]

Full tank shot for Jan 2016

 

Other updates :

The elegance coral was quite large. It blocked flow which left detritus stuck around it. I made a small acrylic platform to lift it off the sand bed a little to allow some flow underneath it.

 

Hosting a coral frag for a fellow reefer. Not sure of its ID

 

Duncan feeding on market prawn

 

Yuma having a slice as well

 

Frag from Larry

 

Green goblin. 

 

Blondie

- I'm told that zoas won't grow on coralline. Need to scrape it off for it to cover the entire frag plug

 

 

 

 

 

[Darren Sim]

Impressive tank ! 

[deen]

Awesome setup

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[SubzeroLT]

Borrowed a colleagues' Olympus TG4.... some pics :

 

Chilli Pepper Monti 

 

Blondies 

 

Forest Fire.....growing but losing its green tips.

 

Yuma (from SA)

 

Teardrop Maxima

 

Bali shortcake from SA. Its more purple than pink now due to high nutrients

 

 

SSC frag. From recent LCK shipment

 

 

Blue Monti

 

Torch Garden. Still looking for nice torches

 

Anemone split a weeks back

 

Got a frag of Bali Slimer on the right. Looks different from what i've seen in pictures though.

 

 

 

[iceman]

Nice collection of Torch. 

[Darren Sim]

Really nice torch garden !  Impressive 

[Patrick]

May I ask where do you get your torches? They are very nice.

[SubzeroLT]

Thanks all.

 

The torches were from various places over the past year. Hope this picture describes it.

[Idly]

[SubzeroLT]

New addition from Pacific Reef :

 

Recently, someone asked me if i dosed amino acids. Tried a couple of various brands along the way.

These are the 2 products that i've been using for the longest time. Got the polyp booster (contains amino acids & fatty acids) back when Madpetz was having the moving out sale from their previous Sin Min location. I dose a small amount of the polypbooster in high flow. After about a minute, turn off the pump then target feed with reef roids. Fed about 2x a week.

 

Some other progress pics :

Badabing frag :

 

 

Frag from Jonathan a couple of weeks back (Thanks )

 

Slightly better color. Still some ways to go :

 

 

 

[dinGdinG]

Wow! The purple is so intense!! Sweet!!

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[SubzeroLT]

Wow! The purple is so intense!! Sweet!!

 

 

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Thanks.

Think the coloration is probably due to high nitrates the past weeks for 2 reasons

1) Skimmer wasn't running properly & not able to skim anything out. Nitrates creeped up to about 5ppm

2) I've also stopped the sulfur reactor as it was pulling the pH down to around 7.7pH. I'm now relying on Microbacter7 + Biofuel at the moment.

Edited March 1, 2016 by SubzeroLT

[dinGdinG]

This brightwell combo if dose regularly is good enough if u don't overfeed. But I see you dose booster & reef roids too, so I think the dosage for high nutrients tank should serve u better.

Funny, recently I've been thinking about that as well. Higher nutrients contributes to that solid intense colouration in a way. But there must be a balance as well though. Too much mean brownies. Lol

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