3 month SPS growth

[psteeleb]

growth comparison on 9 sps I got from a local club member a little under 3 months ago

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[dvanacker]

Wow I quit. My growth is no where near that for most of those corals.

[James404]

Beautiful vid, may I ask what you are using to shoot it?

[psteeleb]

Wow I quit. My growth is no where near that for most of those corals.
Noooo - don't quit
but thanks for the complement :)

Beautiful vid, may I ask what you are using to shoot it?

thanks and the camera is a Sony HDR-XR150

[rtbm]

man, maybe it's because i dip hard and qt for four weeks, but my new acquisitions usually don't even start to grow at all for about three months after they make it to my DT

nice video, I'd like to see another a year from now.

[Urchinhead]

Wow! Great growth! What's the secret? ;)

[ykh]

what's in the water? :P

[noobtothereef]

id hate to make a time lapse of my sps, i think they shrink.........

[oscar.millan]

Can't post vidz like these and not tell us your secret!? LoL.

Kidding aside, what do you attribute your growth/success to? How do you maintain the trinity (Ca, Mg, Alk)?

[Ranchero]

i cant see the video :(

[nvdiz]

wow that is very good growth, so good that i'm mad at my corals now for not growing as fast...

[oscar.millan]

Update flash plugin? Perhaps try it on another web browser?

i cant see the video :(

[rigleautomotive]

Your video is great.The abundance of microbial life is probably one of the reasons you have such a healthy system.

[dvanacker]

in that case how do I get my microbial life to be abundant?

[psteeleb]

no secrets here :)
maybe more an approach

I dip everything and in many cases will cut off the bottom of SPS frags and scrub with a mild tooth brush to rid it of pest and posible eggs

As eluded to with the 3 months before seeing much growth; I've always believed corals go through at least 2 acclimations; 1) to survive the transition, and 2) to become effective & efficient at feeding within the new evironment. This second acclimation can take a few days to several months. In this case these 9 specific SPS all came from another local reef tank so they were at least use to being in an aquarium.

Use of Kalc to keep the Ph up around 8.2 - 8.4

10 -15% water change every 2-3 weeks

I run carbon 24/7

And as rigleautomotive indicates I am a huge supporter of a vast biodiversity. This also means feeding that biodiversity at several levels of the food chain and providing surface area for them to survive. I feed pellets and cyclopeze daily and phyto and mysis every other day (mainly for the LPS/softies and maintaining a pod population). I have zero (or undectable) trates and I attribute this to having a large amount of live rock (some has been in systems for over 10 years)

I also know SPS will eat meaty foods if small enough. When I had my 300g many of my sps and mostly my tort colonies would go nuts over cyclopseze (I'll have to find and post the old video). They didn't start feeding on cyclops for well over 2 years, mostly I think this is again attributed to that second cycle I suggested but it could also be a coral maturation issue.

Currently I use Kalc and 2 part but will switch to Kalc and Ca Reacor once demand increases. I love 2 part but I also have concerns about long term build up of impurities or undesired chemicals.

I'm still watching, reading and learning

[psteeleb]

in that case how do I get my microbial life to be abundant?

start with some good live rock. But be carefull as you can also get some bad stuff so it's good to know the source, or let it sit in a seperate unlit vat for a while so coral predators and light loving pest nems die off.

I had mojanos and AEFW's in my 300g but the live rock sat for 6 months in a big tub with only a skimmer and some top off (no lights no heater).

When I set up this 100g system I started the sump/fuge first and let it mature for a month before starting up the main display, mainly just to keep an eye out for what survived / came back from the 300g tear down.

[MammothReefer]

killer vid! Gotta love that chips acro, still an all time favorite of mine.

[bassking16]

May I ask what lights you used while shooting your vid? The colors on those corals are amazing. Outstanding growth too, by the way. Great job, partner. :thumbsup: I'd love to see a full tank pic or vid.

[rtbm]

As eluded to with the 3 months before seeing much growth; I've always believed corals go through at least 2 acclimations; 1) to survive the transition, and 2) to become effective & efficient at feeding within the new evironment. This second acclimation can take a few days to several months. In this case these 9 specific SPS all came from another local reef tank so they were at least use to being in an aquarium.



Definitely agree with you here. I've had frags go a year before really growing,

As well as much quicker adaptation and acclimation of frags from friends systems.

[flyin2jz]

what lighting and whats your lighting schedule. Im betting not halides. not sure why i think that but im starting to think most people with great polyp extension typically have weakish lighting. None the less i love the vid. Thanks alot now im google seaching your camera...lol

[spsboy]

Very nice pete. I love the pearl berry growth.

[JTR0510]

really nice video and im envious. Im starting in sps and i hope i get good growth like that one day. thanks on the good advice

[psteeleb]

I found the video of when I first noticed my torts feeding.
this is from my old 300g system before the seam faild and I had to tear it down (taken with a different camera)

I wish I had half of that tort colony in my 110

<embed width="600" height="361" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" wmode="transparent" src="http://static.photobucket.com/player.swf?file=http://vid259.photobucket.com/albums/hh283/psteeleb/bluetortstring.flv">

[psteeleb]

killer vid! Gotta love that chips acro, still an all time favorite of mine.

thanks - and I don't think the vid does it justice color wise
it's one of my favorite corals. I had 2 colonies in my 300g, one of them tabled out real nice and was about 7" across.


May I ask what lights you used while shooting your vid? The colors on those corals are amazing. Outstanding growth too, by the way. Great job, partner. :thumbsup: I'd love to see a full tank pic or vid.

all my lights were on and I adjused the white ballance of the camera with the "one touch" feature. The auto setting had everything way too blue. The one touch setting still isn't 100% true, but it is close. The baby blues in the chips and turaki are not coming through and the tabling acro looks too brown in the video it has more red in it then the video is picking up

tank light picture below
top to bottom

12 Royal Blue Cree XRE LED's - DIY LED strip
VHO Super Actinic (built in reflector)
10k T5 w/ reflector
454n T5 w/ reflector
moonlight LED
454n T5 w/ reflector
10k T5 w/ reflector
VHO Super Actinic (built in reflector)
12 Royal Blue Cree XRE


http://www.dfwmas.org/Forums/download/file.php?id=47475

[psteeleb]

what lighting and whats your lighting schedule. Im betting not halides. not sure why i think that but im starting to think most people with great polyp extension typically have weakish lighting. None the less i love the vid. Thanks alot now im google seaching your camera...lol

you nailed it, this system is mostly T5s as posted above, but I loved my metal halides in my old 300g system. I still think MHs are the best way to go for a tall SPS tank, you just have to deal with the heat

Very nice pete. I love the pearl berry growth.
thanks

really nice video and im envious. Im starting in sps and i hope i get good growth like that one day. thanks on the good advice
thank you

[dvanacker]

I found the video of when I first noticed my torts feeding.
this is from my old 300g system before the seam faild and I had to tear it down (taken with a different camera)

I wish I had half of that tort colony in my 110

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I've always considered that more of a stinging stress response vs. a feeding response.

[psteeleb]

I've always considered that more of a stinging stress response vs. a feeding response.

that's what I thought at first (as you can tell in the video) but they started to do it every time I fed cyclopseze (about once a week).

The torts didn't do that for over 2 years then started to extend those long filiments and catch the cyclopseze and pulled then toward the normal polyps. These filiments extended from the base of the polyps and not the polyp hole itself.

It may still have been a negative reaction to the cyclopseze but it sure looked like feeding. I wish I still had those corals with this new vid cam so
I could have gotten better close ups of exactly what it was doing. I still found it odd that the corals acted totally indifferent to cyclopseze for over 2 years.

[NeonFish]

Very cool. My Acropora Valida does the same thing as your torts.

[sasharotty]

Wow! Great growth! What's the secret? ;)

This^^^^^^^^^^ Thats unbelievable growth!!

[psteeleb]

Very cool. My Acropora Valida does the same thing as your torts.
thanks - do you have any pictures of it?


This^^^^^^^^^^ Thats unbelievable growth!!

thanks :)

[rogerwilco357]

what happen to the tort colony?

[Dustin1300]

Amazing tank and very jealous!

Keep up the good work. No secrets here, just good husbandry!

[psteeleb]

what happen to the tort colony?

They were lost with just about everything else when my 300g tank seam and eurobrace failed at 1:00 in the morning and to make matters worse I was out of town. I had some good friends try to save the corals and fish and we thought they made it but some died after a week or so and then the two tanks the corals were in both crashed (heater failure and think the other was a kalc issue).

here is a tribute to the 300g
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It took me about 6-8 months before I got another tank going and due to being on the road so much I decided to downsize to the 110

thanks

[jc-reef]

Love the HD vid!! Congrats on your successful growth so far! :beer:

[psteeleb]

Amazing tank and very jealous!

Keep up the good work. No secrets here, just good husbandry!

thankyou very much

[dvanacker]

wow..sucks to hear about the 300g.....it looks like it was a real beauty. You definately got that blue thumb.

[panic]

Awesome corals and sweet video. I wish there were more folks shooting hi res macro videos like that. I could watch them all day

[ryanjiang]

Gee, the 300G was a sweet tank and lot of beautiful animals! But hope you enjoy the new tank as much as the 300G.

Not only your SPS grow very fast, the coloration & clarity is amazing. Can you let us know about the nutrient level you are trying to keep & methods of nutrient export. WC, skimming, refugium, carbon/GFO, bacteria and carbon source dosing etc... what ever you are using. Thanks!

Regarding SPS eating meaty, some of my acropora have same reaction when I feed rod's food, which contains small chops of different meats.

Some are even more aggressive like I witnessed this acro eating a whole PE mysis, it captured the mysis & generated slimy to wrap it. I hope I took the picture earlier so you can see more clear the pray is a mysis.

http://qayp7a.bay.livefilestore.com/y1pLk3K8jcBoJFgOxStya8L0ERZW6DfPN2MiJtJOu6Zo2rPPUaFhR-FmFDtzhvBdXerB6NFVbZH9EGstLnX6ULXRz4X7u5xgPi9/IMG_5456_crop_resize.jpg

[smokenax]

wow! ryan what coral is that?

[1lucky1]

Great video very nice!

[ryanjiang]

wow! ryan what coral is that?

ORA Roscoe.

[rtbm]

They were lost with just about everything else when my 300g tank seam and eurobrace failed


Out of curiosity, Who made the tank?

[psteeleb]

Love the HD vid!! Congrats on your successful growth so far! :beer:
holy cow - that is one big old fish you have in your avatar :eek1:

wow..sucks to hear about the 300g.....it looks like it was a real beauty. You definately got that blue thumb.
thanks :)

Awesome corals and sweet video. I wish there were more folks shooting hi res macro videos like that. I could watch them all day
thanks and I agree, I can see more detail in these hi res videos then with my eyes (even with reading glasses). I even noticed in the video a little critter running across the base of the Turaki (right before the manadrin comes crusing by). It looked to fast to be a red bug and I haven't had any issues with any of my SPS but I will be taking a close look just in case, heck I may even do a close up video of all my SPS's including the bases, for the specifc reason doing a health check.

[psteeleb]

Gee, the 300G was a sweet tank and lot of beautiful animals! But hope you enjoy the new tank as much as the 300G.

Not only your SPS grow very fast, the coloration & clarity is amazing. Can you let us know about the nutrient level you are trying to keep & methods of nutrient export. WC, skimming, refugium, carbon/GFO, bacteria and carbon source dosing etc... what ever you are using. Thanks!


thanks
nutrient levels this is a tough one as I am not aware of any way to measure other then observations and keeping an balance between biodiversity and health of corals. I’ve seen people that feed practically nothing and have absolutely pristine tanks with great looking SPS and if SPS are all that you are interested in that may be a preferred method of husbandry.

I use to feed the 300 pretty heavy and had good growth but the SPS corals weren’t giving me the colors I wanted so I cut back on the amount of feeding. But about the same time I also made significant changes to my lighting and got the results I was looking for in SPS coloration; but I have no way to gauge how much was due to reduced tank feeding versus the lighting change (either way I never did have nitrate or phosphate issue). Or, it could have just been the tank maturing. For the most part tend to believe it was the lighting upgrade but no way of knowing for sure.

Nutrient export:
Water Changes – on the 300 I was doing about 30-40 gallons every 3-4 weeks (10-15%). On the 100 gallon I try to do 15% every 2-3 weeks

Skimming – on the 300 gallon I was using an undersized Precision Marine Bullet 2 with an over sized pump (Mag 24). I was also running ozone to increase skimmer effectiveness and with the fish load I had I was very pleased with the results.
The 100 gallon is using an Aqua Medic 1000, a middle of the road skimmer that I’m very pleased with. I may eventually hook up my ozone unit and direct connect the drain piping to increase its effectiveness as this tank is still fairly new and I may be getting build ups that are not registering yet

Refugium – yes, on both tanks, and I’m a firm believer in them for nutrient export using macro algae and as a pod hatchery

Carbon/GFO – Carbon 24/7 and a firm believer in it since my first salt tanks back in 1975. I am also of the opinion carbon not only helps with chemical warfare but helps keep household pollutants at bay. As for GFO, I ran it on and off in the 300 gallon but never had a detectable phosphate issue. Currently I’m not running it in the 100 gallon but I am set up for it with an empty reactor. I had it hooked up the first 3 months of tank start up in the event I got some leaching from the old live rock.

Bacteria and carbon source dosing – I don’t do this nor do I endorse this approach as a preferred method. I’d rather tackle the trate cycles with an over abundant biodiversity by overstocking live rock or a DSB. That said, I can understand the approach as a secondary means of dealing with trates if the first approach is not achievable or desirable, but to me it’s just something else to maintain and has the potential for something that can go wrong. Bottom line I see it as an unnatural method to overstock bacteria, kind of like steroids.

I'll add cleanup crew I monitor this and replenish on a "as needed" basis. If I see some aglea bloom or cyno I'll add snails and hermits. I like the little blue legs as they are cheap and can get into the little nooks and crannies but they are "self destructing tank fodder" :)

[frank88]

I had mojanos and AEFW's in my 300g but the live rock sat for 6 months in a big tub with only a skimmer and some top off (no lights no heater).


no heater? rocks + cold salwater + skimmer.???
and life forms of the rocks did not die this way?

[psteeleb]

Great video very nice!

thanks


Out of curiosity, Who made the tank?

I don't recall - I bought it used in 2006 and it had a sticker on the bottom from the maker that had a 2002 date. The 300g tank had a 1/2' PVC and 3/4" bottom, the bottom was also eurobraced with 3/4" sides and a double 1/2" overlappeing Eurobrace on top. I don't blame the maker, rather I'd say I may have cut into a seal/seam while cleaning (the front seams were covered so I coulnd't see) or had some floor settlement that put excess stress in the upper corner.

[psteeleb]

no heater? rocks + cold salwater + skimmer.???
and life forms of the rocks did not die this way?

let me expand a little

the 300g failed in Aug 2009. I pulled the live rock and put it in a 100g tub with only the skimmer and some power heads. I never did a water change but would add RO/DI about once evry 2 weeks to maintain the original water level. The skimmer was put in the tub to deal with die off as I know I would loose most of the macro life including worms, snails sponges coraline etc.

The tank fuge was kept in place but only had a power head and a light on it (no skimmer or other cirulation or heat control)

Both the 100g tub and the fuge should have stayed at house temperature or maybe cooler as they were on the floor, over the winter we keep the house around 65-67 so I suspect water temperature was in the lower 60's. We did have a power failure in the dead of winter and the house temperature dropped to the lower 50's and suspect the water in the tub and fuge followed close behind.

About 6 or 7 months later I set up my 100g tank, so I pulled the contents of the old refugium, it had some sorry looking macro algea and a couple pieces of live rock (or semi live). I also used some of my live rock I had in the 100g tub and sold the rest.

here are a couple pictures of the refugium a few weeks later. I did add a clean up crew and that mangrove but the cheato, caulurpa and dusters are from the old system, I even found a couple of snail species and asterina stars

http://dfwmas.org/Forums/download/file.php?id=44464

http://dfwmas.org/Forums/download/file.php?id=44465

[preef]

That's awesome growth. Are sure that wasn't a year and 3 months?

I'm amazed with the polyp extension you're getting. I also noticed the flow was quite intense as evident by the particles floating in the water and the polyp movement. Were you feeding at the time or was that sand kicking up? What are you using for flow?

[Gyr]

Amazing videos, obvious awesome reef-keeping skill. Quick question. I see you have kept mandarins in your tanks and the vids show plenty of micro-life for them to browse on. I can also see you have pretty strong (and nicely random) currents in your tank. I have heard the mandarins don't do well with strong currents, so I have not added one to my system. Do your mandarins tolerate the flow well? I've always wanted one.

Thanks

[psteeleb]

That's awesome growth. Are sure that wasn't a year and 3 months?

I'm amazed with the polyp extension you're getting. I also noticed the flow was quite intense as evident by the particles floating in the water and the polyp movement. Were you feeding at the time or was that sand kicking up? What are you using for flow?

thanks - I don't think I was feeding at the time so it's probably detritus, as for the flow it fairly intense around the outside edges but I need to work on getting more in the center, over the top and far end.

I run a Mag9.5 return pump that splits into two returns, each with flow accelrators on them. I also have 2 maxijet 900's with the shure flow mods. unfortunatly everything is on one end of the tank. I'm considering adding a wavebox and may bite the bullet here shortly.

[psteeleb]

Amazing videos, obvious awesome reef-keeping skill. Quick question. I see you have kept mandarins in your tanks and the vids show plenty of micro-life for them to browse on. I can also see you have pretty strong (and nicely random) currents in your tank. I have heard the mandarins don't do well with strong currents, so I have not added one to my system. Do your mandarins tolerate the flow well? I've always wanted one.

Thanks

thank you :)
There have been no issues with the mandarins, I've have seen them struggle a little around the modded Maxijets. They know the flow is high there and fight their way into the area looking for pods, then they will just let it blow them away and they go about their business

now on my 300g I had a closed loop that would toss any of the fish around if they swam into the direct flow. I had the biggest fattest mandarin I've ever seen and he was a hoot when he got in the flow, he'd look p'oed for a couple seconds then just go about his business looking for another morsel to eat.

here's a picture of the big ol pig - he was always following me around the tank hoping I'd turn over a rock exposing a big fat pod
http://i259.photobucket.com/albums/hh283/psteeleb/blob81a.jpg

[Gyr]

There have been no issues with the mandarins

Good to know. Your mandarins definitely look healthy. I had worried about it (with two vortechs set at reef crest mode the currents in my tank can get pretty wild), but now I'll keep an eye out for a fat and happy mandarin at my LFS's and make the purchase when I find one.

Thanks for your help.

[ryshark]

One of the coolest things about the video vs still pics is you can see how random your flow is....very nice. It looks like the Pearlberry is getting less flow than some of the others, is this correct? What is your placement with light intensity and flow for the Pearlberry?

[preef]

What brand salt are you using?

[psteeleb]

Good to know. Your mandarins definitely look healthy. I had worried about it (with two vortechs set at reef crest mode the currents in my tank can get pretty wild), but now I'll keep an eye out for a fat and happy mandarin at my LFS's and make the purchase when I find one.

Thanks for your help.

Anytime

If you do pick up a. Mandarin from a LFS ask them to feed it some blood worms to see if it will eat frozen

[reefkeeps]

wonderful! Thank you for sharing!

[psteeleb]

One of the coolest things about the video vs still pics is you can see how random your flow is....very nice. It looks like the Pearlberry is getting less flow than some of the others, is this correct? What is your placement with light intensity and flow for the Pearlberry?

Thanks - and the Pearlberry is in the top center section of the tank that gets a lot of light but suffers from a lower flow then the outside edges of the tank. I need to work on getting some flow in that area and considering 3 options.

1) increase my return flow rate and add a 3rd return that point's over the center.

2) add a nano wavebox to the system

3) or some sort of closed loop

[psteeleb]

What brand salt are you using?
I'm currently using Instant Ocean Reef Crystals

wonderful! Thank you for sharing!
thanks :)

[Fishingpcola]

Pete, just getting around to seeing the video. It is awesome!