montipora dominated tanks?

[tagraham]

are there any montipora dominated tanks out there? i always thought this would look cool to put a few plating frags in and just let them go.

[Tradewinds]

I recently added two different varieties of encrusting montipora, which should look amazing when they've grown in. Nice thing about montipora is the speed at which it grows.

[brandon429]

I did what you are saying 7 yrs ago look where its at now

lol I know it looks fugly but its dang sure montipora dominated. this is a rare angle to see it, mostly you see the top of people's coral colonies but since mine is grown on the glass, projecting inward, you only see the dull flat base

:)

I assure you sticking inside the vase is a spindly mass of montipora and acropora that are overtaking everything in the pico, even encrusting a brain coral favites and killing it pretty neat huh.

Also in this picture you can see something you can't find anywhere on the web or in written publication

air bubbles becoming trapped live time in sps skeleton

the bluish green circular mass blocking the center of the bowl was a quarter inch blue tort frag put onto the rock in about 2010

it spread from the rocks to the glass, and met up with fugly brown montipora that has encased the entire neck of the bowl. At their junction on the middle upper right, several air bubbles have been locked in between and 10+ more were locked in the montipora as it grew lol

I know you were asking for pics of big cauliflower looking whorls but at least this was a reef where plugs were allowed to run rampant and you can see their feet :)

[saf1]

Lol Brandon. I'm not going to say that is fugly but that is one hell of a science project! You are not kidding about swirl or vase full of various corals and what appears to be a sandbed.

Neat never the less.

[brandon429]

Yes its a 6" dsb plenty deep for a gallon water volume heh

Here's the bubbles up close, its a standing challenge to find this documentation in any other place as a fun thing to keep in mind when flipping through the usual reef pics

Also notice the junction point is between two unrelated genera and its growing together, i think biologists call that a xerograft or xerofusion but id have to google to be sure. some corals in this vase are desensitized and do not suffer from physical and chemical warfare found in larger systems

Thanks for checking out the pics i rarely update but this was first round with my childs iPad
Colors are a little off as i try different settings...

[saf1]

Yeah, the more I look at that the more I think it is pretty cool. Like I noted above it reminds me of a science project :) I can't really see but since it is pretty small space what are you doing about water movement?

Side note - have you ever considered splitting it open and moving it into something else? I think that would probably have a negative effect but who knows. Then again that would sort of take away the uniqueness I guess. Still cool though.

Regarding Montipora I could have sworn there was a very nice tank in the nano section that was SPS/Monti focused. However, I can't locate the thread anymore. I thought the owner was either in Singapore or Thailand but I recall it was a smaller tank, round, and had some very nice Monti with some cleaner shrimp hanging out. Beautiful tank.

[brandon429]

the water movement is just an airpump with dual airstone outputs

this creates unique chemistry in the micro reef by constantly degassing CO2 and upholding the pH, I have better water params than most large tanks due to this design.

the system is evaporation restricted, truly, so I can go up to 6 days without a topoff if needed at a swing of .023 to .0245 which is tolerable for my adapted system. the system uses no auto topoff, and with no powerheads, my fail points are highly reduced compared to larger systems.

Having no fish means every time I leave on vacation, when I get back I know the reef will still be alive (nothing to die in the rockwork and rot for 4 days)

it looks strange but there are hidden tricks in the reef that make it last indefinately, a lot longer than many huge tanks. Ill take a maco shot of the inside pretty soon to show the inward projections of the two sps

yes I will crack it open one day but the goal was to test longevity

as this sps patch blocks out the entire front view, I'll spin the bowl around, frag out the corals, add some more chalices and NPS probably and feature the other side of the bowl for a few more years until its totally grown in.

then, crack the vase carefully and have a reef encased in living SPS the shape of a real vase, tell me if that will be sick and unique man :)
the tank will be upgraded to a 3 gallon system and this vase shaped SPS microcosm will sit right in the middle

[rhino509]

only had a couple montis,but hey theyre dominating for sure....:fish2: :lol2:

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b112/rhino509/everyone%20can%20see/DSCN1137.jpg

[saf1]

Brandon - Yeah, that is going to be EPIC when the time comes to split it. Unique probably won't do it justice. I love the sand. Back when I had my 100 gallon tank I used to catch a lot of heat because my bed was 6 to 9 inches deep. Yeah, it took up a lot of space but it sure did help the water chemistry. Heck, that and my zoa's are the only thing that survived CA's brown-out that happened a few summers ago while I was on vacation. In fact, I still have some of the sand and zoa's in our 29 gallon tanks now :)

Rhino - nice setup. I really like the green one. In fact, I'm actually looking to find a few frags for our tanks. I'm looking for purple, green, and red to glue to a few rocks and letting them grow out. I found a really nice purple frag online but they are asking 50 bucks. We'll see after the holidays.

Right now I'm safe in both our tanks because the only coral's I think taking a lot of the nutrients are some green star polyps and a hammer frag. I think once I go with birds nests or the monti then I'm going to have to start dosing I think a few additives.

Again nice tank Rhino and Monti pieces. Not sure what the right side purple deal is but it is HUGE. Very minimal aquascape which I really enjoy. I didn't see fish? Few or any?

Brandon - if you don't have a dedicated thread or blog keep me in the loop when you have the time. I really think that is the coolest thing and can't wait to see how it turns out. Kudo's.

[tagraham]

only had a couple montis,but hey theyre dominating for sure....:fish2: :lol2:

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b112/rhino509/everyone%20can%20see/DSCN1137.jpg

Exactly what I was talking about. AWSOME!

[ireef2012]

only had a couple montis,but hey theyre dominating for sure....:fish2: :lol2:

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b112/rhino509/everyone%20can%20see/DSCN1137.jpg

I love it!!! My favorite corals are both the digi and cap.... This is something I will be looking at creating....