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04/21/2018, 08:06 PM | #126 |
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Snapped some actinic shots tonight.
The light ripples across this table was beautiful. Wish I could capture it better My RCA The Hotness mille I've been growing for a while is insane. This red acro at night is as red as you can get. Even more red than the red planet. Eat your heart out pink tenuis actinic specials! |
05/12/2018, 09:18 PM | #127 |
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Add a JF Solar Flare to my collection today. This thing is INSANE orange! Here it is next to my RCA The Hotness mille.
Here's an update picture of my RR Firecracker, also looking amazing |
05/13/2018, 07:20 AM | #128 |
Frustrated Stick Gardener
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Dang! Those are some colorful corals, nice!
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Scott Current tank: 65 gal DSA rimless, mixed reef, 20 gal sump, T5 6bulb, big skimmer, 40B Fowler, 20 gal sump, 4 bulb T5 |
05/16/2018, 08:15 PM | #129 |
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My squamy is still alive and kicking! Taking lots of photos while I can, you never know about clams and when they'll decide to kick the bucket!
I know I'm probably sounding like a broken record, but man I LOVE these eviota gobies! They're so mobile and inquisitive. When I shut my pumps off, all my big fish hide, but these little guys come out and explore the tank. They're not afraid of anything! They swim up and watch what I'm doing, hardly budge when I move my hand in the water. Hard to capture the blue of my blue matrix, but it is stunning! Darker blue than my Oregon Tort IMHO. Vivid Confetti growth has slowed down, seems like it has reached its borders with other corals and is just thickening up now. In the process of clearing more growth space for it... |
05/17/2018, 07:52 PM | #130 |
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Was going through my thread today and stumbled on a FTS from exactly 2 years ago. How things have changed!
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05/18/2018, 06:53 AM | #131 |
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06/22/2018, 03:37 PM | #132 |
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It's been a month since I've updated so I thought I would do a little photo update and recap!
My wife and I went overseas for vacation for a little over 2 weeks and had a good friend/neighbor/professional SPS guru watch the tank while we were gone. Everything seemed to be going alright until near the end of my trip I got a text at 3 am telling me my neighborhood was experiencing power outrages and that my Vivids Confetti colony was dead. Luckily my house only lost power for half an hour, but I still lost about $2,000 in corals that day. Didn't quite make sense how I could lose so much in that time frame... My Confetti the day after Today when I finally had time to tear it out After I got home I did some investigating before leaving for another week and a half and found that oh! my GFO and carbon had been turned off right about when I had left. I had changed the media out a couple days before I left and there had been water in the canisters, but the sponges were barely dirty when I opened them. Clearly it had been turned on and then shortly after been turned back off. Low and behold my PO4 was above 0.4 ppm after 50 gallons of water changes. I assume the PO4 had gotten even higher before the water was changed. My diagnosis is the carbon/GFO somehow got accidentally turned off and some of my corals just didn't handle the elevated levels very well. Of course it was my most expensive coral that died. If I've ever had luck, it's been bad luck. Everything seems to be rebounding now. Still working on replacing my lights with T5s and custom LED strips. Here's how things currently look: My mag keeps growing despite never being fed. Took advantage of a moment it was slightly balled I now know why my Orphek Atlantik started freaking out. I guess a couple years confined in a hood really did a number on this USB port. Couldn't find the replacement piece at Frys so I'm at a loss until I replace the whole card or find this connection. |
06/23/2018, 09:54 AM | #133 |
I love bengals
Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: Manassas Virginia
Posts: 2,512
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That sucks, sorry to hear about the gfo issue. That's why I went to carbon dosing and nitrate additions randomly when needed to lower phosphates that creep up.
That firecracker is insane, number one best deepwater acro. I cant wait to find a nice piece for a deal I can afford. I bought a pack from Tony right before my tank went down the drain so that hurt pretty bad... |
06/25/2018, 05:00 PM | #134 |
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That red tenius is awesome, where did you get it from?
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06/25/2018, 07:30 PM | #135 |
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06/27/2018, 12:49 PM | #136 |
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06/28/2018, 08:53 AM | #137 |
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06/29/2018, 09:13 PM | #138 |
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Small update (sort of related to my tank) I have decided to remodel the fish room and move things around/add a frag tank. Some progression shots so far. I'm still a far ways off from getting the room fully operational again, but it feels good to be this far and ready to start building a new stand for a frag tank.
Before Current condition: I also added a couple of new additions to the tank today. Went to a LFS and saw a gold torch and this gorgeous goni and I couldn't say no I'm hoping the goni survives, something in my water hasn't agreed with gonis in the past few months and half of mind bleached and receded away, the rest are hardly hanging on. I'm hoping another large water change after I replaced my DI and carbon will help. |
07/07/2018, 08:41 PM | #139 |
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My goni is still kicking and looks gorgeous. Thought I would share in case it kicks the bucket unexpectedly.
I don't know if any of you have experienced this, but my squamosa clam has stopped growing new scutes and I don't really understand why. My nutrients aren't too low, PO4 is between 0.06-0.09 ppm these days and my NO3 is 24-32 ppm, so I feel like that would normally be enough. I also feed the tank pretty heavily with frozen food and dried plankton. My SPS grow just fine, so I am still scratching my head on this one. I take the clam out to feed once in a while. Today it's in a bath of phyto and oyster feast for about an hour. Too much??? |
07/08/2018, 03:04 PM | #140 |
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Started working on a frag tank on the 4th of July. Progress is surprisingly good when you don't have to travel all week for work!
This piano finish I added to my work top is almost too pretty to use! Now I'm afraid I'm going to get it messy and scratched |
07/26/2018, 07:13 PM | #141 |
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I feel like I haven't posted a FTS in a while, and I have finally replaced the funky light I had to throw up on the right side of my tank when my Orphek stopped working properly. Wow, what a difference that makes!!! Corals are starting to look really good now that I have lowered my phosphates for over a month.
Red dragon is looking more red again now that I've eliminated the greenish lights on the right RCA the Hotness mille is looking hot as usual |
08/03/2018, 10:04 AM | #142 |
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It's been a week full of lighting projects. First I removed my hood and tore out the lights and revamped it. So far I'm pleased with the result, I definitely have more control over lighting intensity and coloration throughout the day.
My current setup running everything at 100% looks the closest to a sunlit reef I have ever seen. It's not quite in line with the current fad of all actinics all the time, but I like the natural look and I'm excited to see the results on coral health and growth. I also tore apart my Orphek Atlantik and replaced the V1 guts with V4 diodes and board. I can now control this light better too, it will be going over a species specific tank in the future. Phew! That was a lot of light projects for one week |
08/06/2018, 07:34 PM | #143 |
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That's quite the under taking. Your dt looks great with the new lights.
Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk
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Brandon I'm not saying let's get rid of all the stupid people.* I'm just saying let's remove all the warning labels and let the problem work itself out. Current Tank Info: 150g DT plumbed to an 80g frag tank and 220g sump in the basement. ~6-MP40s ~ 12 ATI powered t5s ~ Reefbrites and Radions supplementing ~ Custom GEO Skimmer ~ GEO CA Reactor 6x24~ Iwaki 70 Return ~ |
08/06/2018, 08:43 PM | #144 |
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08/06/2018, 08:44 PM | #145 | |
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Quote:
How hard was it to change out the diodes? Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk
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Brandon I'm not saying let's get rid of all the stupid people.* I'm just saying let's remove all the warning labels and let the problem work itself out. Current Tank Info: 150g DT plumbed to an 80g frag tank and 220g sump in the basement. ~6-MP40s ~ 12 ATI powered t5s ~ Reefbrites and Radions supplementing ~ Custom GEO Skimmer ~ GEO CA Reactor 6x24~ Iwaki 70 Return ~ |
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08/10/2018, 08:19 PM | #146 | |
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Quote:
Now that I'm done, not so hard. I had to tap some new holes into the heat sink to allow the new board to connect to it. Luckily I have access to the proper tools at work, otherwise I would have had an issue. |
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08/10/2018, 08:21 PM | #147 |
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Location: Austin, TX
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Snapped some FTSs
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08/23/2018, 09:17 PM | #148 |
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Couple shots for a short update. Tables have randomly stopped receding. Can't really explain it, just one of those acro pots things where you just shrug and admit not everything can be explained at a hobbyist level. I'm just happy they're done self destructing for now.
Reefwise Lemon drops have been looking good, more yellow everyday Got a new H. magnifica from River City Aquatics. I couldn't be happier with it! What a gorgeous tricolor specimen. Can't wait to see it in the DT Tank during the actinic hour |
09/29/2018, 10:10 AM | #149 |
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Been a while for an update. Things have slowly been recovering. Ripped out some pieces that needed to put today including my dead table I grew from a frag.
I’m hoping whatever the issue was has been resolved now. Colors are slowly returning on corals and I stared dosing Vibrant to knock this annoying GHA. |
10/20/2018, 11:01 AM | #150 |
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So last night I noticed that there was some salt creep coming down from one of the return bulkheads of my tank. The bulkheads Marineland included with the tank are spigot style so I had hose clamped the return lines to them. I guess the wiggle of the manifold cracked the bulkhead and when I went to check the tubing this happened...
I didn’t even pull that hard! I guess I’m lucky it happened while I had the return pump off, but it still made a mess and was not how I wanted to spend my Friday evening as I was winding down to relax with a drink. Two separate trips to HD and Lowe’s and I got it repaired with a new bulkhead, reducers, and unions to get it back up and running. I was a little shocked at how much detritus and junk had built up in my overflow. I had to completely drain it and dry it to get the new bulkhead in. Here’s the cup of gunk I drained out of the overflow I definitely never want to have a bottom drilled tank or deep overflows like this EVER again. Any future build will be drilled in the back utilizing solid bulkheads and plumbing. I should have bought my own bulkheads instead of using the cheap ones that Marineland provided with the tank. Hindsight is always 20/20... |
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