My 65G Shallow Reef Tank

[sahin]

Wow Bulent those corals look stunning. I love the Lokani looking one! So nice!

Nice catch - i've never been fishing, would love to have that as another hobby.

[biggles]

Originally Posted by sahin

Nice catch - i've never been fishing, would love to have that as another hobby.

I'd love nothing more than to take you out onto a dangerous rock platform to have a fish Sahin.........

[DiscusHeckel]

Originally Posted by biggles

Damn Bulent, you got onto the fish this time mate.

I've done a lot of rock fishing so i know how dangerous it can be for the unwary. How's the tank looking mate.

Indeed. Thanks Andrew.

The tank looks better than I left. My 16-year old son is well trained to look after the fish and dose Tropic Marin stuff as well as the sponge power. There is a noticeable growth spur on my purple plate. It could be due to the fact that I replenished my kalk stirrer with fresh calcium hydroxide before my fishing expedition.

I also heavily fragged my orange Montipora on the right hand side. I have decided to get rid of it and "plant" and an Acropora in its place (see the second picture). Should I get a staghorn type acropora or bottle brush type or? There is a brace bar over this particular coral, but whatever I put under this brace bar will still get at least 300 mmol/m2/sec PAR. I need your advice. Thanks in advance,

Originally Posted by sahin

Wow Bulent those corals look stunning. I love the Lokani looking one! So nice!

Nice catch - i've never been fishing, would love to have that as another hobby.

Thanks Sahin. As I am about to draw sea fishing to a close (I may still go one more time), I am looking forward to re-starting fly fishing for trout in my local reservoir.

Originally Posted by biggles

I'd love nothing more than to take you out onto a dangerous rock platform to have a fish Sahin.........

Andrew, you are a good friend of Sahin, aren't you?

[reefmutt]

Wow. That's quite a haul... And a lot of beheading and gutting.....
Beautiful spot for fishing.

[DiscusHeckel]

Originally Posted by reefmutt

Wow. That's quite a haul... And a lot of beheading and gutting.....
Beautiful spot for fishing.

Tell me about it. It was a big operation. While I was not fishing, I spent most of my time in our kitchen during our stay, cooking, serving meals, washing up and fish mongering related tasks, so that I could be left alone by my wife in peace while fishing.

My mother-in-law has commented that I should have no difficulty in finding a second job in a kitchen somewhere :angry fire:. My wife has also commented that my arms and hands still smell fish .

Spot is beautiful for fishing but too dangerous for swimming (very strong currents and jellyfish with 1 m stringy thingies).

[DiscusHeckel]

Here are some night time close-up photos I took with my iPhone last night:

[DiscusHeckel]

I took some sps frags to one of my lfs this afternoon for store credit. I used some of the credit to buy a particular item that I had my eyes on for a while. I made an offer on a set of 24 tubs of Rowa Kalk (600 gr each) and it was accepted. My lfs seemed glad to get rid of them. It was a win-win situation. This set will last EIGHT years. Including another set of Rowa Kalk tubs, which I bought from another lfs, I have now enough calcium hydroxide that will keep me going for ELEVEN years. According to my lfs, I must have more Rowa Kalk tubs than the entire stock of the Rowa distributor in the UK.

It is amazing that reefers in the UK have turned their backs on cost effective means of providing calcium and alkalinity. Having said that I still have to provide bicarbonates and calcium independently of limewater due to insufficient evaporation rate. When I spend my store credits, I give preference to buying dosing salts. As a result, my home office has started to look like a b!o0dy retail shop as I cannot hide these bulky items anywhere else.

[reefmutt]

Wow!! You weren't kidding! That's a lot of stock.
You should be on that TV show: secrets of reef hoarders..

[DiscusHeckel]

Originally Posted by reefmutt

Wow!! You weren't kidding! That's a lot of stock.
You should be on that TV show: secrets of reef hoarders..

Hmm, I am getting worried

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/1...one-of-us.html

[reefmutt]

Well... I shouldn't judge... I'm a certified frag hoarder...
My wife would have left me long ago if frags could survive in the backyard....... Like they do in my dreams.....

[sahin]

Thats a lot of stock. I can only hoard frags...if I started hoarding kalk and the like...I'd be thrown out...

[DiscusHeckel]

Originally Posted by sahin

Thats a lot of stock. I can only hoard frags...if I started hoarding kalk and the like...I'd be thrown out...

I will come over to hoard your corals soon. It only costs me under £10 to travel down south with National Express even though I will probably pay more for the tube.

You had better get your acts together to make sure that your miniature colourful sticks start to grow, so that they can spread their wings up north...

I expect a well documented growth report every month or else ...

[sahin]

Originally Posted by DiscusHeckel

I will come over to hoard your corals soon. It only costs me under £10 to travel down south with National Express even though I will probably pay more for the tube.

You had better get your acts together to make sure that your miniature colourful sticks start to grow, so that they can spread their wings up north...

I expect a well documented growth report every month or else ...

ONLY £10??? I spent over £50 driving upto my friends place in Warrington on the weekend...

My sticks are generally looking ok. The usual brown turds are still that.
You can have frags of the brown ones.

I dont want to resort to the Zeospur (poison) like Biggles does...seriously, I dont know what else to do with the remaining 15% of corals that refuse to bloody colour up! Any ideas on getting them coloured up?

[DiscusHeckel]

Originally Posted by sahin

My sticks are generally looking ok. The usual brown turds are still that.
You can have frags of the brown ones.

I dont want to resort to the Zeospur (poison) like Biggles does...seriously, I dont know what else to do with the remaining 15% of corals that refuse to bloody colour up! Any ideas on getting them coloured up?

I am not qualified to give you advice on coral coloration Sahin. That is your domain, but if you want advice on coral growth you are in the right place.

Having said that please consider the following pointers as food for thought:

As for your "usual brown turds", I would perhaps try to establish if there is a pattern, e.g. are they located in the same spot, did they come from the same place, did they come from a wild colony?, are they exposed to sun light in your tank?, What about water flow? (the more light a coral receives the more flow it will need), etc.

If there is no pattern, then you have a tough task. I assume that your corals are no longer infested with pests. Have you considered experimenting with metal/trace element dosing, e.g. FM colour elements or Grotech A B C. It is quite possible that your tank water lacks some elements that your turds perhaps require in some quantity.

[sahin]

Originally Posted by DiscusHeckel

I am not qualified to give you advice on coral coloration Sahin. That is your domain, but if you want advice on coral growth you are in the right place.

Having said that please consider the following pointers as food for thought:

As for your "usual brown turds", I would perhaps try to establish if there is a pattern, e.g. are they located in the same spot, did they come from the same place, did they come from a wild colony?, are they exposed to sun light in your tank?, What about water flow? (the more light a coral receives the more flow it will need), etc.

If there is no pattern, then you have a tough task. I assume that your corals are no longer infested with pests. Have you considered experimenting with metal/trace element dosing, e.g. FM colour elements or Grotech A B C. It is quite possible that your tank water lacks some elements that your turds perhaps require in some quantity.

Bulent overall, you have more of your corals coloured up in your tank than I do.

But as to your pointers...there is no pattern. I moved some of the pieces to experiment with extra flow and light. Most are mariculture though.

I already dose the Fauna Marin traces with the balling. I have the colour elements too. I tried it all. Cannot get those brown ones to colour up.

[DiscusHeckel]

Originally Posted by sahin

Bulent overall, you have more of your corals coloured up in your tank than I do.

I am surprised about your statement because your reef tank looks very colourful to my eyes. I am wondering if you suffer from OCD.

Originally Posted by sahin

But as to your pointers...there is no pattern. I moved some of the pieces to experiment with extra flow and light. Most are mariculture though.

I already dose the Fauna Marin traces with the balling. I have the colour elements too. I tried it all. Cannot get those brown ones to colour up.

I tend to keep away from maricultured corals due to my fear of AEFW. I do not believe that they are exposed to natural AEFW predators while they are kept inn their holding "stations"/pools. I am probably wrong as I often am. Furthermore, when I had them in the past, they did not do well in my tank (they either had STN or they did not grow satisfactorily with good coloration). I therefore buy very small frags from wild colonies, or frags from Reefworks (or from fellow reefers' tank as long as frags are small enough for me to inspect them with a magnifying glass).

Have you got close-up pictures of those "brown turds", so that we (I and others who read this thread) can try to figure out/guess what kind of habitat they must have been collected from providing that we can correctly identify them. It would also be useful if photos show your corals without their polyps extended.

I have some more questions:

How long have you had them for?
What is your alkalinity and salinity?
How do you measure your salinity and how do you verify your reading?

[sahin]

Originally Posted by DiscusHeckel

I am surprised about your statement because your reef tank looks very colourful to my eyes. I am wondering if you suffer from OCD.



I tend to keep away from maricultured corals due to my fear of AEFW. I do not believe that they are exposed to natural AEFW predators while they are kept inn their holding "stations"/pools. I am probably wrong as I often am. Furthermore, when I had them in the past, they did not do well in my tank (they either had STN or they did not grow satisfactorily with good coloration). I therefore buy very small frags from wild colonies, or frags from Reefworks (or from fellow reefers' tank as long as frags are small enough for me to inspect them with a magnifying glass).

Have you got close-up pictures of those "brown turds", so that we (I and others who read this thread) can try to figure out/guess what kind of habitat they must have been collected from providing that we can correctly identify them. It would also be useful if photos show your corals without their polyps extended.

I have some more questions:

How long have you had them for?
What is your alkalinity and salinity?
How do you measure your salinity and how do you verify your reading?

LOL. Maybe OCD. But seriously, I have at least 7 acros of different size which are brown. They affect the overall look of the tank.

Some I've had for 1year plus. Others slightly less.

Alk is always around 7.3-7.5dKH. It is rock solid stable within that range.
SG= 1.026. I checked the SG with TWO calibrated refractometers with 35ppt calibration fluid. The calibration fluid was tested by my friend on his Milwakee (spelling?) electronic unit that came with its own calibration fluid.

I've pretty much done my homework with respect to making sure I've covered the basics.

With regards to mari stuff, yeah they turn up with pests. Which is why I dip, QT and then treat with Interceptor for redbugs before any frags make it to my system.

I spoke with Clayton when I last visited him and he confirmed that depending on location some mariculture stuff turn up with lots of AEFW. But he said he selects suppliers with less AEFW issues. But that some still can get through.

It is quite apparent that the colourful acros in my display are those that I've had for a number of years and ones that were aquacultured.

But why are maricultured acros usually so hard to colour up usually??? Biggles's tank is full of wild bits and extremely colourful.

[DiscusHeckel]

Originally Posted by sahin

But why are maricultured acros usually so hard to colour up usually??? Biggles's tank is full of wild bits and extremely colourful.

My explanation is that once a wild coral is fragmented and moved to another spot even in the same geographical discourse, it is likely to lose its mojo because of one or more of the following:

• different flow;
• different neighbours;
• different illumination;
• etc.

[DiscusHeckel]

There are two updates.

First, I started to replace my tubes two weeks ago. PAR readings started to increase as opposed to decrease and growth started to slow down markedly. I concluded that there was a spectrum shift (possibly towards red from blue), which explains increase in PAR readings and decrease in growth. The tubes lasted almost 11 months. I cannot complain...

I have replaced five tubes so far. In the next two weeks the tube replacement will be complete. As I wrote before, I will be using exactly the same tube combination as Scotty. ABS and actinic tubes are already in the mix and I like what I see. Purples in particular look really vivid whereas they looked slightly washed out under blues. I will have to wait another two weeks before I put the new purple +.

Second, my BFC increased significantly this afternoon. I received a phone call from my lfs last Thursday and was informed that a smallish female Genicanthus watanabei was finally sourced by them. I travelled to their shop today and bought this fish and four other fishes (Pseudanthias pulcherrimus aka Resplendent Anthias). I reckon that this almost completed my fish population (except that I asked them to source me a small male G. watanabei). Here is the complete list of my fishes:

Genicanthus watanabei
Genicanthus bellus
Genicanthus lamarck
Genicanthus melanospilos

Yellow tang
File fish
Royal Gramma

Respeldents anthias X 4

In other words, BFC of my tank is now 1.69. I think Mr Biggles will like this.

Finally, here are the photos of the new arrivals:

[reefmutt]

I love your genicanthus this collection..
I have a bellus.. I think I will probably buy a few more to get a male with a harem of 2 or 3 females..

[sahin]

Wow, I love your fish collection. Those Anthias look very pretty in the contrasting yellow and pink.

[biggles]

I now want some resplendent anthias Bulent, yours are beautiful - i bet they're expensive here
I'm interested to see if the lighting change brings about any pigment changes once the acros acclimate to the spectrum changes. I believe way too much importance is placed on PAR levels now days rather than the actual spectrum being delivered.

[DiscusHeckel]

Originally Posted by reefmutt

I love your genicanthus this collection..
I have a bellus.. I think I will probably buy a few more to get a male with a harem of 2 or 3 females..

Thank you Matt. Forming a harem is an interesting idea though it is probably not practical in my tank due to its size. I seem to be a sucker for Genicanthus sp. Please do not put ideas in my head in case I get tempted.

Originally Posted by sahin

Wow, I love your fish collection. Those Anthias look very pretty in the contrasting yellow and pink.

Thank you Sahin. I was initially thinking of getting some female lyretails, but was advised to get this subspecies of Pseudoanthias instead. They look fairly similar to another anthias genus I used to keep in terms of coloration (Pseudanthias bimaculatus), but resplendent anthias do not grow as big as P bimaculatus, which is ideal for my tank. I have a poor record of keeping anthias as I mentioned before, but I want to try again to reverse my past misfortunes.

Originally Posted by biggles

I now want some resplendent anthias Bulent, yours are beautiful - i bet they're expensive here
I'm interested to see if the lighting change brings about any pigment changes once the acros acclimate to the spectrum changes. I believe way too much importance is placed on PAR levels now days rather than the actual spectrum being delivered.

Thank you Andrew. They were not particularly expensive individually, but G. watanabei cost me a lot of money. I will need to sell some frags soon to recover my financial position before yesterday's fish purchases. The new arrivals have settled quite quickly and have started to eat frozen food (I never feed flake food).

On a different matter, I know that you are interested in blue bottles. I thought I should let you know that I started to use KZ coral vitalizer (1 ml per 100 l twice a week) and KZ bio-mate (1 ml per 100 l twice a week) last night. I am hoping that the bio-mate will clear my rocks and help me get rid of the last remnants of cyano, which still linger on some sections of my live rock. The sand bed is now completely free from cyano.

I only use those blue bottles which reportedly do not contain any nitrogen/phosphate source and trace elements (e.g. amino acids, Pohl's extra) as I do not want them to interfere with the good work of Tropic Marin NP bacto balance though some interference is inevitable. I already stopped using three different blue bottles (i.e. KZ ZEOzym, KZ Poh's Xtra and KZ A-balance) for this reason.

Finally, as for the new lights, I am very curious as to how the new spectrum will impact on the coral coloration as well as the coral growth. 5 X Blue + and 3 X Coral+ were an outstanding coral growing combination.

[DiscusHeckel]

Here are today's photos:

[reefmutt]

Bulent, I love those mature stag colonies. Your reef looks so old and natural.
I'm also liking those anthias.... Hm...
I'm curious about your experience and any knowledge you might have about KZ b-balance..