Who are the SPS Veterans?

[invincible569]

Steve,

What a shock to hear you say that someone in Houston has one of the oldest SPS reefs. You could be right now that I think about it. The guy you are talking about goes by Twinspot on Houston's local reef club, but rarely frequents any boards. He has been known to outgrow his corals all the time and has to sell these huge colonies in order to start over again with that piece in his tank. He has a 200g. I did see his tank not too long ago and was truly amazed at how established his tank was. He even had a unique staghorn (combination of stags) grow out side that I've only seen in Mr. N's Japanese tank (www.reefaqua.com). That was such a beautiful sight! One thing that saddens me is that he plans to take down that tank within a yr to downgrade to a 120 for some reason. So this reef could soon be gone!

Other people that I know in Houston who have been pioneers are Kevin and SueT.

[Aged Salt]

Edward, thnx. for the link. Mr. N's reef-tips were interesting Bob

[Aged Salt]

Btw, Steve, Bruce Davidson still runs Sandy's. He moved to a new location a few yrs. ago. Bob

[reefer on a budget]

What's up Steve? 5:01am and you're still up? You are turning into me dude. Many thanks to golfish for getting me into SPS corals. Many thanks to ROAB, turtlespd and ST for turning me into an addict. - Ali

ali,
will you be my friend again?

[Steve Tyree]

Invincible569,

That might be the reefer I heard about. Before he downsizes his reef it would be great if someone can get some pictures of the reef. Like you stated, it would be interested to see how these sps reefs look after 10 years or longer. I remember Bruce Carlson showing a long term small sps reef experiment. They were using a flow through system and the sps eventually grew into a solid block and filled the tank. Obviouslly regular pruning needs to be done to prevent that situation from occurring.

[Steve Tyree]

Ali,

Yeah I tell everyone that I am living on South Pacific Time. Just not living in the South Pacific. Almost forgot another old time California sps name: Leonard Ho. Mike Paletta's book Ultimate Marine Aquariums is a really good basic guide into the mid to late 1990's US SPS reef keepers. There are quite a few stony reefs in there. At least half of those sps reefkeepers got some of their sps corals through me between 1994 and 1996. Back when I started fragging sps in late 1993, you could count the number of serious SPS reefkeepers in the US on your fingers and toes.

[SPStoner]

Hey Steve-
I'd bet that some of the corals in my old system, in Paletta's book, and my new one, probably came from you. I got quite a few from Kurt back in the early 90's, and from Mike Paletta in the mid to late 90's. I haven't heard from Kurt since about 98 or 99, but I know he still lives in the Cleveland area.

BTW I was one of those that made a few trips to the bar during your presentation at MACNA 7

I know Bruce Davidson pretty well ( I work with his brother) They just had a storm tear the roof off their new store and are in the process of rebuilding.

[kevinpo]

I bought 11 or so Solomon Island aquacultured corals from Bob Mankin back in '97 and still have all of them today. My first all coral tank was a 90 gal with 175W 14,000K Belgium bulbs set up in 1996. As they grow I just keep getting bigger and more tanks

Regards,
Kevin

[Steve Tyree]

Kevinpro,

Mankin had the line on some awesome Solomons Cultured corals in 1997 to 1998. I was not that excited about disks and was trying to get the broken off branches from the exporter in 1997/1998. Seemed odd to me to have them break a branch, glue it to a disk and then wait until it readapted and started to grow and then ship it to me. Heck, just send me the broken off branch. I will do the glueing. I guess though the idea was to give the natives some work. Me and Bob meet with the Solomons exporter during that 'International Macna 10' in Los Angeles in 1998. Bob ran with the Solomons but I was still recovering from the 1996 RTN catastrophe. Bob did well until the Civil war in the Solomons began and Bob's wife also developed health problems at that time.

SPStoner

Sorry to read that a storm damaged Bruce's store. There has been some real bad ones this year. I drove my sisters moving truck across country a couple of months ago and ran into some rain in Oklahoma that was intense. Worse then the El Nino rains we get every now and then in Southern California. Actually I may have started buying for Kurt even way back in late 1993 and 1994.

[kevinpo]

Hi Steve,
Thanks for the background info. The ones I got were tied to the cement disks with monofilament. There were two small holes in the disk for the line to pass through and be tied on the back. I thought it was a very novel idea at the time but they proved difficult to place in the rockwork and as they grew became quite top heavy and tended to tip.

Here is one of those Solomon beauties:

See you next month
Kevin

[Zigzag Man]

Wow... is that a PM?

So far I've only seen frags... to see a whole colony of it is breathtaking...

If it isn't a PM then it's still an awesome coral.

[beemer]

I believe that is a loripes. Kevin?
Jerod

[kevinpo]

I'm no longer sure of what it is. At one time I thought it was A. loripes but now I'm not so sure. It definately could be but maybe not

Regards,
Kevin

[golfish]

Originally posted by Project Reef
What's up Steve? 5:01am and you're still up? You are turning into me dude. Many thanks to golfish for getting me into SPS corals. Many thanks to ROAB, turtlespd and ST for turning me into an addict. - Ali

LOL, Ali your killing me.....I think your tuning into a vampire.

I know ROAB doesn't rememebr this but I thik I sent him his first sps

[Old Yeller Tang]

Kevin,

Isn't that the "Light Lavender Monster"!

Roland

[Aged Salt]

So Roland/Kevin, let's call it the "Donny Osman" monster Bob

[kevinpo]

You guys

[Steve Tyree]

Kevinpo,

Very nice. Looks like a 'Violet Monster'. I have seen a few of those before. Need to think about that one for awhile to see if I can remember what we used to call those back in the mid to late 1990's. Awesome that you have kept it alive all these years. Perhaps we can work out a trade sometime in the future.

invincible569,

Also, you might want to see if 'Twinspot' has any stony corals that he has kept alive in captivity for 10 or more years. Those would be valuable to farm especially if he can document that he actually acquired the original 10 or more years ago with a picture.
In the very late 1980's and very early 1990's, stony corals from Hawaii where legally coming in attached to rock.

[Bomber]

Sput!

You guys aren't old enough to be veterans.

[kevinpo]

Jerel,
My oldest son turned 30 last Nov. so maybe I just feel like a veteran (that and the gray hair from the other 4 kids)

Kevin

[Bomber]

Kevin, that's just a old joke between me and Steve. I've always kidded him "I'm the much younger and better looking."

But you're right, we're all getting up there.

[Flatlander]

Originally posted by kevinpo
Jerel,
My oldest son turned 30 last Nov. so maybe I just feel like a veteran (that and the gray hair from the other 4 kids)

Kevin

Ohhhhhhh, I never knew that Kevin. Another OFR like us, just a bit younger.

[Aged Salt]

Yeah, Jerel's the only OFR I know Bob

[invincible569]

Originally posted by Steve Tyree


invincible569,

Also, you might want to see if 'Twinspot' has any stony corals that he has kept alive in captivity for 10 or more years. Those would be valuable to farm especially if he can document that he actually acquired the original 10 or more years ago with a picture.
In the very late 1980's and very early 1990's, stony corals from Hawaii where legally coming in attached to rock.

I will give it a shot. knowing him, he could of already of traded them in if it took up too much space. we will see.. he's been real busy lately.

[mborn]

I set up my first saltwater invertebrate tank in 1979 when air-stone driven under gravel filters were state of the art. I acquired my first coral in 1982, a goniopora sp.. Back then, in the US, “reef tanks� didn’t quite exist yet and I didn’t have a good understanding of what a coral actually was. Lighting for photosynthetic marine invertebrates didn’t exist in the aquarium trade. At that time I was using a fresh water plant grow light. I remember it gave off a pinkish light. Needless to say the coral only lasted maybe 4 months. It’s sort of ironic that even today goniopora are still considered very difficult. I never had one since. I set up my first proper “reeftank� in 1994 when I was living in Los Angeles and acquired my first acro in 1995. When I first saw it in one of the many aquarium shops I frequented, I couldn’t believe it. I had only seen pictures of them in books. From that point on I was addicted to sps corals.
When “The Reef Aquarium vol. I � by Sprung / Delbeek came out it really had a huge influence on me. In 1994 I was still using a trickle filter and an air-stone driven counter current protein skimmer. When I first got a copy of the book I threw out the bio-balls got a protein skimmer with a venturie valve and started dosing kalkwasser. Also after the book came out more aquarium shops in LA started getting sps corals very regularly especially when everyone saw the picture of Steve Tyree’s acro tank. Also that book gave very clear proven techniques on how to grow sps corals (techniques that weren’t commonly known back then). That’s when the demand for sps corals started to increase past just a hand full of advanced hobbyists and it became profitable for the aquarium shops to acquire larger numbers of them. I cut my sps teeth on wild colonies. From 1995 to 1997 all the sps corals I acquired (mainly acros) were wild colonies. Back then I used the standard Berlin method and it worked very well for me.
I remember when the RTN catastrophe hit in 1996 that Steve mentioned in the previous posts. It was all the buzz in some of the better local aquarium shops. Every time I bought a coral they would tell me to quarantine it or I could get a disease that could wipe out my whole sps collection. I never did though, and it never effected my tank. I think I was able to stay clear of that particular pathogen because I was buying wild colonies and not getting aqua cultured frags from an infected tank. Also I never added any of the bag water from the new coral to my tank and usually rinsed the colonies in fresh salt water before I placed them in my tank. In late 1997 I did buy a few mounted Steve Tyree acro frags from a local aquarium shop and those were the first aqua cultured sps corals I ever had.
In 1998 I moved to San Diego. I broke my tank down and traded in some of my colonies to a few local aquarium shops to help pay for some equipment I wanted to set up a better system in my new place and gave the rest to a couple of local friends who had reefs. It just seemed much easier than bagging everything up and putting it in the moving van with the rest of my crap and rushing down to S.D. to set everything up before it all died. I thought I’d just buy some new corals once I was settled into my new place. Had I thought for 1 minute that in 2004 people would sign up on 2 and 3 year waiting lists or pay $200-300 dollars for a frag of an old colony like “purple monster�, I would have held on to my colorful original colonies like they were gold and just got rid of the browns and greens. Things were much different then.