KimP

Had a chance to get pics of 2 of the many baby sun polyps popping up in my tank. Has anyone else had this happen?

It should branch quickly. They grow very fast! My husband calls it the saguaro cactus And thank you, I am really enjoying it.

Yes, yes, updates! Life has been keeping me away from my laptop where all the pictures live. The biggest news I have is the addition of a spiral wire coral I scored from Aqua Dome. In my research before buying I learned that it isn't a gorgonian at all like most people seem to refer to it as. It is a black coral, which isn't even an octocoral, it's a hexacoral. So not even that close to a gorg. Also it's skeleton is made out of chiton which I though was interesting. From what I could gather they seem pretty easy to keep, even eating mysis. Oh, and another thing I found interesting is some species have zooxanthellae but are NOT photosynthetic. Weird. I guess they haven't evolved to take advantage of the goodies produced by the zooxanthellae yet. Anyway, I am very much enjoying it. It still only has the tips of it's polyps out, but I noticed some mysis particles sticking to it, so I think we're in business. I was going through some older photos and realized one of my maze brains has grown like crazy! Must be all the reading material I give it Or more likely the mysis it catches. I'm still noticing sun polyps popping up all over. I'm fine with it because they are pretty and I can definitely use the color in all the dark parts of my rock tower. There are a lot on the sides. Just hope they find enough food. My MIA basket star showed back up, only to have the other one wonder off yesterday. I hope it returns soon. I need to put a leash on these guys, or maybe a tracking device. I like to see that they eat at least every other day or so for sure. I added 3 berghia nudibranches a couple weeks ago. I've only notice 2 small aiptasia gone, and my 2 biggies are still there, but it's a little soon I guess. Oh, I also finally got rid of the peppermint shrimp. Those guys drove me nuts having nps to feed. The mp10 I got didn't work out at all. Almost right away here came a seahorse. She got sucked to the side of the pump and I pulled the power just as she was slipping her tail around to inside the fan for grip. Whew! They are totally not seahorse proof. The side bars are spaced too far apart and the blades are literally right under the frame. Also the front is wide open. I'm bummed but will have to figure out something else. Any idea I have for a cover will probably impede the flow too much to be worth it. At least with the koralias the blades are teeny and way way inside a large frame with bars much closer together. As you will see in the pictures I have pretty much all the corals in their final places except for a new sun coral colony that I will eventually secure to the ledge/overhang on the left. Right now I need to remove it every other day to a feeding bowl until it starts to look better. This fts is with only the whites on because I was trying to get a good pic of the spiral coral with my cell phone. Please comment if you have any ideas for better flow, or coral placement.

Happy birthday!

I don't know what's best but my water goes in the toilet simply because it's quick and easy. Never put much thought into it. On the lawn sounds fine, but sodium build up in soil can be a serious problem down the road, so maybe spread it out. I'm curious what others do...

That's a great one. I got one of those silver gorgs from the dome many months ago. They grow so fast and always keep the polyps way out, even when there are seahorses hanging all over it. It doesn't shed either which is great. I love your collection! I wonder what type the little frag is? Do you know what the one on the right, in the middle picture is? I like the way it branches. Thanks for posting pictures!

I'd love to see pics of them!

Oooo what gorg did you get? I was there this evening too and they do have a lot of neat fish! Seahorses and pipefish too.

Kinda hard to see on my phone, but looks like bryopsis to me

Just a quick update on things. I have sun coral polyps popping up in nooks and crannies. At first I was worried they might be aiptasia or something, but they are very clearly sun polyps now Pretty neat! I certainly never expected that. My basket stars are getting lots of new splits on their legs, which I'm assuming means they are not only surviving, but growing. I'm very happy about that! Two days ago the biggest one moved off of it's spot on the gorgonian and I haven't seen it since That kind of sucks but hopefully it'll pop up again somewhere. My only concern is I can't spot feed it if I don't know where it is. I acquired 2 scolys this week in not-so-great shape. I'm hoping with the feeding my tank gets that they will heal right up. They seem to be good eaters so far I'm just about done stocking it with corals, so I still have some placement to do, mostly with zoas, and I can finally just sit back and watch everything grow. It's been tricky to get the zoas glued in place because they are so low in the tank. It's like playing the game Operation every time I try to work in there these days. That's why there are still frags sitting in the sand, and scattered around. Eventually it'll be all cleaned up, glass and all. And I will remember to turn the darn livingroom lamps off for the next fts Oh! and I picked up an mp10, so hopefully this weekend I can figure out where I want to place it and be able to get rid of some of the koralias I have in there.

Did the zoas melt right away, or how long did it take for you to realize you increased the intensity too fast?

Well things are looking great with the light even though I've been too busy to borrow a par meter again. I've been slowly increasing the % output maybe once a week. Right now I'm up to W 44% B 40% R 40% It turns out my corals were staying closed at first because it was way too dim. Everything opened right up once I got it into the 30% range. I have to remember my tank is deeper than most and I'm only running one unit, not two. I don't know exactly when I'll stop increasing. I guess I'll need a par meter by then. I'm going to bring it up 2% per week for a while. I want to supply enough light to support coral growth while running the fixture less than 100% to preserve the life of the unit, if that makes sense. I just have to find that balance. One thing I love about it is how cool it runs! Way cooler than my t5's even. When I touch it, it feels room temp I'm also really enjoying the controller doing all the work of gradually increasing the light all day until 2pm, then gradually decreasing until 9 when only the royal blues are on, then they gradually fade into the moon cycle at 2%. This way when I actually get some time to play with my tank around 9pm, I can enjoy the incredible pop of color I've been really busy lately, but I have an update on corals and my basket star, plus pics coming soon!

Wow! Very cool.

Welcome! I look forward to hearing about your tanks.

Well unfortunately I haven't had any time to play with it. I just have it on manual W20% B25% R25%. I did notice most of my corals staying closed like it was still dark :/ I'm kinda lost at the moment as far as the light. I don't know what corals do if exposed to too much light, so I don't know what to look for. What I need to do is borrow a par meter again. The last thing I need is to fry all of my coral! I've read several people starting their light at like 20% then moving up 2% per day. Then I realized last night that they probably don't have a 30"deep tank and may have more than one unit. Anyway, I will get a chance to play with it this weekend and I'll keep this thread updated. Thanks for asking Did you have any trouble acclimating your tank to the new light?

Wow, those are amazing!

That's really awesome! I'll have to make it up there one of these days.

It was tricky figuring out how to make sure it hung like I wanted over the tank, but I think I got it. I still haven't decided on the height. There's a lot of light spill, so tomorrow I'll play with it more. First are 2 pictures of the whole thing, then just the whites, just the blue, just the royal, and the blue and royal blue only. It's very easy to use, but I haven't tried to program it yet, so I might change my mind on how easy it is!! I have to make sure not to shock anything. I'm pretty worried about it actually. Might have to borrow a par meter again to match my old light. Oh, and I put the legs on backwards in order to basically lock the light into place. It slides on the rails and can slide right off! There are reports all over of people who've done that. I might leave them like that because I actually don't mind the way it looks So, lots of tweaking to do tomorrow, then after I get the coral I ordered from Mr. Cob on Sunday night, I'll get the corals moved around that I've needed to do for a while. Oh yeah, one more thing, I still had the glass tops on when I took the pics, so I don't know if that contributed to the light spill from reflection. I don't usually have the tank covered.

The rails came in today . I got everything assembled, and the first thing I did was run the thunderstorm setting for a minute Very cool!

Oh my gosh, that was too funny! I haven't seen that in ages Looks like he did deliver the box! That's actually the only reason I had a picture of it, was because of the beat-up box. It was a big box though and the contents were small with a ton of bubble wrap and packing paper, so hopefully all is well. We'll see! Thanks for all the nice comments! Y'all are making me even more excited! I'll get pictures up asap.

Here are the pictures I have so far of my new lights. Not too exciting though because the box containing the mounting rail is a day late, so I can't do anything but wonder what it will look like The hanging kit I ordered didn't come with any instructions. It wasn't too hard to figure out how most of it goes together, but I have no clue how the thing hooks up to the toggle bolts that go into the ceiling. I'll probably be posting soon in DIY if I can't figure it out on the internet. So tomorrow will be the big day!! (here's hoping )