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FarmerTy's 215 build


FarmerTy

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You're talking about the mariculture coral right? It used to be more in the middle under a slightly more yellow bulb (I use cheap plusrite bulbs at $13/bulb so color spectrum varies sometimes) and it was more of a 10k spectrum (hence more yellow and brown) and the coral itself was probably at 300-400 par. I moved it over the holidays to directly under my right MH which gives a more 14k-20k look with 700-800 par and it slowly went from a brown stick colony to the colony in the last pic. It was a pretty surprising transformation in the last couple of months. It was this close to getting booted from my system but it must have heard me and did it's best to stay.

I will say I also let my nitrates get to around 10 ppm to see how it would affect colors in my sps and didn't like it. When I moved it back down to 5 ppm, I still didn't like it. So I have since moved it back down to 0.25 ppm and everything has ditched the brown for the most part and colored up.

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Sorry I was joking that the color of that coral is similar to the "blue dress" picture that has gone viral. In the first pic it is white and gold a color some people see and in the second pic the coral looked blue and black which is the actual color of the dress. I was just checking if I was seeing the right colors in your pics.

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Sorry I was joking that the color of that coral is similar to the "blue dress" picture that has gone viral. In the first pic it is white and gold a color some people see and in the second pic the coral looked blue and black which is the actual color of the dress. I was just checking if I was seeing the right colors in your pics.

A lot of times a healthy coral loses it's coloration in transit and appears to be pink or beige. Not to be confused with white. After a few months in a good tank the coral will start to develop different colors based on the zooxanthellae that it grows. There is almost no way to tell what it will look like beforehand. Some will turn out to be solid greens or reds, but sometimes you get one like Ty got there. It's very exciting!

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Sorry I was joking that the color of that coral is similar to the "blue dress" picture that has gone viral. In the first pic it is white and gold a color some people see and in the second pic the coral looked blue and black which is the actual color of the dress. I was just checking if I was seeing the right colors in your pics.

[emoji24] Hilarious! I'm so sorry I missed that joke... actually partially ashamed but ol' Aggie was correct to advise me to ask my much hipper college grad school wife about it and she showed me the punchline of the joke. Too funny and I'm so sorry I missed it. Of all people, I truly appreciate subtle social cued jokes so it's more painful to me that I missed this one. [emoji30]
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Sorry I was joking that the color of that coral is similar to the "blue dress" picture that has gone viral. In the first pic it is white and gold a color some people see and in the second pic the coral looked blue and black which is the actual color of the dress. I was just checking if I was seeing the right colors in your pics.

A lot of times a healthy coral loses it's coloration in transit and appears to be pink or beige. Not to be confused with white. After a few months in a good tank the coral will start to develop different colors based on the zooxanthellae that it grows. There is almost no way to tell what it will look like beforehand. Some will turn out to be solid greens or reds, but sometimes you get one like Ty got there. It's very exciting!
Yeah, super excited! Part of the new joy I'm deriving from mariculture these days.
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Have you had great success with the mariculture? It's fantastic when you're not after anything in particular. The unaimed arrow never misses.

I've picked up some corals thinking they were something and they turned out to be something else entirely. Slightly disappointing, but each piece turned out to be great.

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Yeah, with mariculture, it's hit or miss. I just try to avoid the "sirens" of the industry, such as acropora spathulata, which look ridiculously gorgeous when imported in but have dismal survival rates and they rarely keep those amazing colors.

Once the fish are reintroduced into the system and everything balances out again, I'll probably order a bunch more to stock the left side of my tank and boot the placeholder corals over there currently. Then just watch them grow and color up and boot the ones I don't enjoy as much as the others. I'll keep my fingers crossed on those diamonds in the rough.

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Yeah, with mariculture, it's hit or miss. I just try to avoid the "sirens" of the industry, such as acropora spathulata, which look ridiculously gorgeous when imported in but have dismal survival rates and they rarely keep those amazing colors.

Once the fish are reintroduced into the system and everything balances out again, I'll probably order a bunch more to stock the left side of my tank and boot the placeholder corals over there currently. Then just watch them grow and color up and boot the ones I don't enjoy as much as the others. I'll keep my fingers crossed on those diamonds in the rough.

when this "booting" occurs i hope that i am in a postion to rehome the dejected and evicted

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Whoa whoa whoa, what happened to "I have so many corals and so little open realty in my tank to stock any more SPS"? You better let me know when you plan on re-stocking, I'm going to want to jump in on this shipment rock.gif

Also, who do you get your maricultures from?

Yeah, with mariculture, it's hit or miss. I just try to avoid the "sirens" of the industry, such as acropora spathulata, which look ridiculously gorgeous when imported in but have dismal survival rates and they rarely keep those amazing colors.

Once the fish are reintroduced into the system and everything balances out again, I'll probably order a bunch more to stock the left side of my tank and boot the placeholder corals over there currently. Then just watch them grow and color up and boot the ones I don't enjoy as much as the others. I'll keep my fingers crossed on those diamonds in the rough.

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Haha, you called me out!

I've had placeholder corals on the left side of my tank for awhile now. 12" in diameter screaming green birdsnest colony, 9" in diameter purple stylo colony, 8" in diameter kryptonite candy cane colony, and a 5" in diameter pagoda cup.

They will all be making an exit from my tank sometime late Spring or early summer to make room for some new mariculture colonies. I just wanted to make sure all my current SPS were happy and growing before spending the money on some more mariculture.

I usually get my mariculture from Austin Aqua Farms, RCA, and Nikos. I may look into Battle corals as well since ol ' Aggie had a great experience with them.

I'll hit you up when I'm thinking about it if you want to join in.

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Well, I have some sad news to report. The regal angel that I had spent all this time and effort to train to eat mysis and pellets and treated for all manner of diseases, perished today for no known reason. He didn't look diseased and had a healthy appetite the last 1.5 weeks. Maybe there was something else I could have done but perhaps not. I don't know.

I've read about adults having a hard time acclimating to tank conditions and will make it a month and then just die. I wonder if that's what happened?

Either case, I'm pretty bummed and probably will not be trying another one right now. I'll wait until all my fish are back in the tank and happy again before I even think of going through the whole QT process again. I forgot to mention that my naso died a couple weeks back. He looked oddly constipated and would not eat. I tried some different methods to help him pass but they didn't work and he ended up passing away. I'm not sure if it was a reaction to the QT treatments or if I inadvertently fed him something that he probably shouldn't have eaten. I know I tried a lot of different foods to get my regal to eat and perhaps the naso ate something that didn't agree with his system.

This fish catastrophe has definitely been trying with the marine velvet outbreak and the resultant deaths of other fishes, whether from the disease itself or from the QT process. I have however learned at lot on a subject that was always one of my weaker disciplines within the reefing world. I've learned a lot about symptoms of various diseases, how to treat different diseases, what medication is best applied when needed, and how to setup an appropriate QT system.

I hope that this experience, as with many others I get with this hobby, only helps to strengthen my knowledge and experience so that I can forgo some of the same pitfalls the next time around.

One thing I learned for sure... QT QT QT... I've just been on the + side of the gamble for the past 11 years... all it takes is one fish to destroy your entire fish population!

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Thanks guys. I'll rebound, like I always do. Tough to keep a reefer down! [emoji4]

Purely coincidental, I had bought a used 57-watt AquaUV sterilizer and came back with it when I discovered the regal was dead.

I guess now is a better time than ever to hook it up. I'm having a little trouble diagnosing the plumbing of it though.

Ideally, I'd like for it to pull water from the bottom of the tank and return water to the top but that's just not feasible in my tank without having an ugly tube or pipe showing up in my tank. Although ideal, I'm not going to bother.

Alternatively, I'd really like to have it plumbed to my return pump line so that an additional pump is not needed. AquaUVs recommended flow through the UV for reef tanks is 2,100 gph. I don't think that's going to be a reality. I have a sicce syncra 12 as my return right now with a 3200 gph rating (with 6' head puts it roughly 2,600 gph) but I measured the returns and they only putting out 720 gph together. I have 240 gph feeding my chiller (which after measuring realized it's not fast enough either through the chiller) and roughly 120 gph for my biopellet reactor.

That puts me at 1,080 gph. Where's my other 1,520 gph?

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