+Grog Posted January 7 Author Share Posted January 7 11 hours ago, Timfish said: I don't know why you bothered, that Hollywood Stunner is going to cover the tank soon enough. 😃 This I do not doubt. I was doing some chalice reading the other day and went down this rat hole of huge Hollywood Stunners. There are some big ones, and everyone says, "Oh this is after two years." Lots of stories like that. And since it grows radially, it is going to get more square inches per month for sure. Now if that Proud Leopard grows anywhere near that fast, it will be awesome. Very cool colors and the halides bring them out. I'm quickly becoming a chalice fan. The 250W halide bumped my temp up 2 degrees in four hours. So, I bought a small fan to run on the surface. I'll mount it where the Kessil arm was. I'll get an updated FTS tomorrow when I have the halides on. Just rnning them for 4 hours a day right now to adjust everything to them. STRONG is a word I would use. Very happy now. Tank has a good color and that shimmer that I love. Proud Leopard under halide. Ignore that bit of algae on the glass on top of the chalice left bottom. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Grog Posted January 7 Author Share Posted January 7 Full tank shot under the new halide and T5 actinic and I did some rearranging. I hate the look of frag racks in a DT but... I need this little egg crate one for a bit while I'm acclimating all these things. I have a conch in the tank. They sift the sand like nothing else and have a tendency to burrow under frags and knock them over. This is kind of a preventative measure against that happening. (I suspect the conch will still find a way to mess stuff up.) After the light change and acclimation is done, I'll permanently attach the frags somewhere. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Grog Posted January 14 Author Share Posted January 14 Gonna get cold this week folks! I'm running to the coast to keep the pipes from freezing in a 90-year-old pier and beam house with zero insulation. Fun. Got off the couch to do some repairs to the 40. ATO failed a week ago and I've been manually topping off. Installed the new one today. I'll be out of town for a few days, and I cannot get my wife to do anything tank related. I'm lucky that she even feeds them. Also, I set up a new power strip for the halides and a small exhaust too. Everything is back automated now they just need food and some glass cleaning. The single 250W halide I'm running with T5 now was raising the water temp to 82. Got a small Hygger fan for $15 and it keeps it right at 79.8 - 80 F where I want it. As far as Chinese cheap reefing gear, the Hygger stuff seems OK. I got a cleaning tool with removable heads. Neat little fiberglass rod etc. Well made but we will need to see how the 'stainless' parts hold up. Stay warm folks! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timfish Posted January 16 Share Posted January 16 One of my best clients hired me because his wife refused to help anymore when he went on business trips. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Grog Posted January 21 Author Share Posted January 21 Thanks for helping yesterday, Tim! The halide and T5 combo are STRONG! 3000 PAR at the surface. Yes, 3000, and 400 in the sand bed. Right now, the lights are running 12 hours on T5 and 6 of halide in the middle of the T5 cycle. I will turn that down to 5 hours. I found some Phoenix 14000k bulbs and will swap the Odyssea for that. Tim agreed the stock bulb ain't 20000k, more like 10000k LOL. I was torn between the Reefbrite, Phoenix, and Plusrite bulbs. I've had good luck with Plusrite 20000k but they are unavailable now. Phoenix has been around for a while. The 14000k should look way better than this stock bulb. If I like it, I'll order a case and be set for halides for the next decade. So, Phoenix 14000k is what I went with. I like the actinic when the halide is on but alone it is not as pleasant. Going to run a single different colored bulb to get some other colors. Aqua blue special is my first choice. (I had to go back to my notes.) After HEAVY gets installed in the living room, I'll build a similar stand for the 40 and we will raise it up about 15" higher for viewing. At that time, I plan to also build a hanging mechanism for the halides to get them off of the surface a bit. This will reduce the surface PAR some, reduce the heat, and allow me easier access for cleaning. Livestock? Well between the coral banded shrimp, and the angel, they killed two other fish: (cryptic 6 line and Helfrichi) This coral banded shrimp is way meaner than the ones I've had previously. So, I added a single blenny to the mix. Blenny getting along ok as he's a little swifter than the other two were. I got a bunch of frags that I need to glue down today. I think they have been in acclimation mode in the sand bed for long enough. Now back to painting and plumbing on HEAVY. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timfish Posted January 23 Share Posted January 23 Appogee PAR meter is nice but seeing tanks like yours that don't look like what the color temp of the bulbs claims bugs me. I have a fair confidence in my guessing ability since I see lots of differnet tanks but it's still an educated opinion. One of these days I'm going to have to get a Licor that produces a chart of the visible light output Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Grog Posted January 24 Author Share Posted January 24 Odyssea bulbs have always been garbage, you saw how the T5 was assembled. The Phoenix bulbs should be here tomorrow. I'm excited. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timfish Posted January 24 Share Posted January 24 Yeah, I'm surprised therre hasn't been a lawsuit. With the end sockets falling off so quickly it has to have caused issues with someone. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Grog Posted January 27 Author Share Posted January 27 Per my other post, today is my reefing day. Tank cleaned, water change, and glued all my loose frags down: 3 green stylos, the candy cane, and two new gorgonians. NO FRAG RACK IN THE DISPLAY! NO LOOSE FRAGS! Yay! Even cleaned the covers on the light fixture. Trying to keep the hair algae at bay. Vacuuming it out when I do water changes. A little caulerpa is regrowing and that I don't mind so much. Way better looking than hair algae. I'm rooting for it to outcompete. Go team caulerpa! Here is a picture without a lens filter. Running two actinic T5, two aquablue special T5, and one Plusrite 14k 250W halide. It looks more 10-12k in person. It is better than the Oddysea bulb but still not clear or blue enough for me. I have a Reefbrite 20k on order and hope to swap it out next week. Obligatory FTS below. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Grog Posted February 9 Author Share Posted February 9 Happy Friday people! Here are Galaxea doing Galaxea things. I looked back at old pictures of this one. It is growing well. My best guess is about 25-30% increase in size via polyp counts and eyeball math. It appears to be expanding outwards not vertically. The side on the right is where I see growth. The colony is not radial per say, it has become kind of liver shaped. My hope is that this one takes over the middle of the tank and fills in spaces between the rocks. Second picture is the green variant. It is growing too. The things on the bottom were indeed new heads. Picture from today attached and you can see the polyps emerging. I'm in agreement with Tim though, I the white spongy stuff is some sort of sponge. It is strange. It grows and contracts over the weeks. IMO the green variant is a much slower grower. It almost NEVER has any sweepers. I'm not saying it doesn't, but I've never witnessed any out. I guess the white one makes up for it. Last picture is the whiter Galaxea when I bought it in April of 2023 for reference. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Grog Posted February 9 Author Share Posted February 9 I guess today is a progress report day. Other corals I don't talk about a lot. Purple Stylo: Not sure why this isn't on everyone's beginner or easy to grow coral list. Looks like the 'stick' corals but super easy to grow and isn't fazed by anything. As in, I've seen crabs hanging on it, snails, light changes, nutrient levels, it is fairly bullet proof. So much so when I got the frags in the mail, they had good polyp extension on arrival, in the bag. I liked the purple so much I bought some green to go along with it. But the purple is a great color in the tank. Highly recommend. Here is what they looked like when I got them in May of 2023. Small frag. Here is what they look like today. Excellent growth and the frag plugs are totally encrusted. Yes, there is an algae problem. Not sure why but that one rock is a trouble spot in the tank. I scrape it weekly. But hey, I'll show the good and the bad. This hobby is fun, but it ain't all roses. The Caulerpa I don't mind so much but the hair algae is awful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timfish Posted February 10 Share Posted February 10 I've complained about the terms "SPS" "LPS" and "Softies" being used to deonote difficulty in keeping and Purple Stylo is a perfect example how those terms don't work. It's one of the hardiest corals I've come across. Keeps it's colors under a wide range of lighting conditions, tolerates conditions that kills 'shrooms and leathers, and is a potential indicator of low PO4 when the purple starts to shift to pink. I've even had a small colony survive 50° when I forgot it overnight in a bucket in my truck. You'll see people blame the algae on PO4 being released by teh rock. Problem I have with that assumption is I've seen localized hair hair algae issues like that on glass ond acrylic. Biofilms can also sequester huge amounts of PO4 so that has to be taken into account in explaining nuisance algae issues. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Grog Posted February 18 Author Share Posted February 18 Something cool. One of my crabs. Not sure if it's the mitrhax or pithos has molted and changed colors to a powder blue. I'm liking this. I think it is the mitrhax as the pithos have a different shape. He's been hanging out under the Hollywood Stunner and munching algae. 😎 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timfish Posted February 18 Share Posted February 18 Cool! It'll be interesting if it keeps that color or if it's just something that happens with a newly exposed exoskeleton after molting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Grog Posted March 28 Author Share Posted March 28 Water change yesterday. No real updates but the Hollywood Stunner is liking the T5 lighting. Like a lot! Tons of growth. This will be it's tank soon. Had to remind myself. Macros are not nutrient export unless you actually remove it from the tank. Pulled a boatload of caulerpa out. I think it is out competing the hair algae. I'll take that a a minor victory. Pic of the Stunner. All the white edges are new growth. Pretty much all since the light change. Still hoping it blues up..... Oh well. Can't have everything 🤣 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timfish Posted March 29 Share Posted March 29 I'd think it needs more intense light to get brighter colors. But comparing colors and growth to a couple of mine from the same clone line the growth of yours might slow down. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Grog Posted April 6 Author Share Posted April 6 Added a gold torch back to the tank yesterday and it is opening up. Hopefully, my euphyllia funk is gone from the tank! Oh, there is my monti and the blue crab (crab bottom right under the monti's rock.). His color seems to be sticking. Galaxea has a name now. Bob. Don't know why but Bob seemed fitting. The Night Eyes zoanthids have really adjusted to the tank and are spreading fast. Other side of the tank, they are filling in gaps in the rocks. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Grog Posted April 6 Author Share Posted April 6 Forgot to do the FTS. Tank ain't perfect but I'm happy with where it's at. Tomorrow it will get a 10% water change and that caulerpa will get pruned big time. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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