68 replies to this topic

[ice]

Looking awesome mate!

[Peckoltia]

Thanks mate. 

 

Have a couple more sps and a handful of zoas going in today. 

 

Starting to see the first signs of new growth out of my sps, which is a great sign. 

 

Calc reactor seems to being doing a good job at keeping my water param's super stable. Alk 8.4, Calc 450 and Magnesium around the 1600 mark. The algae reactor is growing chaeto like mad, and my nitrate levels are low because of it <5. 

 

Need to get a phosphate test kit - been lazy. 

 

Battling a bit of hair algae. Rocks are now clean of it, the tangs and army of snails has nailed it all. Still quite a bit in the sand bed, but that is slowly being taken care of by the crew and siphoned out. All in all things are well. If a bit of hair algae is the worst of it.

[Peckoltia]

Busted out the SLR today - been a long time since I used it, and in fairness I was never that good to begin with. Still need some tinkering as some of the colours are not quite accurate.

 

 

Bengaii Cardinal

 

 

Orange Shoulder Tang and Powder Blue enjoying some Nori. 

 

 

Group shot

 

 

 

Blonde Naso

 

 

Blue Chromis hiding out in one of my Staghorn's, Cool pic but not really accurate colour wise. Staghorn growth tips are a blue colour, rather than all white.

 

 

Zebrasoma crew - Desjardini Sailfin and Yellow Tang

 

 

SPS - Acropora tenuis 'Blue Batavia Coral Farm'. This is one of my favourite corals, and of course I do it no justice. Is a nice violet blue colour with fluorescent axial polyps.. This thing has grown heaps since I've had it and is going from strength to strength. 

Edited by Peckoltia, 16 December 2018 - 09:38 PM.

[Delapool]

Looking really nice to me - the colours are still amazing!

[Jules]

That Desjardini is stunning!! Nice score...….

 

Tanks coming along nicely Alex. Just need more fish and coral

[Peckoltia]

Delapool - thanks mate. When looking at the pics as a whole they kind of have a grayed out look to my eyes. Will definitely need some tinkering with the settings on the camera or some editing to get them to be a true reflection.

 

Jules - Thanks. Yeah the desjardini are stunning tangs. Really gives a nice contrast compared to the rest of the fish, especially the tangs. I do need more corals, but in reality i just need the ones I have to grow out! My tank is only 2 and a half months old, so think she's going alright. 

 

I actually lost my Favia 'brain coral' - first coral I have lost! Lost it when I had that mini outbreak of Dino's (only thing that was affected). Dino's came and went in 4 days - which I am very grateful for and fingers crossed the nasty bastards don't return. Another learning process for me. When I bought the Favia it had a black spot/hole in the top of the coral. One evening I noticed what I thought was a tiny shrimp darting in and out of the coral (trying to collect food particles?). There was also a secondary hole close by but nothing major and I couldn't see anything living in it. Just figured the holes would close as the coral grew. A few more holes developed, and I believe this weakened the coral and overnight the dino's took over one side of the coral (where the holes were) and then 24hrs later the entire coral was covered in dino's. I took the coral out and dried it in the sun. All of the holes were created by what I now know to be 'Gall Crabs'. I counted 7 of these crabs in total that the drying process brought out of the coral. Some people believe that these crabs are not harmful and some people remove them at all costs, I will now fall into the second category. 

 

These crabs make their home, normally in LPS (predominantly Favia and Elegenace from what I understand) and kind of burrow into the flesh and the coral grows around them. The female is the crab that lives in the hole and they use their back to block the hole up. The male is free to roam around. Ugly looking buggers - look like a tick. I dip all of my corals before placing them in the tank, it is possible that these crabs are unaffected by the dip, my dipping procedure is insufficient or and probably the most plausible answer is that the dip is effective (most dips 'stun' and not kill parasites so they fall off the coral) but they are within the hole so they don't actually fall out of the hole as they are wedged in then when placed inside the tank they then recover and carry on with life.

 

I was saying to Jules that Reef Keeping has been a pretty steep learning curve (not that anything has gone wrong) and I feel their is a nasty algae,parasite or disease lurking around every corner. Compared to freshwater is is crazy. I think in the previous 25 years of FW keeping I dealt with whitespot maybe once? and Hole in the Head once and that was about it. 

Edited by Peckoltia, 17 December 2018 - 09:40 AM.

[Peckoltia]

Top down SPS shots.

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[Peckoltia]

 

 

Ticking along....

[Jules]

This tank will look stunning in a year or so once your sps colonies take shape!

Really loving it.