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Yawgmoft posted:I absolutely love your GSP. It absolutely loves your tank. Everything gets a hug.
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Apr 6, 2011 18:50
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Yawgmoft posted:I absolutely love your GSP. Thanks, have a video Funny thing about GSP, that's not the rock it came in on. That is probably less than 12 months growth. I don't know what happened to the rock it came in on, I think it got buried and died or something I don't really remember.
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Apr 6, 2011 20:09
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arioch posted:It absolutely loves your tank. Everything gets a hug. Yeah, I really like the soft flowy corals, so I think your tank looks great. I was actually going to ask you what that was on the left, but you had already answered. After the horror stories I've read on RC about GSP, I think I will pass on that one.
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Apr 6, 2011 20:29
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revmoo posted:Thanks, have a video GSP and Xenia go apeshit in my tank  I've since sold the large rock of GSP, and it has more or less filled in the entire back of the aquarium. I've also fragged out most of the xenia -- spreads like wildfire.
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Apr 6, 2011 20:42
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I've accidentally introduced xenia in my tank and I just end up pulling it out by the stalk. Where it attaches to the rockwork can actually fairly easily detached with some minor scraping, so unless it pops itself into a hole you can quite easily pull it off. If it is in a hole, I just cut off as much as I can then plaster the stump with kalk.
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Apr 6, 2011 21:11
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Right now I've only got issues with the green striped mushrooms taking over. I've been aggressively siphoning them out during water changes (I get a dozen or so a week that way). Though, I've also got crazy algae issues, and I think my ballasts in my MHs are going. I'm losing some SPS and my RPEs are getting washed out again. I don't really want to replace the ballasts, so I'm thinking of just dumping everything. I've been wanting to go with a 60 cube and reef lit by LED, or go crazy with a 180+ shark / ray / eel tank. I also have learned to hate acrylic haha.
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Apr 6, 2011 21:34
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arioch posted:Have you ever seen a truly obese mandarin? Holy poo poo. My YWG looks like this one, but with a chin where I edited. 
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Apr 7, 2011 00:11
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Yawgmoft posted:I absolutely love your GSP. When you are ripping it off the walls of your tank in sheets you won't love it so much. It grows obscenely. Add it to the list of 'beginner' corals along with yellow polyps, xenia, and texas trash corals and you'll have the softie equivalent of an impenetrable amazon rainforest canopy.
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Apr 7, 2011 03:05
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Oh great, monti eating nudis. http://optikal.smugmug.com/Aquariums/Fishies/IMG3998/1242732404_megKn-X3.jpg  http://optikal.smugmug.com/Aquariums/Fishies/IMG4000/1242732360_yCnZk-X3.jpg 
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Apr 7, 2011 03:23
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 That sucks man.Thankfully, I'm thus far free from AEFW, red bugs, M-EN, and A-EN (every now and then somebody documents a case where they find nudis reproducing and chowing down on acros. Like we didn't have anything else we needed to worry about).
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Apr 7, 2011 03:40
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Those corals are a goner. I'm going to let this poo poo run its course, wait a month to make sure they die out completely, then part it out. It's been fun, though. The same drat LFS gave me these and acoel flatworms. Screw that place.
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Apr 7, 2011 04:08
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optikalus posted:Those corals are a goner. I'm going to let this poo poo run its course, wait a month to make sure they die out completely, then part it out. It's been fun, though. oh poo poo, where is it an whats the name of the place? If by coincidence you live near someone reading this thread it may help to steer away from there.
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Apr 7, 2011 04:22
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Encinitas Tropical Fish in Encinitas, CA. They're good people and have the best corals in my area by far, but I've seen them take frags from customers and put them right in their displays (they bought a bunch of my old GSP, Xenia and Zoas and just plopped them right in the main tank with all their other frags for sale).
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Apr 7, 2011 04:27
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I've got several LFS around me but the only one that has a decent coral selection is over an hour away. I've succeeded in getting almost every single piece of coral I own from other hobbyists or local club Frag-a-thons. One has awful SW selection and a bunch of half brown jelly LPS, the other just has a bunch of brown stuff that I really don't want. The third has a huge (like 48"x48"x14") frag tank lit by halides, but they're super expensive and also an hour away. Oh well!
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Apr 7, 2011 04:29
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I live a block away from World Wide Corals 
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Apr 7, 2011 04:41
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Dono posted:I live a block away from World Wide Corals  Although I can't really complain about the selection here.
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Apr 7, 2011 05:44
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arioch posted:
Where are you? And more so that WWC and some of the other LFS near me I'm really glad there is a huge reef keeping community in Orlando and South florida (both of which Im apart of). I've gotten so many frags for next to nothings that are amazing rarity and quality. No to mention the expertise and knowledge I've been able to take from the people here. We have a lot of really large and great frags swaps here as well. Every 2-3 months and they are always packed full of reefers.
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Apr 7, 2011 06:53
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Chicagoland. Basically the big international airports all have a region of high activity reefing for obvious reasons--Chicago, NYC, LA, Miami, and (soon if not now) Dallas. LA and Miami have additional advantages, but I've got no complaints up here. VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE fucked around with this message at 09:18 on Apr 7, 2011 |
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Apr 7, 2011 09:14
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optikalus posted:Oh great, monti eating nudis. Noooo, you shouldn't give up on them, especially that first one. If you don't want to spend money on dip, just take a toothbrush and scrub all along the edge and underneath it. Do it every other day and keep an eye on it, you can beat them!
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Apr 7, 2011 19:51
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Lazy Bastard posted:Noooo, you shouldn't give up on them, especially that first one. If you don't want to spend money on dip, just take a toothbrush and scrub all along the edge and underneath it. Do it every other day and keep an eye on it, you can beat them! I'd have to just put them right back in the tank with the nudis again. I don't have the will to build a new QT system (with MH or T5HO) just to keep my few monti frags alive. I've been unhappy with this tank for a while now, and have kind of let maintenance slide. I think it is time to let it go.
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Apr 7, 2011 20:34
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OTOH if you're cleaning off nudis off the colony every day (into a waste container) then they're not eating, if they're not eating they're starving, if they're starving they're not reproducing. So it's pretty easy to take your system back from nudis if your colonies are small and mobile, which it looks like yours are. The real horror comes in like introducing zoo-eating nudis in a zoo-heavy tank. Then you'd be scrambling to save some frags and let the whole tank's zoo's die out. Which I've seen people have to do.
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Apr 7, 2011 21:34
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Well, giving up can save your tank also. I went through the same phase before, when all seems lost. You have to remember that these are still delicate saltwater creatures, even nudi and red bugs. If say you let your salinity slowly slide to 1.030 for a few months, or have 14 dkh alk for a while, or don't change the water for half a year, they will die off. And you'll be surprised how some corals can survive through all of these, I'm not saying all but some will. Went through all that poo poo when I first started years ago. I have bad luck with tanks and poo poo always happens when things are going well. The latest adventure begun march of last year: ************************* Downgrade tank to 40 breeder in preparation of incoming newborn son. Came home one day to find my garage wall leaking water, right at the level where the tank is on the other side of the wall...  Emergency tank bought on spur of the moment and kinda regret, it was either that or just post on reefcentral and ask someone to come take everything off my hands. Lost a loooot of stuff from this.  Incoming newborn baby *bam* tank neglected for 6 months.  January 2011. Well I must still be doing something right because the corals are growing like crazy. Plus only half the tank is functioning because I just have my one pendant over the right side.  Yesterday, after spending a few months cleaning up the tank and getting another pendant, APEX reef controller, and a few other items to make my life easier (after all these years). Right side:  Left side: 
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Apr 8, 2011 03:23
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^^^ something something shrooms every day Fellow reefers say when they go "hands off" for like a few weeks or a couple months actually see their tanks doing better as a result. (Assuming you have your dosing/reactors properly tuned, of course)
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Apr 8, 2011 03:46
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 Got a pretty sweet looking brain coral a week ago :] Also pictured: coco worm with two live barnacles on it I wish I had actinic lights/a better camera so it could look as cool as some of your guys' pics
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Apr 8, 2011 20:07
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That's a nice platygyra (brain maze coral), and I don't think actinics would make it look any better than that.
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Apr 8, 2011 22:55
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Yeah, it looks pretty much the same to my eye, but I like the actinic pics where everything looks more shiny...also, I need to get that coralline off my glass but I've been lazy with buying the scrapers you guys recommended a while ago. I got it for 55 at my LFS. I was going to get an open brain but this one looked so cool I had to get it. Looking at online prices maybe I overpaid a little bit, but...it's healthy and behaving like it should, unlike all the other online coral specimens I've purchased.
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Apr 8, 2011 23:08
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I had the same platygyra at one point and I don't think it actually fluoresces under actinics.
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Apr 8, 2011 23:25
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It seems to be doing good so far...I feed it live brine shrimp or pods or frozen brine/mysis blocks when it has its tentacles out, and I make sure to maintain proper calcium+strontium+trace stuff. Since you've had them before, any other tips? What will happen to it if its health starts to deteriorate? The LFS guy said it'll start to turn brown, but I wasn't clear which part would - I assume the greenish part.
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Apr 8, 2011 23:43
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Typically they do about as well as any standard LPS, so if you keep frogspawns etc it should be about as healthy and/or responsive to environmental conditions. I've heard of people having problems with brown jelly on these things, but frankly not that often.
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Apr 9, 2011 00:11
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Question for the experts. I picked up a 55 gal on craigslist that came with a Coralife fluorescent lighting fixture. The fans in it were seized, but I fixed that without any problem. It's got 2 pairs of lights in it, the rear set turns on without an issue. The front set is on the same circuit as the fans, when I power it on the fans spin but the bulbs wont turn on (Though about one in 20 tries they try for about a quarter second and then turn back off). What should be the first thing I'm looking at replacing here?
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Apr 12, 2011 07:24
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If you've switched the bulbs and they do the same thing (rear set turns on, front set doesn't) then replace the ballast module inside the fixture.
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Apr 12, 2011 08:20
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If you have to replace a ballast, I would just gut the lights and retrofit it with T5 from Hellolights (http://www.hellolights.com/t5-retrofitkits.aspx), or if you're really handy, some DIY LEDs. It will let you grow more corals and will look a lot better than PC.
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Apr 12, 2011 16:08
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arioch posted:If you've switched the bulbs and they do the same thing (rear set turns on, front set doesn't) then replace the ballast module inside the fixture. I did, this is what I was thinking but I was hoping I was wrong and could get off without buying a ballast. I don think the retrofit is necessary, its actually a freshwater planted tank, I just figured this would be the better thread to ask in.
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Apr 13, 2011 00:57
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Finally, a full description of AEFW -- http://www.springerlink.com/content/b78j5254rw683150/
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Apr 16, 2011 02:52
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http://despayre.imgur.com/reefing#1lZH6 I took and uploaded some more pictures recently:  Strawberry shortcake - colors are coming in, including what will be a brilliant purple base. I got this frag off this colony:  Tank shots:  "front"  "front", top + left  "front", top + right  "rear"  "rear", top + right  "rear", top + left  "left"  "right"  A. gomezi? A. tortuosa? You tell me. I'm leaning towards gomezi.  A. austera? Dunno! New frags:   New colonies:  
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Apr 26, 2011 00:03
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Wow, that is an amazing tank. I don't even know where to start.
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Apr 26, 2011 01:07
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Yea wow, you have a jaw dropping tank, great colors in those corals. Everything looks beautiful and healthy. I'm really caught by those two giant clams you have. How big are they? Are you using 14k MH and (T5) ATI Blue+ ?
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Apr 26, 2011 16:07
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Sorry for the double post, but I wanted to make sure this and my last post stay separate. So I'm preparing to add SPS to my 75gal for the first time, hopefully by the end of summer time. I have a list of things I'm adding/changing/need advice on. Just to update its a 4'L 75gal with a left of center built-in overflow box. -I'm going to be upgrading my powerheads. Right now I jsut have 2 koralia 4s that are not adjustable and just provide constant flow. I would like upgrade to some Vortech MP series powerheads but I'm not sure what ill need or if I'd be going overkill. Would 2 wireless MP10s do the trick? Or would it really be necessary to go up to using 2 MP40s? -In the next week or two I'm adding my GFO reactor. That's out of the way, but I was wonder about carbon. When do you run it? Is it necessary? Can it replace using a filter sock? Will it hurt some of my zoas/LPS removing the extra nutrients? Overall is it worth investing in? -Dosing. Will the 2 part Calc/Alk and Mag supplements be enough? Or is there a different and more efficient way to keep up with it? I know how quickly these elements get absorbed by the corals. -Controller. I'm looking at the APEX to purchase in the fall, but I'm curious about the pH probe. Is it accurate? Does it need to be upgraded to lab grade? Does anyone have any positive or negative feedback on an APEX controller?
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Apr 26, 2011 16:17
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This is partly what I do, and partly what I'd recommend. Aim for 2 MP40s, or if that's too expensive, look into a Tunze wavebox (possibly the nano version) if you have the tankspace to put it in. The Vortechs are just really nice for not putting extra heat and wiring in your tank. 2 part is sufficient if you don't have a lot of SPS/LPS in your tank, particularly as you have so much volume to work with. I wouldn't even start with two part if you're just starting with a couple pieces of hard corals ... just measure your alk/cal/mag for a while after you put some hard corals in, if there's no appreciable drop from week to week as you do water changes I wouldn't bother with it until you have more calcium uptake (more coral growth, more coral pieces, clams, whatever). Once you get sick of doing 2-part, look into kalk-saturated topoff water, and then you move on to the big leagues with calcium reactors (which aren't typically necessary unless your tank is sps dominated and/or with big clams, but they're HELLA convenient when you do make the leap). I don't run a carbon reactor, or even a carbon sock. For the most part I wouldn't recommend/use a carbon sock in the tank unless I was seeing some specific problem. I've never worked with an Apex before, my experience is with RKLs and RKEs which are excellent. My current RKL has 1 temp probe, 2 pH probes (calcium reactor chamber and sump), and controls a heater, the calcium reactor, and runs the phosphate reactor on a timer. VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE fucked around with this message at 17:47 on Apr 26, 2011 |
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Apr 26, 2011 17:29
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The 2 big maximas are just a hair over 5", there's a bunch of smaller maximas and croceas in there though. My lighting consists of 2x pro colors (purple-ish daylight), 2x aquablue specials (10-12k?), and 2x blue plus. Just T5s, no MH.
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Apr 26, 2011 17:49
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