Simply Amazing!
Jourdy's 90 Gallon Mixed Reef
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jourdy
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Wow!
I did not expect this amount of reaction at all! There is no better feeling for a reefer than to see your tank getting admired.. So from the bottom of my heart, thank you very much!
I will try to answer as many questions as possible :smile:
I used to dose alk and cal, but that was maybe a year ago. When I ran out of calcium carbonate and baking soda, I was too lazy to replenish the stocks and make more 2-part.
Thus, I currently am not dosing anything. I am frequently away from home (different house on weekends, work on weekdays, always traveling - the only time I get to see my tank is on some weeknights) so I leave my tank for 3 days to 1 week at a time. I was under the impression that missing a dosage is more harmful than not dosing at all - and I stuck with that.
I make up for it with diligent water changes however. I perform 20-25% water change every 2 weeks.
There are lots of suppliers and exporters of both fish and corals here, true. However the choices are limited to Indo-Pacific species and it is impossible to find any aquacultured corals at all. Most of my zoas are are from the USA, since they are far sturdier and much more colorful than their wild-caught counterparts. When it comes to Cynarinas, hammer corals, frogspawn, and some SPS - those are bountiful here, and at super cheap prices compared to the Western world. Wild caught SPS are really difficult to keep though IME - they change colors very fast even though they are growing at a fast pace.
Another thing.. the problem here is, it is considered ILLEGAL to own corals here in the Philippines. :tape: Yeah.. that is a problem for us reefers here. It is probably why this hobby is not widespread as it is compared to the Western world despite being home to the coral triangle - we have the most marine biodiversity in the world.
Haha, no I am not. Thank you though!
In fact, I do not know how to use any photo processing at all. I am too confused by the tools but I am hoping to learn someday!
If you lived in the PH, I would. I have actually helped a lot of reefers here set up their tanks and for the placement of corals. Some people insist to pay me but I have never accepted. This is already a small hobby in the Philippines - I believe it is for the best interest of all to help each other out without expecting any sort of reimbursement. In turn, those very same people I helped are now very good friends! Some have even become a partner in our business ventures.
Thank you! You give me too much credit haha. I just put together zoas that are bright all over, and try to provide as much contrast as possible to make the zoas pop out. It is sometimes hard to monitor however, since I can not control how the zoas grow. Some species grow way faster than the others and if that happens, not only would it look a bit off but it would also sometimes .
Yeah, those are cloves. You have to be careful with those though since they grow very fast and overrun any coral within its reach. I actually made the mistake years ago of putting the cloves too near my zoas and as a result, it spread its roots along the entrenchment of the zoas When the roots grew, they were taller than the zoas and shaded them from the light. I started with about 5 polyps of those cloves and they multiplied close to a thousand! I have shared those with reefers thus they are very common now (I originally bought the yellow cloves from Singapore)
Haha, the random placement is truly a mind boggling for some. I have noticed with my Radions that there are some hot spots. Some of the SPS that are placed low receive more light than the SPS at the top background. Another thing, I want my tank to look a bit disorganized by having random coral placements - like what I see when I scuba dive here in the PH. Also, if you lump the same species together, IMO the overall effect is not desirable to me. It is hard to explain since English is not my native language but I will try my best:
For example, if all my SPS are at the top part and all the zoas and LPS are at the bottom part, it looks unbalanced in my eyes. The reason for this is because most SPS (not all) can not match the luminosity and vividness of zoas and LPS. Those will be pop out much more than SPS - at least in my tank; and therefore it sometimes seem like the upper half of my tank is colorless and drab compared to the bottom part. I am not saying that SPS dominated tanks are unattractive - because they really are! It's just that I myself do not have many SPS to begin with (none that are very nice at that as well), and I want to add patches of random corals in different parts of the rockscape so that my tank will always look colorful no matter the time of the day (color temperature depends on the time of the day; SPS looks better in white light, zoas and LPS look better in bluish light). I just tried to maximize what I have since I do not have the high-end ultra colorful SPS. I hope I made sense! LOL!
There was a time when I used NSW, but those are too risky because there is no reputable supplier. The salinity depends on whether it has been raining or not LOL. There are also times when the Nitrates and Phosphates would be really high! If you're lucky like I am, you would even get NSW with ich... :angel:
Cycling with NSW seem more faster though! The husbandry of reefkeeping here is a tad different than there in the US. Since we are so close to the ocean, we could just get rocks from the deep ocean and wouldn't need to cure them.
Thank you. Apologies as I do not know who Josh is.
I am a simple minded person - I do not check online reef discussions much and I do not seem to grasp the names of people that well.. :bigsmile: But I am sure it is a big compliment to be even mentioned in the same sentence as he. There are lots of amazing tanks I see here! I just happened to get lucky with the growth of my zoas, else my tank looks nothing special without them.
I have not checked my parameters in quite some time, but I know that my nitrates are always at 0 - probably due to the biopellets which keeps my NO3 low. My problem is PO4, which seems to be always high (to be fair though - I haven't really tested them except for 1 couple of times). If I were to give advice regarding zoas, it's that every individual species has somewhat different preferred conditions than others. Some welcome high light, some abhor it. Some like strong flow while some hate it. If your zoas are unhappy, they will show you - you just need to look closely how they show it
If the stems are stretching out, it means they need more light or maybe flow. If the zoas are losing color or the patterns are fading, it might be best to check your water parameters. They will always recover given the right circumstances.
When I was a newbie, I read that zoas are among the easiest corals to keep. To this day, I still wonder why it is generalization as my experience with zoas have been quite the opposite. They are not as high-maintenance as SPS, but the colorful zoas are not easy to keep either! True that they will stay alive at mediocre conditions, but as reefers we want to see them thrive instead of merely survive. And that means providing them with adequate light, flow, and proper water conditions. If your zoas are happy... believe me, YOU will be happy! Haha! :smile:
I did not expect this amount of reaction at all! There is no better feeling for a reefer than to see your tank getting admired.. So from the bottom of my heart, thank you very much!
I will try to answer as many questions as possible :smile:
I used to dose alk and cal, but that was maybe a year ago. When I ran out of calcium carbonate and baking soda, I was too lazy to replenish the stocks and make more 2-part.
Thus, I currently am not dosing anything. I am frequently away from home (different house on weekends, work on weekdays, always traveling - the only time I get to see my tank is on some weeknights) so I leave my tank for 3 days to 1 week at a time. I was under the impression that missing a dosage is more harmful than not dosing at all - and I stuck with that.
I make up for it with diligent water changes however. I perform 20-25% water change every 2 weeks.
There are lots of suppliers and exporters of both fish and corals here, true. However the choices are limited to Indo-Pacific species and it is impossible to find any aquacultured corals at all. Most of my zoas are are from the USA, since they are far sturdier and much more colorful than their wild-caught counterparts. When it comes to Cynarinas, hammer corals, frogspawn, and some SPS - those are bountiful here, and at super cheap prices compared to the Western world. Wild caught SPS are really difficult to keep though IME - they change colors very fast even though they are growing at a fast pace.
Another thing.. the problem here is, it is considered ILLEGAL to own corals here in the Philippines. :tape: Yeah.. that is a problem for us reefers here. It is probably why this hobby is not widespread as it is compared to the Western world despite being home to the coral triangle - we have the most marine biodiversity in the world.
Haha, no I am not. Thank you though!
In fact, I do not know how to use any photo processing at all. I am too confused by the tools but I am hoping to learn someday!
If you lived in the PH, I would. I have actually helped a lot of reefers here set up their tanks and for the placement of corals. Some people insist to pay me but I have never accepted. This is already a small hobby in the Philippines - I believe it is for the best interest of all to help each other out without expecting any sort of reimbursement. In turn, those very same people I helped are now very good friends! Some have even become a partner in our business ventures.
Thank you! You give me too much credit haha. I just put together zoas that are bright all over, and try to provide as much contrast as possible to make the zoas pop out. It is sometimes hard to monitor however, since I can not control how the zoas grow. Some species grow way faster than the others and if that happens, not only would it look a bit off but it would also sometimes .
Yeah, those are cloves. You have to be careful with those though since they grow very fast and overrun any coral within its reach. I actually made the mistake years ago of putting the cloves too near my zoas and as a result, it spread its roots along the entrenchment of the zoas When the roots grew, they were taller than the zoas and shaded them from the light. I started with about 5 polyps of those cloves and they multiplied close to a thousand! I have shared those with reefers thus they are very common now (I originally bought the yellow cloves from Singapore)
Haha, the random placement is truly a mind boggling for some. I have noticed with my Radions that there are some hot spots. Some of the SPS that are placed low receive more light than the SPS at the top background. Another thing, I want my tank to look a bit disorganized by having random coral placements - like what I see when I scuba dive here in the PH. Also, if you lump the same species together, IMO the overall effect is not desirable to me. It is hard to explain since English is not my native language but I will try my best:
For example, if all my SPS are at the top part and all the zoas and LPS are at the bottom part, it looks unbalanced in my eyes. The reason for this is because most SPS (not all) can not match the luminosity and vividness of zoas and LPS. Those will be pop out much more than SPS - at least in my tank; and therefore it sometimes seem like the upper half of my tank is colorless and drab compared to the bottom part. I am not saying that SPS dominated tanks are unattractive - because they really are! It's just that I myself do not have many SPS to begin with (none that are very nice at that as well), and I want to add patches of random corals in different parts of the rockscape so that my tank will always look colorful no matter the time of the day (color temperature depends on the time of the day; SPS looks better in white light, zoas and LPS look better in bluish light). I just tried to maximize what I have since I do not have the high-end ultra colorful SPS. I hope I made sense! LOL!
There was a time when I used NSW, but those are too risky because there is no reputable supplier. The salinity depends on whether it has been raining or not LOL. There are also times when the Nitrates and Phosphates would be really high! If you're lucky like I am, you would even get NSW with ich... :angel:
Cycling with NSW seem more faster though! The husbandry of reefkeeping here is a tad different than there in the US. Since we are so close to the ocean, we could just get rocks from the deep ocean and wouldn't need to cure them.
Thank you. Apologies as I do not know who Josh is.
I am a simple minded person - I do not check online reef discussions much and I do not seem to grasp the names of people that well.. :bigsmile: But I am sure it is a big compliment to be even mentioned in the same sentence as he. There are lots of amazing tanks I see here! I just happened to get lucky with the growth of my zoas, else my tank looks nothing special without them.
I have not checked my parameters in quite some time, but I know that my nitrates are always at 0 - probably due to the biopellets which keeps my NO3 low. My problem is PO4, which seems to be always high (to be fair though - I haven't really tested them except for 1 couple of times). If I were to give advice regarding zoas, it's that every individual species has somewhat different preferred conditions than others. Some welcome high light, some abhor it. Some like strong flow while some hate it. If your zoas are unhappy, they will show you - you just need to look closely how they show it
If the stems are stretching out, it means they need more light or maybe flow. If the zoas are losing color or the patterns are fading, it might be best to check your water parameters. They will always recover given the right circumstances.When I was a newbie, I read that zoas are among the easiest corals to keep. To this day, I still wonder why it is generalization as my experience with zoas have been quite the opposite. They are not as high-maintenance as SPS, but the colorful zoas are not easy to keep either! True that they will stay alive at mediocre conditions, but as reefers we want to see them thrive instead of merely survive. And that means providing them with adequate light, flow, and proper water conditions. If your zoas are happy... believe me, YOU will be happy! Haha! :smile:
OP
OP
jourdy
Active Member
As for pictures, here are some more:
Some fishes:
My clown pair lays eggs every 2 weeks!
Mystery Wrasse
Blotchy Anthias
By the way, I forgot to answer a question asked regarding my bioload.
I would consider my bioload to be pretty high! I also feed a lot as well whenever I am home.
I have the ff:
2 yellow assessors
2 clowns
1 mandarin goby
2 orchid dottyback
1 blotchy anthias
1 purple tang 1.5"
1 blue tang 2.5"
1 flame angel about 1.5"
1 triggerfish
1 blood red shrimps
I used to have lots of cleaner shrimps but I gave them away because they irritate my corals
I like to keep tiny fish! The blue throat triggerfish is an exception - it was a rescue from a friend who dismantled his tank. I used to be okay with him as he is very cute but I have now been thinking of moving him to a friend's 600 gallon tank. I just saw it poop and it is HUUUUGE.
Some fishes:
My clown pair lays eggs every 2 weeks!
Mystery Wrasse
Blotchy Anthias
By the way, I forgot to answer a question asked regarding my bioload.
I would consider my bioload to be pretty high! I also feed a lot as well whenever I am home.
I have the ff:
2 yellow assessors
2 clowns
1 mandarin goby
2 orchid dottyback
1 blotchy anthias
1 purple tang 1.5"
1 blue tang 2.5"
1 flame angel about 1.5"
1 triggerfish
1 blood red shrimps
I used to have lots of cleaner shrimps but I gave them away because they irritate my corals
I like to keep tiny fish! The blue throat triggerfish is an exception - it was a rescue from a friend who dismantled his tank. I used to be okay with him as he is very cute but I have now been thinking of moving him to a friend's 600 gallon tank. I just saw it poop and it is HUUUUGE.
Your acans are also beautiful! Please do not stop updating us with all your pictures! Do you order your zoas from the US then?
dwilliams87
Valuable Member
No dosing, just water changes. Amazing! The color arrangements are just breath taking.
skulls_and_sparrows
Active Member
Are your ecotechs the pro models or just the regular?
OP
OP
jourdy
Active Member
Thank you! I like my Acans as well, but keeping zoas are more satisfying for me because they multiply and cover my rocks!
I ordered some from the US and bought some in Singapore (which also came from the US). The hard thing to swallow is how much I have bought from the US and went DOA by the time they got here. Maybe half of what I bought were all DOA.Ohh, you must be the Josh guy the other person was talking about! Your tank is crazyyyyyy. Much better than mine. Very nice!
Just the regular ones. I bought 1st gen and manually upgraded with TIR lens. They've been with me since 2011 but I see no need to upgrade since they do the job. In my next tank I'm hoping to get Radion Pros but they are just really expensive, especially here in the PH where shipping and customs tax apply
Thank you. My photoperiod starts at 12nn until 11pm. Starts with blues, then peak is 18k then blues dusk. I get home around 7pm, and by that time only the blues are on.
skulls_and_sparrows
Active Member
Thank you! I like my Acans as well, but keeping zoas are more satisfying for me because they multiply and cover my rocks!
Ohh, you must be the Josh guy the other person was talking about! Your tank is crazyyyyyy. Much better than mine. Very nice!
Just the regular ones. I bought 1st gen and manually upgraded with TIR lens. They've been with me since 2011 but I see no need to upgrade since they do the job. In my next tank I'm hoping to get Radion Pros but they are just really expensive, especially here in the PH where shipping and customs tax apply
Thank you. My photoperiod starts at 12nn until 11pm. Starts with blues, then peak is 18k then blues dusk. I get home around 7pm, and by that time only the blues are on.
Im impressed by the colors of just the regular ones...you have me thinking!
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I have your tank to drive me towards a new goal! To have mine look like yours! LOL!
buddythelion
2500 Club Member
Idk man... I think his tank beats yours. OOOO!!! I SAID IT. LOL!!!!
joshporksandwich
Zoa addict
Me too! Lol
joshporksandwich
Zoa addict
You have to put corals first lol!
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