SPS Dominated 47G Reef

[Sahin]

"My ONLY non branching SPS. Hasnt coloured up well at all. Person I got the frag from has much better colour. Do I need to place it higher?"

I had an undata that was about 6" below the surface under Vega colors and I was getting pretty good colors on it.

Thanks for the info. I will try to locate somewhere for it higher up. I like my branching acros so they get prime space...everything else comes 2nd. LOL.

 

[Sahin]

Very nice bro awsome tank .
I have similar size tank soon to get wet.

I guess its time for a full tank shot

Many thanks. I'll be sure to check out your new tank. Do you have a thread? And what lighting are you going for?

I will post an FTS in the new year...a lot of my acros are just tiny and get lost in an FTS...doesnt look nice as some of the other tanks here.

 

[Sahin]

These are awsome sps man .....I'm starting a bare bottom sps my self and u got any tips or advice I'd gladly appreciate. It ...I can't really find a lot of people on you tube that have bare bottom tanks explaining thier setups ...I've been doing this for about 3 years but just now getting comfortable about doing sps and dumping some money in a really nice tank

Since I started reefkeeping, I've run bare bottom tanks 50% of the time. IMO BB tanks allow far better nutrient control. The number one advice I can give you is regarding water flow: Make sure either you have so much flow that nothing is allowed to settle and so gets picked up by the overflow, or sort out your flow so that detritus collects in a corner/convenient place so that you can easily siphon out crap.

Luckily for me, the detritus collects near the front RHS corner...so its easy to siphon out crap.

With a BB tank, once you have phosphate under control and consistently manage to keep it under 0.03ppm, and you dont have algae issues, FEED your fishes and corals lots.

The only other advice I would give you is this: wait at least 6 months before getting any fish. Yeah thats right. Let the tank mature. Unless you have a remote DSB, a BB tank is missing that large nutrient sink and filtration capability of a sand bed. So let your tank mature at least 6 months. Let it go through the algae cycles without fish. Once there, start adding the SPS etc. After the SPS add the fish last.

If I were to setup another reef or upgrade, I wouldnt add fish until at least 1 year into the setup.

Hope that helps. If you got any more questions, shoot me a PM or post here.

 

[Sahin]

Well since I upgrade my lights some weeks ago, I might as well post a few photos of my new lights in my build thread haha.

You know you've got quality when you see this branding:

View of the T5 fans, the LED fans (in the centre) and the LED hot air exhaust:

Look at the sexy curve

Underneath shot: This is just high quality engineering

Closeup on the LED's

Lets test this light

With all lights

Controller

Connection between Fixture and Controller

Easily snaps on and locks with a twist

Can you tell that I love this light?!

 

[lsingh]

I got the same one

 

[cmaxwell39]

Wow. That's a lot of light. Nice job. Looking forward to some updates next month.

 

[Sahin]

OK, so further to all the brilliant SPS feeding information from another reefkeeper on the other forum, I am slowly getting better colour.

Overall, I am seeing deeper colour in most corals that are already coloured up. The brown turds continue their disobedience and refuse to colour up.

Lets start off with my Tort: It is being blasted with about 400 PAR yet maintains a very deep blue colouration.

Next up is my pink "Millepora". This one used to be a bit more pastel in colour but has since deepened in colour:

Here is another shot of it from a different angle (I'm unsure if its the same branch though):

This one is a deepwater which has been colouring up. I couldnt capture the light blue tips (underneath is my pink/red Chalice):

These two are at WAR: The Yellow/Green one with the blue tips is much slower growing but it is the stronger of the two. The two corals grew right up against each other, and then the Yellow/Green decided to attack and caused the 5mm deathline. The one on the right has a beautiful deep green metallic look with all new branch tips in a sky blue colour terminating with purple tips. I couldnt catpure the purple tips though. Notice the brown turd frag on the top left. Not all my SPS are coloured up!

Here is a better shot of the right hand side of the green one. This branch is getting about 250 PAR and has pretty good colour. You can just about see the purple tip ends. Notice the blurred A. tenius underneath all brown with a few blue tips:

And finally my prized SPS. This one used to be brown with slight purple tip face and a little green on the base. Its now coloured up beautifully and the growing tips are turning a beautiful sky blue. Just about managed to capture the skyblue tips. This coral SHIMMERS under the point source nature of the White LED's which was missing with T5 only:

Hope you like the photos. After adjusting the photos to what they look like in real life, I went back to my tank and looked at each coral with my topdown viewer to ensure colours were faithfully represented.

I can honestly say that the ATI T5/LED Powermodule CAN colour up corals just fine.

Why I still have brown some brown or less than stellar coloured SPS, I dont know.

But hopefully in another 6 months, ALL the SPS will have coloured up.

I am going to continue the current SPS feeding regime, but in addition, I am going to pick up a few select pieces of quality cured liverock to place in the sump...not only to increase the microlife, but also to bring in a bit of bacterial diversity. Maybe I am just crazy...but I will try this before I give up on the brown SPS and get rid of them.

 

[nova65ss]

Nice dude that last one is a beauty! What have you been feeding?

 

[Rob&Gab]

ohhhh mann! amazing sps bro.

 

[Sahin]

Nice dude that last one is a beauty! What have you been feeding?

Thanks for the compliment dude. Here is my feeding regime:

I feed several times a day:

1. New Era: Aegis Flakes
2. Ocean Nutrition: Prime Reef Flakes
3. Gamma: Mysis - Frozen
4. Gamma: Brineshrimp with Spirulina - Frozen
5. Polyplab Reef-Roids

The first 4 make up the bulk of the FISH food. I feed at least twice a day. Some days TWO cubes along with flakes.

The SPS get half a cube of MYSIS ground to a paste with a pinch of Reef-Roids every 2-3 days.

When I feed the SPS an hours after the lights are off, I turn off the return pump and skimmer so EVERYTHING stays in the display for at LEAST 1-2 hours. MP10's are turn down to lowest flow to keep things moving but gentle enough that SPS can pickup bits.

 

[Sahin]

ohhhh mann! amazing sps bro.

Thanks for looking into my thread.

 

[revhtree]

That definitely is a sexy light!

Van you give us some coral placement and par data?

Keep us updated!

 

[FLipp]

do you have a name for that cyphastrea you posted on the first page?

 

[Sahin]

That definitely is a sexy light!

Van you give us some coral placement and par data?

Keep us updated!

Centre of tank: ALL READINGS UNDER WATER.

170-----------------630------------------160 TOP (17")





300-----------------525------------------300 MIDDLE (9")





320-----------------350------------------310 BOTTOM (0")


0"-------------------15"------------------30"

Tank is 18" high. Fixture is 10" above waterline. I cant believe I am getting 310-320 PAR on the FRONT GLASS on the bottom CORNERS!

I did all the readings with the pumps on. T5's at 100% and LED's at my own preset. I could turn all the LED's up and those numbers would jump quite a bit.

Note that the readings up the front glass are ALMOST the same. This fixture has some SERIOUS PAR, with NO HOTSPOTS and VERY UNIFORM PAR.

 

[Sahin]

do you have a name for that cyphastrea you posted on the first page?

As far as I know, Cyphastrea Decadia.

 

[Sahin]

Some of these photos are a bit grainy because I accidently switched the ISO up too much and now have lots of NOISE in the photos. Cant be bothered to go back and take the shots again :lol:


First up is my Blue/Green Maxima Clam. I got this VERY small. From top down it looks blue with a hint of green. From front view of tank it looks blue:

BLUE POLYPS!!! This is one of the turds...look at all that BROWN!:angryfire: But recently I threatened to chuck it out the tank...and look...its now got these blue see-through polyps:

I am hoping this piece colours up like my Hot Pink Millepora. This piece has blue tips with wine red base. Its a wild piece and has been BROWN for nearly a year. Kind of slow growing too. Polyps are a light teal colour:

This one I posted on the first page. Excuse the glare from the bare bottom.
Its got these lovely blue tips, but the main body is still brown:

And lastly, this one I also posted on the first page under the previous lighting. Under the new lighting it lost a lot of the green in the body, but the blue tips have intensified in colour...actually, the deeper colour might be due to the increased feeding...not 100%. It sits directly underneath my Rose Millepora and the Hot Pink Millopora. Its growing on a ledge and has started to table. The blue tips are a lot more Royal Blue, but my camera never picks up any purple tones...:

 

[revhtree]

Great shots!

 

[ritter6788]

Outstanding corals and photography. How about a full tank shot? I'll be tagging along to follow your progress.

 

[cmaxwell39]

Nice shots and some more outstanding SPS. Keep everything stable and those stubborn ones will color up. Give it time.

BTW, you are a master with the camera. I enjoy looking at your pictures as you are able to capture the detail so well. Great job.

 

[nova65ss]

Kinda slow in here............................... need some new pics dude!