ritter6788's 75 gallon sps

Edzo · Feb 5, 2014

Beautiful! Looks naturally balanced with lots of color.

Afishionado · Feb 6, 2014

Beautiful tank!!

zibba · Feb 6, 2014

The full tank shot looks great man! Keep it fighting the good fight!!

Mike&Terry · Feb 6, 2014

zibba said:
The full tank shot looks great man! Keep it fighting the good fight!!

+1 and LOVE that chalice!

Jimbo662 · Feb 6, 2014

How big is your Tyree Toadstool? That's one of my favorites.

ritter6788 · Feb 6, 2014

Edzo said:
Beautiful! Looks naturally balanced with lots of color.

Siptang said:
Beautiful tank!!

zibba said:
The full tank shot looks great man! Keep it fighting the good fight!!

Mike&Terry said:
+1 and LOVE that chalice!

Thank you all. You're all to kind.

Jimbo662 said:
How big is your Tyree Toadstool? That's one of my favorites.

Open it's about 7" across. It was picked up from a friend who picked it up in a tank breakdown from someone else so I can't call it a Tyree. It's been closed for over a week now. Drives me nuts that everything in the tank looks great and the toadstool won't open.

kurtyboh · Feb 10, 2014

you Pretty much have a dream tank!

ritter6788 · Feb 10, 2014

kurtyboh said:
you Pretty much have a dream tank!

Thank you!

ritter6788 · Feb 10, 2014

Since I've removed the chaeto the water appears to be more clear. I'm not sure if that's just coincidence since I did the hurricane in the tank. My leds are creating a shimmer I don't usually see. Sitting on one side of the tank I can see through the other side better also. I see some growth on some sps I didn't notice before on some pieces. The sump is much cleaner without all those cheato scraps in it too.

kurtyboh · Feb 11, 2014

Not the first I've heard say that about chaeto... there might be something to it. I do enjoy the decorative algae such as red gracilaria although it gets eaten fairly quickly its also cheap to replace, unless you have an echinoderm as my sea egg will literally sit on top of it until it is all gone.
I also think you may be on to something with the hurricane effect, when I moved all was right in the tank! everything just builds up and is very difficult to clean in and under and through all the sand, lr and coral rubble.

ritter6788 · Mar 2, 2014

Well I found AEFW on one of my millis.

I'm almost at the 5 year mark of this tank and I said when I started if I made it 5 years I would be happy with that. I'm not letting AEFW keep me from my goal! We press on! Lol!

This hammer is growing so fast it's a bit of a weed. It was 2 heads then 26 then I fragged it back to 3 the beginning of Febuary. It already has 8 or 9 heads again.

This is another fast growing LPS for me. 4 or 5 heads when I got it last year.

Blue/Orange Ric garden with a photo bomb from Captain America

I thought this Starburst Cap was a goner. It died to the bare plug soon after I got it. I never removed the plug and not long later I saw 2 yellow polyps in the old skeleton. I left it alone and it's completely recovered. It's covered the plug and starting to grow out! I just noticed in this photo my Superman Monti has made and appearance to the front of the rock finally. I have a nice sized colony but I can't photograph it since it's growing down the backside of the rock.

My slow growing Pink Divacarta

Daniel@R2R · Mar 2, 2014

Beautiful pics, man! I'm always blown away by your photography skills...

mike007 · Mar 2, 2014

Great pics bud. I am glad that your tank is doing well for you.

skinz78 · Mar 2, 2014

Dang Gabe, what are you going to do about the AEFW? The pic's are awesome though!

cmaxwell39 · Mar 2, 2014

Sorry to hear about the AEFW. The pics look great though. They haven't seemed to take a toll on the acros in the tank, at least not in those pictures.

ritter6788 · Mar 2, 2014

mdbannister said:
Beautiful pics, man! I'm always blown away by your photography skills...

Thank you! I learned all about taking photos here on R2R.

mike007 said:
Great pics bud. I am glad that your tank is doing well for you.

Thanks Mike.

skinz78 said:
Dang Gabe, what are you going to do about the AEFW? The pic's are awesome though!

Thanks. Right now I'm just basting. I blew off a bunch when I figured out I had them. My blue tang follows the turkey baster around and eats them. They ate up my pink milli pretty bad and I ended up losing it. I dipped and fragged several pieces of it but my frag tank wasn't ready and I lost the frags. The only other Acros that seem to be affected are my ORA blue, purple bonsai and my Copps Hulk. The Hulk still looks ok and growing but I can see the bite marks around the base. The ORA blue is looking rougher. I may take it out and dip the whole thing and put it in the frag tank for now. The bonsai was eaten up pretty bad but after basting it looks fine. I have a pink lemonade that had lost a bit of color and PE but it's colored up again and the polyps are out. All the other Acros look great. My pink jade has grown to the back glass and is starting to encrust the back wall. The tinkerbell is getting taller by the day. I wouldn't be too hurt if I had to remove the big millis. The hulk has grown so much it's pretty much shading the right 1/4 of the tank. I have a big derasa clam I grew from a 2 incher that's going to need a tank remodel to accommodate it soon. Wouldn't hurt to remove a few large sps anyway.

cmaxwell39 said:
Sorry to hear about the AEFW. The pics look great though. They haven't seemed to take a toll on the acros in the tank, at least not in those pictures.

Thank you! Most of the Acros still look fine. Even the ones they are on are doing ok IMO. I'm going to keep basting them for now.

Sahin · Mar 3, 2014

Sorry that you have AEFW. Any idea how long you may have had them?

The corals look superb as usual. Keep up the efforts. With regular basting I think you can run this tank at least another year and then maybe upgrade or revamp the tank...during which you can eliminate the AEFW and Redbugs.

Did you have QT in place or did you rely on dips? -Not criticising here...merely want to confirm that it seems like dips arent as good as a preventative measure as a lot of us think...Hence for my next tank, I am going to include a small QT section incorporated into my sump for QT purposes.

VB68 · Mar 3, 2014

Awesome pics!!!!!! Sorry to hear about the AEFW

kurtyboh · Mar 3, 2014

Using a small portion as a qt that is attached to your dt defeats the purpose of having a qt.

ritter6788 · Mar 3, 2014

Sahin said:
Sorry that you have AEFW. Any idea how long you may have had them?

The corals look superb as usual. Keep up the efforts. With regular basting I think you can run this tank at least another year and then maybe upgrade or revamp the tank...during which you can eliminate the AEFW and Redbugs.

Did you have QT in place or did you rely on dips? -Not criticising here...merely want to confirm that it seems like dips arent as good as a preventative measure as a lot of us think...Hence for my next tank, I am going to include a small QT section incorporated into my sump for QT purposes.

Thank you Sahin. I don't think I've had them very long since the damage just started showing up. I suspect I got them from a maricultured millepora. I was a long time Coral Rx user but since getting red bugs in my tank I switched to Bayer. I never noticed AEFW in any of my dip water so I must have transferred eggs into the tank. I did not have a QT in place but I recently set up a 40 breeder solely for this purpose. There are plans in the near future for a living room remodel and large tank upgrade. I already have several frags of my pieces dipped and in QT so in case of any big losses I have backups. I've always had a dedicated QT for fish so from now on I will have another full set up for corals also. My tank will be 5 in May so once I reach that goal I'll start thinking about breaking it down and working on QT'ing corals for the upgrade. The wife wants new floor when I move my tank so I'm in no rush to move the tank.