Blaxsun's Abyss: Red Sea 750XXL

[blaxsun]

August 15. 50 Under PAR
So I've been reading about a few "quirks" with the new Neptune AOS update to 5.10 8A22, and was hoping (crossing fingers) that nothing on my system would be affected. I should've held off on this update - but the alarm in the Apex control panel was triggering my OCD...

I guess the folks at Neptune needed to run put this particular update through its paces more as it's basically skewed my PAR readings. Normally I'll see a curve throughout the day in the 125-150 range. Now it only reads the baseline setting of 50.



Affected modules (thus far) appear to be the PMK and flow meters. I've got a support ticket in to Neptune - but I suspect I'm going to have to patiently wait for a fix along with everyone else.

 

[blaxsun]

August 15. Helio: Slow and Steady Wins the Race
Just a short update on the performance of the Helio for the past day or so. I'd initially calibrated the Helio with a +0.5°F temperature adjustment, but after a day found that this was too much as the TmpX probe (orange) was reading a drop in temperature of up to -0.5°F. So I revised the Helio calibration to 0.0°F and you can see the results in the plateau bump in the following graph.



TmpX (orange) is the Apex temperature reading in the display while Tmp (blue) is the Apex temperature reading in the sump. Removing the calibration value has essentially brought the temperature of both probes inline with the range I was after - 78.0°F (±0.5°F) and there's no longer a 0.5-0.75°F temperature variance between the two probes. Which means the Helio is micro-managing the temperature even better than previously.

This also clearly highlights the difference between the Inkbird and Helio. With the Inkbird, I was seeing temperature spikes in the sump from 76.7°F to 79.0°F and in the tank from 77.8°F to 79.4°F. That's literally almost 2.0°F degrees of variation!

In the interest of fairness, one thing that I did want to point out is that the Inkbird system is 600 watts and the Helio system is 700 watts (this was the closest I could come to matching things up). This means that the Helio system is almost certainly more efficient - but this wouldn't translate into the night and day difference we're seeing on the graph (at best, we should be seeing a 15-20% variance).
..........

I'll be running the Helio system well into September in an effort to continue to provide graphing results of the temperature improvements, but I've already made the decision to phase-out my Inkbird in favor of the Helio. Quite simply - the results speak for themselves. So I'll be working on a creative way to run the wiring into my Adaptive Reef cabinet as I'll most likely retain the heaters in the front of the tank where they currently reside as opposed to in the adjacent chamber where the Schegos are.

 

[blaxsun]

August 15. Climate Change
And a short update on the Poseidon 200 ozone system. I'm now a week into it and I can honestly say that I see a noticeable difference in the water. Everything seems sharper and there's more distinction with coloration. And there's a slightly (but still noticeable) difference in water quality as illustrated below.

In the most recent water sampling, there's almost no "yellow" pigmentation at all (despite a certain fish stirring up the sediment in an effort to thwart my experiments!) Saltwater is always going to have a bit more coloration than RODI or tap water, but here's what regular tap water looks like for comparison.



Honestly, when you're looking at the tank sample vs. tap water it's very hard to notice much of a difference. Under natural lighting you can't even tell - you have to move it around under different lighting to see the subtle changes. So there you have the before, after and (neutral) control.
..........

One thing that we definitely noticed - and there's no question here whatsoever - is the huge impact this has had on the operation of the Nyos Quantum protein skimmer. Normally we'd empty the collection cup every 3-4 days, and if we waited much longer we'd have a lot of skim foam that bubbled up through the air slits and all over the lid to contend with. It's been almost 10 days since we last emptied the collection cup - and both my wife and I were expecting an untold stench as a result.

So call us pleasantly surprised when we found that while yes, there was some odor present - it wasn't anything remotely approaching what it had been previously (or that we were expecting). My wife (the biologist), also indicated that the skim was very consistent (the term she used was "homogenous"). No big particles, chunks of algae or anything of that nature that we're used to seeing. There was also a minimum of skim foam on the edges of the air slits - and the collection cup was probably 75-85% full (we'd be hard-pressed to see levels of more than 50% previously as any higher just resulted in skim foam bubbling up through the lid).
..........

I haven't noticed any changes in fish, invertebrate or coral health - other than several leathers which I'd written off have performed a 180 and a goniopora that was doing well which has started to decline. However, I attribute this to increased flow from the gyres on the back as I found an adjacent torch repeatedly stinging it today. After I turned the flow down from 30% back down to the previous 20% I've seen it subsequently start to come out again late in the day.

 

[blaxsun]

August 22. Back to the Future
Sorry for the lack of updates - I've been letting the tank "do it's thing" while we've been researching a new vehicle (spoiler: it's going to be electric). I'm going to do a separate writeup on this shortly just for anyone who'e also mulling around "cutting the oil companies off at the knees". So a few updates (in no particular order).
..........

ph. As you can see by the graph, the addition of the ozone has been surely but steadily been bumping up my pH levels. It's crept from a low of 7.95 to 7.98 and a high of 8.21 to 8.25. The corals certainly aren't complaining!



ORP. As with pH, the oxygen levels have also been creeping up and are more consistent. I'm now hitting 330 for a high and the lows are around 315-320 - so about a 20-point gain overall. With both pH and ORP, whenever I add NOPOX it causes both to nosedive for a day.



Last but not least is Temperature. As you can see, the Helio heaters are performing above all expectations and will soon become a permanent addition to my aquatic domain. The brief drop on the left and spike above 78°C was due to some brief maintenance a week ago. It's consistently providing temperatures between 77.35°F and 77.85°C - which is less than a half a degree swing. Impressive!! Note that this is the delivered temperature to the display tank itself - the temperature in the sump has even less fluctuation.

 

[Miami Reef]

(spoiler: it's going to be electric)

Does this car have an association with Mars?

And does the creator’s name rhyme with “It was dusk”?

 

[blaxsun]

Does this car have an association with Mars?
And does the creator’s name rhyme with “It was dusk”?

It does not, actually (will include the research/reasons why in the update). It does hail from a certain Bavarian automaker...

 

[Miami Reef]

It does not, actually (will include the research/reasons why in the update). It does hail from a certain Bavarian automaker...

Oh, I got to watch my pot of macaroni…

Because it’s bimmer-

Gak, I meant to say the pot is simmering.

Are you pickin’ up what I’m puttin’ down?

 

[Miami Reef]

@blaxsun

Am I right?

 

[Projects with Sam]

 

[blaxsun]

August 24. Turning off the Tap
And now for something completely different and non-fish related... Over the past few weeks we've been testing driving various new SUVs to find a replacement for our aging (but still very fun to drive!) BMW X3 xDrive35i, which we purchased way back in 2012. It's very peppy (305hp), has great acceleration and passing - and still gets a decent 27mpg on the highway and 22mpg in the city. The caveat being that about 95% of our driving is in the city currently, and with gas prices being what they are, what they were recently and probably will be again in the near future (ie: winter) - we wanted to explore our options. So for those thinking about "turning off the tap", read on...

Gasoline
The prevailing wisdom and current trend for gasoline-powered vehicles seems to be to drop 2 cylinders and add a turbocharger or two - thereby retaining close to the same horsepower while slightly increasing fuel economy to keep the EPA happy. Everything we tested seemed to be in that 25-29mpg (highway) sweet spot. So a bit of an improvement - but hard to justify the cost of a new vehicle.
..........

Hybrids
Enter the hybrids. While providing slightly less (overall) horsepower, the combination of the electric+gasoline motors provides more torque at lower speeds, great fuel economy in the city and the ability to draw on the gasoline engine for longer highway trips. The best of both worlds, right? Except, not quite.

Aside from the fact that you'll be hard-pressed to find a hybrid well, anywhere right now - you can expect to easily plunk down another $8-$10k for the privilege of having one delivered in 9-10 months. Maybe. And this is really where the good news stops. To make room for the electric motor and battery, manufactures have made several changes to your popular gas-powered variant. First, it has a smaller gasoline engine (often a straight 4-cylinder with just a single or even no turbocharger) - so you have less acceleration, horsepower and passing ability on the highways where it's needed most. Second, it has a smaller fuel tank to accommodate the aforementioned battery (typically around 10kWh) - so there's a 20-25% overall range reduction. Third - the hybrid just plain weights more (a combination of the electric motor, battery and accompanying systems to integrate everything) - so your highway fuel economy takes a significant hit (typically 2-3mpg).

And while you do have the electrical aspect for in-city excursions - this is typically only up to a speed of 35mph with a range of 40 miles or so. Another downside with hybrids is that they can't utilize the DC Fast Charging (read on) - so you're limited to Level 1/2 charging only. You also now have a very complicated system that has twice the failure points between a traditional gasoline-powered vehicle as well as an electric one.
..........

Electric
"Turning off the tap" or "capping the oil company off at the knees" has long been a fantasy I've entertained (I'm sure I'm not alone in this respect). After moving from gasoline-powered to hybrid test drives, we then took the next logical step: electric. We test-drove a Tesla model Y, Ford Mach-E and BMW i4. We were leaning towards the Mach-E (the Tesla wasn't even a consideration) until we realized the i4 was a hatchback - so it had almost the same cargo capacity of the Mach-E. And while the Mach-E is a great vehicle, it has a few idiosyncrasies (no door handles) that aren't ideal in a climate where freezing rain and ice are predominant for 4-5 months of the year. There also seem to be a few gremlins in the OS so I think Ford needs to spend some time ironing these out.

Behold... the BMW i4 xDrive40e
Yesterday we finalized our new ride (having had the opportunity to test drive it for a few days - we have a great relationship with our local BMW dealership as a result of a 20+ year history, so this definitely isn't the norm if you were to just walk-in off the street). It has an official range of ~590km, rear wheel drive and all-season tires. Enough to handle our Saskatchewan winters under anything but extreme winter conditions.

Full disclosure: I'm not operating under any illusions that I'm helping to save the planet here. Any green footprint that I reduce in my own city and country is far offset by the exploitation in various third world countries through environmental destruction, child labor and decades of pollution from cobalt, lithium and nickel mining ("not in my backyard"). Furthermore, the irony that the cargo ships delivering battery packs and electric vehicles are extremely pollutive in of themselves or the fact that a third of the electricity generated in my province comes from coal doesn't escape me. I'm a realist - not a hypocrite.

That being said, I do see a time in the not too distant future where electric vehicles (EV) will overtake sales of their gas counterparts - at least for consumer use (for commercial, electric/hydrogen fuel cell-powered vehicles will probably be the future; Elon Musk is on crack if he thinks otherwise). We're going to see Government investment and subsidies to build-out charging station infrastructure (it's not a question of "if", but "when").

So the standard range is approximately 590km. This is reduced by approximately 25-30% when driven at highway speeds (110-120km/h), or roughly 430-450km. Running environmental (AC, heating) at moderate levels will reduce this by a further 5%. Driving at night with lights on can use another 5-10% depending on low/high beams. And driving in winter conditions will sap between 20-25% of the battery.

Realistically speaking, we can expect this for performance:
• Spring/Summer/Fall: 500-550km range (city), 425-50km range (highway); 5-10% less at night or on hot days
• Winter: 400km range (city), 300-350km range (highway); 5% less at night and another 5-10% on really cold days

The i4 comes with a portable Level 1/2 charger, the difference being 120V vs. 240V (we're in the process of getting a 240V plug - the same as your dryer or oven - installed in our heated garage). Level 3 (which is also referred to as "DC Fast Charging") is commercial only - similar to Tesla's Superchargers. There's an extra DC slot in the charging port that accommodates this.

• Level 1 (120V AC): 5-5.5 days to completely charge from 0%.
• Level 2 (240V AC): 8-8.5 hours to completely charge from 0%.
• Level 3 (DC Fast): 45-50min to charge to 80% (after the battery reaches 80%, the DC Fast charger dials back the flow to incentivize you to disconnect the plug and get off the charger - freeing it up for someone else to use). The typical commercial rates we've seen at the Flo DC Fast Charging stations are $0.25/minute which works out to around $0.23kWh (my home rate is around $0.14kWh for comparison). So more - but when travelling long distances, pretty much a prerequisite unless you're staying overnight at a waypoint.

Now navigating longer distances does take some planning. We're planning a trip to Calgary, AB to visit my folks and the normal route is 650km. But since there's no Level 3 DC Fast Charging stations along our usual route - we have to divert down to Swift Current (charge), then travel along the Trans Canada 1 to Medicine Hat (charge) and either stop in Strathmore for a third (charge) or hopefully have enough juice to make it to Calgary. This ends up being about 150km further in distance and requires 2-3 45-40 minute stops. We usually stop for lunch and a stretch anyway, so it will most likely end up taking 3-4 hours longer than usual. For us (and speaking strictly for ourselves) - as we only make this trek once or twice a year - this is an acceptable tradeoff.

The car is an absolute riot to drive (especially up to 60km/h). The color is Black Sapphire Metallic with an M Sport/Premium Package (we didn't have any choice as this was the first i4 our dealer received and was preconfigured by BMW). An i4 iDrive M50 arrived last week and there are apparently two more allocations for i4s for the remainder of 2022. With the pair of BMW iX SUVs they received - that's a grand total of six (6) electric vehicles for all of 2022. Meanwhile, China apparently sold 3 million EVs last year and is expected to double that to 6 million EVs by the end of 2022 (wow!)

Right now the MPGe (miles per gallon equivalent) is 110 MPGe on the highway and 130 MPGe in the city. And this probably wasn't the most "conservative" driving (lol). Yeah, you read that correctly - up to 130mpg. My brother just bought a new Toyota Corolla and he gets 54mpg city/highway fairly consistently.

Unlike Teslas, this i4 has all the various safety features that actually work - including not spontaneously bursting into flames, flattening small children-sized manequins in the middle of the road, plowing into blueberry-ladden semi trucks or randomly leaving the highway! The i4 also puts my admittedly good parallel-parking to shame - which I'm not afraid to concede does a far superior job. Anyway, enough about the technical stuff - on to the pics!

 

[Daniel@R2R]

August 24. Turning off the Tap
And now for something completely different and non-fish related... Over the past few weeks we've been testing driving various new SUVs to find a replacement for our aging (but still very fun to drive!) BMW X3 xDrive35i, which we purchased way back in 2012. It's very peppy (305hp), has great acceleration and passing - and still gets a decent 27mpg on the highway and 22mpg in the city. The caveat being that about 95% of our driving is in the city currently, and with gas prices being what they are, what they were recently and probably will be again in the near future (ie: winter) - we wanted to explore our options. So for those thinking about "turning off the tap", read on...

Gasoline
The prevailing wisdom and current trend for gasoline-powered vehicles seems to be to drop 2 cylinders and add a turbocharger or two - thereby retaining close to the same horsepower while slightly increasing fuel economy to keep the EPA happy. Everything we tested seemed to be in that 25-29mpg (highway) sweet spot. So a bit of an improvement - but hard to justify the cost of a new vehicle.
..........

Hybrids
Enter the hybrids. While providing slightly less (overall) horsepower, the combination of the electric+gasoline motors provides more torque at lower speeds, great fuel economy in the city and the ability to draw on the gasoline engine for longer highway trips. The best of both worlds, right? Except, not quite.

Aside from the fact that you'll be hard-pressed to find a hybrid well, anywhere right now - you can expect to easily plunk down another $8-$10k for the privilege of having one delivered in 9-10 months. Maybe. And this is really where the good news stops. To make room for the electric motor and battery, manufactures have made several changes to your popular gas-powered variant. First, it has a smaller gasoline engine (often a straight 4-cylinder with just a single or even no turbocharger) - so you have less acceleration, horsepower and passing ability on the highways where it's needed most. Second, it has a smaller fuel tank to accommodate the aforementioned battery (typically around 10kWh) - so there's a 20-25% overall range reduction. Third - the hybrid just plain weights more (a combination of the electric motor, battery and accompanying systems to integrate everything) - so your highway fuel economy takes a significant hit (typically 2-3mpg).

And while you do have the electrical aspect for in-city excursions - this is typically only up to a speed of 35mph with a range of 40 miles or so. Another downsides with hybrids is that they can't utilize the DC Fast Charging (read on) - so you're limited to Level 1/2 charging only. You also now have a very complicated system that has twice the failure points between a traditional gasoline-powered vehicle as well as an electric one.
..........

Electric
"Turning off the tap" or "capping the oil company off at the knees" has long been a fantasy I've entertained (I'm sure I'm not alone in this respect). After moving from gasoline-powered to hybrid test drives, we then took the next logical step: electric. We test-drove a Tesla model Y, Ford Mach-E and BMW i4. We were leaning towards the Mach-E (the Tesla wasn't even a consideration) until we realized the i4 was a hatchback - so it had almost the same cargo capacity of the Mach-E. And while the Mach-E is a great vehicle, it has a few idiosyncrasies (no door handles) that aren't ideal in a climate where freezing rain and ice are predominant for 4-5 months of the year. There also seem to be a few gremlins in the OS so I think Ford needs to spend some time ironing these out.

Behold... the BMW i4 xDrive40e
Yesterday we finalized our new ride (having had the opportunity to test drive it for a few days - we have a great relationship with our local BMW dealership as a result of a 20+ year history, so this definitely isn't the norm if you were to just walk-in off the street). It has an official range of ~590km, rear wheel drive and all-season tires. Enough to handle our Saskatchewan winters under anything but extreme winter conditions.

Full disclosure: I'm not operating under any illusions that I'm helping to save the planet here. Any green footprint that I reduce in my own city and country is far offset by the exploitation in various third world countries through environmental destruction, child labor and decades of pollution from cobalt, lithium and nickel mining ("not in my backyard"). Furthermore, the irony that the cargo ships delivering battery packs and electric vehicles are extremely pollutive in of themselves or the fact that a third of the electricity generated in my province comes from coal doesn't escape me. I'm a realist - not a hypocrite.

That being said, I do see a time in the not too distant future where electric vehicles (EV) will overtake sales of their gas counterparts - at least for consumer use (for commercial, electric/hydrogen fuel cell-powered vehicles will probably be the future; Elon Musk is on crack if he thinks otherwise). We're going to see Government investment and subsidies to build-out charging station infrastructure (it's not a question of "if", but "when").

So the standard range is approximately 590km. This is reduced by approximately 25-30% when driven at highway speeds (110-120km/h), or roughly 430-450km. Running environmental (AC, heating) at moderate levels will reduce this by a further 5%. Driving at night with lights on can use another 5-10% depending on low/high beams. And driving in winter conditions will sap between 20-25% of the battery.

Realistically speaking, we can expect this for performance:
• Spring/Summer/Fall: 500-550km range (city), 425-50km range (highway); 5-10% less at night or on hot days
• Winter: 400km range (city), 300-350km range (highway); 5% less at night and another 5-10% on really cold days

The i4 comes with a portable Level 1/2 charger, the difference being 120V vs. 240V (we're in the process of getting a 240V plug - the same as your dryer or oven - installed in our heated garage). Level 3 (which is also referred to as "DC Fast Charging") is commercial only - similar to Tesla's Superchargers. There's an extra DC slot in the charging port that accommodates this.

• Level 1 (120V AC): 5-5.5 days to completely charge from 0%.
• Level 2 (240V AC): 8-8.5 hours to completely charge from 0%.
• Level 3 (DC Fast): 45-50min to charge to 80% (after the battery reaches 80%, the DC Fast charger dials back the flow to incentivize you to disconnect the plug and get off the charger - freeing it up for someone else to use). The typical commercial rates we've seen at the Flo DC Fast Charging stations are $0.25/minute which works out to around $0.23kWh (my home rate is around $0.14kWh for comparison). So more - but when travelling long distances, pretty much a prerequisite unless you're staying overnight at a waypoint.

Now navigating longer distances does take some planning. We're planning a trip to Calgary, AB to visit my folks and the normal route is 650km. But since there's no Level 3 DC Fast Charging stations along our usual route - we have to divert down to Swift Current (charge), then travel along the Trans Canada 1 to Medicine Hat (charge) and either stop in Strathmore for a third (charge) or hopefully have enough juice to make it to Calgary. This ends up being about 150km further in distance and requires 2-3 45-40 minute stops. We usually stop for lunch and a stretch anyway, so it will most likely end up taking 3-4 hours longer than usual. For us (and speaking strictly for ourselves) - as we only make this trek once or twice a year - this is an acceptable tradeoff.

The car is an absolute riot to drive (especially up to 60km/h). The color is Black Sapphire Metallic with an M Sport/Premium Package (we didn't have any choice as this was the first i4 our dealer received and was preconfigured by BMW). An i4 iDrive M50 arrived last week and there are apparently two more allocations for i4s for the remainder of 2022. With the pair of BMW iX SUVs they received - that's a grand total of six (6) electric vehicles for all of 2022. Meanwhile, China apparently sold 3 million EVs last year and is expected to double that to 6 million EVs by the end of 2022 (wow!)

Right now the MPGe (miles per gallon equivalent) is 110 MPGe on the highway and 130 MPGe in the city. And this probably wasn't the most "conservative" driving (lol). Yeah, you read that correctly - up to 130mpg. My brother just bought a new Toyota Corolla and he gets 54mpg city/highway fairly consistently.

Unlike Teslas, this i4 has all the various safety features that actually work - including not spontaneously bursting into flames, flattening small children-sized manequins in the middle of the road, plowing into blueberry-ladden semi trucks or randomly leaving the highway! The i4 also puts my admittedly good parallel-parking to shame - which I'm not afraid to concede does a far superior job. Anyway, enough about the technical stuff - on to the pics!

Nice choice!!

 

[Miami Reef]

Absolutely stunning car! It suits you so well! I really like that black exterior!

 

[Projects with Sam]

stunning!

 

[blaxsun]

August 26. A Fistful of Dollars

Can you believe I'd never seen this movie (or at least in its entirety) until recently? I recently lost two fish - a green chromis that had been ostracized by the rest of "The Swarm", got spooked one evening and ended up on the floor and "Candy" - the yellow candy hogfish that was doing awesome but has just up and disappeared. I really liked that hogfish (sucks). Whenever I walk into my LFS with a "fistful of dollars", well...

So the recent addition came in as a consignment for a tank being shutdown - and I've decided to call this new Christmas wrasse "Wash" (which will hopefully become fast friends with "Mal", the Melanarus wrasse). No idea if it's male or female (leaning towards female, but your guess is as good as mine at this point).


Wash doing a tail stand to get my attention... Such a friendly fish!

Whenever I introduce new fish I always have this clip from Futurama in the back of my mind...

 

[Tuan’s Reef]

August 15. 50 Under PAR
So I've been reading about a few "quirks" with the new Neptune AOS update to 5.10 8A22, and was hoping (crossing fingers) that nothing on my system would be affected. I should've held off on this update - but the alarm in the Apex control panel was triggering my OCD...

I guess the folks at Neptune needed to run put this particular update through its paces more as it's basically skewed my PAR readings. Normally I'll see a curve throughout the day in the 125-150 range. Now it only reads the baseline setting of 50.



Affected modules (thus far) appear to be the PMK and flow meters. I've got a support ticket in to Neptune - but I suspect I'm going to have to patiently wait for a fix along with everyone else.

Oh man, I'm glad I didn't update my Apex. Are we able to downgrade the FW ?

 

[blaxsun]

Oh man, I'm glad I didn't update my Apex. Are we able to downgrade the FW ?

I don't think downgrading is an option. There was a new update yesterday but it didn't resolve my issues.

 

[blaxsun]

 

[blaxsun]

August 28. Runaway Train
The tank has been running great for the most part, except for two minor anomalies:

1. My Neptune PAR sensor quit working when the first Apex AOS update. Despite a convoluted "fix" to update the probe (which involved unplugging the Aquabus cable mid firmware update), it's been no joy in Toyland - including a new (recent) Apex AOS update which I'd hoped would resolve it. Neptune's solution is for me to send both the ASM module and probe back to them for testing - even though I need the ASM module for my secondary temperature probe (there's more than a few configurations that rely on an accurate reading there). My suggestion was for them to send me a new ASM module/PAR probe and then they can figure out what the **** they did to break the probe with their AOS updates. So Neptune, you get two thumbs down on this response (which involved probably a half dozen different reps in various correspondence without any resolution).

2. My Nyos Quantum 160 skimmer just decided to go haywire today and foamed over twice in a span of minutes. Nothing had changed with respect to water levels or supplements - other than I did get around to finally adding Reef Roids back into my coral feeding regiment this week. That may have been the catalyst, but as I couldn't resolve it (despite tweaking the water and air adjustments) I've decided to take the skimmer out early for cleaning. Initial inspection didn't reveal anything that was clogging or otherwise restricting water flow. It was fairly clean for the most part - and try as I may I couldn't find anything wrong with it.

Since I have the skimmer out, I'll probably take the opportunity to soak the PAR probe as well (even though it doesn't really need cleaning), remove the Schego titanium heaters and Inkbird and work towards making the new Innovative Marine Helio heater setup more permanent (something I'm not exactly looking forward to, as it involves ripping apart a small chunk of the wiring in my Adaptive Reef cabinet).

 

[blaxsun]

August 29. Bounce Castle
I love mushrooms (the tank - not the pizza variety). They're fast turning into one of my favorite corals, mainly due to the fact that they're relatively maintenance free, grow at a decent rate and haven't as yet attracted the attention of any "nibblers". About 6-8 months ago I picked up a pair of rhodactis mushroom frags from my local LFS (~1" in diameter, left image) and glued them to a rock where they've since morphed into the versions with the outrageous appearance (right image).

These frags were not of the "bounce" variety, and none of the similar frags at my LFS have morphed. So I'm at a loss to explain exactly what I did (almost certainly inadvertently, because I'm pretty sure I'm not that skilled). If you look closely in the centers and along the edges of the image on the right you can still see some remnants of what the original frag looked like on the left. Supposedly rhodactis mushrooms can spontaneously turn into "bounce" versions under certain conditions.

I picked the following mushroom up at a frag swap last October. It was sold as a sangria mushroom, but I'm fairly certain it's a plain Jane discosoma mushroom (it could be a rhodactis, but it more closely resembles a disco). This one is also starting to develop some over-inflated polyps, so we'll see what happens. Interesting triva fact on this particular specimen: It was about the size of a quarter when I got it, but refused to stay on the frag plug. I tried a half dozen different times to get it to stay put - but to no avail. When it finally disappeared I figured it had finally taken a dive into the abyss - but a week later it crawled out of a rock crevice and has now expanded to about 6" in diameter.

Disco mushroom to zoanthid colony: "You shall not pass!"

The only other mushroom I've ever seen go absolutely bonkers is a blue oxide ricordea that grew from a single frag to over three dozen colonies - all with massive, over-inflated polyps. I unfortunately don't have any images, but the bizarre thing is that despite having the colonies dominating two separate tanks - they all shrivelled up and perished within days of each other.

 

[Woodyman]

August 30. Bounce Castle
I love mushrooms (the tank - not the pizza variety). They're fast turning into one of my favorite corals, mainly due to the fact that they're relatively maintenance free, grow at a decent rate and haven't as yet attracted the attention of any "nibblers". About 6-8 months ago I picked up a pair of rhodactis mushroom frags from my local LFS (~1" in diameter, left image) and glued them to a rock where they've since morphed into the versions with the outrageous appearance (right image).

These frags were not of the "bounce" variety, and none of the similar frags at my LFS have morphed. So I'm at a loss to explain exactly what I did (almost certainly inadvertently, because I'm pretty sure I'm not that skilled). If you look closely in the centers and along the edges of the image on the right you can still see some remnants of what the original frag looked like on the left. Supposedly rhodactis mushrooms can spontaneously turn into "bounce" versions under certain conditions.

I picked the following mushroom up at a frag swap last October. It was sold as a sangria mushroom, but I'm fairly certain it's a plain Jane discosoma mushroom (it could be a rhodactis, but it more closely resembles a disco). This one is also starting to develop some over-inflated polyps, so we'll see what happens. Interesting triva fact on this particular specimen: It was about the size of a quarter when I got it, but refused to stay on the frag plug. I tried a half dozen different times to get it to stay put - but to no avail. When it finally disappeared I figured it had finally taken a dive into the abyss - but a week later it crawled out of a rock crevice and has now expanded to about 6" in diameter.

Disco mushroom to zoanthid colony: "You shall not pass!"

The only other mushroom I've ever seen go absolutely bonkers is a blue oxide ricordea that grew from a single frag to over three dozen colonies - all with massive, over-inflated polyps. I unfortunately don't have any images, but the bizarre thing is that despite having the colonies dominating two separate tanks - they all shrivelled up and perished within days of each other.

Awesome!!! Some good looking shrooms!!