BranchingHammer’s sps journey

[BranchingHammer]

Whoa those frag protectors are awesome.

looking great! I need to go through and read the build to this point but it’s looking healthy. Great work

Thank you so much! Been pretty busy but hope to post those updates soon lol

 

[BranchingHammer]

Well, those updates were in fact not posted last month, but here are some recent FTS for the time being before I post some more in depth updates!

 

[drawman]

Well, those updates were in fact not posted last month, but here are some recent FTS for the time being before I post some more in depth updates!

Looks great!

 

[BranchingHammer]

Well, long time no see, I've been pretty busy (per usual lol) but things still look great! My main issue right now is overcrowding and coral warfare between acros and other corals in the tank. Today I did some fragging to reduce some of the overcrowding, and I started cycling my frag tank again that I had shut down last year because I didn't have enough time to deal with another system. Hopefully I can move some of my SPS like the pocillipora and montiporas into the frag tank because they're really starting to take up real estate that I'd like to have for acros. Also, the tabling acros are growing insanely fast and I have to keep moving them because there's not enough space, but I feel like this is a good problem to have hahaha .

One update that was slightly concerning and which frustrates me a lot:
The urchin in the clam/shallow water acro tank decided to chew through the power cord of my wavemaker , so there goes $130. I thought the damage wasn't that bad until I removed the powerhead from the tank and saw that it had gone through two layers of insulation. Luckily, I have replacements lying around from various projects, so I just changed out the pump but used the same controller with the same programming. So I may have avoided disaster in the electricity department. Now I have a protector sleeve on the powercord to prevent it from happening again.

Pictures to come!

 

[drawman]

Well, long time no see, I've been pretty busy (per usual lol) but things still look great! My main issue right now is overcrowding and coral warfare between acros and other corals in the tank. Today I did some fragging to reduce some of the overcrowding, and I started cycling my frag tank again that I had shut down last year because I didn't have enough time to deal with another system. Hopefully I can move some of my SPS like the pocillipora and montiporas into the frag tank because they're really starting to take up real estate that I'd like to have for acros. Also, the tabling acros are growing insanely fast and I have to keep moving them because there's not enough space, but I feel like this is a good problem to have hahaha .

One update that was slightly concerning and which frustrates me a lot:
The urchin in the clam/shallow water acro tank decided to chew through the power cord of my wavemaker , so there goes $130. I thought the damage wasn't that bad until I removed the powerhead from the tank and saw that it had gone through two layers of insulation. Luckily, I have replacements lying around from various projects, so I just changed out the pump but used the same controller with the same programming. So I may have avoided disaster in the electricity department. Now I have a protector sleeve on the powercord to prevent it from happening again.

Pictures to come!

Curious on this protector sleeve and what it looks like. What kind of urchin is it? That's great the tank is cruising along!

 

[BranchingHammer]

Curious on this protector sleeve and what it looks like. What kind of urchin is it? That's great the tank is cruising along!

I got the protector in an old Hydor koralia powerhead box and never used it until today. Here's a picture of it on the powerhead cord:

The urchin is a pin cushion urchin. He does a good job with algae in the tank but he definitely has some teeth on him

 

[BranchingHammer]

Here's a nice top down I took of the Milka stylophora and surrounding corals

 

[BranchingHammer]

Haha, just looked back and I really need to update the first post of this thread with updated FTS, equipment, stocking list and everything!

Recent Updates:
I switched out the Reefbreeders photon V2 that has been running on this system for 6 years and still works great!! Thanks @Reef Breeders for building such quality equipment! I replaced it with the Photon V2+ that I was running on my frag tank, and put the photon V2 over the frag tank since its still going strong and grows acros great.

I lost another RPM wavemaker today though due to water getting into a connection point , so I will have to get some replacements to increase flow in the frag tank.

Other than that, everything is growing amazingly, I never really thought I would make it to this point with acros in this tank, and I'm super happy with everything right now. Trying to keep everything simple and stable at this point to keep the growth up!

I'll get some more shots of corals today!

 

[BranchingHammer]

Pictures!

Poletti Yellow Tip

No-Name beauty

Derasa clam

 

[BranchingHammer]

Some more pics as the reef fills in!

A greened-out frag I got for $10 that is showing some super cool colors as it grows out

Top - BC Red Hot Hat Digit
Bottom - JF Razz-ma-Tazz

 

[BranchingHammer]

I had a brief photoshoot of my beautiful yellow-eye kole tang the other day, here are some of my favorite shots!

 

[BranchingHammer]

I really need to start doing updates on this thread more often. I had something crazy happen a week ago... I noticed that my ph was trending lower, that my colors were fading a bit, and that growth had slowed. I was wondering what was happening, and I looked at my dosing containers that I had filled up a few days before. My alkalinity container was fully drained while my calcium container was still half full . They are dosed at the same rate, so this really shouldn't happen. So in the end, I realized that my alk hadn't been dosing for around 4 days, maybe more, which is a lot since I dose 80 mL of two part a day. I tested alk at 4.8!!!!! Anyways, I slowly raised it back up to 7 dkh over the course of a few days and now its back to normal at 7.5. But man that was crazy and I'm glad I realized what was happening!! The only coral that showed any significant symptoms was my rainbow stylophora which had a slight amount of RTN, but everything looks great now, so I don't think it affected the system that much hopefully.

 

[BranchingHammer]

So I've always wanted more fish in my display because there's not much activity going on, and I need more nutrient input anyways. I. decided to order 5 fish online: A McCosker's wrasse, a Red-lined (Xmas) Wrasse, a lubbock's fairy wrasse, a longnose hawkfish, and a rainford's goby. The three wrasses were for the display, the rainfords was going in the shallow-water acro cube tank, and the hawkfish was going in my grow out tank. Unfortunately, the rainfords came in DOA, and the McCosker's and longnose hawkfish came in really stressed from shipping. The hawkfish disappeared shortly after addition, and the McCosker's teeth got caught on the net, which was an entire situation you can read about here . The McCosker's wrasse and the longnose ended up dying after less than 24 hours, but I still have the xmas wrasse and the lubbock's fairy wrasse which are very healthy and are eating well. It was a traumatic event to be honest, and I am hesitant to order fish online again. In addition, I ordered a female/juvenile xmas wrasse, but received a terminal male which is also kind of annoying. He is beautiful, however; and I'm excited to see how he does in the display.

I'm currently on the hunt at my LFS for more wrasses to add to both my main and grow out tank so that I don't have to go through shipping again. Mostly looking at flasher and fairy wrasses, and my LFS has a pretty great selection, so I'm excited to keep stocking the tanks since they've been sparse for so long.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

So I've always wanted more fish in my display because there's not much activity going on, and I need more nutrient input anyways. I. decided to order 5 fish online: A McCosker's wrasse, a Red-lined (Xmas) Wrasse, a lubbock's fairy wrasse, a longnose hawkfish, and a rainford's goby. The three wrasses were for the display, the rainfords was going in the shallow-water acro cube tank, and the hawkfish was going in my grow out tank. Unfortunately, the rainfords came in DOA, and the McCosker's and longnose hawkfish came in really stressed from shipping. The hawkfish disappeared shortly after addition, and the McCosker's teeth got caught on the net, which was an entire situation you can read about here . The McCosker's wrasse and the longnose ended up dying after less than 24 hours, but I still have the xmas wrasse and the lubbock's fairy wrasse which are very healthy and are eating well. It was a traumatic event to be honest, and I am hesitant to order fish online again. In addition, I ordered a female/juvenile xmas wrasse, but received a terminal male which is also kind of annoying. He is beautiful, however; and I'm excited to see how he does in the display.

I'm currently on the hunt at my LFS for more wrasses to add to both my main and grow out tank so that I don't have to go through shipping again. Mostly looking at flasher and fairy wrasses, and my LFS has a pretty great selection, so I'm excited to keep stocking the tanks since they've been sparse for so long.

Sorry about all the fish mishaps that happened to you!

 

[BranchingHammer]

Sorry about all the fish mishaps that happened to you!

Thank you! It was horrible in the moment but at least I have two healthy fish for my display now. Trying to shop local in the future that way I don’t don’t experience the loss directly from shipping but still sad.

 

[drawman]

Sorry for your loss that really sucks to lose fish!

 

[BranchingHammer]

Ok actually another massive update is that I received an amazing battlebox last week with some of my favorite pieces in Adam's collection. Here is the list of the corals I received :

1. ATL Blue Clover Stag
2. BC Houdini
3. BC Corpse of the Hell Trollsman
4. BC Bellicose Trobairitz
5. No name shortcake
6. BC Pink Flamingo
7. BC Kermit Song Granulosa
8. Blue Dragon
9. Sniper's Blue
10. No name Mille
11. No name yellow rainbow
12. BC Smurfcox
13. BC Wanebow Phi-or-farts
14. BC Biggest Bird
15. No name Nasuta
16. BC Flowers Grow out of my Grave when I think about you
17. BC Bohemia


Unfortunately, the Blue Clover stag RTN'd on me after shipping which was kind of surprising, but everything else is doing great! I'll post some decent pictures soon I promise!

 

[Charlie the Reefer]

So I've always wanted more fish in my display because there's not much activity going on, and I need more nutrient input anyways. I. decided to order 5 fish online: A McCosker's wrasse, a Red-lined (Xmas) Wrasse, a lubbock's fairy wrasse, a longnose hawkfish, and a rainford's goby. The three wrasses were for the display, the rainfords was going in the shallow-water acro cube tank, and the hawkfish was going in my grow out tank. Unfortunately, the rainfords came in DOA, and the McCosker's and longnose hawkfish came in really stressed from shipping. The hawkfish disappeared shortly after addition, and the McCosker's teeth got caught on the net, which was an entire situation you can read about here . The McCosker's wrasse and the longnose ended up dying after less than 24 hours, but I still have the xmas wrasse and the lubbock's fairy wrasse which are very healthy and are eating well. It was a traumatic event to be honest, and I am hesitant to order fish online again. In addition, I ordered a female/juvenile xmas wrasse, but received a terminal male which is also kind of annoying. He is beautiful, however; and I'm excited to see how he does in the display.

I'm currently on the hunt at my LFS for more wrasses to add to both my main and grow out tank so that I don't have to go through shipping again. Mostly looking at flasher and fairy wrasses, and my LFS has a pretty great selection, so I'm excited to keep stocking the tanks since they've been sparse for so long.

I feel for you man. I feel like I’ve been pretty lucky ordering fish online so far but I always feel panicked and questioning myself when acclimating fish bought online! Sorry for your experience but thanks for sharing.

 

[BranchingHammer]

I feel for you man. I feel like I’ve been pretty lucky ordering fish online so far but I always feel panicked and questioning myself when acclimating fish bought online! Sorry for your experience but thanks for sharing.

Yeah I was really hoping things would go well, but I was stressed already. They came in not packed very well and stressed, and I knew it was going to go downhill from there unfortunately.

 

[BranchingHammer]

Some picture updates!

The main display is looking pretty disorganized with a bunch of frags of overgrowing montis and stylos that I cut. Nevertheless, growth is looking pretty good! The coloration on my acros has always been more pastel-like, and I think that is due to my low nutrient system. Normally, my nitrates and phosphates are near undetectable. I haven't tested nutrients in a while, but pretty sure I'm around those levels still. That was my reason for adding more fish so that I can provide more bio-available nitrogen and phosphorous for the corals to increase coloration and growth. We'll see how that goes in the coming weeks!

Here is a nice side view of the shallow acro cube with clams. You can see all the new frags on the left!