Byron & Reneé's 465g reef - 700g+ total

[Saltwatercoral]

we moved the Anthias over to the display tank, so all of the fish are now in... we now have greens, blues, golds, reds, yellows -- colorful tank. Stay tuned for the start of coral additions.

a couple of iPhone pics:

Love the colors of the fish! Like the deep red of the male Anthia! Sorry to hear about the ecothech led but they should fix that for you with no problem. Lets get the coral party going! Are you going to be dosing for everything? I would get all your lvls up to par before adding any to prevent less stress on the fish and corals as well. Can't wait to see the corals going in!

 

[Adam G]

Just read through your thread as I have Miracles as well. Love the details ot the build. Tank looks great.

 

[byron]

Love the colors of the fish! Like the deep red of the male Anthia! Sorry to hear about the ecothech led but they should fix that for you with no problem. Lets get the coral party going! Are you going to be dosing for everything? I would get all your lvls up to par before adding any to prevent less stress on the fish and corals as well. Can't wait to see the corals going in!

we are dosing Ca, Mg, & Alk + we do 40 gallon water change weekly.

Ecotech called today and said they are sending out a replacement power supply which should be here Monday. I have found Ecotech service to be top drawer.

Just read through your thread as I have Miracles as well. Love the details ot the build. Tank looks great.

thanks...

 

[byron]

we got a new power supply in from Ecotech today and the entire 6 Radion array is now functional again...

Occasionally something may break from Ecotech, but their service is simply top drawer... again, they replaced a defective part at no charge. Kudos to Ecotech.

 

[byron]

QUESTION: once a coral totally bleaches as in this one below, is it dead? If maybe not, what can be done to attempt to bring it around?

Any help appreciate... just beginning to learn coral keeping...

One of the specimens went from partial bleaching yesterday to totally bleached by this morning (it was green upon arrival a bit over a week ago). I got it from LA as a part of a 4 Pak and they didn't include the names of them, so I dont know what it is.

Water test again this morning: (45 gal changes done every Sunday)
SG: 34.8
Alk: 9.016
Ca: 483
Mg: 1340
PO4: 0.02

Illumination @ specimen @ 10:45a today: PAR 294 – Radions set for "Natural" mode and hit peak of cycle around 1:30p

 

[o2manyfish]

I can't tell from the photo if there is any tissue on the coral. If the tissue is gone then its dead. Sometimes after shipping corals will bleach and expel their color. The coral will then usually brown up, and then slowly color back up. Depending on your system coloring back up takes from weeks to months.

Dave B

 

[byron]

I can't tell from the photo if there is any tissue on the coral. If the tissue is gone then its dead. Sometimes after shipping corals will bleach and expel their color. The coral will then usually brown up, and then slowly color back up. Depending on your system coloring back up takes from weeks to months.
Dave B

thanks for the reply...

and sorry for the lousy image. I haven't figured out how to get a sharp focus through this thick glass yet.

So we'll watch and wait to see if it starts to come around. I was surprised that it lost all color so quickly... seemed like it was less than 24 hrs.

 

[bairdimusprime]

gorgeous tank! good luck with the bleached coral

 

[o2manyfish]

I have seen corals bleach in literally a few hours.

Don't worry about the photo challenge. I have been taking photos of my tanks for a very long time. This year for Hanukah I bought myself a Canon 60D and a Sigma 105mm Macro lens, and I still have a challenge to get a good photo. Leave the coral alone. If it starts turning brown in spots in a couple of days that is algae growing on the dead skeleton. If it all turns brown uniformally then thats the algae starting to repopulate. Sometimes they will go from white to green, but that's not as frequent.

Dave B

 

[byron]

here are a couple of images taken the day before the coral bleached...

 

[byron]

gorgeous tank! good luck with the bleached coral

thanks

I have seen corals bleach in literally a few hours.

Don't worry about the photo challenge. I have been taking photos of my tanks for a very long time. This year for Hanukah I bought myself a Canon 60D and a Sigma 105mm Macro lens, and I still have a challenge to get a good photo. Leave the coral alone. If it starts turning brown in spots in a couple of days that is algae growing on the dead skeleton. If it all turns brown uniformally then thats the algae starting to repopulate. Sometimes they will go from white to green, but that's not as frequent.

Dave B

its not the camera, it's me... The camera body I'm using is a Canon 1Ds3 and the various lenses are all L series Canon (Canon 180mm f/3.5L macro, Canon 24-70mm f/2.8L, Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L, etc). I've just got to figure out to setup to shoot through the thick glass and the ripple of the water column... may need to vary the color temperature of the Radions as well -- I had to process the images at 40K+ Kelvin to get the colors reasonable.

 

[Pierre]

Well done on an excellent job done. Hope that your tank continues to mesmerize you and you reap the rewards of a beautiful reef.

 

[byron]

We finally got the cherry frame built around the wall opening. The upper panel is hinged so that it can swing upward to allow access to the DT from the front. The door to the right is the entrace to the fish equipment room and the door to the left is the entrance to electrical and mechanical rooms.

Hopefully the entire media room will be finished by Spring It was a ways to go...

 

[VelasCorals]

Cherry frame looks awesome! Great job!

 

[Saltwatercoral]

We finally got the cherry frame built around the wall opening. The upper panel is hinged so that it can swing upward to allow access to the DT from the front. The door to the right is the entrace to the fish equipment room and the door to the left is the entrance to electrical and mechanical rooms.

Hopefully the entire media room will be finished by Spring It was a ways to go...

Looks Very clean! All those Radions...very nice!

 

[byron]

Cherry frame looks awesome! Great job!

Looks Very clean! All those Radions...very nice!

thanks guys

 

[byron]

We have added some more coral (small, so we can watch them grow).
They are sitting on the bottom at the moment, but we will decide where to place them tomorrow. An urchin, wearing some shells, crawled into the mix in the upper right if you were wondering?

cauliflower colt
cabbage leather
toadstool mushroom
yellow Fiji leather
Taylors tree
Taro tree
Evergreen starburst polyp
purple asterospicularia

green pipe organ

 

[Zack]

love the thread/build, all of it!!!!

 

[byron]

love the thread/build, all of it!!!!

thanks Zack

 

[byron]

I have been fighting a problem with a brown algae that keeps growing in the sand of the DT -- mostly at the right end. I cant figure out what is causing it or how to get rid of it. I stir the sand in the area off and on and I have vacuumed the area during weekly water changes -- so far nothing has helped. We run a GFO and carbon reactor and do 40 gal water changes every week.

Here are a couple of images of the algae problem:

Here is an image of the fuge. I'm wondering if all of the green hair algae growing in the fuge is looping back and causing, or at minimum, contributing to the problem. I'm trying to decide if the fuge is even needed at all or if it serves no purpose in the system. I've got to get a better understanding of refugiums: why have one, what is it suppose to accomplish, how should it be implemented if present, etc... I put the fuge into the system without really understanding why I did that or having a plan for it. There is nothing in the fuge really but live rock and algae -- well, I did dump in a bag of copods in a while back... Maybe I need to chunk in a bunch snails.... Or?????? Crap, I wish I knew what I was doing

BTW, Merry Christmas to all!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!