Growth Rate Time Lapse Thread

[Cory]

They're under 2x Reefi Duo Extremes. Par sits between 250-350.

Thanks for the info. Those are pretty pricey leds at 750 us each. Like them?

 

[xiaoxiy]

Thanks for the info. Those are pretty pricey leds at 750 us each. Like them?

I grabbed them on sale for $650 each, which was a steal. I absolutely love them.

I've owned Radions, an Orphek Atlantik V4, an ATI Powermodule, a Nanobox/T5 Hybrid, and a Giesemann Infiniti Halide in the past. The Reefi have been hands down my favorite fixture. I'm a huge fan of their "reeflector design" which minimizes the amount of side glare I get when I sit on my couch.

 

[saltwaterjunkie12]

What a great idea, and awesome pictures to go along with it.

 

[xiaoxiy]

7 Week Pics: The growth averages out to about 0.25-0.5 inches per branch per month.

 

[AlainD]

No self shading problem with the sps grow and do you change your setting

 

[mdb_talon]

Very cool really like seeing these growth shots.

 

[xiaoxiy]

No self shading problem with the sps grow and do you change your setting

I'm a bit confused by this question. Can you elaborate a bit further?

 

[ThePurple12]

So each of those lapses is 1 week of growth?

 

[xiaoxiy]

So each of those lapses is 1 week of growth?

Yup!

 

[Cory]

Mind sharing your setup and water parameters?

 

[tnc112105]

Following along. This is really cool.

 

[xiaoxiy]

Mind sharing your setup and water parameters?

Sure! I've listed what I thought was pertinent. Feel free to let me know if I've missed anything you're interested in knowing. Also keep in mind most of these Acros have been in my tank for 8 months to 1 year now.

The tank is a 81 gallon tank (36x24x24). It has been running for approximately 13.5 months now.

Lighting: 2x Reefi Duo Extremes. PAR ~250-350 in the tank
Flow: 2x Tunze Stream 3s at 100% tuned to a standing wave
Big 3 Additives: Kalkwasser (2.4L daily) and ATI Essentials Pro (about 9ml daily)
Misc Additives: KZ Flatworm Stop at 2x recommended dosage (Had AEFW this past fall)
Coral Food: Easy SPS and Easy Booster

Temperature: 77.3F
SG: 1.024 - 1.026
PH: 7.65 (nighttime low) - 8.2 (daytime high)
Alkalinity: 7.0-7.6dkH
Calcium: Unknown (I don't test)
Magnesium: Unknown (I don't test)
NO3: Almost 0 (API test kit a couple months ago)
PO4: 0.03-0.10ppm

My filtration is fairly simple. I have a bunch of live rock in the sump, a undersized skimmer (Icecap K2-50), and carbon (changed biweekly). I have a total of 7 fish (understocked).

 

[xiaoxiy]

Guess who managed to initiate a second crash in his tank within 3 months, for likely the same reason?! That's right, me!

So long story short, last Thanksgiving, I had added aquarium gravel to my ricordea basket (in the frag tank). 18 hours later, things started bleaching really quickly. So I took out the gravel, ran carbon, polyfilter and 90G worth of water changes. I also dropped my lights to 75-80% to prevent further oxidative damage.

I eventually found a stray current on a reactor, which I removed from the tank. I chalked everything up to the stray current. Everything turned around within a week, but I lost two acros in the process.

Fast forward to yesterday, I added the same gravel into my shroom basket because the ricordeas were attaching to the basket and I didn't want them to. Lo and behold,
18 hours later, same paling event occurred (see Walt Disney from this evening). At this point, I highly suspect that the gravel is the culprit for both events. It's the gravel or fragging ricordea...but I've fragged ricordea multiple times w/o subsequent acro bleaching.

Here are some gifs documenting the damage from this morning; it's gotten worse since these pictures. I can literally see zooxanthella being expelled on some pieces.





Here are the weekly growth interval gifs: As you can see, the acros have been growing really well up until they took the hard hit yesterday. Last time it took me 3 weeks to recovery from the event. I plan on continuing my documentation of weekly growth gifs. I fully intend to document the good and ugly of reefing.

 

[ThePurple12]

Sorry about the bleaching.

Thanks for doing this, it’s always cool to see coral timelapses. Amazing growth!

 

[xiaoxiy]

We'll see if I have any acros to even take growth-shots of after this. The bleaching event continues to progress at a fairly rapid pace; I've done 74 gallons worth of water changes, carbon, and polyfilter so far.

I've dropped my light to 70%, to help prevent further oxidative damage.

Stay tuned next weekend for fun time-lapse pictures!

 

[xiaoxiy]

Weekly Update: I lost 5 of my 20 acropora colonies during this crash. I think that I am cautiously out of the woods now though. Good news is, I have backup frags in my frag tank of 4 of those colonies. Bye bye Granulosa for now though; I'll eventually have to get a frag of it back from one of my local reefer friends. Protip: Give frags of your favorite acros to friends, so that you have backups in the community.

Pre crash ----------------------------------------------------Post crash

As expected, the growth pictures show little to no growth this week. I wonder how long it'll be before I start seeing visible growth again.

 

[shandoee]

Awesome thread, sorry about the losses. Following along

 

[xiaoxiy]

Week 10: Growth has slowly started up again. I think I'm out of the woods now.

 

[MartyF]

Week 10: Growth has slowly started up again. I think I'm out of the woods now.

Glad things are turning around and thank you for sharing! I think many of us appreciate the ups and downs and the time lapse is SO COOL!! Thanks again

 

[xiaoxiy]

Week 11: Steadily picking back up again! Yay!

I've denoted the week of the crash with a "Crash".