My 85g reef experiment

[david p.]

Added a few acros:
JF Aquadeligh
RR-Rainbow loom
RR-Wolverine
Tyree Pinklemonade (my other colony is still recuperating from the issues i had a while back)
Also added a RR-Pink-Floyd, but need to color up

 

[david p.]

And a few shots from tonight!

 

[david p.]

A few more... sry for flooding with pics....

 

[Nick James]

Don't ever apologize for adding pics! Looks great!

 

[david p.]

Don't ever apologize for adding pics! Looks great!

ok then:

 

[david p.]

I think this build is due for a little update, aside from pics.

As mentionned in previous post, i went throught a difficult period from Feb to May-June, i lost a few (several) acros and my elegance. During that time i focused on keeping everything stable, i kept using the AF salt (Pro bio and Reef salt) even if i considered going back to my previous salt.

I just completed a 3week Interceptor treatment after i found some white bugs living on my acros (in the polyps!!)



I have seen a drastic improvement in my coral since then, polyp extension is better than ever, the growth and color are back. I can almost see daily growth (i dream!!). But seriously, polyps, colors, growth is amazing. From March to May, everything was pretty much on hold, growth was none, colors were not brilliant.

My tank is now blooming as you can see on my few post before this one! FINALLY! I guess difficult period are part of the hobby, i'm still unsure what made my tank go south like this, the sum of the changes i made around chrismass, the bugs on my acro... who knows! My mood was fonction of my tank for a while... wife and kids were worried

Aside from AF reef salt, i slowly increase the AVBE from AF, from 1 drop every other day, i'm at 2 drops now. I jsut started dosing their Alk-Ca-Mg and component strong.

I dediced a couple of month ago to slowly siphon my sand and go bare bottom, i really love the sand, but i saw it was time consuming when my tank was not doing good and i could not keep up with its maintenance, it will also give me more space for my monti collection, chalice, favia and others.... more room for coral is always good. I'm almost done siphonning all the sand.

Fish wise, all fish are back in DT, i had half the fish in QT for a long period of time, but could not catch the remaining fishes... since my corals were doing a lot better, i did not want to remove rocks and stress coral, i sent all of my QT-fish in DT... I just hope for the best! I lost several fish: 3 vanderbuild chromis, labouti wrasse, red mandarin, watchman goby. All my remaining fish seems healthy... but all my dead fish looked healthy 24h before i found them dead...

 

[ArmanitooChar]

Love the way you make pictures. Your reef set up is cool.
-> Following

 

[david p.]

August-22nd was my birthday.... guess what i got.... ;Woot;Woot;Woot
and few more...

 

[Tahoe61]

August-22nd was my birthday.... guess what i got.... ;Woot;Woot;Woot
and few more...

Oh be still my heart, what a beauty.

Happy belated birthday.

 

[david p.]

i kinda forgot about that one, it felt behind rocks in my LPS system, just found it... pretty happy with the color it got over time, my JF Klepto Lepto

 

[david p.]

Just received my B-day corals:

2 colonies .. under white and blues... they are just insane!

 

[david p.]

some stuff for the 25g

 

[david p.]

i also got a few frags, but ill post once they get back their colors.... would not be fair for them

 

[Daniel@R2R]

Dang!! I'm loving your acro collection!! Thanks for sharing those beautiful pics!!

 

[needbiggertanks]

Seriously.. very nice

 

[Labridaedicted]

Great system! Gotta love those mini colonies! I got no time for little frags either, haha

 

[david p.]

After a long journey after the issues i had from Jan to March, since April everything was coming back to normal, color was back, i could see signs of growth on most of my coral... until last week, my doser (kamoer, about 1.5 year old) got stock on 'On' position and dumped all Alk in my tank, AquaForest are fortunatly pretty low in concentration and the Alk container was no full, maybe 1/3 or 1/4 of the 2L was left. My alk jumped from 7.3 to 9.

Did couple of WC over the evening and night to bring it back to normal level.
Though i manage the situation, that was 4 days ago....since then... lost 5 colonies, lost color on most corals, i see STN on many corals.... things are not improving. I know that even if corals looked better and better, they were not super healthy yet... but i never though i would lose that much....

When i saw that things were improving in July, i decided to purchased the corals from the previous post... i'm pretty ticked off now.. if i lose them... i might just forget about acropora....... this hobby is painfull, with all the effort we put into it. i dont even care about the money, anyone into a hobby will eventually spend that kind of money, it's more about all the care and time we put to succeed. I have been testing almost daily for the past 6 months to be sure the transition to AquaForest was going perfectly... i managed that pretty well, i had insane result in terms of coloration. with my regular maintance, cleaning, etc... i did not expect that.

All my LPS, chalice, acans, shrooms, euphilia are doing amazing... it's just the dam Acros!!!

Honestly that might be my last update if everything goes south!

 

[najer]

Wow, sorry to hear this, hope things perk up soon for you.

 

[Sahin]

Man...hope the tank recovered. The acros were looking awesome in the last few posts. Can you measure the nitrate level in your tank and let me know please? Thanks.

 

[david p.]

Man...hope the tank recovered. The acros were looking awesome in the last few posts. Can you measure the nitrate level in your tank and let me know please? Thanks.

i dose kno3 to keep around 5ppm.