My Mixed Reef/Acan Tank

[MarvinsReef]

now, time for a brief update :)
sweet rusty red outer ring and a speckled teal center...from Indo

i'm calling this morph BEEFCAKE ...it seriously has the most plump and fat polyps i've ever seen on a z. gigantus before .....from the Caribbean

tx

Zach

Zach.. I'm sorry about the crab.. I'm sure you found a "good" place for him... ;)

there's a few Sweet Rusty Redd PE's that came in along with some Aussie lords lately... those BeefCake PE's are very nice.. awesome pick ups man... :)

 

[ecotoxlady]

Love the beefcake palys! That crab has some amazing coloration. It's a shame it feeds on palys :(

 

[JGoslee]

That crab is really nice.

 

[Kigs!]

those beefcake palys are awesome...makes me wish you weren't in canada

 

[Patwa]

LOL..thanks for the kind words!.....yeah the BEEFCAKE zoas were a total fluke (gotta keep it in caps lock, for obvious reasons! lol)....our regular 'big box' fish shop had these in, and i couldn't believe it......$30 is all i paid for the rock!....and this is the store that charges $80 for a small colony of green star polyps!!....LOL best buy of the month for me! ;)

and that crab...well, he's in my sump....dunno what he's up to these days....i tossed him a few ugly bali palys....but so far he has not touched them.....oh well :)

Zach.

 

[SilverSurfer]

oh yah..those frags I got are doing great...slowly moving them over from the frag tank....but i want to take it slow....pics to come.

tx.

Zach

Just awesome! :marv

 

[ReeferRob]

What is your secert of special treatment for the red goni? I had one for about six months that was huge then one day just wasn't happy anymore. I moved it to a friends tank that was larger because I thought it was getting crowded until I could better house it.
Thanks

Oh ya, tank looks amazing, what kind of fish is that?

 

[Patwa]

What is your secert of special treatment for the red goni? I had one for about six months that was huge then one day just wasn't happy anymore. I moved it to a friends tank that was larger because I thought it was getting crowded until I could better house it.
Thanks

Oh ya, tank looks amazing, what kind of fish is that?

re: goniopora....i've read everywhere that they are very difficult to keep in the long run.....but...i've had very good experiences..nothing bad...and i've kept gonioporas for years....although, i must say that the longest i've kept a goniopora in my tank was about 1.5 years....i had to break the tank down to install new flooring

the current red one i posted in this thread has been with me close to 7 months now.....and it's doing very well.......i keep it strictly on the sandbed (gonioporas do not fair well when placed on rock, IME), gets a huge amount of indirect flow....and it gets some decent MH light (i have dual 175W SE XM 10,000K bulbs)

as feeding goes.. I indirectly feed frozen rotifers....and i may target feed it reef-roids (a locally available product - which is powdered coral food) every 3 weeks or so....sometimes I sub the reef-roids for frozen cyclopeeze.

oh yah...that's a Fu-Manchu lionfish :)

Zach

 

[Patwa]

more pics! ...lighting is natural sunlight only....all freshly taken this morning right when i woke up :)

hope u like :)

sorry about the bryopsis and flatworms....still a work in progress ;)

Caribbeans

monster lips (i think), bottom left.....green startdust PE, centre....common RPE, top right

bright green Indo...and blue w/ pink centres from Cuba waay in the background

PPE.....after 6 months, still ZERO GROWTH....argh!!! ...what the heck am I doing wrong?? Marv? anyone?

can't forget the r. floridas...

k..heading out to the ribfest now....be back a bit later :)

Zach

 

[IBMGeek]

:marv simply amazing!

 

[MarvinsReef]

Zach.. how are the ones you got from me doing? just curious... :)

 

[Kigs!]

Patwa, you guys get the coolest morphs out there in Canada... you gotta send us some! :D

 

[Patwa]

:marv simply amazing!

thanks :)

Zach.. how are the ones you got from me doing? just curious... :)

they're doing fine...actually i can't remember exactly what i got from you....but i still have the true AOGs, variable star, dungeness, nuclear greens, PPE....the only one that passed away was the armageddons :( but i'll call you up later this year for frags as I might be flying down to Florida to meet up with some family come Xmas time.

but yeah, any idea why my PPE is not growing?...still have one polyp from you...after 6 months, no growth....the thing looks healthy as ever though! very weird!

Patwa, you guys get the coolest morphs out there in Canada... you gotta send us some! :D

LOL....you guys have some killer stuff too! don't cut yourself short, kigs! ;)

but you guys gotta understand why we get some neat stuff up here....Toronto gets direct flights from all of the coral exporting countries.....in the US, practically all of the direct flights from these exporting countries head into Los Angeles (LAX) before it makes it to your LFS...

...lots of transhippers are found here....they cherry pick a lot of the neat stuff and sell to stores, who then sell to you all.....these transhippers also ship direct to stores throughout the US.

That will never happen here in Toronto....Toronto is to the Canadian reefing trade as LAX is to the US trade, simply put.

Zach

 

[Patwa]

more pics....hope you don't mind ;)


here's my two onyx clowns....I got them as Soloman Islands true perculas from RR......they had some black on them, but in about 6 or 7 months they have developed waaay more...one fish has full black bars on the 2nd and 3rd band on both sides, and the other one is not far behind

...i love these guys.....sorry for the pic quality though...they move around a lot!

my Favia Maxima....scored this gem a couple years back now, i think

dendro and ric. florida...i like this shot a lot

black ocellaris cruisin over my zoas, right side of tank

the next two are late evening scenes...MH lights are off...just 20,000K & actinic flourescents

one of my few SPS...regular birdsnest...with my branching hammer in the background

Australian blue maxima clam...

 

[Diskusting]

Excellent

 

[Patwa]

hey guys and gals...time for an update...

I got some new bulbs last night!!!....got rid of my super yellow XM 10,000Ks and got the Iwasaki 15,000K......holy schit! ...what a difference!.....where have these bulbs been all my life!? i guess anything is better than those yellow XMs, eh?! lol. These new bulbs have more PAR than the previous XMs...in fact, it pushes more PAR than some 250W SE bulbs, as per a study by Sanjay.....so I had to give them a try!

and it's as bright as ever, with the most "perfect" colour i've seen on my tank, so far....it's a very, very bright white, with the exact right amount of blue ....i think i'm in love!!!

some new pics for y'all

Aussie a. hillae

My prized Indo acan, with some random Indo zoas..... for a while, Jay (Reef Raft), had a frag of this exact Indo acan in his Aussie nano show tank....under proper lighting, the red becomes less apparent, while the overall colour moves to a more sleek powder purple/lilac appearance.

r. floridas and my Aussie blue maxima clam (the clam has doubled in size since I got it a year ago)

more r. floridas.....the one on top is very unusual....the false tentacle pattern on it is unlike what you would find in the common r. floridas (below it)...oh and it's friggin MASSIVE...at least 3 to 4 inches across on a good day!

another zoa corner ;)

my teal blue scolymia vitiensis, next to a maxima clam

Indo zoas....a nice solid chartreuse colour...

PE alley...beware of the green slits!!!

my safecrackers....grown out from a tiny frag...only took me 1.5 years!! LOL...the foreground is just a sick aussie acan i'm trying to nurse back to health

Zach

 

[I-K@ndY]

Awesome shots man and nice colonies :)

 

[Patwa]

thanks bro! :D

 

[Patwa]

wow...it's been a while....time for an update, methinks!

here are a few shots from last night....these are sans flatworms! hehehe

...and you can see just how well the colours pop under the new Iwasaki 15,000Ks!!!

far left side...the clowns just clowning around

a nice shot of my acan hillae colony.....this guy is getting puffier by the minute.....and the colours are definitely intensifying.....oh...i target feed him about 4 times a week...that might be why ;)

here's another unknown coral...I bought it as an 'acan maxima' (yeah, yeah....everyone has a coral they *think* is an acan maxima...hehehe)...when I picked it up it was in bad shape and shrunken, as I had seen it a few months earlier and it was much bigger......i've been taking my time with it, and now i'm proud to say it's healthy and growing....and looking less and less like an acan maxima i might add!...hahaaha...whatever it is, it's sweet!

a couple aussie acan frags that are growing at a very fast pace (target feed 'em a lot, kids!!!)......you can see that single aussie acan polyp i'm trying to nurse back to health, too (...and it's working!!) ;)

a wicked rock of pink & blue Caribbean zoas

Far right side of the tank (looking in from the side)

bought this Palau neon green umbrella leather as a tiny piece from RR.....look at it now, eh!?! I might have to frag it cuz it's rubbing up and irritating my Armour of God zoas (far right, under the umbrella). The wham'n watermelons don't seem to be affected

Zach

 

[Patwa]

here are two of my SPS pieces....some random acro (growing quite well I might add), and an insanely neon green monti cap.....also in this shot are my duncans (in the far back), mycedium cup (only a portion of it is visible, to the right)....the small orange piece is the old location of my orange monti cap....when I ripped it off, a little piece stayed on the rock

a nice shot of my red micromussa and indo acan lord......the micro was not in good shape for a long while....dunno why.....but only recently has it begun to react positively to my feedings...woot!

here's a lone aussie acan polyp a buddy of mine kindly gave to me to grow out.....the orignal acan died off (that's it's skeleton!!), but when my buddy looked closer, he found this weird one growing on the edge....with all my target feedings, it's nearly doubled in size! :D

my lobowhateverensis - it's just a joke name a buddy of mine came up to describe this piece....it looks like a lobo, but not really when you look much closer.

more to come....stay tuned, folks! ;)

Zach