NBurg's Red Sea Reefer 450 mixed reef

[minimalist]

Hey I’m in DC and would love some frags

 

[Nburg's Reef]

My Ricordea garden before I frag it up and move some of them. I removed them from the sand and added more rock. I am by no means getting rid of them, but needed more rock for a pair of blue throat triggers I have in QT. I'll likely add most of the back to the rockwork.

 

[Nburg's Reef]

Well, I can't keep away from the SPS. As my tank has matured, the SPS I kept have been growing fast and looking better than ever. I’ve also caught a little bit of the LPS bug with some nice Favia, Favites, flowerpot corals and brains. I’ve decided, like the reef junkie I am, to throw my hand back in the SPS game and get rid of all the softies, except Ricordea and Zoas, and stick to hard corals. This time I’m going with all old school SPS for now and then I’ll slowly add some newer fancy acros once I get some serious coral coverage. Once corals get huge, no one cares how many colors they have at a micro if they’re massive.

I Just placed an order with @BoomCorals for some classics like ORA Red Planet, ORA Hawkins, PC rainbow and ORA green, purple and blue polyp digis, among some of his other stuff. I figure I should have no problem with the stuff that’s been in the hobby a while. I remember starting out with digis like 13 years ago and loving them. No more pop-pooing corals because they’re easy if they look pretty.

I’ve already added some other classics like rainbow stylo, Bali green slimer, pink lemonade, orange digi, and @Lazys Coral House own blue polyp birds nest.

BUT! I can’t get rid of anything so I’m cramming all of my softies into a single 20g cube. I’m not done moving everything over but this cube will be an instantly packed, beautiful leather tank. I’ll have to start a new build thread

 

[Nburg's Reef]

On a side note, I started paying attention to pH, and skimmer performance... So I cranked up the air flow thru my skimmer, calibrated my pH probe and started up my scrubber again, now I have lows of 8.15 and max of 8.45 and my alk consumption from BRS Soda Ash went from around 28 ml a day to 75 ml a day within 1-2 weeks. I am struggling to keep my Alk above 8.0 ... Might have to up it again today.

 

[Ancient Mariner]

On a side note, I started paying attention to pH, and skimmer performance... So I cranked up the air flow thru my skimmer, calibrated my pH probe and started up my scrubber again, now I have lows of 8.15 and max of 8.45 and my alk consumption from BRS Soda Ash went from around 28 ml a day to 75 ml a day within 1-2 weeks. I am struggling to keep my Alk above 8.0 ... Might have to up it again today.

I think this is a good sign that you are set for SPS success!

 

[Nburg's Reef]

Couple nice shots. Showing off my new Blue Jaw Pair, a tiny Yellow Submarine favia (small buy an amazing deal), and some long and short Gonis.

I have a lot of new sticks that I will post pics of soon.

All my leathers have moved to my 20g cube, with a new build thread:

Build Thread - 20g WaterBox Cube - Softie Simple Secondary Aquarium

I decided to 'reboot' my main Red Sea Reefer 450 into a SPS dominant with LPS and wanted to remove all of my leather coral and non zoa/ricordea softies. But, I can't just get rid of my softies as I love them as well, so a simple 20g cube is perfect to get my softie fix. Since I had some pretty...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Nburg's Reef]

Drinking a beer on the couch enjoying the view

 

[Nburg's Reef]

It took me almost 2 years to get around to it, but I finally organized my cords and tubes. Everything is zip tied and heavy duty velcro solo so I can easily remove stuff as needed with out undoing everything. while not the prettiest, it’s very functional and organized. I got the idea from Jake Adams to stick everything to the top to get it out of the way. I used 10lb velcro to ensure the power bricks would stick. I’m happy I know have the Straton power brick and controller in the stand now instead of hanging out unprotected in the back.




Here’s what it looks like above

 

[Acropora52]

Looks good. I started that but inertia took over. Mine is relatively organized but hard to keep that way

 

[Nburg's Reef]

Here's a quick vid of my tank today under a whiter spectrum. I put a mild filter on to wash out some of the blue, but I think it dulled out the colors a little... and the iphone vids look like poop when you upload them to youtube for some reason. Looks much better on my phone, lol. have a few more sticks to add, and need to find out what I'm going to do with some of the LPS on the sand, as i like a nice clean and clear sand bed, but getting close to my final setup and then its grow-out stage. As you can see, I added another shelf on the left and made a large cave structure on the right.

 

[Nburg's Reef]

Side view


Torch corner


Holy Grail Micromussa lord from @Acropora52 and a really ticked off colony of eagle eye zoas.

 

[Nburg's Reef]

iphone pics... need a better lens for my camera. The 90mm macro lens take great frag shots, but my crappy Nikon lens that came with the camera really stinks.

WWC Terra Red and a Bali Slimer


Top row, left to right: WWC Toxic Green Aussie Slimer, Pink Lemonade, Blue Stag


Oregon blue tort finally growing quick after almost 2 years of taking its time.

 

[Nburg's Reef]

WWC AOIs are going bonkers now


New Goni Garden

 

[Acropora52]

Man, looking good! that micromussa grows fast once it gets settled and definitely looks like it's settling in well. Those goni look really good too! I had an interested couple of days tank wise...

 

[Nburg's Reef]

Man, looking good! that micromussa grows fast once it gets settled and definitely looks like it's settling in well. Those goni look really good too! I had an interested couple of days tank wise...

Everything good?

 

[Acropora52]

Everything good?

Yeah, for the most part. I'll do a recap at some point once I get through the next couple days.

 

[Nburg's Reef]

Quick update with some nicer pics I found on my computer that I never bothered uploading.

WWC Terra Red


Rainbow Stylo


Holy Grail Micromussa


CC Red Horizon

 

[Nburg's Reef]

Here’s some quick iphone pics. Don’t mind the seasonal diatoms. I got some tiger conchs to hopefully eat it.

These are my fast growing colonies. The WWC Aussie Toxic Green Slimer on the left is just going nuts. It’s different than the Bali Slimer in that it’s more branch and bushy, a little darker green and thinner branches.

Newer frags are really looking good with color and encrusting fast. The WWC Pink Passion is growing tons of branches from the base. Happy to see such a beautiful coral growing so quickly.


poletti’s yellow tip - I’ve had this in my system for years, and this one has grown from leftover tissue encrusted on the rock about a year ago… maybe only a dozen total polyps to this (which gets fragged weekly by my blood throat trigger)


WWC Hello Kitty that came back from the dead. Sold the colony, but a little tissue remained, which is starting to grow back into a colony.


WWC Terra Red - beautiful growth pattern. It’s like a pink Cadillac but darker.


Lastly, this Platygyra is amazing. Deep sky blue with orange mouths. I hope this grows faster than most platys.

 

[Nburg's Reef]

Deep cleaned the sand and it looks good… for now.

 

[Nburg's Reef]

Full tank shot day.