mcarroll
10K Club member
I've already peppered a few threads and blogs with posts, so I wanted to drop in here and introduce myself.
My name is Matt and I am a Montipora cap. nut. ;-)
I know that coral is old fashioned, but I've never been known to follow trends without good reason. If you've never seen a healthy set of cap. colonies, you might have never seen a brightly colored coral! (They tend toward dull colors if not cared for properly.) My Monti's are all on one small rock - maybe a 5 pounder - but the colonies occupy >50% of the space in my bigger tank (details below). Awesome sight!
I do also have appreciation for other stony corals. I've got a couple Acropora, a plating Hydnophora and some birdsnests that I also love.
In general, so-called SPS corals are my favorite - outside the cap's, anything branchy is great!
Sadly, I've got a few corals that I despise and wish there was a way to evict from my tank: mushrooms and zoanthids
In my experience, starting with zoos and mushrooms (or just about any soft coral) is about the worst advice that can be given to a newb - because there is no getting rid of them. For the first two years they didn't grow and only moved about slowly (lame). Then, in the last two years, they've staged several coups attempts on most of my stony colonies (really lame!!), and there seems to be little I can do about it aside from continuing to add more and more flow to make them unhappy. (Which is quite temporary.) Any tips in this direction are sorely needed!
Anyway, I'm running a 100 gallon system presently that consists of a 50 breeder (36x18x18) - mostly a look-down tank - and 38 (36x19x12) attached to a 30 gal (36x16x12) sump. Lighting on the 50 is a Coralife Aqualight Advanced halide fixture housing two 150w Radiums (which run around 170w). The 38 is technically my old tank, now an experimental tank lit on only one half by a brace of 4 x 12w EcoXotic Panoramas. One power supply has already croaked and one of the LED's in another strip has gone out. Not real impressed with that, but they do grow corals!
Flow is all provided (so far) by three Tunze 6045's - a fourth may be needed shortly for the above-mentioned reason. (I actually started with one 6045 and two MP40's...original model....they were replaced in short order due to premature wear and inadequate flow characteristics with the 6045's and now sit in a box. Ouch! That was an expensive lesson! Performance may have been more acceptable in a less crowded tank.....dunno.)
Hoping to upgrade the system in the Spring to a 120g or maybe a 150g Deep Dimension. Also hoping to replace the halides with a semi-home-brew LED system (posted already in the LED specialists group) before then if possible.
See you around!
-Matt
My name is Matt and I am a Montipora cap. nut. ;-)
I know that coral is old fashioned, but I've never been known to follow trends without good reason. If you've never seen a healthy set of cap. colonies, you might have never seen a brightly colored coral! (They tend toward dull colors if not cared for properly.) My Monti's are all on one small rock - maybe a 5 pounder - but the colonies occupy >50% of the space in my bigger tank (details below). Awesome sight!
I do also have appreciation for other stony corals. I've got a couple Acropora, a plating Hydnophora and some birdsnests that I also love.
In general, so-called SPS corals are my favorite - outside the cap's, anything branchy is great!
Sadly, I've got a few corals that I despise and wish there was a way to evict from my tank: mushrooms and zoanthids
In my experience, starting with zoos and mushrooms (or just about any soft coral) is about the worst advice that can be given to a newb - because there is no getting rid of them. For the first two years they didn't grow and only moved about slowly (lame). Then, in the last two years, they've staged several coups attempts on most of my stony colonies (really lame!!), and there seems to be little I can do about it aside from continuing to add more and more flow to make them unhappy. (Which is quite temporary.) Any tips in this direction are sorely needed!
Anyway, I'm running a 100 gallon system presently that consists of a 50 breeder (36x18x18) - mostly a look-down tank - and 38 (36x19x12) attached to a 30 gal (36x16x12) sump. Lighting on the 50 is a Coralife Aqualight Advanced halide fixture housing two 150w Radiums (which run around 170w). The 38 is technically my old tank, now an experimental tank lit on only one half by a brace of 4 x 12w EcoXotic Panoramas. One power supply has already croaked and one of the LED's in another strip has gone out. Not real impressed with that, but they do grow corals!
Flow is all provided (so far) by three Tunze 6045's - a fourth may be needed shortly for the above-mentioned reason. (I actually started with one 6045 and two MP40's...original model....they were replaced in short order due to premature wear and inadequate flow characteristics with the 6045's and now sit in a box. Ouch! That was an expensive lesson! Performance may have been more acceptable in a less crowded tank.....dunno.)
Hoping to upgrade the system in the Spring to a 120g or maybe a 150g Deep Dimension. Also hoping to replace the halides with a semi-home-brew LED system (posted already in the LED specialists group) before then if possible.
See you around!
-Matt
