Palting's 150 SPS dominated mixed reef

[Palting]

Time to frag?

Yup, been doing that off and on the last year and a half. Some frags I replanted in the tank, others I gave away. I just did major fragging of the slimmer and the mille a week ago, gave away large frags to local reefers, and even gave away a bunch to a newly re-opened LFS as "housewarming" gifts . Here's the latest photo after the fragging, with frags just laying on the substrate awaiting pickup from local reefers:

 

[TheSaint216]

If you give away anymore give me a heads up Ill make the drive out.

 

[Palting]

It'll probably be a few months, but will do. I'll likely post it at the local forum for the Canton club.

 

[kes]

those colonies are HUGE!! excellent tank!

 

[Duffam3434]

Thats Really Cool you let people come and grab some! Thats what Reefings about.. Giving some frags to friends so they can enjoy some nice corals without emptying there accounts!

 

[Palting]

I just found out photobucket limits bandwidth. I don't have too many photos, but I guess I was posting them too often and too many people looking. Sorry of that stupid box notification instead of the photos. Should reset in 13 days, or so the website states.

 

[nhbsab]

Great growth.

 

[cmaxwell39]

Nice looking tank. Your colonies have filled in nicely. I dig the black sand as well.

 

[Badfish83]

Awesome tank. Nothing better than grown out acro colonies.

 

[Palting]

Thanks, guys. One problem is that I'm running out of space! maybe I'll swap out whole colonies. Or get another tank.

Enough coral pictures for now. How about fish?

Here's a photo taken maybe almost 2 years ago. All my 4 tangs are together in one shot, haven't been able to get them to group this way again. The kids have named all the fish. Theodora (Naso tang), Justinian (tennenti tang), Pompeii (Purple tang), and Mercury (Hippo tang). Co-starring in the photo are the clown pair Romulus and Remus, and the purple firefish Sgt. Pepper. Except fr the firefish who came in adult sized, all the others have grown quite a bit since then.

 

[Palting]

Here's a better photo of Sgt. Pepper. He was in QT for 6 weeks all by himself and kids thought he looked so lonely, they called him Sgt. Pepper. For you young whippersnappers who don't know the Beatles , there's a book, an album, and a movie called Sgt Peppers Lonely hearts Club Band.

 

[MHG]

Nice photography...

 

[Palting]

Thanks. It's amazing how one hobby leads to another. I'm willing to bet a lot of reefers became photography buffs soon after starting their reefs.

 

[Palting]

The blight of low alk/calcium = STN!!

I messed up. I removed large frags from my overgrowing colonies of SPS. The colonies responded with increased growth, and I noticed alk and calcium levels were declining. So, I re-programmed the doser to give increased dosages, then left for I week. There was only one problem: I forgot to turn the doser back on!! One week later, I came back to find that the growing tips of the tenui, millepora, slimmer had all developed STN. Significant parts of my large monti cap had bleached as well. Alk was in the 4dKH range.

Couldn't really suddenly raise the numbers, had t slowly raise them over time, otherwise things would go from bad to worse. Alk is back up to 7.4 now, shooting for 8. In the meantime, the tips with STN have developed algae. Good news is that the areas where the coral were fragged are showing good growth again. I may trim off those algae covered tips once I get the numbers stabilized again.

 

[powers2001]

Thanks, Lilmatty.

Thought I'd post the working guts of the system

Under the stand:

The sump: 50 gallon capacity with 30 gallon running water volume. Two towers with giant biowheels, two layers of prefilters (coarse foam, bonded 2 layer poly foam), and GAC. Tunze ATO.

The skimmer: 300 gallon capacity.

The Refugium: 20T, with C. racemosa macro and @ 600gph flow and twin T5 lights

The lights: 3 150W 10K DEMH plus 8 39W actinic T5's plus 6 LED 1W moonlights

Dosing: Calcium and alk at 150cc's each daily via BM doser, all on a shelf hidden behind the canopy. Added magnesium dosing via the 3rd head later.

Love your coral colors. Question: do you have to program the BM doser each day or can you program it for a week and not touch it for a whole week?

 

[Palting]

Love your coral colors. Question: do you have to program the BM doser each day or can you program it for a week and not touch it for a whole week?

Thanks for the kind words. Once you program the BM doser, it holds that program until you change it. A week, a month a year, whatever. You just have to remember to press "Run Program" after you set it. In my case for that week, I forgot and left it in programming mode!!

 

[Palting]

The coral are making a slow recovery. Alk is at 8.0dKH. The fragged areas are showing new growth. The tips that had STN and algae are also recovering, to my surprise. The algae is receding, and the coral tissue is re-covering the area. I'll hold off on trimming.

 

[powers2001]

Palting, how are the corals recovering?

 

[aquamn1999]

nice tank

 

[Palting]

Thanks, aquamn.

Coming along slowly, powers. Thanks for asking. Nothing good ever happens fast. I'm doing a little experiment. I chopped off some of the coral tips that developed STN, while I left others alone. The chopped off parts are showing new growth while the one's where the STN'd part were left alone now have algae colored tips. The hermits have been clambering up the coral to clean out those algae tips. I'll leave those be for now, and see what happens, too. Overall, not too bad. STN from the low alk just involved the coral tips, but it did involve a lot of them. LPS and softies were completely unaffected.