ReefMan's 280g-ish AGE Acropora Reef

[inktomi]

I'm really looking forward to this Montipora cap growing out to a larger size. It has some incredible scrolling shelves developing - this is going to be an amazing colony one day soon! I mounted this one at a 45 degree angle on the rock, it seems to be working!

 

[inktomi]

I really like how this came out. Three acropora all in one photo!

 

[inktomi]

Just waking up for the day.. or going to sleep. Do corals sleep?

 

[inktomi]

Here's an update on my tank, with lots of nice (I hope..) visuals to go along with it. I did up my DaStaCo by about half a point yesterday - I'll be retesting my alk today later on before the superbowl.

 

[inktomi]

Some more coral goodness.

 

[inktomi]

A couple shots from my tank this morning.

 

[inktomi]

 

[inktomi]

Today's video was all about how the smallest reef fish fit into coral reef ecosystems. Pretty neat - it turns out that they live their lives so fast, and in such numbers, that they provide almost 60% of the eggs and larvae that are found in coral reef water.

I don't have any of these small fish in my tank - but given that they're there in such numbers on wild reefs it seems like maybe I should get a few? Without sand it sort of limits the gobies and such that I could house..

 

[inktomi]

An update on my tank!

 

[inktomi]

Having a little bit of an issue with some acropora dieing back. I think it's likely because of trying to raise my pH a bit using kalk, and then my CO2 tank for my DaStaCo2 going empty on a friday when I couldn't get a new one from Praxair till Monday morning.

Fingers crossed that's all resolved now.

 

[inktomi]

It turns out it wasn't alk at all - it was a corroding Sicce pump down in my sump. Copper has found it's way into my tank, via the copper windings on it's motor.

Things are looking pretty grim right now. Trying to help my coral through it as best I can.

 

[inktomi]

Ok, well, we're in a full on crash now.

Time to think about making some changes and recovering from this.



I'm going to build a manifold, and maybe add a UV sterilizer to try to combat the dinos that have been in outbreak mode. Then, I'm planning on adding back a bunch of new coral once the tank is back on solid ground.

 

[Daniel@R2R]

@inktomi how is everything going at this point? Hope things are getting better for you.

 

[inktomi]

My coral is very nearly a total loss unfortunately. I'm dealing with algae and dinos now - once those are under control it'll be time to start rebuilding.

Then socal will probably have a big quake