The Dude Abides
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Sorry to hear about your setback Jesse. I had a small setback too, so I’ll be hitting you up some pieces when your ready.
Sweet Reef Corals Eye Candy Thread
- Thread starter Sweet Reef Corals
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DangBeen a while since I last posted. We had some unfortunate events transpire and ended up losing a lot of our bread and butter acros :(
Check your magnetic frag racks my friends!
The silver lining is that rebuilding can be fun and exciting. I love seeing new frags grow out to colonies. We’ve acquired some very nice gems lately and will have some fire to offer soon!
Check out this natural blue graft that popped up on our pink b@@bies mama! :eek:
That sucks
OP
OP
It’s the risk we take for these animals we love. It would be easy to just switch to softies or LPS but there just isn’t as much passion as there is with the acros. Trying to have a big re-opening around Sept 1st!
It does Charlie. No matter what we do with redundancy, controllers, ICP tests, etc. There’s always something that can sneak up on us when we least expect it. As all stick lovers know, it usually takes a bit of time before acros start showing signs of problems. Sometimes that means it’s too late…
On a good note, the setback and losses gave me time to fix some leaks and address a sump that had accumulated an enormous amount of detritus. The system is now amazingly stable on the pollution front. ICP is still showing a slightly elevated level of tin but all other pollutants are negative. PO4 and no3 are very stable at .05 & 10 respectively and the corals are really looking better than they ever have! Silver linings…
I had a feeling something happened bc you haven’t posted anything in awhile. Glad to hear it wasn’t an “F this I’m done” crash.
OP
OP
I can’t say I didn’t consider it. It really puts a pit in your stomach when colony after colony starts dying. And then you consider how much money it’s gonna take to recover :face-with-spiral-eyes:
As painful as it has been, I just enjoy it too much to quit.
Cool! this might be the first time i have seen you do a swap. Looking forward to it.Ohio Reef frag swap! We’ll be there!
OP
OP
I was at the Dayton swap last year. Just a small setup but it was fun! Once I get all my systems running top notch I’d like to do more swaps like Cbus and Cinci at least. Time will tell….
Heres_doe_
Valuable Member
What filters do you use on camera.
I didn't make it to Dayton last year but those are all swaps i try to do every year. plus LEAR. I thought about doing NORE, fraginstine. but seemed a little on the expensive side.
OP
OP
For phone pics I use the Orphek yellow and orange in different combos depending on what coral I’m photographing
For the DSLR I use a Hoya orange filter and a custom made filter that was extremely difficult to source
Last edited:
OP
OP
That’s a good group of swaps! I’m pretty limited on what I can attend due to back problems with driving
OP
OP
Hello everyone,
As most of you know I suffered a catastrophic crash last year around May. It has been a long and difficult struggle to get my main system back to it's former glory. I haven't been on much because I was just too frustrated with all the problems I went thru.
The first issue was a couple of dissolving magnets I found in February of 2024. I was having deaths after making frags and that was never an issue before. Some of my acros were losing their vibrant coloring and getting a lot darker than normal.
After that, I treated the tank with interceptor. I did an approximate dose of 10X on the main system (5 large dog pills for 200g) just to make sure i eliminated any potential acro bugs. I performed an Aquabiomics test before treating the tank and I had a stellar, diverse bacterial population. After the 3 week regimen of Interceptor, things started going further down hill. I ended up losing approximately 75% of my stock. All corals were negatively affected. I don't believe the Interceptor directly caused the casualties because the acros were actually more extended than normal for the first week. I believe it was the disruption to the microbial community that started starving the corals of their predominate food. I believe this to be the case because I sent in another Aquabiomics test 2 weeks after the Interceptor treatment and the bacterial community was drastically altered. 3 families of very important bacteria appeared to be completely decimated from the treatment. Those 3 families were Rhodobacteraceae, Flavobacteriaceae and Oceanospillaceae for those interested. Luckily I had pulled some rubble and media from my sump and cultured it in a separate tub. Lights out, no feedings and only dosed ammonia chloride once a week to keep the bacteria population healthy. I waited about 6 weeks to make sure all the Interceptor was gone from the system and then I re-introduced the sand and rock I had been culturing. It took about 3-4 weeks but things slowly started recovering.
While waiting for the resurrection to complete, I decided to start working on trace element dosing as well. In the past I knew I always had very healthy coral but I felt like I lacked some of the exceptional coloring that I see a lot of guys get. I know some of that can be attributed to good photography but even locally I felt like my colors weren't as nice as some reefers. When the acros started flourishing again I could see a noticeable difference in my coloration. I think that is due to a combo of a healthy, for sure pest free system and the trace dosing. Currently I am dosing 150mL per day of the BRS calcium.
So all in all I feel like I am heading back to the peak glory of 2023 when I was dosing about 300mL of BRS calcium per day and the complete system was wall to wall acros.
Check out this video and let me know what you think!
Cheers!
Jesse
As most of you know I suffered a catastrophic crash last year around May. It has been a long and difficult struggle to get my main system back to it's former glory. I haven't been on much because I was just too frustrated with all the problems I went thru.
The first issue was a couple of dissolving magnets I found in February of 2024. I was having deaths after making frags and that was never an issue before. Some of my acros were losing their vibrant coloring and getting a lot darker than normal.
After that, I treated the tank with interceptor. I did an approximate dose of 10X on the main system (5 large dog pills for 200g) just to make sure i eliminated any potential acro bugs. I performed an Aquabiomics test before treating the tank and I had a stellar, diverse bacterial population. After the 3 week regimen of Interceptor, things started going further down hill. I ended up losing approximately 75% of my stock. All corals were negatively affected. I don't believe the Interceptor directly caused the casualties because the acros were actually more extended than normal for the first week. I believe it was the disruption to the microbial community that started starving the corals of their predominate food. I believe this to be the case because I sent in another Aquabiomics test 2 weeks after the Interceptor treatment and the bacterial community was drastically altered. 3 families of very important bacteria appeared to be completely decimated from the treatment. Those 3 families were Rhodobacteraceae, Flavobacteriaceae and Oceanospillaceae for those interested. Luckily I had pulled some rubble and media from my sump and cultured it in a separate tub. Lights out, no feedings and only dosed ammonia chloride once a week to keep the bacteria population healthy. I waited about 6 weeks to make sure all the Interceptor was gone from the system and then I re-introduced the sand and rock I had been culturing. It took about 3-4 weeks but things slowly started recovering.
While waiting for the resurrection to complete, I decided to start working on trace element dosing as well. In the past I knew I always had very healthy coral but I felt like I lacked some of the exceptional coloring that I see a lot of guys get. I know some of that can be attributed to good photography but even locally I felt like my colors weren't as nice as some reefers. When the acros started flourishing again I could see a noticeable difference in my coloration. I think that is due to a combo of a healthy, for sure pest free system and the trace dosing. Currently I am dosing 150mL per day of the BRS calcium.
So all in all I feel like I am heading back to the peak glory of 2023 when I was dosing about 300mL of BRS calcium per day and the complete system was wall to wall acros.
Check out this video and let me know what you think!
Cheers!
Jesse
Looking good, and considering what you just described an impressive comeback
OP
OP
Its been a tough, challenging and expensive road back. I’ve been slowly gathering the higher end pieces back that I lost. Of course everything that survived are the PC Rainbows, Slimers, Cali torts, etc lol
i definately know how that goes, still struggling. its like i'm not willing to commit to being consistant lately, so things do well for a while then, i slack off. but i'm glad to see your comeback is going well.
OP
OP
Little update here…
The main system is running very good now. Colors have never been better and I am once again super confident in it! I’m pretty much wall to wall acros in the frag tank and lots of misc corals in the DT turned frag tank lol. I decided to go out on a limb a bit and get this bad boy. So happy I did. I’ve had it about a month now and he has colored up well and has started encrusting over my remounted putty ball! I’m so excited to have a Speciosa again. It’s been a couple years…
The main system is running very good now. Colors have never been better and I am once again super confident in it! I’m pretty much wall to wall acros in the frag tank and lots of misc corals in the DT turned frag tank lol. I decided to go out on a limb a bit and get this bad boy. So happy I did. I’ve had it about a month now and he has colored up well and has started encrusting over my remounted putty ball! I’m so excited to have a Speciosa again. It’s been a couple years…
OP
OP
Forgot to mention…Little update here…
The main system is running very good now. Colors have never been better and I am once again super confident in it! I’m pretty much wall to wall acros in the frag tank and lots of misc corals in the DT turned frag tank lol. I decided to go out on a limb a bit and get this bad boy. So happy I did. I’ve had it about a month now and he has colored up well and has started encrusting over my remounted putty ball! I’m so excited to have a Speciosa again. It’s been a couple years…
Gotta thank @coral reeftank for the incredibly healthy pack I got from him. Here’s another beauty from the pack!
OG Tyree Pink Lemonade
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