The Garden -- Rakies shallow SPS cube

lbacha

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Stomatella, Trochus, and Money Cowries are all breeding like bunnies.

Baby snails are annoying, I have baby nassarius snails all over the place. They constantly end up in my gyres and in my skimmer pump (speaking of that it was loud last night so I probably have to pull it apart when I get home and clean the little buggers out)
 
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Rakie

Rakie

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Why so high, , mine runs between 7 and 8?
Better growth and color. I always ran 8 but after moving to 10 everything improved dramatically. Same when I went to 12. The problem is 12 is fine during Smooth sailing. But as soon as something went wrong it was a liability.
 
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Rakie

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Better growth and color. I always ran 8 but after moving to 10 everything improved dramatically. Same when I went to 12. The problem is 12 is fine during Smooth sailing. But as soon as something went wrong it was a liability.

As a follow up -- Due to this, I'm going back down to 9-10 alk.

@najer -- slowly raise your alk, watch the magic happen. Acans and other LPS don't like it north of 10 though, at least in my experience.
 
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Rakie

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So for some good news.

- Corals are all recovering and slowly looking more healthy (physically).

- Coral color is also coming back, especially in acans.

- Alk consumption is still very low but also slowly lowering.

- ATO is fully saturated with kalk.

- All my mushroom cuttings are turning into babies. Most of which are already spoken for.

- Corals are making halos on the frag plugs -- This is when there's a very clean white rim on the frag plug directly around the SPS coral -- This means the coral is stinging and killing any life on the frag plug to clear the path for growth. This is basically an indication of lots of encrusting growth on the horizon.

So corals seems to be bouncing back. As they get happy again i'll be making one last adjustment..

- Removing the Radion Diffuser

I love the diffuser, i really do... But color prior to adding the diffuser was significantly more rich. I don't think the diffuser is bad, but I believe it's taking out more than just 15% par.. In theory, using the diffuser allowed an additional 60% increase of intensity, and spectrometer testing at BRS indicates spectrum's should be incidental.. But something seems lacking. I've given it an entire year, and I genuinely believe my corals were more richly colored without the diffuser.

I suppose the second part of said experiment will be a year without the diffuser, we'll see what happens then!
 
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Rakie

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Got some corals today
2685c04e56c74bc328ea5c0c1e0895b8.jpg
 
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Rakie

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Yep, it's a large haul alright.

Still 4 less than I gave my buddy who gave me these. Half of them unnamed gems, but lots if reef raft, reef farmer, Jason fox, and other well know stuff too.

They've been dipped, and lights are out. all doing well. A few got some road rash in the ride home but it happens!
400840ff705d54c2925f07cad2ad041d.jpg
3d1a79a90407aaf4038d753fcf2b8fef.jpg
 
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Rakie

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Thanks @Janci yeah everything is bouncing back slowly. It all stemmed from being too hasty and setting off a chain reaction of one bad thing rolling into and amplifying another. Thankfully it seems that's all slowly going away though.

I got a couple pics but lights are in their full white cycle, so it's hard to make anything look natural right now! I'll have to get some better pics later.

IMG_0004.jpg


IMG_0005.jpg


IMG_0006.jpg
 
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Rakie

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Those look outstanding in white light as is :)

Yeah there's some nice ones in there!

They're a little war-torn, nicks and cuts here and there from trying to reach into the tank and make a cut, a little rolling around in their containers on the ride home, etc etc etc. In a week they'll probably be glowing quite well and take much better pics.

The big SCOP definitely looks good though, he didn't have any issues.
 
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