Waterbox 100.3 Orphek Back to SPS Reef Madness

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hart24601

hart24601

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Since hippo clams don't have the overhanging mantle new growth is hard to see, but the hippo here clearly has been growing, yay! It took a long time to see the growth, hippos have very thick shells and put down a great deal of calcium inside the shell before much is noticed externally. Still it's nice to see. You have to look close in person to tell this growth vs a clam not doing well. Hippo clams on their way out stop extending to the edge, when they pull in you see some of the white shell the mantle covered. That means the clam is dying, however here you can see the white is on the same level as the rest of the external shell and gradually fades.
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hart24601

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Some bryopsis popping up again. Just emptied couple bottles of reef flux in the tank after removing the macro algae. It really has grown well since putting chaetogro on 3ml/day doser, it almost filled up a 5g bucket and has been keep nutrients right where i want them. Yesterday 0.02 po4, 2ppm nitrate. Am worried about how taking it offine will impact things, will feed less. Also going to chemiclean some cyano while at it.

Keeping with tradition I got a few more BN and fancy stylos and they are slowly dying. I just can't keep those alive.
 

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How's the lava coral doing? Wow, that sucker is tiny. Hope it does well for you!

So far so good! It is really tiny, I should have read the description better as some are larger. It's an aggressive eater so I think will be solid. Doing reef flux so won't feed a while to keep nutrients down.
 
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Very nice, I miss having a clam. It’s been 20 years but my crocea’s and my deresa were pretty fast growers

Len

Might as well get another one! If you watch LA's site sometimes they have sales on ORA livestock and you can get a pretty good deal of course they are sight unseen, but some amazing clams. I flat out refuse to get any from diver's den though.
 

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Might as well get another one! If you watch LA's site sometimes they have sales on ORA livestock and you can get a pretty good deal of course they are sight unseen, but some amazing clams. I flat out refuse to get any from diver's den though.

No issues with shipping or is it a little bit of a crap shoot? What clams are currently available that are hardy I wouldn’t mind a nice high grade blue maxima. I have a shallow tank that I love looking at from above and clam would fit right in.
 
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No issues with shipping or is it a little bit of a crap shoot? What clams are currently available that are hardy I wouldn’t mind a nice high grade blue maxima. I have a shallow tank that I love looking at from above and clam would fit right in.

I don't think I have ever had an issue with clams and shipping, so far at least. What they have in stock varies quite a bit, but all the common species are not too bad with derasa being the toughest. I would try and find a larger clam, around 2-3". Pacific east aquaculture is amazing too, I think they have the best clams overall and they have some really cool hybrid clams atm. Looks like there is a great selection in right now, I have found some of the prettiest colors to me in the colored or golden clams over the high blues. The maximas from ORA are smaller just FYI but I had them do well.

I personally find the starting quality of the clam is the single most important factor for them doing well in the tank.





I would be very temped by the PEA crocea or hybrid guys if you have the light for a crocea. In fact I really want a few of those off PEA site right now….



https://www.liveaquaria.com/category/3355/ora-invertebrates?c=3352+3355&r=



https://pacificeastaquaculture.com/collections/clams-2
 

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I don't think I have ever had an issue with clams and shipping, so far at least. What they have in stock varies quite a bit, but all the common species are not too bad with derasa being the toughest. I would try and find a larger clam, around 2-3". Pacific east aquaculture is amazing too, I think they have the best clams overall and they have some really cool hybrid clams atm. Looks like there is a great selection in right now, I have found some of the prettiest colors to me in the colored or golden clams over the high blues. The maximas from ORA are smaller just FYI but I had them do well.

I personally find the starting quality of the clam is the single most important factor for them doing well in the tank.





I would be very temped by the PEA crocea or hybrid guys if you have the light for a crocea. In fact I really want a few of those off PEA site right now….



https://www.liveaquaria.com/category/3355/ora-invertebrates?c=3352+3355&r=



https://pacificeastaquaculture.com/collections/clams-2

Thanks, very tempted to get one for my sps tank. I know clams like a ton of light my tank is about 170 par at the bottom and 300 at the top I’m sure I can find a spot in the middle somewhere so around 225-250 par (high pur as I run my kessil at 30% color)
 
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I have decided rock anemones can be a bit of a pest, I had wanted to try and keep all the babies as some have amazing color, and there is no doubt the big adults are just gorgeous, but they really seem to enjoy creeping in coral branches and killing them. I tried to get them out of the tank, but they really put their foot deep inside rock, so I put aptasia rx on the babies, they are pretty tough and take a few treatments.





I recently decided I needed to remove the adults as well. I took the rocks out and really tried to get the bases off but some were just too deep so I fear they won’t make it. Gave to a friend so he can try and see if any of them pull though, they are pretty tough. The tank now lost a lot of color, but I have been moving acros to the back of rocks to avoid the nems, so I can move them back to the fronts, so hopefully in time replace the color but the reds, oranges and pinks of rock nems are really unique.





Some livestock gets along well in our little cubes of water, some don’t. A rock nem only tank would be amazing, but they sting too hard for a SPS reef I found out.
 

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I have decided rock anemones can be a bit of a pest, I had wanted to try and keep all the babies as some have amazing color, and there is no doubt the big adults are just gorgeous, but they really seem to enjoy creeping in coral branches and killing them. I tried to get them out of the tank, but they really put their foot deep inside rock, so I put aptasia rx on the babies, they are pretty tough and take a few treatments.





I recently decided I needed to remove the adults as well. I took the rocks out and really tried to get the bases off but some were just too deep so I fear they won’t make it. Gave to a friend so he can try and see if any of them pull though, they are pretty tough. The tank now lost a lot of color, but I have been moving acros to the back of rocks to avoid the nems, so I can move them back to the fronts, so hopefully in time replace the color but the reds, oranges and pinks of rock nems are really unique.





Some livestock gets along well in our little cubes of water, some don’t. A rock nem only tank would be amazing, but they sting too hard for a SPS reef I found out.

When I was restarting my tank I almost got some rock nem’s as they have amazing colors but decided to add some color while my sps grew out with zoanthids. I’m glad I went the route I did as they seem to get along decently and I have better control over where the zoas go.
 
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When I was restarting my tank I almost got some rock nem’s as they have amazing colors but decided to add some color while my sps grew out with zoanthids. I’m glad I went the route I did as they seem to get along decently and I have better control over where the zoas go.


You clearly made the right choice! The nems really pack a solid sting too, extremely sticky – I didn’t know they were quite so aggressive. There were a lot of coral skeletons under them they had crawled over and I forgot about!





What really surprised me is how much PAR they wanted, I am sure they can live with less, but when moving from the 33 to the 100.3 I increased the light intensity to compensate for the depth, but they still moved up the rocks, some of them in 300-400 PAR which is a lot more than I thought they liked for the colorful ones.
 
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Started the reef flux 7/17 so the macro has been in 5g bucket with air line since then and I backed off feeding as heavy. 9 days later nitrate around 7 and phosphate 0.042 so creeping up but not bad.
 
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