Cali Kid Corals

Euphyllia's BioCube 29 HQI

Now I'm sad because he dug his hole in the back corner and I can't see more than his head sticking around the corner. :|
Hopefully he digs his hole under the rock and out the front side. :(
 
Here's a shot of Wonton exploring the tank this morning. I actually took a video of it and then took a screen shot of the video editor's preview screen. I'll upload the video to YouTube soon in HD. :)

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The two corals are caps from Green Marine. I'm already seeing some new growth on the red one.
 
I came home from school today to find my Purple Hornets in Wonton's new hole... that makes three holes so far. :D

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This guy is so fun to watch. I might have to get another for my RSM. :bigsmile:
 
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I figured I'd let him have this frag until he starts getting sand on it. This is the second time he's taken this frag, and probably the 10th time he's taken one of my frags. :D
 
I'm seeing great growth in my SPS. There are about 25 new tips on my purple birdsnest and half that on my orange digi. My red monti cap (my favorite monti) is growing up and out and has new growth all around it, plus it's encrusting more on its plug. My mystery SPS (I think it's an ORA spongodes) has encrusted onto the rock and has nice polyp extension. My red yuma is doing great on the contrary to my previous yumas. I moved my Red Hornets to this tank two months ago with five polyps. Now it has 10 polyps and a few babies. My Purple Hornets were also moved to this tank and they've came back nicely. There are the 3 adults polyps that survived the melt and two new babies.

I've been having a problem keeping my Alk up and my Ca down. The Ca was over 500 last week.To be honest, my Alk was around 6 last time I checked. I've been cutting out the Ca dosing and only dosing Alk to get it up around 11. I'll do a test today and post an update.

The only two "problem corals" are my Aztec Sundial Zoas and a fluffy green monti cap. The Aztec Sundials bleached really badly even though they are literally 2ft below the Metal Halide on the sandbed. I assumed it was from too much light so I folded a window screen 3 times (that makes 6 layers) and it's gaining it's color back. Maybe it needed to be acclimated to the Metal Halide longer than a week. I'm going to unfold the window screening over a few weeks and see if I can ween it into the high lighting. And surprisingly it's doubled its colony size to 8 polyps during the time it's been under the halide. The fluffy green monti cap also started bleaching to a really light green so I moved it into a shaded area. It could've been the low Alk or the lighting, but it's gaining its color back.

If you haven't already read about it in my other thread, my Blue Spot Jawfish decided to commit suicide two night ago. :(
I filled in his holes this morning and stored his rubble in the tank's cabinet stand in case I decide to get another Jawfish.

Unless plans change, I'm going to be getting two ORA "Premium" (Grade A) Picassos sometime soon. I want to attempt breeding them or my SA Fancy Ocellaris for the fun of raising baby clownfish. This time I hopefully won't try to raise baby mysis shrimp. :|

I received my stuff from inTank on Friday (yay Rebecca Black!! :)) which included an AquaticLife Mini Skimmer for my BioCube 29 HQI. It takes a week or two to break in, but so far it has about 2cm of light brown-tinted water in the collection cup.

I'll post some pics and a FTS soon, and possibly a new tank video on YouTube. :)
 
Mg tested at 1410ppm.
Ca is barely above 500ppm, which is less than last week. Probably about 510ppm-520ppm, but the test kit doesn't read that high.
dKH is still pretty low to most standards. It's around 7-8. That's where natural seawater is so I'm not too concerned. Delbeek and Sprung say 7-10, but lots of SPS keepers say 10-12 for best color. Meh... I'll put it at 10 so it's in everyone's range. Would Alk burn occur at 10 dKH? :~
 
It's actually not so much about the number but how those numbers correlate to the proper ratio. take it from me, chasing numbers is a real good way to mess things up. Since you are working with a smaller volume of water, do some larger water changes to get back on track.
 
UPDATE:

Last night I modded the air intake on my skimmer to make it stick up 2". This allowed me to submerge the skimmer even more, making it more productive. This afternoon I came home and fiddled with the skimmer a bit more and I was able to submerge the skimmer to where the bottom of the skimmer hit the bottom of the filter chamber. The skimmer was so low that the cover (the one that came with the tank, not the one I made) fits on over the chamber perfectly! Now that I think of it, this entire Jawfish jumping incident could've been prevented, but at that time I didn't know anything about modding the skimmer to where I could've submerged it that much. At least my future fishies will be safe. :)

GreshamH said:
It's actually not so much about the number but how those numbers correlate to the proper ratio. take it from me, chasing numbers is a real good way to mess things up. Since you are working with a smaller volume of water, do some larger water changes to get back on track.

I'll do a couple 25% water changes over a two or three week period. I tested my Alk today and it's at 11, which is a bit higher than I expected. When I dose in the future I'll dose half or less of what I've been dosing so that the params don't change very quickly. By not chasing numbers do you mean I should just keep the parameters within a certain window (eg. keeping the dKH between 8 and 11 and doing a WC or dosing when appropriate)?
 
I picked up my Picassos today and they are currently being drip-acclimated in a bucket. One of the first two that came in died. A replacement was sent two weeks ago. He's yellow-colored, but turning orange. The black on the fins are still yet to come in. Him and my other seemed to be very happy together at the LFS and I haven't seen them picking at each other at all.

I also bought my very first chalice. It had pretty dots on it which is why I bought it. There was an ORA Bird of Paradise frag at the LFS that had turned brown, so I got it for a good deal and I'm hoping to color it up soon. I'll post pictures and a video soon. :)

Forgot to add... I bought a small maxima on Tuesday and he is open and very responsive.
 
Changed out the bulb yesterday.

Tank Under 14000K Coralife Bulb: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1u5itA3K79k
Tank Under 14000K Phoenix Bulb:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDl6PhO7M6Y

Pictures...

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During today's water change...

Acropora awi
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Acropora tortousa
(?)
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Green Polyp Orange Birdsnest (Left); Silver Birdsnest (Center); Euphyllia's Bright Red Monti Cap (Top)
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Euphyllia's Bright Red Monti Cap (The picture above shows it's true colors)
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They were only out of the water for a minute or so, as during every water change. It's like low tide to them. :D

Mr. Ugly said:
Looks like your corals are doing nicely.

You've come a long way, Matthew.

Congrats.

Thanks. That means a lot to me. :)
 
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