A Few of My Corals

[SifuMemphis]

A few more shots, mostly zoa's

What is the name of this fish? It looks beautiful

 

[Wrangy]

Great pics. You have an amazing tank

Thank you and thank you I'm over the moon about how it's running!

What is the name of this fish? It looks beautiful

Black ear wrasse or a halichoeres melasmapomus! A very rare beauty from the Cook Islands

 

[Wrangy]

Post water change goodness Straight off the camera and no edits Maxima was unhappy about something lol but she's back to normal this morning!

 

[Wrangy]

Just gonna leave this beauty here

 

[Wrangy]

I suppose it's about time I made a small update on things seeing as I haven't done my weekly updates. I've had some photo's to put up for a week or so but I've been a little lazy lol

First cab of the rank is a new addition to the fishy friends! I've been waiting for quite some time for the right Kole Tang specimen to show up at the local and when I went down this morning, I had the choice of 3! haha so needless to say I've come home with a brand new buddy!


Aside from that little gem everything is running along smoothly! so we'll start with Andrew's favourite flubbers


And the magic rack


And some lovely frags of another kind! These little ones stay brown and crappy until they reach a certain size then it's pink and green with nice white tips!




Now for what we've all come for, the acro's!
Efflo getting it's encrust on:




Spathulata going strong and the growth tips are killer!


Crappy photo of an awesome acro haha


I think I need to start adding a little something something to deepen the colour off a little more


Robusta looking pretty good


And the top of the tank, acro city




And of course the bit everyone loves, the firetruck

 

[Wrangy]

Well I decided to try my hand at a video and it turned out alright lol the colour is off and it's a pretty crappy video but it is my first effort so be gentle!

nd to make up for the quality of the video haha I took some nice photos of the fish while complaint avidly about being hungry even after being feed three times in ten minutes haha
My lovely new make hawk, still going strong and colourful!


My beloved bellus angelfish, she hand feeds and is just a wonderfully happy fish!


This little one has grown quite some since I got her the lovely little black ear wrasse (halichoeres melasmapomus)




And of course the newbie! She (I've decided lol) was way too stressed in the acclimatisation box so it was into the tank and she's still shy but was put each time I feed after lunch today (three times or so) and happily swims around the tank if you stand still while watching we're getting there haha

 

[Wrangy]

Well because of my exams and study and life, I wasn't able to do my weekly water change last week so in the end it was a two week no water change for the tank. Which makes me feel uncomfortable lol but the tank didn't care! So while everything was looking happy and fresh I decided to take a few happy snaps as always haha.
The Good:
- Colours are going strong, growth seems to be picking up.
- Partial sandbed removal is nearly done and things have responded well. It was looking a little ****** and was starting to solidify as well.
- Kole is settled in nicely, eating and playing with everyone nicely.
- My zoa's seem to finally be growing again, when I changed the lights over they all pretty much just stopped. Didn't look unhealthy or closed up but they just weren't growing to nearly the same rate I was getting under the Illumagics.

The Bad:
- Algae still seems to be growing without any indications of slowing I'm hoping with sandbed removal and a few other techniques that I can lessen it a little bit and eventually kill it off. Not lessening the amount of food I feed though haha
- The blasted aquaknead-it has come unstuck in a few places! Half the scape is loose and a few corals are no longer stuck down but I've been saved by a particularly awesome acro, that's turning into a really interesting piece as well!
- I'm looking at starting a small zoa and invert nano/pico, well it's only bad because it's an expensive addition haha and it's at my partner's house so I have to play by some rules!
- Bubble algae is still growing really well, ******* stuff. I'm just ignoring it unless it bothers something though.
- Not sure why but a few acro's have a little less PE than normal and a couple have stalled growth but colours are still strong so I'm not overly worried yet.

Now that all that boring writing is out of the way onto the pictures!
First lot was a bunch of tank shots from various angles because the trusty old FTS can get a little repetitive.
FTS:


Left-hand side:


Left-hand angle:


Right-hand angle:


Zoa's, as you can tell compared to a few pics ago, they really haven't done anything lol but I am starting to see some new growth!


I still love this thing! Doesn't extend much more than this but it is steadily growing and keeping some bloody awesome colours! Candy apple goni:


And finally we move onto the real reason I'm here lol the acro's. It doesn't matter whether it's a good acro day or a bad one, I love them either way. They're just such fascinating critters, consuming sugars from a photosynthetic algae they shack up with for energy and pooping out a calcium carbonate structure! And beside, the polyps themselves are soo cool
My plating efflo frag is encrusting like a **** but not plating haha hopefully the plating isn't too far away!


This acro is my favourite as it's supporting part of the scape haha it's turning into a really awesome piece though and I'm digging the colours on it, they're basic but they contrast fantastically!




This piece was poo brown for many months but I'm starting to get the green, purple and blue back along with the polyps going green again. If I moved it up a little more I'm sure it would go crazy in no time!


This milli was a lovely light pink when I bought it but it seems to be developing a much deeper, less pastel pink. Which I'm totally cool with:


Some SSC because who doesn't love these things! Both growing well with some cool growth spurts coming directly up, two different species too.




I bought this piece as the most amazing baby blue, really light but saturated colour not a pastel blue and as I expected it browned out pretty quickly but it's coming back again so I'm happy! I think with a little more potassium we might get some better blue


An artist shot




Frags from Rob


A really bad acro city shot!


Of course the firetruck, the base is starting to develop the metallic green I used to get and it's starting to put on a little bulk now that I've got it getting a little more protection and a bit of a healthier environment.


My red, gold and blue tipped spathulata, I just adore this thing. It's just soooooo cooooolll lol



Well that's all folks, hope y'all enjoy and looking forward to any questions

 

[ocean gems]

Great stuff amazing cam

 

[kschweer]

Beautiful tank and great pictures! That fire truck is an awesome piece!

 

[KritikaL]

awesom tank and photos! nice one dude!

 

[thebluecatapilla]

Love the clam! How old is it? And is this a 29 gallon cube?

 

[Wrangy]

Great stuff amazing cam

Thanks mate

Beautiful tank and great pictures! That fire truck is an awesome piece!

Thanks for the compliment! I love it to bits!

awesom tank and photos! nice one dude!

Cheers man

Love the clam! How old is it? And is this a 29 gallon cube?

I've had that beauty for over 2 years now and she's doubled in size since I got her! The tank is a 2ft cube so 50 gallons

 

[Wrangy]

Just another update from me lol I like getting the camera out during a water change, sorry if anyone is sick of me

First time in a couple of weeks I decided to run some tests on the tanks and see how everything is running and if it's all smooth sailing lol I'll be honest and say I rarely test my levels haha once every few weeks, if things were looking off I'd test more frequently but given that I'm really happy with the tank I'd say I don't really need to very often.
Alk: Steady at 2.7meq/L (or 7.56dKH), it's always tested at that the last few months.
Mg: 1200ppm - we're finally getting somewhere lol
Ca: 300ppm - still on the low side so I might bump dosing up another couple of ml's
K+: 380ppm - so close but no cigar, I'm dosing a teaspoon of Continuum K+ powder every second day.

The other thing I did for the first time in WAY TOO LONG, was clean the glass cover on the lights haha I'm going to be doing that weekly now with my water change lol I reckon I was down to 60-50% light emission it was that filthy... oooopppsss!! And the acro's were definitely not happy about it! In the two/three days since cleaning it, they've gone bananas! Please everyone clean their covers haha don't be lazy like me!!

I suppose I better stop talking and boring you to death and get on with the pics lol I wish it were easy to say that I'll start with my favourite but given how much I love everything I'll just start with one of my favourites as they pretty much all are haha
So the Firetruck is finally getting it's metallic green base back and since cleaning the light cover the red has deepened much more! It's a lot easier to show what the acro should be doing as the frags are doing it currently. This little tiny nub was a deep red branch tip that broke off and this is what it's doing now, you can just see some red starting to form on what's going to be a growth tip:


And one day I'm hoping it'll turn out like this:


One of my soft spot acro's is the strawberry shortcake, I think there's three pieces in my tank lol two the same species and one different species, there's still one more species I'd love to get though! The colour difference is fairly obvious, they're both under similar amounts of light too. Species 1:


Species 2, I think I need a little more food stuff in the tank as it's paled off a little but I've nearly doubled my feeding so let's see what happens haha


Some of the really cool acro's I have are really coming along! The purple on this one is coming back since cleaning the glass!


This is the only ever spathulata that I've had luck with and I have to say I'm glad it is, it's friggin amazing!


Rob has still given me some of my favourite pieces (I use that word again lol), they're all killer Rob!




Lots of encrusting occuring, I think given the flow in the tank now it's unsurprising lol


This thing encrusts as fast as a monti lol


And lucky last, one of the coolest looking acro's in the tank, fairly certain it's a. loripes!

 

[Wrangy]

Well I haven't posted anything in a little bit and that's because I've been working 5-7 days a week the last couple of weeks and in the kitchen in this heat it's been bloody exhausting! but I had some time today to get a good water change done, along with diagnose some bumps I've noticed. Over the last couple of days things have seemed off and two acro's have pooped themselves on my so I set out today to find out the issue and it turns out both my Mg and Ca were waaayyyy up that's caused this, so I've halved the dosing amount and the water change will have lowered it a little as well. Just to monitor closely over the coming week or two and everything will be back on track in no time!

Aside from a small hiccup everything is going along very nicely Happy growth, corals and inverts! I managed to score myself some amazing new zoa's again lol some nice big frags with some crazy awesome polyps! I'll let the pictures do the talking though some pics are my old zoa's as well lol

 

[Wrangy]

It's very easy to see that the things I love, acro's and zoa's, I am a little addicted too haha now for the acro pics




























The acro fortress:


I do have some non-acro or zoa corals


Little clam:


And of course, what's an update without a FTS

 

[Chknsamich]

Sweet little garden of zoas... Where did you get the Firetruck from?!?!

 

[dragonfish]

wow !

 

[Kevden31]

Awsome setup. I love the clam, brings back memories.

 

[soggytees Verified Sponsor]

LOVE THIS!! More pics pleeez!!

 

[Wrangy]

Sweet little garden of zoas... Where did you get the Firetruck from?!?!

Thanks mate From a place here in Australia so it might be a bit hard for you guys to get over there lol

wow !

Cheers dude!

Awsome setup. I love the clam, brings back memories.

Clams are my absolute favourites! Thanks for the compliments mate!

LOVE THIS!! More pics pleeez!!

Cheers Your wish is my command