Amoo's Pasture 60 Gallon Shallow Reef

[Amoo]

I always thought a frag tank could make a great display. This is one of the only shallow tanks I've seen. I like it. I'm writing a paper, so it's too late to read... Is that starboard on the bottom or big tiles?

24x12 tile

 

[Rakie]

24x12 tile

I like it. What kind of tile is it? I always flirt with the idea of going bare bottom, but never pull the trigger.

 

[Amoo]

I like it. What kind of tile is it? I always flirt with the idea of going bare bottom, but never pull the trigger.

Just regular tile, I forget whether it is ceramic or porcelain. I'm not a fan of bare bottom personally, but with the tile in there it gives that offset in color I like, with the easy of maintenance as a bare bottom. Took a metal scraper today and scraped all that junk off of the tile, flow in my tank is enough that it just stayed suspended and down the overflow and into the sock it went. Nowhere for it to hide.

 

[Amoo]

Calibrated my pH probe today. I've literally never done this as I view pH as relatively useless except for tracking trends in dosing. Tank pH prior to calibration was 8.05, seemed reasonable. Tank pH after calibration was 8.31. LOL. Safe to say I have enough surface agitation

 

[Daniel@R2R Verified Admin]

Calibrated my pH probe today. I've literally never done this as I view pH as relatively useless except for tracking trends in dosing. Tank pH prior to calibration was 8.05, seemed reasonable. Tank pH after calibration was 8.31. LOL. Safe to say I have enough surface agitation

Hmm I need to do that too

 

[Amoo]

So for those of you who have been following me here and around the forums you'll notice I have been very critical of Neptune of late for a lot of decisions they have made. Poor @Terence has had to deal with the brunt of that, but I feel for the guy because that's his job. He can only tell us what the company will allow and even when they have issues he has to try to convey them in the best manner possible. I think we all know and understand that. Without question I would say the launch of the 2016 Apex was a disaster. May not have been from an accounting standpoint for Neptune, but it's been a pretty big hit to them PR wise, and rightfully so. Now that said, I have not heard one person who said that Neptune CS didn't do everything in their power to try to resolve every single issue with their products and in a very friendly and timely manner. Got to respect that. So without further ado, I have decided to replace my Neptune Lite on this system with:

Yup. I can't tell you how badly I wanted this to be a different box. Not because I'm against Neptune or feel they've done a bad job, but I do think they've let their prices get a little high on things in an unchecked market where they were the only serious solution.

I really wanted this box to be a Profilux 4, but I just couldn't do it. People are constantly having connectivity issues still and their Profilux 4 software is admittedly still in a Beta state. Combine that with the fact that if I NEED a new brain tomorrow I know I won't have to be waiting for one to get shipped out from overseas if for some reason the domestic distributor has low stock. I feel if I were making this decision 8 to 12 months from now I might have gone a different direction, but the reality is we don't know what any product will look like in 8-12 months and as I was ready to purchase now, I had to go with what I felt was the most well rounded product available.

Me getting this controller does not mean the fight for who's dKH monitor I get is over. I'm not going to blindly buy the Trident based off of Neptune's good will, and I'm honestly very happy to see that the KH Guardian as well as Jonas's Alkatronic are all able to hook into all of the controllers. This really gives us a lot of choices and I'm excited and may the best product win.

You win this round Neptune. So help me God though if I plug this thing in and it has problems

 

[Amoo]

sigh...

Two probes fresh out of calibration solution sitting right next to each other in my sump......

 

[Amoo]

In my first response from Neptune CS I was informed that I shouldn't expect two probes to read the same and I should expect some minor variance between two probes.

I was also asked what each probe reads in each solution.

I wrote back and informed them both read 7.0 and 10.0 respectively in the solution and while I understand some variance is going to be inevitable, .12 seems a little extreme.

__

Is it just me or am I crazy for expecting better accuracy from two "lab grade" probes?

 

[Amoo]

In unrelated news.

Oh and @Rakie I'm tagging you to let you know I'm floating corals so there will probably be pictures up later, which is more then your "pal" @mdbannister does when he's hiding newcomers.

 

[Rakie]

Hmm I need to do that too

I suppose I need to get a pH probe.... lol

 

[Rakie]

In unrelated news.

Oh and @Rakie I'm tagging you to let you know I'm floating corals so there will probably be pictures up later, which is more then your "pal" @mdbannister does when he's hiding newcomers.

He just does that because he doesn't want us to see what isn't around next week.

 

[Amoo]

I suppose I need to get a pH probe.... lol

On that front, I'm still in troubleshooting mode with Neptune as my values on the 2016 are very different then what I had on the Apex Lite and neither probe agrees with each other even close to what would be a reasonable margin of error on the 2016 so...

 

[Amoo]

He just does that because he doesn't want us to see what isn't around next week.

I thought he only killed fish. Does he have a black thumb as well?

 

[Rakie]

I thought he only killed fish. Does he have a black thumb as well?

Yep, that's why I'm his frag bank, that way he can get the coral back after he kills em. He overripened his JF Burning Banana, it's still all brown and sad. That's why he never mentioned that one

But I only have a little room to tease there.. I had dinos for 6 months -_-

Must keep up on offerings to the reef gods.

 

[Amoo]

Yep, that's why I'm his frag bank, that way he can get the coral back after he kills em. He overripened his JF Burning Banana, it's still all brown and sad. That's why he never mentioned that one

But I only have a little room to tease there.. I had dinos for 6 months -_-

Must keep up on offerings to the reef gods.

Fear not my friend, I've had a pile of offerings over my time to the point I'm not sure I would ever have to buy calcium reactor media if I ever had one of those things.

 

[Amoo]

General Quarters, General Quarters, All hands man your Battlestations, Port side down and aft, Starboard side up and forward!!!

Here's a little sneak peak of what's to come. It'll take me some time to edit the individual shots together but for now I'll leave you guys with this, everybody chilling in their CoralRx bath:

 

[Amoo]

Ok before we see some sticks I want to set some guidelines.

First I want to thank Adam @Battlecorals for the simply amazing order. When he says the customer usually comes out ahead on "pick'ems" he wasn't kidding. Especially when you factor in shipping which he says we split.

Second I want to make it very clear that I had very specific instructions for Adam. I gave him a general overview of what I liked and disliked about corals and what my general tastes are, but never named a single coral from his site or any other by name.

Third I told him I wanted my "pick'em" to be a quantity and told him specifically I was more then happy with smaller frags and "cheaper" stuff simply because the sticks are not a focus in my tank. They are their to add to it, but my nem(s maybe) and clowns are why I'm in this hobby.

Fourth I specifically asked for fresh cuts because I informed him ahead of time that I always transfer frags to new plugs after I go through my dipping process so any encrusting was of no benefit. Note he is willing to hold frags if people want them encrusted.

Lastly I told him I was mainly looking for color. I've got some green and purple stuff, but was really looking for some brighter things.

I gave him what I could spend and he did the magic. I wanted NO information about what I would be getting. (I hate surprises and am very picky, but Adam's reputation is such that I felt it was worth the risk here. I knew from my first email and his first response he was immediately locked into to the type of corals I was both looking for and liked.)

So before I dip any corals I take a picture of the bag, then remove the coral from the bag and take a picture of the coral. This in my opinion is when any gripes or complaints about the coral should be made on my end unless I find pests, in which case that's another issue entirely. Luckily the only pests at the bottom of the CoralRx dip were Pods and we all know they aren't really pests.

Without further undo, here's a picture of everything I got all labeled. I'll get some better shots later, but already I've got lots of PE and lot's of Happy corals sitting in just 85 PAR

 

[Amoo]

Got my blue cleaner wrasse into the tank today. My PBT is busy beating the living crap out of the PBT in the mirror and hasn't even noticed him yet

 

[SashimiTurtle]

Hopefully the PBT in the mirror doesn't win... lol

 

[Amoo]

Hopefully the PBT in the mirror doesn't win... lol

Right now they are in an even draw. This is definitely one of my favorite tricks though and I would have used it sooner had I known he was this bad. He'll be after that fish for at least a few days.