Finally - Reef tank started after 6 years

bubbaque · Aug 15, 2018

I always see you around the forum but somehow I missed your thread

. Your tank is gorgeous and getting pretty filled in. Near the beginning of the video, that crazy blue coral, is it Org Tort? Do you have a pic of your pearlberry?

Abhishek · Aug 15, 2018

bubbaque said:
I always see you around the forum but somehow I missed your thread . Your tank is gorgeous and getting pretty filled in. Near the beginning of the video, that crazy blue coral, is it Org Tort? Do you have a pic of your pearlberry?

Thanks @bubbaque ! Well I donot have as much collection as you do

Yes thats the Original Oregon Tort . I got it from a friend of mine from a 10 year old colony

Will try and get pics of the ORA pearlberry . Its in a very bad spot and cannot be accessed by video easily - atleast not when my wife is taking the video .

Because I travel so much , my wife takes videos and sends me almost everyday to have me look over my tank . Will get a pic or video in a week or 2 . Sadly I get to see my tank only for a day or 2 in a week or 2.

I know mine is the real deal as I got my frag from a colony with ORA Frag plug and have seen the mother colony in person .

Regards,
Abhishek

bubbaque · Aug 15, 2018

You must have a very patient wife! My wife would let it all die before she sent me videos each day. I know you said it will be a while but whenever you are ready to frag the pearlberry and lokani let me know. Not many people seem to have the lokani.

Abhishek · Aug 15, 2018

bubbaque said:
You must have a very patient wife! My wife would let it all die before she sent me videos each day. I know you said it will be a while but whenever you are ready to frag the pearlberry and lokani let me know. Not many people seem to have the lokani.

Yup am blessed !
Oh BTW, if you go to 0:26-0:31 in the video, you will see the BattleCorals Gilligan . Looks slightly redder in person .

Regards,
Abhsihek

bubbaque · Aug 15, 2018

It looks very nice and has a whole bunch of growth happening! You don't have any issue with your nutrients high? Have you tried to see how corals react at different levels? Sorry for all the questions but I'm catching up on your thread.

Abhishek · Aug 15, 2018

bubbaque said:
It looks very nice and has a whole bunch of growth happening! You don't have any issue with your nutrients high? Have you tried to see how corals react at different levels? Sorry for all the questions but I'm catching up on your thread.

No it's absolutely fine and am honored that you ask so many questions . Honestly I can't say I have tried to run low nutrient due to my crazy work schedule . But with high 10k halides that I run , I almost feel confident of running into lesser issues of STN and RTN and bleaching with higher nutrients . Am happy with the growth and color and not willing to tweak anything .
If it ain't broken why fix it !!! Lol

bubbaque · Aug 15, 2018

Abhishek said:
No it's absolutely fine and am honored that you ask so many questions . Honestly I can't say I have tried to run low nutrient due to my crazy work schedule . But with high 10k halides that I run , I almost feel confident of running into lesser issues of STN and RTN and bleaching with higher nutrients . Am happy with the growth and color and not willing to tweak anything .
If it ain't broken why fix it !!! Lol

Well said!

Next time you get the camera out will you take a pic of the SOTR milli? I bought one from WWC a couple months ago but it was as brown as brown could be. They said because it was in low light in one of their lps tanks. It's slowly improving but still so far to go.

Abhishek · Aug 15, 2018

bubbaque said:
Well said!

Next time you get the camera out will you take a pic of the SOTR milli? I bought one from WWC a couple months ago but it was as brown as brown could be. They said because it was in low light in one of their lps tanks. It's slowly improving but still so far to go.

Well you have touched a sad point here . I have had my fair share of acro killings but 2 of them are just I cant get over with - WWC SOTR and BC Angelica - both were carried out by my army of ur jobs and turbo snails :mad:
Someday will get both back . Hopefully yours bloom very soon .
What I know is - SOTR is a slow growing milli much like the true Tyree Rogue Milli .

Regards,
Abhishek

Abhishek · Aug 19, 2018

This might be small stupid update but it's pretty exciting for me .
First ever Zoas/palys in my life .

Got 4 polyps of WWC Purple Monster from my friend and needless to say am hooked .

I know leds and T5s will probably show Zoas color better but am excited to see what halides can do .
Share some tips and tricks of keeping Zoas/palys growing ..

@Lovemycj7 - finally I can get a shipment from you .. guys if you do not know - @Lovemycj7 has an amazing impressive zoa and paly collection .

Regards,
Abhishek

bubbaque · Aug 19, 2018

With how your tank looks, you will have no issues growing them. Once they start growing, they grow fast, so make sure you only put them where you would want them to generally stay.

Abhishek · Aug 19, 2018

bubbaque said:
With how your tank looks, you will have no issues growing them. Once they start growing, they grow fast, so make sure you only put them where you would want them to generally stay.

Thanks @bubbaque . I would like to know top 5-10 Zoas that you would keep and high end ones . I have no clue about them and want some help in selecting .

Regards,
Abhishek

bubbaque · Aug 19, 2018

Abhishek said:
Thanks @bubbaque . I would like to know top 5-10 Zoas that you would keep and high end ones . I have no clue about them and want some help in selecting .

Regards,
Abhishek

I have no idea what the popular zoas are now. I lost interest in them when I started buying high end sps.

When I was interested in zoas I was growing them on tiles in my frag tank. They were growing off the tiles and started growing on the glass and the other tiles the sps were on. I got tired of scraping them off so I traded them to my LFS. I think of zoas a much prettier star polyps.

bubbaque · Aug 19, 2018

Check out this thread. Try and place your zoas so this don't happen. https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/zoa’s-vs-sps-what-should-i-do.439417/#post-5026530

Abhishek · Aug 22, 2018

I normally don't do frequent updates as this but had to share this.

Icefire echinata is one of my all time most favorite acros . Surely not an easy acro to keep and maintain compared to other acropora species like tenuis and torts.

I had many over the years and most of them if kept properly showed nice blues . I even have Tyree Aquascene Original Icefire echinata from Tim and its a beauty in its own rights.

But in my limited 10-12 years of the hobby , nothing has ever come close to the wild icefire I have now . Its the only wild I have in my tank and has been with me for quite sometime. After 6-7 months doing well.
But in the week or 2 seems to have suddenly decided to blind any lookers at it . I know the changes I have done but not sure if it attributes to the color. It surely does give my OG Oregon Tort a run for the money and Oregon Tort is true blue for sure ..

Since moving to calcium reactor, I have been slowly running high alkalinity than am used to. Now my alk runs in 9.5-10 . Couple that with 250 watts of 10K light and you got some crazy blues !!!

Enough of talk .. Enjoy the blue blindness

while you can for echinatas can quickly take turn for worse

Regards,
Abhishek

drawman · Aug 22, 2018

Abhishek said:
I normally don't do frequent updates as this but had to share this.

Icefire echinata is one of my all time most favorite acros . Surely not an easy acro to keep and maintain compared to other acropora species like tenuis and torts.

I had many over the years and most of them if kept properly showed nice blues . I even have Tyree Aquascene Original Icefire echinata from Tim and its a beauty in its own rights.

But in my limited 10-12 years of the hobby , nothing has ever come close to the wild icefire I have now . Its the only wild I have in my tank and has been with me for quite sometime. After 6-7 months doing well.
But in the week or 2 seems to have suddenly decided to blind any lookers at it . I know the changes I have done but not sure if it attributes to the color. It surely does give my OG Oregon Tort a run for the money and Oregon Tort is true blue for sure ..

Since moving to calcium reactor, I have been slowly running high alkalinity than am used to. Now my alk runs in 9.5-10 . Couple that with 250 watts of 10K light and you got some crazy blues !!!

Enough of talk .. Enjoy the blue blindness while you can for echinatas can quickly take turn for worse

Regards,
Abhishek

You are making me jealous man that piece looks gorgeous!

Abhishek · Aug 22, 2018

drawman said:
You are making me jealous man that piece looks gorgeous!

You have to come over sometime . Has been quite sometime since you were here .

Regards,
Abhishek

bubbaque · Aug 23, 2018

Abhishek said:
I normally don't do frequent updates as this but had to share this.

Icefire echinata is one of my all time most favorite acros . Surely not an easy acro to keep and maintain compared to other acropora species like tenuis and torts.

I had many over the years and most of them if kept properly showed nice blues . I even have Tyree Aquascene Original Icefire echinata from Tim and its a beauty in its own rights.

But in my limited 10-12 years of the hobby , nothing has ever come close to the wild icefire I have now . Its the only wild I have in my tank and has been with me for quite sometime. After 6-7 months doing well.
But in the week or 2 seems to have suddenly decided to blind any lookers at it . I know the changes I have done but not sure if it attributes to the color. It surely does give my OG Oregon Tort a run for the money and Oregon Tort is true blue for sure ..

Since moving to calcium reactor, I have been slowly running high alkalinity than am used to. Now my alk runs in 9.5-10 . Couple that with 250 watts of 10K light and you got some crazy blues !!!

Enough of talk .. Enjoy the blue blindness while you can for echinatas can quickly take turn for worse

Regards,
Abhishek

That is a beauty! The "ice fire" is also one of my favorites. I tried to keep an Aussie echinata before and it died on me, but the frag was in bad shape to begin with. I got another one from Adam today to give it another try. I believe they look the same. Do you know?

You are the second person I seen say that raising alk caused sudden growth for them.

Abhishek · Aug 23, 2018

bubbaque said:
That is a beauty! The "ice fire" is also one of my favorites. I tried to keep an Aussie echinata before and it died on me, but the frag was in bad shape to begin with. I got another one from Adam today to give it another try. I believe they look the same. Do you know?

You are the second person I seen say that raising alk caused sudden growth for them.

Congrats on the Echinata . I believe Adam's is an Aussie too and looks pretty similar to the wild one I got . Over the years I have seen icefire to have so many varieties but mostly either brown body , white or green body .
My wild is almost white with a little green mixed whereas Tyree Aquascene is absolute green body .
I think Adam's is white body too which I love the most .

Well I used to have 11-12 alk in the past but this time when I started tank and used ATI , I had to hover around 7-7.5 for caution . With calcium reactor , I feel more comfortable running high alk with high nutrients and high light .

One thing I can say I have experienced - if you have very low almost ULNS tank , running high alk is a recipe for disaster .

I believe with high alk , high light and enough nutrients - you are a little pushing the acros over the edge which sometimes make them show more colors and growth .

Regards,
Abhishek

Abhishek · Sep 4, 2018

Crazy busy with work ! Have been traveling so much that I get it to see the tank only once in 3-4 weeks .
Just a small update about my most favorite acro of all times may be ..

Not a rainbow color but its different - deepest pink / red body with most of the older polyps as green but all newer growth is blinding whitish blue with white polyps . Its difficult to capture the blinding sight with my prehistoric mobile phone camera . Its about 3-4 inches and only encrusting as I have it in crazy flow !

Without much ado - I present to you Gilligan - one of battlecorals finest

Regards,
Abhishek

drawman · Sep 4, 2018

Abhishek said:
Crazy busy with work ! Have been traveling so much that I get it to see the tank only once in 3-4 weeks .
Just a small update about my most favorite acro of all times may be ..

Not a rainbow color but its different - deepest pink / red body with most of the older polyps as green but all newer growth is blinding whitish blue with white polyps . Its difficult to capture the blinding sight with my prehistoric mobile phone camera . Its about 3-4 inches and only encrusting as I have it in crazy flow !

Without much ado - I present to you Gilligan - one of battlecorals finest

Regards,
Abhishek

That's a very nice acro Abhishek! I feel like the colors are going to be even more impressive the bigger it gets.