HIgh End Pack + Beginner Pack

TCK Corals · May 21, 2015

1. Assorted "Beginner" Acro pack. Great for starting a new collection! ~~$149~~ $99 Shipped PENDING

-TCK Rainbow Tenuis
-Green Slimer
-ORA Red Planet
-ARC Highlighter Tenuis
-ORA German Blue
-Bonsai

2. High End TCK Acro Pack! $599 Shipped

-TCK Cotton Candy
-TCK Rainbow Tenuis
-TCK Mardi Gras
-TCK Sour Patch Tenuis
-TCK Sunblaze Mille
-TCK Red Titan Stag
-TCK Dragon
-TCK Goldrush
-TCK Field of Dreams

hatfielj · May 21, 2015

I don't know how u get such intense colors. Insane.
What's ur secret??

TCK Corals · May 21, 2015

hatfielj said:
I don't know how u get such intense colors. Insane.
What's ur secret??

We have the best luck using t5 lighting. About half of our acros are kept in zeovit. The other half of our acros are grown in a system using red sea products. We feed our acros heavily as well

Gondore · May 21, 2015

Do you have pics that have had just white balance adjustments and nothing else?

Blue Tang · May 21, 2015

You have pm. Thanks.

TCK Corals · May 21, 2015

Blue Tang said:
You have pm. Thanks.[/QUO

Pm returned

Vpham · May 21, 2015

I am really digging the sun blaze n gold rush....maybe one day Kien...one day.

Ezeke1 · May 21, 2015

Do you have a shot of the mother colony for field of dreams?

TCK Corals · May 21, 2015

Ezeke1 said:
Do you have a shot of the mother colony for field of dreams?

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/new-release-tck-field-of-dreams-acro.201456/

Brem · May 22, 2015

hatfielj said:
I don't know how u get such intense colors. Insane.
What's ur secret??

photoshop .. ;-)

Lonelyreef · May 22, 2015

Great deal on both packs nice to see a vendor paying attention to new reefers encouraging trying out sticks

TCK Corals · May 22, 2015

Lonelyreef said:
Great deal on both packs nice to see a vendor paying attention to new reefers encouraging trying out sticks

Thanks! We picked corals that have a great track record of holding colors, and thriving in a multitude of different conditions

Each of the corals from the beginner pack have been in captivity for years (some for 5+ years now)

hatfielj · May 22, 2015

The Coral Kings said:
We have the best luck using t5 lighting. About half of our acros are kept in zeovit. The other half of our acros are grown in a system using red sea products. We feed our acros heavily as well

Would you mind elaborating on a couple of these points? What's your bulb combo? Light schedule? How deep under water are the corals kept? What red sea products are you referring to? And what do you feed your acros?

Thanks so much. I really can't get over your colors. The orange on that sunblaze is nuts and such a rare color in acros/millis. Your reds are insane too. That's one color I can never seem to keep.

TCK Corals · May 22, 2015

hatfielj said:
Would you mind elaborating on a couple of these points? What's your bulb combo? Light schedule? How deep under water are the corals kept? What red sea products are you referring to? And what do you feed your acros?

Thanks so much. I really can't get over your colors. The orange on that sunblaze is nuts and such a rare color in acros/millis. Your reds are insane too. That's one color I can never seem to keep.

Both tanks run the following light/feeding schedule:
At 2pm the 4 blue t5s kick on. At 4:30 pm, the other 4 t5s kick on. At 8:30pm the "daylights" kick off and at 11pm the rest of the lights kick off. At 1am, the tanks get fed/dosed and the zeo stones are shaken.

The zeovit system has no substrate, and all the acros in the system are on a rack 4 inches off the bottom of the tank. The tank itself is 16 inches deep. High light acros are elevated with schedule 40 tubes. Low
Light acros go on the edges of the rack, or in extreme cases, under the rack itself. Lighting is an 8 bulb tek unit on legs.

Alk, Ca and Mg are maintained with a GHL 4 port doser.

The red sea products on the non zeo system we use are the following:

Reef foundation A, B, and C as necessary. We also dose coral colors ABC and D as necessary. The food sources for those acros are reef energy A + B and fish waste as well as the oyster eggs and golden pearls.

The light over this system is an 8 bulb ati powermodule hanging 18 inches from the water. The tank is 12" deep and has reborn media as substrate.
Half the tank is eggcrate, and the other half has acros either on live rocks or in pvc tubes.

Neither system is pretty to look at, but the acros do quite well.

Flow in both tanks are provided by ecotech vortechs. The zeovit tank also has a gyre since 2 x mp40s wasnt enough flow.

TCK Corals · May 22, 2015

We will be 100% honest and say that it's extremely difficult to keep every single acropora looking 100%. When one colony looks great, another always isnt fully colored. A month later, they may switch. When we make acro packs, we take
Frags from what looks the best at that given time. Many of the regulars that always look good (goldrush, cotton candy, sunblaze mille, etc) have been in our systems for a long time now and not only look great, they grow pretty fast as well.

A notorious acro (pikachu) is one of those that will look amazing, and then randomely go brown. We usually just wait it out until it colors back up.

Our red corals become extremely red, but the greens suffer. Our red planet for instance has almost no greeen in it. It's quite frustrating sometimes, but that's half the fun of keeping sps corals

sexycorals · May 22, 2015

Sweet write up and thanks for sharing man.

Tom Blevins · May 22, 2015

very nice! WOW

hatfielj · May 22, 2015

Yes thank you very much. That is very helpful information. We (the hobbyists) are always striving to do a little better with our own tanks so its hugely helpful to hear how other people have had success, which you guys clearly have

Cheers!

hatfielj · May 22, 2015

Okay just one more quick question. I'm kind of considering this red sea dosing program you use. As for maintaining your alk, ca, and mg levels in your non-zeo tank, do you only run those products or do you also dose with a standard alk, mg, ca 2 part solution? So in other words, your ca, alk, and mg dosing all comes from the red sea products?
Right now I use BRS 2 part plus mg and thats the only thing I dose. I do water changes every 2 or 3 weeks usually. That's why I'm considering doing some additional dosing to make up for the trace stuff?

TCK Corals · May 22, 2015

hatfielj said:
Okay just one more quick question. I'm kind of considering this red sea dosing program you use. As for maintaining your alk, ca, and mg levels in your non-zeo tank, do you only run those products or do you also dose with a standard alk, mg, ca 2 part solution? So in other words, your ca, alk, and mg dosing all comes from the red sea products?
Right now I use BRS 2 part plus mg and thats the only thing I dose. I do water changes every 2 or 3 weeks usually. That's why I'm considering doing some additional dosing to make up for the trace stuff?

We use red seas foundation to maintain alk/Ca. There are many other 2 parts out there that will work just as well.

We used to use esv 2 part, however the trace elements in it made it hard to keep the system balanced