jda's 240g Acropora Rebuild

[jda]

One of my CSBs ripped it's self apart the other day. IME, this is rare with this nem. While it does happen, I would guess that 95+% of the clones were cut. It takes years and years for these to naturally split, it seems, if ever. Sometimes they are just happy to get large and stay that way. Those blobs are still probably 3 inches, so they should do well.

 

[AcroFan144]

Do you have any recent full tank shots? I would love to see them!

 

[jda]

Doing some basic tank maintenance. First, got another skimmer since 1). it was both used and cheap and 2). my fish are getting larger and I am feeding more and I need some export. For those that know, the larger Tunze Skimmers are nearly impossible to find used since nobody really wants to get rid of them - kinda like LifeReef. I could not pass it up... so now I have a fourth skimmer on this tank. These things are beasts.

I also changed my MH bulbs. When I do, I keep the old ones and label them. When looking, my last date is Jan 2020 and my last set of MH bulbs in reserve is also labeled the same way. I did not change my bulbs last year. Oh well. ...stupid me. Anyway, 5 new MH bulbs and 4x GE 6500k for my chaeto fuge. I always put off changing these and this year it took me 8 minutes - again, stupid - it is never as bad as I think that it is.

 

[jda]

Was pulling out some rogue rocks, fish frags that I never saw (mostly dead), some rogue Z&P and otherwise cleaning up the tank. This piece of coralline dropped off of the side glass. For those who cannot wait for their coralline to grow and roll their eyes when dorks like me tell them that they will hate it someday, this is what you get if you are in the hobby for long enough. I like to keep this since they are good to let chalices or encrusting montis grow on since it is easy to break.

 

[X-37B]

Doing some basic tank maintenance. First, got another skimmer since 1). it was both used and cheap and 2). my fish are getting larger and I am feeding more and I need some export. For those that know, the larger Tunze Skimmers are nearly impossible to find used since nobody really wants to get rid of them - kinda like LifeReef. I could not pass it up... so now I have a fourth skimmer on this tank. These things are beasts.

I also changed my MH bulbs. When I do, I keep the old ones and label them. When looking, my last date is Jan 2020 and my last set of MH bulbs in reserve is also labeled the same way. I did not change my bulbs last year. Oh well. ...stupid me. Anyway, 5 new MH bulbs and 4x GE 6500k for my chaeto fuge. I always put off changing these and this year it took me 8 minutes - again, stupid - it is never as bad as I think that it is.

4 skimmers? Feeling like I need another with only 1 on my 120, lol.

That looks like a 9410. I have one on my 45 frag system and an extra used one in the closet.

I run a 9430dc on my 120. It is in 5" of water and pulls 3-400ml a day. They are true set and forget beasts.

This is one days worth of skim.

 

[drawman]

If I was ever a brand fanboy Tunze would be it.

 

[jda]

This thing is not even big. I know that these are a bit more money than a typical cone skimmer or the brand-of-the-month, but they are so much better. I cannot believe that more people do not use them. I buy them when I see them... like this one.

 

[jda]

While nothing to do with this system, got a tank for my CSBs and a fish nursery done a while back. 50g lowboy, 40g breeder sump with no baffles, 1.5" standpipe, Eheim return pump, ASM G4 skimmer that I had, heater and a Tunze 6095. Use a 250w HQI 14k Phoenix and a G4 Radion. I had all of this stuff laying around for years except for the lowboy.

Have about a dozen CSBs and some of small fish... hippo, rock beauty, queen, blue, a clown and a handful of small damsels. The fish need to eat a lot, so good for the nems.

I got sick of having nem baskets clipped on the sides of my acropora frag/qt tanks, so I made this just for them. I have an osmolator that I need to install and I need to run a second power strip to a second circuit for redundancy and then done. Most of those nems are 6-8" and ready to cut.

 

[drawman]

While nothing to do with this system, got a tank for my CSBs and a fish nursery done a while back. 50g lowboy, 40g breeder sump with no baffles, 1.5" standpipe, Eheim return pump, ASM G4 skimmer that I had, heater and a Tunze 6095. Use a 250w HQI 14k Phoenix and a G4 Radion. I had all of this stuff laying around for years except for the lowboy.

Have about a dozen CSBs and some of small fish... hippo, rock beauty, queen, blue, a clown and a handful of small damsels. The fish need to eat a lot, so good for the nems.

I got sick of having nem baskets clipped on the sides of my acropora frag/qt tanks, so I made this just for them. I have an osmolator that I need to install and I need to run a second power strip to a second circuit for redundancy and then done. Most of those nems are 6-8" and ready to cut.

Very cool! Nice way to keep a couple of angels too.

 

[DCR]

Do you plan on eventually keeping the juvenile blue and queen angelfish in your display tank? I have always loved queens, but I have read they are not at all reef safe as adults and need a very large tank.

 

[jda]

This queen is not for me. I have about a 5 inch one in my display - it will have to move on in another few years, but I can give it to a few places with tanks of over 1000 gallons. Either this one or my emp ate all of the hitchhiker polyps, but that is fine with me. They leave my SPS and clams alone.

I will raise the blue and also keep it to 7-8 inches and then it can move on. The rock beauty can live it's whole life in my tanks since they don't get too big.

 

[jda]

I just took this through the nasty, dirty front glass, but here are some of my angelfish babies. I have had the Watanabei for about a decade? Female jumped a few years back, but the male was terminal. He is amazingly graceful. The emp is about as big as I have ever seen one without showing any transition yet. The queen is about two years old, maybe three, and I got it as about a 1.25 inch juvi like the ones in the nursery above.

That purple tang is older than one of my daughters who is 18. The yellow is maybe a year younger, maybe two? In any case, at least 16 years old on both of them. The purple tang does not have any black dots anymore and is starting to look old - it was about half dollar sized when I got it. I think that it was about $60 back then when Red Sea fish were reasonable.

Maybe this weekend, I will scrape some glass and get some fish pics. I got 7 Carberryi Anthias today on a drop in to a seldom visited local shop that got them as a mis-shipment - they are all like three inches and really big already. I got a Chysurus Angel a while back (thanks Scott) that is in isolation currently - dude crushes flake food since day one (weird), but has just recently started to eat mysis and pellets, so he should be coming out soon.

 

[jda]

FWIW, I get asked this from time to time, but I don't have any issue keeping larger fish. I don't really have any issue with people doing it as long as they keep the best interest of the fish in mind when it comes time to move them on. All of my larger fish are totally free to good and stable homes that include some high quality hobbyists with super large tanks and the Denver Aquarium has taken a few before. As long as people don't let money stand in the way of finding the fish a great home, then I feel that I can be a temporary steward for 3-6 years, or whatever, and then get them moved on to an even better home.

The queen does grow as fast as anything... even rabbitfish.

 

[drawman]

Love to hear the purple and yellow have been with you that long!

 

[jda]

I think that nearly everybody knows that I don't use LEDs over my acropora. Most who have followed me for long probably know that I did not come by this as some fuddy dud who just hates new things and that I have tried many panels and much more than most LED lovers ever gave MH or T5 a try. Just on this new tank, is a pretty good illustration about one of the reasons why I don't care for LEDs - the shadowing.

While this is no issue on a shallow lowboy, this is a big problem on my larger tanks and a problem that most people don't even know that they have. This can all be overcome, but at 3x $800 Radions or Hydras to replace each of my MH, why? I might do it different if I had smaller tanks, but I don't.

Check out the shadow of that skinny screen frame edge under the Radion and none under the MH on the other side.

 

[Fourstars]

You are an old Fudy Dud. I use to think the same thing till I switched to LED. I do get slower growth but that’s good cause I’m already throwing stuff out. I think that LED is to close to the tank, raise it and turn up the intensity.

 

[ScottB]

I ran 8X80 watt T5 over this 5 foot tank for years. The SPS loved it so much I had to tear it all out and restart.

This is shortly after the reboot and with the new "slow growth" lighting. No shadows, but also no chiller, no fans.

There are trade-offs.

 

[jda]

I imagine that everybody's fish make frags, at least once you get past the frag or teen-mom stage of growth. I was in front of the tank actually watching and one of my angels made this RR Piny Cadillac frag. It kinda surprised me until I saw that the whole colony was off of a 3/8 inch stalk - would not have lasted much longer anyway. I took it out, along with another pieces that fell off months ago that I let grow underneath and moved them to one of my backup tanks that I am going to start up with some limited acropora that I want to see grow to large sizes.

...more on that tank in the future, but has had fish in it and has not seen light in quite some time... year or eighteen months? I am going to have these two grow in a cascade type of deal and let them have this whole 24x27 area, if they want. This thing grows like a weed for me, so it might not take long.

This is the largest fish-frag that I have ever had.

 

[Eagle_Steve]

I imagine that everybody's fish make frags, at least once you get past the frag or teen-mom stage of growth. I was in front of the tank actually watching and one of my angels made this RR Piny Cadillac frag. It kinda surprised me until I saw that the whole colony was off of a 3/8 inch stalk - would not have lasted much longer anyway. I took it out, along with another pieces that fell off months ago that I let grow underneath and moved them to one of my backup tanks that I am going to start up with some limited acropora that I want to see grow to large sizes.

...more on that tank in the future, but has had fish in it and has not seen light in quite some time... year or eighteen months? I am going to have these two grow in a cascade type of deal and let them have this whole 24x27 area, if they want. This thing grows like a weed for me, so it might not take long.

This is the largest fish-frag that I have ever had.

It happens lol. Colony to the left of the pic got knocked off by my hippo a while back. Once it gets to a point it is bound to happen. The colony only had about 3/8" holding it onto the rock. I fragged it up, gave most away, put some back and just last week it happened again lol. Seems it is in the way of where the hippo wants to swim lol.

 

[jda]

Usually a colony like that has a stalk that I cannot even get the bone cutters around. I was really shocked that the stalk was so tiny. I need to remove it anyway since it was going to start to overtake some of my more prized acros in a few months, so I guess that I should be glad that the fish did it for me.