^whattheysaid (ie. looks great)

mixing up the sodium hydroxide it got pretty hot and I would imagine that the chemical reaction with saltwater creates some heat as well. It pretty much melts stuff on contact.

Everything in the tank does look healthy, and I'm happy with the colors of most things except for a couple corals that I know have looked better in the past so I just have to be patient I guess :razz:

LOL, yeah I need to get my old nikon out again. Once I switched to a canon camera he turned out blue. There are no actinics on this tank either so that doesn't lend to the purple end of the spectrum.

Thanks for the compliments guys :biggrin:

Now that is a sweet looking tank! Nice work Christy.

Wow Christy.. It's looking nice!

Thanks guys, over the last few days stuff looks pretty happy in there. I would imagine everyone is feeling better not being choked out by cyano :biggrin:

Mixing up my first batch for the doser melted my holding container in half :neutral:, Calcium is low on the reactivity table though other group 1 and 2 metals are much more reactive in water.

This guy has the sweetest hair ever:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyFLv...eature=related

Tanks looking amazing as usual, that's some pretty unreal growth you have on the SPS Christy!

Definitely looking good....:thumb:

Mitch

Christy, have you been conducting more pest eradication with the sodium hydroxide?

No actually I've been incredibly lazy lately and haven't even done a waterchange in the past couple of weeks (or since I did the last NaOH testing). I do need to get my act together though. Some of the rocks were removable so I just yarded them out and removed them manually, a couple of other rocks were just coral bases so I popped the corals off of them, chucked the bases and re-epoxied them down. Others on non-removable rock have been plotting against me and reproducing at will. The plan is to go after the rest or a goodly portion of the rest of the majanos on Monday if I'm feeling up to it.

I did check the rocks that I treated a few weeks ago. One rock is completely clean and the other had one majano out of 4 come back (I think because I didn't get it quick enough before it sucked itself into the hole, either that or a new one grew in its place (it had several growing next to the ones I nailed but I was worried about the number of majanos I was nuking and the first time using the NaOH.)

Let me know how the second nuking goes. I'm getting annoyed at those little bastards myself, and may give it a try. Where do you get it from?

I, um, "appropriated" it from work :biggrin:

:tape:

Ok so second nuking was Monday. I hit all the majanos I could see (at the time, I see more today that I didn't hit). I think I had about a 60-75% success rate. Those majanos that are facing upwards are much easier to nail than the sideways ones. I did miss a large patch in the back forty (at least I think I did) and one rock I actually took out of the tank and nuked as almost all of the majanos on it were sticking out the side of the rock (and frankly the rock was small and easier to take out). I nuked a couple of aiptasia which I have a 100% success rate for so far. I thought I tested a mushroom but sadly I can't remember where the damned thing was, it was a single mushroom and I can't find any singles anywhere nor any leftover bits so we can maybe call that one a tentative success. I also hit a few odd shaped polyps that are like a cross between a short tentacled majano and a rust colored zoanthid. Easy peasy, they're gonzo and so is the algae they were mixed in with on one of my powerhead brackets :biggrin:

I'm not sure I'd be so worried about doing a water change right afterwards, although I'm sure its a good idea. I turkey basted up the precipitate after each "treatment". The waterchange (20%) did perk up the tank though, everything is looking fabulous a few days later.

I'm also happy to report that nothing croaked that wasn't supposed to during the treatment. There were a couple of close calls as you can see the sodium hydroxide in the water column sort of like you can see a hypersaline solution in regular water or lower salinity (kind of looks like a heat wave under water) and you really need to give that a quick stir so it precipitates before it hits anything. At one point I thought it landed on one of my acans but it precipitated at the last second and all was ok. Its definitely soemthing you need to be careful with or you could end up with dead spots on any corals that are underneath treatment areas.

Wow! Sounds like you're having fun you little "nuker". And it also looks to me like I need this stuff. Anybody know where to get sodium hydroxide?

Seriously, this stuff is the shiznit, I'm also using it on the eleventy billion tiny pocillipora colonies that have popped up all over the place :razz:

That pic of the receptical scares me. Aluminum wire that stuff is scary. FYI becarefull mixing disssimaliare metals ie. The copper and alum. There are special marets and dielectric grease to do it properly. And don't nick the aluminum wire a little nick and the curent will start to arc and the nick will get bigger and create heat. I had aluminum wire in my last house.

New year, new photos! :biggrin:

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...ary12011-1.jpg

So the sodium hydroxide does an excellent job of killing majanos and aiptasia but they're still popping up all over the place. I killed another 20 or so yesterday and still see more. Some are very tiny and easy to miss, others are in completely unaccessible areas. For some reason aiptasia seem to really like growing on my clams, which makes them fairly easy to remove.

Other than that not much new, stuff is growing. I replaced the MH bulbs the other day with Ushio 10K (same as before). Its amazing the color temperature difference. These ones are so nice and white, I didn't realize how yellowy the old ones were and they were only at 10 months.

The fish are all doing well, surprising as I've neglected the tank fairly badly and sometimes they only get fed every other day. They're all pretty fat though so its not like they can't skip a feeding but I feel guilty and my new years resolution is to not forget about them so often.

More pics :biggrin:

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...1/IMG_9533.jpg

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...1/IMG_9528.jpg

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...1/IMG_9518.jpg

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...1/IMG_9501.jpg

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...1/IMG_9492.jpg

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...1/IMG_9495.jpg

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...1/IMG_9472.jpg

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...1/IMG_9468.jpg

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...1/IMG_9436.jpg

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...1/IMG_9428.jpg

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...1/IMG_9429.jpg

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...1/IMG_9430.jpg

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...1/IMG_9452.jpg

Wow what a difference a few months can make, the tank looks fabulous.

looks great :biggrin:

The tank is lookin' great. Good photos too!

You sure do have a lot of corals!! :p Tank looks mighty fine..

Looking good Christy. Didn't take you long to fill that tank up eh? Nice growth.

Colours are looking great. You have some really sizeable 'frags' on that frag rack of yours!

lol, ya i know. sad eh? :wink:

those large ones are actually doubles of corals. sometimes i buy small stuff, then when it grows out i discover i already have it. since real estate is at a premium, it lives on the frag rack before going to someone elses house (these ones have been patiently waiting for brad). theres lots of other small stuff on there that i'm growing out some so it doesnt get lost in the tank :biggrin:

thanks for the compliments guys, other than the persistent cyano, majanos and aiptasia, i'm pretty happy with the tank these days :mrgreen:

I'm coming, I'm coming!! -lol

you got alerts set for your name? that was quick :razz:

Wow!.....tank looks awesome Christy!:biggrin: and the pics are saweet too!.....I really like that sps in the first pic.....do you have an ID for it?

No, I just watch all the really cool tank threads!!

No I don't, I thought it was a A. nana or A. valida but I'm not really sure. Its taking on a life of its own. Its "mom" was lost in the great UV disaster and this piece was on a rock that the original colony was leaning against, I guess it was just underhanging enough to be sheltered from the UV rays. It literally started from a tiny encrusting bit smaller than a dime. This version seems to have really long thin branches. I'll see if I can dig up a photo of the original one.

Aww, shucks. Thanks :redface:

I had both valida and nana in V1......both were much thicker branched than yours...... I would be interested in seeing that pic......kinda amazing how things can evolve huh?

In the old days I had a A. valida colony that looked exactly like that. Think I grew it out from a 1/4" crumb I got to keep as payment for helping move Mitch's 180g monster in 2000 or so. Was one of the nicest acros I had ever known, beauty of a colour, fast grower .. I gave away so many frags of what would now be considered "mini colonies" in size over the years .. and was one of the last to die out in my SPS "event" (since that's what we seem to call it nowadays).

Anyhow. I would have guess that acro to be A. valida.

gonna have to dig up a pic of mine now:lol:

ok, took forever but here is a photo from 2008

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...5/DSCN6906.jpg

Posting pics at 3:36 am? I feel for ya Momma. :sad:

A coral's environment can dictate it's morphology, which makes identification even more challenging.

yes my mantra is "this won't last forever" but the 3 hours of sleep a night I get is taking its toll, and frankly it feels like forever :razz:

I totally agree, all I know about A. valida and A. nana is that it always seems to keep this same coloration. Really its just a WAG and I love that corals can be so different in different conditions. I really enjoy giving others frags and seeing what they do in their tanks, which is often something quite different from what they do in mine :biggrin:

I have to say Christy's photo skills are a bit lacking. This tank looks even better in person, I could have stared at it for hours. Actually, I did :)

Absolutely stunning colors in this tank!!

aww thanks Brad :redface:

Wow! quite the difference between the two pics.....both versions are still thinner than my nana and valida......I would probably have to say yours is a nana tho.....whatever is is it looks much better now IMHO:biggrin: