lol thats a long time for my brain to have to go back :razz: So how big was it when you got it? It looks huge! I'm hoping I can keep my squamosa going to that size

it's a clam tho. which these days means it's prob worth 2k at that size...

Ya no kidding! :-) Here is a pic of it from back in August 2009.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3496/...e6eeed38_o.jpg

I guess you can't really get a sense of scale here but I believe it was like 3 or 4 inches. Its shell alone is twice that size now. In that early pic it doesn't have a lot of growth scutes. Its shell is quite smooth there. In newer pics it has quite a few scutes with blue clove polyps living in them :lol:

When it really fans out its mantles it is quite impressive.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3527/...28487a34_o.jpg

https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2905/...75d4c187_o.jpg

In 5 years I have only ever seen it spawn once. I've had to move it quite a bit over the years. Where it lives now I had to remove a large piece of live rock structure as well, to accommodate it. It seems to have stopped or slowed down growing, thank goodness. I love it but unlike mostly all my other corals, I can't prune back the clam :sad: I also have this issue with my red goniopora on the other side of the tank that's trying to bust out of the tank. I'm running out of spots to move it to. :cry:

New bulbs!
 

The end of the year holiday season usually signals a change in bulbs for me. This year I'm a little bit late, but close enough :-) This year I ordered another set of Phoenix 14K halides on boxing day. I had hopped to get a fresh set of T5s that weekend as well but unfortunately everyone was out of stock on the bulbs that I was looking for. I guess that contributed to my delay in swapping out the bulbs. At any rate, with all the bulbs in hand, it was finally time for the swap out!

The Magnificent Seven.

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...psr1d0bu50.jpg

Here are the old halides. I've noticed that the longer they are run, the more of a dark dirty haze they get on them.

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...pso1uskmjf.jpg

Ahh, new halide goodness.

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...psojkdmtca.jpg

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...pso6f6rftj.jpg

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...pskoawwixe.jpg

Sadly this may be the last time I ever install my beloved Phoenix halides into this fixture :cry:

And also, OMG I feel like such a geezer talking about my halide fixture.. :lol:

It will be interesting to see your tank with new lighting

As to the old geezer part no comment because I'm probably way older than you :mrgreen:

The tank is a lot brighter bluer with new lights. Go figure :lol:

You might be surprised to find out how old I am :-)

Your lights are singing the bright blues....

So have we confirmed that the Phoenix 14K bulbs are discontinued? I lost track of that other thread.

Actually that's a good question! So far, all the vendors that I've spoken to has said that they are discontinued. However, that could just mean they are no longer ordering them. They could still be manufactured maybe. I don't really know.

I had heard they were discontinued but now that i'm looking for evidence of this i find absolutely none. I think it was Greg (Snappy) whom i first heard this from maybe he can confirm where he heard it?