Wicked!

Grate video loved it.

Hermit Hotel
 

I've been meaning to document this for a while now. It is my observation that hermit crabs have their favourite resting places in the tank. Each night, they roam around, then return the favoured spot for the day.

Unfortunately for this particular coral, about 30+ hermits spend their days in it. This coral used to have a resident acro-crab, but he didn't survive the transfer to the new tank (or something got him). The acro-crab was quite good at fending off any hermit that attempted to get near his coral. The hermits are having a long term effect on the coral growth pattern of the coral as the areas they sit on don't get any light.

http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...s/000_0133.jpg

reply
 

I think you might be able to solve that problem by either fraging that acro and placing the frags in different areas. Or adding several more acros to try and spread out the hermit territory. I like option 2 personally. :biggrin:

Is that a prostrata?

I don't know what it is. I'm not so much into coral IDs. I continue to add more coral frags all the time, but few of them are large enough to tempt the hermits to move out. It is also my observation that the hermits like to huddle in collections. (Maybe they like to swap accommodations!)

I'm not worried about it. The coral will just have to deal with it's residents.

Untamed,

I only recently found Canreef so I've just joined the "watch" on your project but I have to say, what an amazing job! I've read the whole thread and you've given me tons of ideas on how I want to do a new 280 gallon tank that I'm looking to put together.
Thanks for going into all the detail that you did as I know I'm going to use a few of your tricks.
Excellent Tank!!!

That's the entire idea. I owe a lot of my plan to others who posted their builds on reefcentral etc.

Wrasse goes to bed
 

This is old-hat stuff for you fish people...but to a lot of people who follow this story, they won't have seen this before!

Here's a quick video showing the leopard wrasse going to bed for the night. Every evening, about 10 minutes after the halide lights go off, he finds a place to sleep and dives in. You don't see him again until about noon the next day.

Sorry for the blue colour of the video...the flourescent lights are on in the evening and I can't do white-balance when I'm shooting video.

http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...h_100_0306.jpg

Great Vid Brad. I never see mine go to bed so it was cool you were able to catch it.

J

Daily pH cycle
 

I just recently added an additional pH probe to begin monitoring my tank pH. Here's a shot of the daily cycle that the tank is currently experiencing.

http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...s/100_0141.jpg

My immediate thought is that this is a pretty high pH to be reaching (8.8)!! I have only just recalibrated the sensor, so I'm pretty sure this is accurate. I'm going to ask for pH advice on the other forum...

Now that I'm monitoring the pH, the plan is to add a Kalk reactor and run the Ca reator and Kalk reactor on opposite cycles to try to minimize the pH swing.