Here is an updated FTS. I tried my hand at coral importing and put a number of them in my tank to accelerate the growth process :). I know that starting out with frags can be satisfying once they grow out but they really take a long time to grow. I was getting good growth but am a bit impatient. The small colonies still need to grow a lot but it immediately transformed the look of my tank.

The rest of what I brought in is sitting in my frag tank in my basement. Dave at concept aquariums hooked me up with some great deals to put the frag/holding tank together.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6066/...8cf4299f_z.jpg
Untitled by badAZZlars, on Flickr

Not sure if its because they were picking on each other (which I didn't see much of) or they had some other issue but over the last week I have lost 5/6 of the cardinals. All of my other fish are 100% fine. The bengii's weren't showing any sign of distress but they just started dying. Can't explain it but will chalk it up to being a bad batch that Ocean City got in as these should have been the most hardy fish I have in my tank.

Its too bad really because I loved how all 6 were swimming together in the middle of the tank.

Nice FTS. The fact that you see the tank every day probably diminishes the changes, but the tank looks like it has really matured over the last 3 or 4 months. The frags have turned into mini colonies, which it pretty impressive and the rocks look a lot darker, which really helps the coral stand out more. Looking very good.

Nice looking tank! You lucked out with Fragalot ordering that many in one go! Some of my nicest SPS are from Fragalot though, so there is something to be said there.

Banggai are cool fish. They are awesome when they are schooling, but they will only do that if they are unpaired, immature, or are in really large tanks. Once they start pairing up they will get territories and stick to their mate instead of schooling because our tanks are too small. If the Banggai were wild-caught the die off is not unusual at all. Ask Ocean city if they were wild or captive bred. This is one of many reasons why Banggai should always be captive bred. The trouble is that Banggai make poor candidates for profitable breeding, so mostly just hobbyist breeders are breeding them.

I'll admit I cheated a bit and actually added some mini colonies. Frags are growing nicely but not that fast unfortunately. :biggrin:

Thanks for the info. I think i'm going to try them again eventually but will make sure that they are captive bred. I was pretty disappointed to see them all drop off but I think my two large brittle stars were pretty happy about it. I think they ended up consuming 3 of the 6.

Hey Mike the tank is looking good. I've still got a few pieces you may want, fire off a pm if interested.

Some updated pics

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6095/...8088a66d_b.jpg
tank 001 by badAZZlars, on Flickr

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6051/...a009b5f0_b.jpg
tank 003 by badAZZlars, on Flickr

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6092/...137edb89_b.jpg
tank 004 by badAZZlars, on Flickr

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6111/...68eeb1a9_b.jpg
tank 006 by badAZZlars, on Flickr

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6096/...109a5f4d_b.jpg
tank 005 by badAZZlars, on Flickr

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6060/...c73c105b_b.jpg
tank 009 by badAZZlars, on Flickr

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6230/...dc3dd298_b.jpg
tank 008 by badAZZlars, on Flickr

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6230/...4fa2f672_b.jpg
tank 011 by badAZZlars, on Flickr

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6099/...acf22527_b.jpg
tank 010 by badAZZlars, on Flickr

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6048/...f88679bb_b.jpg
tank 013 by badAZZlars, on Flickr

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6049/...36e54cdb_b.jpg
tank 012 by badAZZlars, on Flickr

Lookin awesome Mike. What is the coral in the 3rd pic down from the FTS?

No clue, unless its a milli or a stag i'm pretty bad with species identification.

But when its grows out a bit more there will be a frag with your name on it. :biggrin: