Yah man, they're definitely not a 100% solution. I love them because when you get enough of them, they're crazy powerful, way more powerful than I ever gave them credit for before hand (hence 8 units running at 75% max power when I really only needed 6), but I've never seen an LED tank look as good in person as some of the T5 tanks I've seen. Argentiner's tank that I saw today is T5 and his is everything I hope mine one day becomes, it was spectacular. I'm not sure if it's that I just have them way too bright for some corals, or what the deal is, but certain corals just don't hold their 'zing' colours under my lights, while others (like that tricolour) almost hurt to look at they're so electric. So far, I'm willing to trade off the colour losses when they do occur for the fact that my tank actually has a sunrise and a sunset, and how much the look of it changes over the course of a day. I can wake up on a Saturday and look at the tank in it's morning light, then go out and come back at 1pm and it's like looking at a completely different tank. I even get an hour of hyper crazy royal blue (which I wouldn't want all the time) right before bed.

I'm just now starting to play with coral positioning, and considering adjusting my light schedule to see if I can bump up the colours that I've lost without compromising the growth, but it makes me nervous to mess with a good thing if you know what I mean. I'm sure part of the issue is also that this tank has been darn near close to ULNS for months, so things are a little more pastel regardless of lights anyway. I don't think I'd ever ditch LEDs now that I've had a taste of their overall intensity and controllability, but I definitely wouldn't buy another fixture unless it had the same sort of diode mix that the new radion pro has. I think the success of LEDs is going to be when the diode colour mixes start to approach the richness and breadth of what you can accomplish with T5s. I think if I had something closer to the 'true UV', as well as a few more peaks on the deeper blue end in there, the colours would pop a bit more, and the corals that fade might hold on to some of their 'zing'. However, a many thousand dollar upgrade to radion pros is not in the cards for a while.

Also, just checked before bed - my male true perc clown is in the nem! He's wiggling around in it like a pig in mud! Here's hoping his girlfriend figures out it's there tomorrow

That's kool
Wish my captive-bred clown would play in my bubble tip, without being eaten mind you :rolleyes:

The whole lighting thing .... best of luck with your decision

That's a good idea playing with placement. I've been doing the same thing. I have a red planet in 3 different places and all three look different! One is more red one is more pink and one is more green. I also have a bonsai in two different places and one is more blue in its tips while one is more purple. It's kinda cool to observe the differences.

Personally I think your pale/pastel colours are due to your ULNS environment. You don't have a lot of fish in there at all. It depends on your perspective whether or not this is a good or bad thing tho. Many people strive for that pastelly zeoVit look. I think this is why zeoVit has all those other bottles to play with. You strip your tank clean with the zeoLites and pale your corals out, but then bring back some colour (possibly selectively) by dosing the various additives (Coral Vitalizer, pohls xtra, amino acids, etc..). Then there are people like me who would see this as an excuse to add more fish. :lol:

are you gluing your stuff directly to the rock? I also had a few corals in multiple spots but would have done much more of this had I drilled my rock to peg the corals in place.

Yah I've been meaning to get more fish, but I'm pretty sold on the tank transfer method as a QT procedure and man is it ever labour intensive. Also, it turns out there's not many 12 day stretches where I'm in the city continuously, and I already ask too much of my roommates in regards to my tank to be ok with asking them to do a transfer for me or stay on top of ammonia testing. I have been dosing Pohl's Xtra with my doser, and for a while I was dosing B-balance, but I didn't see any difference in coral colours and within a week of dosing B-balance I got my first flush of dinos. I can't say for sure they're connected, but since I stopped dosing B-balance, the dino issue has subsided dramatically. I'm nervous to dose things when I don't really know what they are, and if it can't be automated I'm also too lazy to keep up with it lol.

At first I was breaking them off their base rocks, then super gluing them to new pieces of marco rock rubble, and then epoxying those rocks in to place, but that was before I was sure if I was going to keep my rockscape. Recently I've just been epoxying things directly to the rock and letting them grow over it, as you can see the epoxy for less time. I am however currently regretting that decision, as my new anemone went walkabout this morning and I've had to break 4, soon to be 5 colonies off the rocks to get them out of it's way. I'm pretty sure it's climbing to the highest point on the current rock, so I'm going to re-work things a bit to make sure that rock is an island, as I'll need to move half the corals in my tank (many of which are fully encrusted on the LR) if it makes it off it's current perch.

And speaking of the anemone - I caught the moment that the female figured it out it was home on camera:

Taking a look - when she came over for the first time, the male swam out to give her a little nuzzle. Then she inched in and pushed her forehead against the white bulb at the end of one of the tentacles.
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/...psc331eb4b.jpg

And she's in!
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/...ps93d84cd2.jpg

It was a total fluke that my roommate and I happened to be standing right in front of the tank talking about how cute the male was when she came down from her usual corner above the powerhead to take a look. Now they're both in there like pigs in... well, you know.

great shot the orange and purples look great contrasting. i guess this means they're going to start getting nasty at you when you go near their new home lol.

You and me both. Lazy reefing FTW! LOL

For such a minor change in my aquascape, that was a tremendous amount of work.

I 'cleaved' the rock work on the north side so that the anemone is more on an island now
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/...pscd769064.jpg
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/...ps5c14ae0b.jpg
Kind of hard to tell in that last pic, but the island the nem is on is only touching the rest of the rock work in one place, under and overhang that anemones don't seem to like to climb under. I left everything above the nem free of corals in case it decides to climb while I'm gone. If it does make it to the other bommie of rock, my roommate has promised to move corals out of its way.

I kind of like it, it created this little canyon that I think I'll fill up with zoas or LPS once the nem gets settled.

I'm not placing anything that I pulled off the rocks in the front until I know where things are going to live for good
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/...ps8d9a2f5a.jpg
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/...ps0914f452.jpg

and yes, yes I know BTA and magnifica anemone in the same tank. The BTA was an impulse purchase and I just haven't had the time to sell it yet. I'm sure it's going to walk all over the place stinging the hell out of stuff while I'm gone next week.

and remember kids, don't text and rockscape at the same time:
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/...ps1b54d318.jpg

I got distracted an forgot that I had put these guys up on the lip of the tank. Found them an hour later quite dead. Oops. thankfully not my favourite pieces.

Got a new camera today. Obviously tested it out on the tank. Having a hard time because a certain someone insisted on photobombing every picture:

http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/...ps2954d8f5.jpg

Oh Ferdinand. To you, I am food.
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/...ps22a242da.jpg

Didn't you try putting it back after finding it out? I thought corals can be outside for hours (low tide) and won't have any problem because of the mucus they excrete. Would have worth a shot.

Tank looks great. Love that magnifica.


Yup, I left a couple frags out overnight and they survived.

just awesome man

Omg i love your cow fish! They have lots of character...... Great addition to your tank!

-Tony

Thanks everyone! I realize it's been too long since I updated this thread. Grad school is kicking my butt.

First off, the anemone didn't work out. I sold it, and the clown fish, to someone who was going to do a species only tank. It just moved too often. After the last pics I posted it wandered around to the front of my tank and tried to kill corals worth 4 times what it cost. things are only just now starting to recover.

second, my house is going up for sale this summer, so the future of this tank is very much hanging in the balance. Best case scenario, tank gets sold as with the house as is and it continues it's illustrious life with a new owner. Or, more likely, I'll end up having to sell it's contents and it will become a closet or built in book shelf.

in any case, here's some updated pics. I've been trying to play with different camera apps to get the white balance correct so I'll post some comparisons.

Also, I added a coral beauty angelfish and 9 anthias. The coral beauty was a mistake as some of my favourite corals no longer have any day time polyp extension because it nips at EVERYTHING! Not enough to cause damage, but enough to prevent the polyps from extending ever. I bought 6 disbar anthias which are mostly working out swimmingly (one hasn't eaten in over a month and does nothing but hide, I'm basically just waiting for it to die), but the 3 purple queen anthias that I bought on pure impulse without doing any research were a clear error. I had no idea how fickle they were to get to eat, or how much food they would need until it was too late. They wouldn't eat anything larger than a cyclopeeze for the first few weeks and withered away to practically skeletal. After QT, I started dumping tremendous amounts of food in to the tank to see if anything would work, and FINALLY they're eating entire pieces of Hikari mysis (not PE mysis though, those pieces are too big). We'll see if they make it, they're not putting on weight, but they're not losing any more either. The massive dump of nutrients lead to an explosion of dinos which I had kept at bay via an ULNS. I'm slowly mopping that up with regularly changed high capacity GFO, lots of water changes, and more strategic feedings. I'm noticing an interesting phenomenon of the dino beds (confirmed via microscope) slowly being overtaken by mats of cyano as the dinos die back. I think the dinos trapped enough detritus in/under them for cyano to locally thrive as the dinos die.

Anyway, enough talk, more pics.

Poorly colour corrected FTS from the dining room
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/...ps894d6309.jpg

Moderately corrected image from the office
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/...psdb36b220.jpg
(keep in mind the cabinets are white in real life, so gauge how accurate that pic is for yourself)

An awesome pic of Tron, my doliatus rabbit. He's not that vibrant in real life, but those setting made him look like I was on acid
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/...ps4792bb6a.jpg

http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/...ps1dad1a79.jpg

http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/...ps94084159.jpg

http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/...psed257da4.jpg

http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/...ps05378f22.jpg

mah frags
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/...psc4368f3c.jpg

Ferdinand!
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/...ps98b469cd.jpg

Lazarus! He's loving the extra food...
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/...pse3044d64.jpg

South side
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/...psd94ed77c.jpg

North side
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/...ps8a68aede.jpg

Close up south
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/...psbf5619e0.jpg

My new anthias
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/...ps6112e021.jpg

PhotoBomb!
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/...ps48018aea.jpg

What a difference lighting makes...
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/...psaafa4c95.jpg
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/...psb3844e55.jpg

it took nearly a year, but this walt smith coral has finally started growing (the pink one)
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/...ps58c9bad8.jpg

I just picked up this cabbage coral.
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/...ps4cfb7854.jpg

Picked up this guy from a tank shut down (the purple table acro), seems to be acclimating nicely
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/...ps1835926b.jpg

"Tron", lol that's awesome. I love doliatus rabbits. There was a time it was near impossible to land this fish in Calgary. Lately I see them more from time to time. "When I was young I had to wait years for a doliatus. And it was uphill both ways. etc. etc. etc."

Things look great overall, very nice!

PS. It's actually "dispar". I've been calling them "disbars" for the longest time and just realized a month ago that it's a p not a b. Ooops.

things are really taking off. that means you can't shut this thing down ok?

Tank is looking awesome. That Rabbit the bomb!! Love how your corals have really started to show their growth. Your tank reminds me each day that patience pays off so I dread when you decide to take it down. Hopefully any new owner realizes what they are getting.

looking really good mango. love the SPS in there. the rocks are so clean what the heck no red turf bubble or hair how are you doing this.

Yah I love the rabbit. I rarely see him picking at the rocks, but I think he's a big reason why I've never had a recurrence of ANY algae in the display. I still get some hair algae in my overflows that I sometimes have to pull out, but nothing grows where you can see it. They're far more general in the algae they eat than tangs, as in they'll eat any kind of algae (including valonia), where tangs usually prefer one or two kinds. This guy even eats the dinos that grow in my tank. They're way less ich, aggression and problem prone than tangs so I'm happy for him to fill that role.

And Dispar hey... you know that makes perfect sense. I couldn't figure out why they would be called disbar as that would imply something diagnostic in their stripes, and they don't really have any as far as I can tell!

I'm working on it man. The very best case scenario is that the new owners don't want it, and we get to set a possession date that gives us enough time to buy a place where I can set up a new system and transfer stuff over. I probably won't be able to have a system this large in the new place, but at least That would let me save most of the corals.

Hopefully they don't have to and I get to keep most of it! It will all come down to timing and logistics. I'm excited about the idea of setting up a new system (can anyone say Mitras?), but I don't want to start from scratch in terms of coral growth. A bunch of those mini-colonies were frags when I got them, and it's taken some of them 8 months to a year to get to where they are now. The one thing you can't buy is time.

Biopellets, regularly changed GFO, and that rabbitfish. I had a problem with algae around Christmas when the tank had no nutrient export of any kind for 5 weeks, then when things were set back up properly again I started attacking it with both mexican turbo snails, aggressive water changes, changing GFO sometimes daily, and then finally dosing the tank with algaefix marine for 10 days. The rabbitfish went in right after that and I've never had a problem since. I do however have the occasional bloom of dinos, which seems to synergistically encourage a few patches of cyano here and there.

Some pics. If anyone in Calgary ever wants to come over and help me take some good quality images that counter-acts the effect LEDs have on camera sensors, I'd be happy for the help. We have a pretty good camera now (these pics were taken on it), but it's still washing everything out in the images compared to real life. I don't know what else to do!

FTS front
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/...ps21a6bea9.jpg

FTS back
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/...ps48e978ee.jpg

South detail front
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/...psf5f04c0b.jpg

North detail Front
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/...ps4786ee07.jpg

North Detail photo bomb. You'd think I never feed this guy.
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/...ps85f0a234.jpg

South Detail back
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/...ps3b22da39.jpg

North detail back
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/...ps70b4cbde.jpg

Update on the tank - I've been battling low grade dinos for a few months now. I've been trying to be super aggressive with nutrient control, but at the level of phosphate in the water I need for good coral colour, I also get expanding shadows of dinos in the sand around the base of my rocks. I'm also getting a few patches of cyano here and there. It's not getting out of control or anything though, so I haven't really wanted to take extreme measures that can upset the whole system.

I was sure my purple queen anthias were going to starve to death (bought on impulse with no prior research), but I think I'm on month 3 now and all three of them have gained weight. I'm having more troubles with my other anthias - I've got 3 females and two males. I think it's triggered one to turn in to a super male, which is awesome as he's so much more brilliantly coloured, but he's been bullying the other male something fierce.

House is still for sale, but it hit the MLS two days before the flood, and since then the market for homes in our price bracket has been pretty chaotic, so we've not had much traffic. As it stands, the tank is still mine, but I'm still not spending much money one it as I don't think it will be mine for much longer.

I've been having a heck of a time keeping my alkalinity up the past month or so, it hovered around 6.5-6.7 for nearly a month, and my birdsnest took a serious beating. My other corals are growing faster than they ever have right now though, which is why I think the demand is so high. I'm presently dosing 165ml of randy's two part baking soda solution per day, and 130ml of anhydrous calcium chloride solution. I also recently added a third dosing chamber for magnesium, and 30ml/day seems to be keeping the levels around 1300ppm. As of two days ago, my dosing schedule finally brought my alk levels back up above 7.

I'm getting so bloody sick of using filter socks - they sometimes clog and start overflowing after 18 hours these days. WIthout them, my sump design allows too many micro-bubbles to get back in to the display. I've been toying with the idea of completely re-doing my overflow plumbing so that I can have an overflow that functions on the same principle as a BeanAnimal (I have the right number of holes), but that would be a major undertaking if the tank is just going to get broken down. If the people who buy my house want the tank, I'll probably do it.

Beautiful tank! What substrate did you use?

A couple growth shots:

January, 2013:
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/...psf4864566.jpg

July, 2013 (coral's been moved, so this photo is badly scaled compared to the first, it's MUCH bigger)
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/...ps2e926dd2.jpg

February, 2013
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/...ps99f3a453.jpg

July, 2013 This coral photographs the worst - this is with a good camera
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/...ps0d225f8a.jpg

With an iPhone camera:
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/...ps65e4532b.jpg
In real life it's probably somewhere in the middle

Februay, 2013
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/...psb295fe7e.jpg

July, 2013
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/...pscd20b0a9.jpg

February, 2013
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/...ps1f0aa497.jpg

July, 20123
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/...ps9adddff3.jpg

February, 2013
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/...ps0478cfc5.jpg

July, 2013
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/...pscced8ed4.jpg
(bottom left)
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/...ps115ff290.jpg

January, 2013
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/...pseb0bf357.jpg

July, 2013 - the coral that was to the right of the green polyped guy in the first pic has been moved slightly to the right and re-oriented, so it's now side on instead of head on. The encrusted base that got left behind in it's old spot is spreading out.
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/...ps35f9256e.jpg

February, 2013
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/...ps5713d220.jpg

July, 2013
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/...pscc66a21d.jpg

February, 2013
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/...ps8d951672.jpg

July, 2013 - the blue stag coral in the back has gotten a couple hard prunings recently, so it's almost back to the same size it was in in February!
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/...ps9175ac23.jpg

Thanks! I can't tell you how much I love this tank. I used Caribsea Special grade. I still had to dial my MP60s way back (I really only needed MP40s) to stop the sand from blowing everywhere, but it's been pretty good to me so far.

Looking good Adam! It's a shame the tank may be changing hands :cry: Hopefully if all goes according to plan the new owner will find interest and take ownership of it and continue the tank's journal on Canreef :biggrin:

I would love to come see this tank before it does change hands thought.. you may even persuade me to bring my camera.. :wink:

haha good! That frag I made for you is almost a mini colony now too!

Can you imagine - has there ever been a tank journal that actually traded hands before?

I don't think actual journals have changed hands, but lots of tanks have changed hands with new journals started for them. That's probably as close as it gets (has gotten). Also, most of the time the tank has had to move, which ends up changing the tank dramatically so it ends up being a new tank anyway. Your case is unique in that there's a change the tank would change hands but remain completely unaltered!

The other thing I've been struggling with is a resurgence of very large bubble algae cells. Some of them are a good 4 inches across. I came downstairs this morning to find that two corals had been completely lifted and knocked off the rocks by bubble algaes growing underneath them!

I just posted a pic of this one yesterday! This gives me a chance to check this guy for AEFW. I haven't found a flatworm on any corals other than the one coral that initially had them, but this guy was so encrusted I never pulled him out to check. It's been getting some spots on it that might be flatworm damage, but it's also been getting picked on something fierce by my newish coral beauty angel, so it could be either.
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/...ps55f03c01.jpg

Look at the size of those balls!
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/...psb0bf0786.jpg

Them are big balls alright :D

Was playing with my new GoPro camera. It was a gift for underwater photography so I'd stop risking my cell phone with water proof cases. It's cool, but with no controls on the actual camera it's impossible to compensate for the effect LEDs have on the sensor, so these pics, like all my other pics, aren't even close to true to life. They're so much better in person.

http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/...ps03be8642.jpg

Peekaboo!
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/...psa54a2140.jpg

http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/...psde7026ca.jpg

I've always wondered what my house looks like to them
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/...ps0d4d6a99.jpg