The joys of reefing
 

Sept 21

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...8/IMG_3953.jpg

Oct 12

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...8/IMG_4305.jpg

Oct 13

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...8/IMG_4339.jpg

I call this one my "indicator" coral as when theres something wrong with the water quality it gets kind of ****y with the polyp extension. I guess this time there is something more seriously wrong with the water quality as its a goner. I tried fragging some of it but don't really have high hopes. I guess it won't be "indicating" for me anymore. :sad:

As for the water quality, I have no idea. The only thing I've done is a 10g WC with RBS last Sunday

So sorry Christy. Damn I loved that coral. Hopefully everything else is OK.

Yeah me too. Theres another one on its way out in the tank too. Guess I'm getting out the fragging shears today :neutral:

Sometimes I wonder why we keep insisting on taking up the challenge of sps corals. It seems like the corals are just as insistant on keeping us humble :sad:

so very true :sad:

Yesterday I was thinking to myself, you know its been about 2+ years since I had to pretty much start from scratch. Why do I have so many bloody sticks and hardly any colonies?

Then I looked at the tank this morning. This is why.

Makes me wonder at what point we should stop calling ourselves "determined" and face the fact that we have a serious problem :razz:

If we admit we have a problem do you think they'd give us drugs? It might be a lot easier to watch corals rtn if one was medicated

Once the frag you gave me grows, you can have some back!

I never wonder. Once you get the tank where you want it, you know why. And these set backs, well, they just give us stuff to do, and room for more frags.

That just SUCKS! Have you added anything else since your water change? Now I'm scared to try my box of RBS. Have you changed any of your Zeo rock or increased the flow?

You can always send me a frag for insurance as well.:wink:
I have a few "canary in a coral-mine" pieces as well. Sorry to see that one not doing well it's a sweet piece.

I have always been told, you can not keep SPS with LPS and Softies. While some of the Pros's and Con's of a mixed Reef are:

Pros's

There is always something usually an LPS that looks good.
The Softies never RTN for no reason.
If an SPS RTN's you can blame it on the Softies.
You can never kill a brown blue tipped Stag
With the space a Softy takes up in your tank you will not have room for yet another expensive SPS.
You can always buy that great looking Angel because they never eat cabbage coral or Xenia.

Con's

Beautifully coloured SPS do not go with you room decor.
Your friends will look too you to pick up the tab for drinks because you will have money in your pocket from not buying yet another SPS.
You will quickly become a Coral Guru as your softies always look great.


Tom R

:rofl: Good one Tom. So very true as well especially for the brown blue tipped stag, its the biggest piece in my tank by far. :biggrin:

Yes sadly I'm already planning on what to put there next. Isn't that pathetic. I think I've developed a rather detatched attitude towards SPS and TN these days.

"aww that sucks, I wonder if i can frag it to save a piece it? Then I can grow the frag and move that blue one up top after I chuck the dead one" :rolleyes:

Thanks Brad, you know I'll be hitting you up for a piece, it grows pretty fast too :mrgreen:

Sebae, yeah I was kind of wondering about this RBS stuff too. No change in flow or zeo rock. I'm doing another water change today so I figured why not spin the wheel of doom again and see what happens :razz: I don't think I've heard anyone complain about it yet (unless I've been reading the wrong boards).

seen threads as well of a crash or near crash after switching salts (not just to RBS)

oh definitely, I've even had issues using the same brand, just a new bucket. I'll do my WC today with RBS and report back in a few days whether anything detrimental came of it.

Ive had nothing but good results since switching to RBS. Is there something wrong with the salt that Ive missed reading about?

+1

beats the heck out of me, thats what I'm wondering too.

You know the last time you posted a thread like this. I lost a couple of pieces to RTN.

After reading this thread this morning I went down stairs only to find my pink procilapora in the same state as yours. STOP POSTING THESE.

Sorry to here of your losse

J

you're not serious? WTF?

Yes I am.

Your tank is psychicly linked to mine, I swear

J

:eek: that is kind of freaky.

I think more people lose corals when there is a full moon.

That's one heck of a coincidence ... wow.

Said before and will say it again, they RTN because we look at them the wrong way. :lol:

May as well be, because looking for a reason would drive one crazy.

Thought I'd resurrect this old crusty thread. I never threw out this colony, there were a few small spots on it that still had some tissue on it and well why not just leave it in there and see what happens. Sure enough, here we are months later and its coming back slowly but surely :mrgreen:

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...9/IMG_5361.jpg

Nice.


I lost mine

J

:sad:

I'll bring you a frag of this one when it gets going!!

+3
As for the sps coral
This is exactly what happend to my SPS about 8 month ago when i had ZEO system running. Lost the best sps in 4 days after running ZEO for about 4 mo.
Then tank was overrun with red hair algae.
What a disaster that ZEO system was... no more ZEO.
Well, now tank is back to normal and going good.

Hmmm. Did my first water change with RBS last weekend and lost one small poci colony to RTN and have another on the go in the past week. Polyp extension on my Acros has been reduced all week. Coincidence? Leary of using RBS now that I hear this. Was using Ocean Pro.

Sorry to hear of your losses Christy and Jason.

RBS water change
 

i read that when using RBS you only do 5% weekly water change for best results.
what are you(s) doing for water changes--amounts etc?
(i ask because i am thinking of going Zeovit route)

I change 10% every other week with RBS. I've never had a problem with it, the corals are all fine. I suppose if the environment was way off using some other salt, that switching could be a problem, but I changed out 25g my first switch to this salt and had no issues.

As back up, my piece is doing really well, so if yours doesn't come back quickly mine is available.

This may or may not have anything to do with anything, but poccies and stylos are incredibly picky on flow. I tried a couple poccies a little over a year ago and couldnt make them happy....I thought it was more to do with my tank still being young but....

I can't say I've seen this. I've added poccies to my tank from day one, (well, after rock cycled) and it's done well. My one colony moved around different tanks for years, everytime it got football size, I'd frag it back to golfball size, and repeat.
Even my current piece from Christy is doing great, and I'm getting those damn floater bits (new colonies growing on pumps, etc) all over the place.
I guess if I had to establish a trend, I'd say that my pocciliporas have always been in the strongest flow areas.
Unlike Christy though, mine is not an indicator coral, it is fluffy 24/7.

Tell me your secret then:mrgreen:...I was told that by Greg one time when I was picking up some frags. It may just be that he didnt want to sell me a piece of his rainbow stylo:question: :wink: Just kidding Greg.

Well, stylo I've never had luck with, but the poccilipora, I just put it in water and it grows!

lots of people say that when they change salts that their corals RTn. I have been using IO since 2002 and neve had any problems well one problem it causes my tank to switch skimmers all the time.

nice save Christy, is this a rainbow pocci ?

I think its just a regular pink one. I don't know what a rainbow one looks like.

Hmm, looking at it it does have green on the ends of the polyps, kinda gives it a shimmery look.

Closeup:
http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...9/IMG_5371.jpg

It's pretty, I'm glad it's making a come back :biggrin: