120gal mixed predatory reef tank

[whatcaneyedo]

Originally Posted by lastlight

Everything looks really healthy. Seems your pictures are very true to life as far as white balance goes etc. What's your secret?

No secret really. I'm just using a Canon PowerShot in manual mode. To adjust the white balance I just change the ISO value in the Function menu... I never read the instructions for the camera so I dont truly know what I'm doing but it seems to work well enough.


About a week ago my plate coral spawned. It was about two hours before the lights shut off and it just started puffing clouds of white liquid. I wish I could have taken a picture but I wasnt prepared. Heres a picture of it today, acting normal.

[Reefer Rob]

Do I see some Acans in your frag tank? *wink wink, nudge nudge*

[Dez]

Wow, I just read through this whole tank journal and I am very impressed. I love the mature and "clean" look to your tank with lots of open water. Very very nice build. Out of curiosity, what pump are you running with your Bullet 3? I'm running one of those. Thinking about maybe adding a pump to it. Where do you have your water level in the skimmer? Thanks again.

[whatcaneyedo]

Originally Posted by Reefer Rob

Do I see some Acans in your frag tank? *wink wink, nudge nudge*

My poor four acans have to be separated from my main tank because the Copperbanded Butterfly will eat them. So I frag them a lot to keep them small so that they dont take up very much space and to get back the money I spent on them. Does this mean you're going to keep your tank running for a few more years?

Originally Posted by Dez

Wow, I just read through this whole tank journal and I am very impressed. I love the mature and "clean" look to your tank with lots of open water. Very very nice build. Out of curiosity, what pump are you running with your Bullet 3? I'm running one of those. Thinking about maybe adding a pump to it. Where do you have your water level in the skimmer? Thanks again.

The pump is an Iwaki 55 although the owners manual recommended the 70 as being slightly better for the Bullet 3 so if I see a used one for sale I might take it. The water level is roughly 1" above the box but its hard to tell because I have a lot of coraline algae growing inside the first riser tube in that area. Here is what the bubbles in the two risers look like. I find that set like this I get some pretty dark skimmate (one weeks worth pictured above). The skimmer never overflows but it often crashes if I feed oily food. I cleaned out the collection cup and air intake last night.

Elos NO3 <1
Elos PO4 .01

[whatcaneyedo]

I cant get over the growth of this acro I bought as a frag from Ottawa Inverts in a group order we did back in March of this year. It was about 1/5" on a plug at the time.

May 17:

October 16:

November 14:

January 13

[whatcaneyedo]

Saturday night, girlfriend is working, might as well take some more pictures of the fish.

[whatcaneyedo]

I've decided to go back to GFO and take the Vertex pellets out at least for now. Some combination of their use and my tank getting a little bit too warm (83ºF to 84ºF) for a week around the beginning of the month has caused all of my soft coral to bleach. I'm mostly blaming the pellets as my nano where I keep the mother colonies of my soft coral has been sitting at those high temperatures (and perhaps higher) for longer and the coral in there are coping much better. Also, I've found several posts from others using these products who have experienced the same. Apart from the bleaching and some slightly increased skimmer production I didn't notice any change in my system for better or worse during my month long trial.

Heres how my toadstool frags look at the moment. A sinularia and capnella look similar.