CAD Lights 46G

[Ibn]

if anything it looks like it colored up nicely.

Yep, it's coloring up well.

Very nice! The new growth on it seems to be very different. Is this what gives it its "rainbow" name?

The rainbow moniker actually refers to the colors of the coral. Usually rainbow acros have 3 or more colors to them, which this one is displaying currently. You can read more about some of the named rainbows here:

https://reefbuilders.com/2015/01/26/rainbow-acropora-sps-coral/

I actually have to glue this piece down soon. The plug was tucked into a hole, but a bivalve that I've never seen before took up residence there and pushed the plug out of the hole. I'll pry the bivalve and relocate it before doing so since I do like them.

Here's the one that pushed out the plug. Never seen a clear bivalve like this one before.

This is the oldest one in the tank and came on a mariculture colony. It started out only being 1/2" in size when I first pried it off. It's just slightly more than 1" now. Looks like some hitchhiking clove polyps also hitchhiked in.

Another one that came in on a maricultured piece that I pried off. Looks kind of like a winged oyster, but missing the wing. The setosa is making its way in that direction so we'll see if it engulfs it or not.

 

[Ibn]

More coloring showing up on the frags/mini colonies.

Copps' 24K milli. Hairy sucker as typical for a milli. Hopefully you an make out the yellow on the corallites which aren't obstructed by the polyps.

Copps' red tabling A. hyacinthus. Reds still aren't showing up. However, the base is transitioning in color.

Grafted cap. Getting deeper in coloration now that it's mounted instead of being buried/pushed around by the turbos on the sandbed. The Reeftek starbust cap is behind it and I thought that at one point it was dead because of the ghostly white coloration. It's slowly coloring up now and is putting on a bit of growth from the recession it had.

This one amazes me as it's still coloring up. This one was a $10 frag from CaliReef that showed signs of purple. The growth edge is totally a different color now and if you take a look at the corallite on the tip there, it's starting to darken there and then the tip is going green/yellow. I'm starting to notice that on that part for now, but there are hints of that happening to some of the other corralites as well.

RR Pink Floyd. Has the most yellow in the tips of any of my SPS. Hope it starts filling in the body some more...

Picked this one up as a $30 no-namer. Was browned out a bit when I first got it, but the colors are finally popping. Yellow-bodied with purple tips. I think this one is an A. austera.

 

[brettandlyndis]

Beautiful!

 

[Coral reefer]

Somebody has a coral buying problem I see, nice shots and corals!

 

[Ibn]

Beautiful!

Thanks!

Somebody has a coral buying problem I see, nice shots and corals!

I'm done for now.

So, I've been thinking about backup power when I'm out of the office. It's happened before where the building went out of power for 6 hours during one of the holidays. Since I already run a couple of MP10W-es in the tank, it would make sense to have one of them on a backup. Vortech has a backup battery that I've used before in the past, but I decided to rig something else instead. The vortech battery uses a 18 amp-hour 12-v sealed battery. I went ahead and picked up one slightly larger, a 20 amp-hour 12v sealed battery (should keep the pump running longer than the one from vortech), a box, a battery tender, and some odds and ends. The battery tender trickle charges the battery when it's not in use.

Inside the box. I can actually fit two more batteries in there down the line as needed.

With the lid on to prevent water from splashing down on it. Also keeping it discreet in the office.

Vortech running normally with both cords in simulating normal functionality.

Vortech with the main cord remove to simulate an outage to confirm that it does indeed work.

Took about half an hour to set up once the parts were here and offers a piece of mind. Not too shabby for ~$76 worth of parts, which is slightly less than what a vortech backup battery would cost retail.

 

[roostertech]

Nice, could you share the part list. I was going to run a UPS and use Apex to shut off everything but return pump during power outage. But your solution is very intriguing too.

 

[Ibn]

Nice, could you share the part list. I was going to run a UPS and use Apex to shut off everything but return pump during power outage. But your solution is very intriguing too.

Sure can. Here you go.

Box
NOCO HM318BKS Group 24-31 Snap-Top Battery Box for Automotive, Marine, and RV Batteries
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004W5SGBO/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o08_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Battery
ExpertPower EXP12200 12 Volt 20 Ah Rechargeable Battery With Threaded Terminals
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00KC39BE6/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o09_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Battery Tender
Battery Tender (022-0192) Black 12 Volt 0.750 Amp Junior Battery Charger/Maintainer
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DJ5KE9U/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Universal AC Adapter - Just got one from Fry's. Just about any will do.
Multimeter - Makes things easier to figure out.

 

[roostertech]

Do you think the same arrangement (or may be with more battery would also work for Vortech M1?

Any heat issue while the battery is charging up?

 

[Ibn]

It should technically work with the Vortech M1 as well since that pump has a controller very similar to the MPs and I did read that someone was running a similar setup with that pump while doing my research.

No issues with heat at all with the battery charging up on the tender even when inside the box.

 

[roostertech]

The battery tender should be able to charge two batteries wired in parallel right? Also which terminal cables did you use?

 

[Ibn]

Yep, you can add more battery as needed in parallel. I've got space for two more cells that I'll add down the line.

I used the 8-10 stud 12-10 ring terminals.

 

[roostertech]

What is the size of the Vortech plug and the polarity? Since you already have that bits figured out.

 

[Ibn]

I actually don't know since I just used one of the ends from a Rhino universal ac/dc adaptor. Checking on the Rhino site, it lists the second from the smallest one (the one that I used) had the following dimensions.

PLUG 2 1.35 x 3.5 mm

No idea on polarity since I used the Rhino plug there and used a spare computer fan that I had sitting around to figure out the polarity (I don't own a multimeter haha). If you have a multimeter it should be pretty easy to figure out (hence the recommendation).

Had some extra time on my hands today, so I made a siporax bin out of some eggcrate and stacked up 1L worth of the stuff.

 

[Ibn]

Shot some pics awhile ago.

A deepwater acro from AC picked up after the swap. This is the second time that I've seen this one and being a sucker for dragon type I decided to take another shot at it.

Copps' 24k table. This one is slowly taking on the characteristic metallic yellow coloration.

One of the LPS in the tank. Blastos from CRC. Started out as a single polyp and is doing well and there's ~10 babies surrounding the base.

Next is a set of pics of why I love wild acros since it's hard to say what they'll color up to become since some of them are brown in color. These next two are of this variety and weren't picked by myself. My SoCal friend and his wife were looking at acros at CRC and they were going back and forth in regards to these two frags. After a bunch of hee haws with back and forths they decided to pass on it. I picked these up in their place and seeing what kind of colors they'll develop. Too bad I didn't snap any pics of the before when they were brown. :/

My buddy's piece on 7/29 a week after being in my tank. You can see some of the potential on it already, with the purples showing through on the body.

Here's how it's coloring up at the moment. Purples have pretty much replaced all of the brown in the body and green rings are starting to develop around the corallite tips. Polyps are slightly more colored as well with the greens in the center.

His wife's piece. Brown with barely a couple of polyps ever showing. The entire backside, not pictured, is also fully receded down to the skeleton.

Here it is today. Polyps were slightly receded since I had to rotate it for the picture. Base color is taking on a teal color with orange corallites and what looks like purplish polyps developing.

 

[Ibn]

Heard that California Reef lost some of their big mother colonies during the move. This piece is one of them which seems to be doing well so far.

Purple Cadillac - purple and pink with red polyps

 

[Apon]

nice! Eric you going to Macna?

 

[Ibn]

Nope, I can't make it down there. Gonna be out camping instead.

 

[Ibn]

Haven't taken a top down shot of the purple Cadillac in awhile. This thing is amazing from the side, but top down is kind of unreal.

Copps' 24k

Moved the pearlberry off the rack and onto the rockwork. It's getting cooked in 350+ PAR and is losing the browns pretty quickly.

Pinks are finally starting to show up.

Copps' Bella's Acro

Copps' red tabling A. hyacinthus. Almost completely covered the frag plug there. Hopefully it decides to send out some new branches soon.

Corals seems to be doing well. Unfortunately, the fish aren't. The harem of P. ventralis have been listless as of last Friday and the leopard wrasse is MIA. Full on eating and vibrant one day and then listless on Friday. They were on the bottom of the tank on the corner, not moving as of then. No labored breathing even as of today, but they're declining fast. I've moved them over to the QT and observing for now (might freeze them tomorrow if they continue to decline).

 

[roostertech]

Corals seems to be doing well. Unfortunately, the fish aren't. The harem of P. ventralis have been listless as of last Friday and the leopard wrasse is MIA. Full on eating and vibrant one day and then listless on Friday. They were on the bottom of the tank on the corner, not moving as of then. No labored breathing even as of today, but they're declining fast. I've moved them over to the QT and observing for now (might freeze them tomorrow if they continue to decline).

Doh, the P ventralis are amazing. I want to get some myself one day. Hope they make it through.

 

[Ibn]

Doesn't look good for the ventralis. Gonna freeze them tomorrow.

Corals on the other hand are looking good. Some of the zoas that I picked up from Michael didn't make it and shrunk to nothing, but it looks like some of them recovering after a dip in Furan 2 last week. Probably dip them again and see the course through.

Anyways, to the pics.

BC Rainbow Over Spain (Spainbow). Gets decent amount of light and flow and still has the thinner branches. It'll be interesting to see if this continues as it grows out into a fuller colony. Has no issues holding colors. Left side shot is from the top down and the right side shot is from the side of the tank. A few little nubs came off this piece awhile back. I took the little pieces and glued them onto plugs. One of them was given to Boun at the swap but I'm still sitting on 3 little nubs (1/2" each). The nubs are encrusted over the glue and I'm considering putting them into DBTC. We'll have to wait and see.

Palis grandis. These guys decided to sit around for a couple of months doing nothing and then all of a sudden, they've got a couple of new daughter polyps coming along.

ATL banana lokani. This one came from Nav's breakdown. Was white/brown when I first got it with no polyp extension. It's slowly recovering. Still has a long ways to go.

CITR red dragon. Growing with some ugly tips. Found out last week that the dosing tube on the Ca was above the solution and hadn't been dosing the tank. Ca was low so I did the usual water change and redid the hosing (only one that had the soft tubing. It's now rigid like the other two dosing containers). Will continue to monitor the big three and adjust as needed to bring it back into balance.

BC Aquatic-Man Tabler. Kind of like the superman, but orange base and teal tips instead. Finally found a place to get this one down. Now just to wait until it grows in and colors up a bit more.

ASD Margery's Rainbow. Very slow to even encrust.

ORA Pearlberry. Glued to the rockwork now and getting blasted with light. Grown a tad and is picking up its colors.

OG mummy eye. Got the chalice rounds from Jestersix and this is now not moving around, getting buried in the sand, or knocked over by one of the turbos.

These two pieces are coming along well. Left one is coming off the plug soon and I'll clip a nub from both to keep for myself and gifting the frags to my buddy and his wife next time they're due up in NorCal.