Cali Kid Corals

Casey's Red Sea S-1000

After owning this for three years in case of emergencies, fired up the generator for the first time. PG&E doing some work that has power out for 4 hours already and an anticipated 2 more.

Using this to run the return pumps and heater only. My Icecap battery for the Octo Pulse powerheads hasn't been hooked up since before the move so lost all it's charge.

Always gotta have plan Bs and fail-safes in this hobby!

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New base rock is in! Went for a shelf and tiers design with the scape sloping down from right to left. Mostly happy with it, but man was it a pain in the ass trying to aquascape coral encrusted rock with new base rock instead of starting fresh outside of the tank. Being a 26" tall tank doesn't help either. Pretty much working blind from the top then checking the look from the front after. Lots of room for new coral :D

FTS
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Right side. New rock uglies in full effect
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Center
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Left
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New base rock is in! Went for a shelf and tiers design with the scape sloping down from right to left. Mostly happy with it, but man was it a pain in the ass trying to aquascape coral encrusted rock with new base rock instead of starting fresh outside of the tank. Being a 26" tall tank doesn't help either. Pretty much working blind from the top then checking the look from the front after. Lots of room for new coral :D

FTS
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Right side. New rock uglies in full effect
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Center
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Left
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Looks great! Man look at all that kessil "shimmer" on the wall!
 
Thanks all! Can't wait to get water parameters solid to start picking out new corals to grow out.
Beautiful tank! Are those the Kessil narrow reflectors you are using? Did you see a big improvement on PAR?
I did some measurements before the rock scape so these are averages. The lamps are only 8" off the surface, so with the reflectors it created some high PAR hot spots. Biggest reason for the reflectors though is to prevent glare which was pretty bad when sitting at the dining table. I'm going to remeasure again and reposition the lights to get the PAR numbers where I want for the ledges that'll hold high light acros. Essentially using them as spotlights. Eventually I want to add LED bars across the front and back to even out the shadows.

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Picked up a big acro frag pack from a tank teardown. A couple duplicates but here are some favorite new ones: BC Malificent, Copps 24k Milli, ASD Rainbow milli, BC Teen Wolf, Princess Peach, Pink Tip Paletta, JF Flame, Blue Matrix tenius
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Aside from the apparent case of the uglies making all the new rock fuzzy brown, the corals that were transferred over have started to get comfortable coloring up and slowly growing. One crazy explosive one that surprised me is this RR Prometheus. Probably the only reason I feel comfortable adding more acros at this point.

December '22 all skinny branchy
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Today, an explosion of axial corallites
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Picked up a big acro frag pack from a tank teardown. A couple duplicates but here are some favorite new ones: BC Malificent, Copps 24k Milli, ASD Rainbow milli, BC Teen Wolf, Princess Peach, Pink Tip Paletta, JF Flame, Blue Matrix tenius
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Aside from the apparent case of the uglies making all the new rock fuzzy brown, the corals that were transferred over have started to get comfortable coloring up and slowly growing. One crazy explosive one that surprised me is this RR Prometheus. Probably the only reason I feel comfortable adding more acros at this point.

December '22 all skinny branchy
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Today, an explosion of axial corallites
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Yeah, that 20-pack of acros from that tank breakdown was a ridiculous deal from a very healthy looking tank. I got one myself as well! :) Here are mine sitting in QT this morning.

 
Yeah, that 20-pack of acros from that tank breakdown was a ridiculous deal from a very healthy looking tank. I got one myself as well! :) Here are mine sitting in QT this morning.

Nice! Helluva deal for sure and some really nice looking pieces. Looks like the deal is over too.
 
Picked up some new fish from High Tide / @under_water_ninja this week. Special ordered four bimaculatus anthias to go through QT and got a sleeper banded goby to help keep the sand bed stirred. All super healthy and eating!

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Couple weeks back I also picked up a baby blue tang from High Tide. Tiny little guy. Took a while to warm up but now swims with the pack and loves pellets over frozen.
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Picked up a big acro frag pack from a tank teardown. A couple duplicates but here are some favorite new ones: BC Malificent, Copps 24k Milli, ASD Rainbow milli, BC Teen Wolf, Princess Peach, Pink Tip Paletta, JF Flame, Blue Matrix tenius
View attachment 46189

Aside from the apparent case of the uglies making all the new rock fuzzy brown, the corals that were transferred over have started to get comfortable coloring up and slowly growing. One crazy explosive one that surprised me is this RR Prometheus. Probably the only reason I feel comfortable adding more acros at this point.

December '22 all skinny branchy
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Today, an explosion of axial corallites
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Dang you have the Midas touch. You SPS always seem to do well. Awesome job with the Prometheus! You might even need to put it into DBTC some day as it over crowd's your other corals. ;)
 
Dang you have the Midas touch. You SPS always seem to do well. Awesome job with the Prometheus! You might even need to put it into DBTC some day as it over crowd's your other corals. ;)
I can only aspire to be! For every successful acro I'd say there's at least one that dies and one that does ok but not thrive. And yes dbtc incoming as frags heal.
 
Making progress on my light rack build. All 10 series (1 inch) extruded aluminum from tnutz. I really liked my aquatic life hybrid from my previous tank but needed something much larger and more customizability. With this design and t slots, it's completely modular to add more lights, LED bars, fans, wire management, etc.

Test mounted to a room wall before going above the tank
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I'm using wall mounted monitor arms for the ability to move the rack back and forth. This gives me clearance for when I need to do major maintenance in the tank. the 50x50mm VESA pattern fits perfectly into a 3 inch 10 series bar.
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All the Kessils will be mounted to ball head that can slide along the rails. The idea is that I can easily reposition and direct light as needed. As colonies grow, aquascapes change, more PAR needed in a certain area, I can adapt the lighting. Being a 26" wide tank, having all Kessils in a straight line across the center would cause major shading. I'm essentially using this like stage lighting.
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Easy and clean way to mount it to the 8020 bars.
M5 to 1/4" adapter
1/4" mini ball head
1/4" T nut
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Cons
  • Not height adjustable
  • The monitor arms use a ball socket to be able to tilt the monitor. With the weight of the rack it will be a lot of trial and error of adjusting it to level, then torquing it down so the tilt doesn't drift over time. I have to take the rack completely off to do this
 
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