Casey's Red Sea S-1000

[CaseyP]

AEFW:
I've been constantly inspecting the acros with a flashlight for bite marks or eggs. So far no further signs of aefw and all the other acros have their usual color, unlike the Vinh colony that went brown and slowly bleached from the inner branhces. Also employing a technique I read about on r2r where he blew off all the corals daily with a turkey baster for a couple months. This will dislodge any aefw for predators to eat. In my case, I have 6 leopard wrasses and a cbb who will supposedly eat them. I also ordered a bag of potassium chloride to dip any loose frags and be prepared in the event I need to dip all of them.

Cooling:
With the recent heat waves, I finally got around to installing fans. Part of why I built the light rack was for modularity. It was easy to discretely mount four 120mm fans using L brackets. This kept the tank 80º and below easily. Bonus is that I could bump up my kalk dripping due to the increased evaporation.

 

[BAYMAC]

80/20 sure makes it easy!

 

[CaseyP]

Trying something new. Never liked how full tank photos of a 7ft tank can't capture the details and depth, so made a video. Plus I finally upgraded my 8 year old laptop with integrated gpu to something more powerful with a discrete gpu. No more lag while photo editing! I'm new to video editing and whew is it more time consuming. Taking videos also requires a ton of patience so didn't get all the shots I envisioned. Haven't quite figured the right camera settings either.

 

[Kensington Reefer]

Happy polyps
Congratulations

 

[Alexander1312]

Outstanding video and tank! Do you know how much light the pavona gets in your tank?

 

[tribbitt]

Beautiful colonies

 

[MichaelB]

Trying something new. Never liked how full tank photos of a 7ft tank can't capture the details and depth, so made a video. Plus I finally upgraded my 8 year old laptop with integrated gpu to something more powerful with a discrete gpu. No more lag while photo editing! I'm new to video editing and whew is it more time consuming. Taking videos also requires a ton of patience so didn't get all the shots I envisioned. Haven't quite figured the right camera settings either.

Awesome tank, I will certainly add it to the ever growing list of inspiring tanks in this club. Making having a larger tank look like that a dream one day. Those colonies some were huge wow.

 

[CaseyP]

Never giving up. A photo series:

March 2023 - A fresh cut frag of CB Malificent

July 2023 - Encrusting and coloring up nicely

January 2024 - Branches continue to grow but tragedy strikes. Equipment mishap leads to a major alk swing and a bleaching event.

February 2024 - Alas, I never see algae take over the coral skeleton which means all is not lost. Slowly color starts to reappear

June 2024 - Color making its way back over the next months

October 2024 - Officially calling it a comeback because we have new growth

 

[Kensington Reefer]

Thanks for that
Proof that recovery is possible

 

[derek_SR]

Never giving up. A photo series:

March 2023 - A fresh cut frag of CB Malificent
View attachment 61980

July 2023 - Encrusting and coloring up nicely
View attachment 61981

January 2024 - Branches continue to grow but tragedy strikes. Equipment mishap leads to a major alk swing and a bleaching event.
View attachment 61982

February 2024 - Alas, I never see algae take over the coral skeleton which means all is not lost. Slowly color starts to reappear
View attachment 61983

June 2024 - Color making its way back over the next months
View attachment 61985

October 2024 - Officially calling it a comeback because we have new growth
View attachment 61986

Awesome - did you adjust your lighting down or anything after the bleaching event?

 

[CaseyP]

Just about 2 years since transferring to this tank. Year 1 was getting everything dialed in. Year 2 was stabilizing and fine tuning. All the growers kept on growing and the frags that stayed dormant for most of the year are showing signs of growth. One of the most impactful changes was getting my pH higher since I was in the 7.7-7.8 pH range. Still haven't figured out why it was chronically low. Now I'm dripping 1.5 gallons of saturated kalk daily and a co2 scrubber, I'm able to get up to 8.2 pH.

Full tank shot with the forum's major image quality reduction

Top down shots are always fun. From left to right

Awesome - did you adjust your lighting down or anything after the bleaching event?

I did a 2 week acclimation using the Kessil app but it was back at normal power (~400 par there) even while the frag was still bleached looking.

 

[tribbitt]

Just about 2 years since transferring to this tank. Year 1 was getting everything dialed in. Year 2 was stabilizing and fine tuning. All the growers kept on growing and the frags that stayed dormant for most of the year are showing signs of growth. One of the most impactful changes was getting my pH higher since I was in the 7.7-7.8 pH range. Still haven't figured out why it was chronically low. Now I'm dripping 1.5 gallons of saturated kalk daily and a co2 scrubber, I'm able to get up to 8.2 pH.

Full tank shot with the forum's major image quality reduction
View attachment 65116

Top down shots are always fun. From left to right
View attachment 65117View attachment 65118View attachment 65119View attachment 65120View attachment 65121


I did a 2 week acclimation using the Kessil app but it was back at normal power (~400 par there) even while the frag was still bleached looking.

Beyond impressive. I love the large colonies

 

[Alexander1312]

A stunning example of what a massive tank with a surpressed PH can still produce.

 

[CaseyP]

Welp, figured out why snails kept dying in the frag tank attached to my sump. Makes me wonder if there's any more. Last time I saw a leopard polyclad flatworm was over a decade ago when I caught a big one one eating my maxima clam.

Anyone want him before I do a little potassium chloride experiment?

 

[Darkxerox]

Welp, figured out why snails kept dying in the frag tank attached to my sump. Makes me wonder if there's any more. Last time I saw a leopard polyclad flatworm was over a decade ago when I caught a big one one eating my maxima clam.

Anyone want him before I do a little potassium chloride experiment?

View attachment 65659

Caught one in my Caribbean live rock shipment, they're nasty.

 

[tribbitt]

That sucks Euphyllia-eating flatworms are also polyclads. In-tank treatments probably won’t do much considering eafw don’t really respond to those

Do you remember how you fought them before?

 

[Darkxerox]

That sucks Euphyllia-eating flatworms are also polyclads. In-tank treatments probably won’t do much considering eafw don’t really respond to those

Do you remember how you fought them before?

Toothpick is how I got it. Luckily it never reproduced.

 

[Kensington Reefer]

Welp, figured out why snails kept dying in the frag tank attached to my sump. Makes me wonder if there's any more. Last time I saw a leopard polyclad flatworm was over a decade ago when I caught a big one one eating my maxima clam.

Anyone want him before I do a little potassium chloride experiment?

View attachment 65659

I have seen these when I’ve turned rocks over and within the branches of various euphyllias and caulestras.
I can’t imagine they’re beneficial
Kill at will

 

[requiem]

Nice setup and house, you definitely made it man!

 

[CaseyP]

Sprinkled some potassium chloride in the cup of water the flatworm was in and swirled it around. Definitely didn't like it, shriveled up and squirmed, but 10 minutes later he was on the move again. Sprinkled a little bit more this time on the flatworm. Immediately started disintegrating and couple minutes later died. Non-scientific observation is that they need a heavy concentration of potassium chloride for a dip to be effective.