Cali Kid Corals

Chromis’s 90g Acropora tank

Tricolor valida, from frag swap last year, and today (pictured with Red Robin stag). It started brown and green, and took its time to get any blue color, maybe 6 months or longer! I have to thank @euod for suggesting I try some acros at that frag swap because I wasn’t sure I was ready. I like the tree-like growth pattern.
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Chromis said:
So then what happens on the exposed glass bottom, does it get covered with coralline? Is it possible to remove encrusted corals from glass?
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it can be covered by anything, from coral to algae, whatever it is , its easy to scrape it off. I have starte keeping capircornis in small stones and they starte covering the base, without encrusting it. You can keep fungia etc as well
 
Can you refresh my memory on the name of the two large rainbow chalices. Are you target feeding them? Can't wait to see what the bambinos look like in 6 months.
 
Yippee said:
Can you refresh my memory on the name of the two large rainbow chalices. Are you target feeding them? Can't wait to see what the bambinos look like in 6 months.
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One is Neptune’s fancy watermelon chalice (they almost always have some for sale) other is just a straightforward plain rainbow chalice from coral farmers market last fall.

I’m target feeding them usually at least a few times a week with reefroids.
 
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Decided to outsource water testing after today to ICP, tired of spending so much time handling chemicals and not even being sure what the number is...

Iron is <.05ppm “low”, I’m dosing at the Red Sea Ca uptake recommended ratio, so this probably means the chaeto is using it. As long as there’s a trace I’m happy.

Potassium is 460ppm, “high”, but reds look good in my tank so I’ll probably maintain it close to that level or a little lower.

Iodine is between “good” and “high”.

Alk is still 7.7dKH after four weeks raising the dose 10% each week to target a little higher than 8dkH instead of a little lower, but dkH hasn’t changed, so the corals and coralline seem to be increasing uptake. I’ll just keep increasing alk until corals/coralline top out.

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What are you using to increase your alk? I had issues keeping mine up too. I sold off almost all my corals so the tank was almost empty of coral but I hadn’t turned off my DOS that was feeding my tank 2400 ml/day of kalkwasser (fully saturated) and the alk was still dropping. I’m wondering if something was going on with my Hannah test kit.

Just as a side note, the ICP testing won’t test for alk. You’ll still need to do that yourself... at least until the Trident comes out. Oh, but you don’t have an Apex though right :/.
 
I’m using Seachem reef builder for alk. I dissolve it in a gallon of RO water and dose it over the week. I started with 30g/week and am up to forty-something grams. The Ca doser is done similarly but the doser comes on at a different time.
 
I couldn’t find my test kit just now but my pH has been pretty close to 8.3. It could only be coincidence but Seachem advertises that Reef Builder helps lock the pH near 8.3, unlike carbonate-only buffers which can slowly reduce pH. I run the chaeto lights counter-cycle so that probably helps keeps pH from dropping too much over night.

The coralline algae is coming in mostly maroon with some purple on the rocks, even though my seed rocks were mostly purple. Most of my snails have maroon coralline on their shells. I wonder why my tank is so friendly to the maroon variety?
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Not sure either, but I'm pretty sure the maroon algae that I have came from your tank. I only have spots of it on my Tonga, most likely came from the backs of two of the three Trochus. One of the Trochus is slowly losing his maroon coralline, but the other one still has it. I see some spot of the maroon, but it's mostly purple/pink coralline that I'm seeing a great abundance of.

I wonder if it has anything to do with flow that dictates which kind of coralline algae proliferates.
 
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I wonder if the maroon algae might grow better in high magnesium... the purple coralline that has grown is already getting that bubbly look that I’ve noticed happens when the magnesium gets above 1480ppm, just before the purple coralline crumbles apart. A red reef would be cool but I probably need to switch to a different alk supplement that doesn’t add additional magnesium as I’ve already increased alk dosage from 30g to 50g per week.

Some photos:
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WD and Maleficent are so bright I have to reduce the exposure severely just to capture photos - now I understand how so many reefers get into photography. I will have to look into how to take better photos.
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Looking real good! I wonder if the high Mg does produce more red algae. I only have a few spots of it on the rocks. Using remag in the calcium reactor and haven't measured Mg in awhile whereas I track alk every other day minimum.
 
Chromis said:
Tricolor valida, from frag swap last year, and today (pictured with Red Robin stag). It started brown and green, and took its time to get any blue color, maybe 6 months or so ... I like the tree-like growth pattern.
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This is absolutely beautiful! Anyone have a frag of this you're willing to part with?
 
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