Cali Kid Corals

Chromis’s 90g Acropora tank

I’m still using the blue box Fritz mix which is the alk ~8dKh one, not the higher alk red box. I haven’t had the alk drop issues but I clean my mixing tank between batches and add the salt slowly.
 
A tank update in pictures:
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A few of my favorite corals:

ARC fireworks:
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Pikachu and maleficent finally sprouting branches (*edit, and one of the HW nubs!):
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@Ibn’s Spainbow:
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Red planet:
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Looking pretty good. Hope my tank settles down again and start growing again so I can start adding pieces again too look like yours.


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Tank is looking great! It'll be interesting to see how that spainbow does with the encroaching red planet.

BTW, which two rainbow chalices are those?
 
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That Red Planet looks amazing, I didn't think it was quite so blue though at the skeleton, is that due to the lighting just making it look bluer?
 
Ibn said:
It'll be interesting to see how that spainbow does with the encroaching red planet.

BTW, which two rainbow chalices are those?
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The Spainbow’s holding its own so far, there seems to be a static white strip, sort of a demilitarized zone, between them. The same red planet is ploughing over Garf on the other side and I’m not looking forward to scraping it back. I’m hoping because it’s a two-against-one fight that the red planet will slow down.

One is a regular rainbow chalice that I picked because the red & blue coloration seemed really balanced, and it has continued to grow with that 50/50 split and leaves me to wonder if rainbow chalices originate from fusing chalices? I put it on a “plank” and one side is already started to plate out, I hope it continues because playing chalices are so much easier to frag. This one has been a long wait to grow out. When I got it 8/2017 it had three eyes. 4/2018 still only 6 eyes. Now 11/2018 it has 22 eyes, the growth is really exponential so I’m looking forward to the next year.
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The pink one is a chalice Neptune’s usually has out for sale, I found it in the $80 section maybe a year ago. It started getting the orange and yellow rim after six months in my tank. It’s hot pink with a deep blue base.
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The smaller chalice in back is a flaming Bugatti I picked up as a single eye micro-frag from Cornbred eBay. The other rainbow jawbreaker chalice from Cornbread died after a few weeks, I think it’s my fault because I took it off the plug and smashed it with my thumb into epoxy same day it arrived. Next time I’d bandsaw it off the plug and superglue it onto a flat substrate, it’s difficult to mount chalices with epoxy without damage.
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Hmm, that's interesting to note about the Neptune chalice. I think I've seen it there a few times, but it hasn't grown out that edge in their tank. I'll have to take another look at it to see if it's indeed the same one. Too bad that you lost one of the CB ones, but these look great!

Not sure if you're into watermelon chalices, but Neptune brought in a wild Indo watermelon chalice, from someone's tank, that has a thick green edge that's unlike any that I've seen before. This sucker would definitely pop under your Kessils.
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JVU said:
Wow, remarkable growth and color! Impressive
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Thanks! Fritz salt has extra potassium which helps the reds to show. The rest is Red Sea trace elements and keeping nitrates and phosphates low. I have found @vhuang was right about not liking the T5 lights. The coral plus bulbs cast a sea green glare over the crisp blue/white Kessils that I don’t like. In a future build I would just have more Kessils to reduce shading instead of T5s. I will probably replace the coral plus T5 bulbs with full actinic.
 
Chromis said:
Thanks! Fritz salt has extra potassium which helps the reds to show. The rest is Red Sea trace elements and keeping nitrates and phosphates low. I have found @vhuang was right about not liking the T5 lights. The coral plus bulbs cast a sea green glare over the crisp blue/white Kessils that I don’t like. In a future build I would just have more Kessils to reduce shading instead of T5s. I will probably replace the coral plus T5 bulbs with full actinic.
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Go with blue plus


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
 
sfsuphysics said:
That Red Planet looks amazing, I didn't think it was quite so blue though at the skeleton, is that due to the lighting just making it look bluer?
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The tips and wherever the branch joints are thickening to hold up the growing branches are more of a cream color in white light, but look cool when they pick up the blue lighting. They will eventually turn pink again. Maleficent on the other hand actually has blue pigments in addition to the fluorescent red ones.
 
Ibn said:
Hmm, that's interesting to note about the Neptune chalice. I think I've seen it there a few times, but it hasn't grown out that edge in their tank. I'll have to take another look at it to see if it's indeed the same one. Too bad that you lost one of the CB ones, but these look great!

Not sure if you're into watermelon chalices, but Neptune brought in a wild Indo watermelon chalice, from someone's tank, that has a thick green edge that's unlike any that I've seen before. This sucker would definitely pop under your Kessils.
2018_11_08_neptune_watermelon_chalice.jpg
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I’m tempted. I just picked up their goldmeister chalice and a red and blue one a couple weeks ago. I would really like to get a chalice similar to the one I saw at RAP but without a $2k price tag:
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Chromis said:
Thanks! Fritz salt has extra potassium which helps the reds to show. The rest is Red Sea trace elements and keeping nitrates and phosphates low. I have found @vhuang was right about not liking the T5 lights. The coral plus bulbs cast a sea green glare over the crisp blue/white Kessils that I don’t like. In a future build I would just have more Kessils to reduce shading instead of T5s. I will probably replace the coral plus T5 bulbs with full actinic.
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In a future build? You’re already thinking of your next build?
 
Haha, nope! Peter Dinh stopped by recently with a camera and took some pics of the corals at Neptune. Robert posted that pic that Peter took. It just came in on this last order and I've been meaning to get over there to take a look at it.
 
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