got ethical husbandry?

Derek's 225g - Magnifica / SPS Reef

Dunno if you guys follow Parker’s reef. He built one on his dream reef aquarium. It’s been a few years since I watched it. But I think he used rams for the canopy opening and a garage door opener for the light rack up and down.
 
richiev said:
I was planning on buying some to build a hanging light rack as well. The main thing holding me back originally was the cost of shipping.

However, I ended up finding a solution that for me felt even better. I put a couple small, low-profile, anchors into the ceiling and then hung the lights with fishing line. While it took a bit of fussing to get them level, and to make sure the cord wasn't pulling it crooked, from a distance it looks like the lights are floating and up close looks nice. I can grab a pic if you (or anyone) is interested.
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No one asked, but I just remembered this thread and took a picture :)

Here's the hanging lights from a distance.

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Getting them hung and lined up took probably an hour total, and under $5 in parts. I'm very happy with it compared to what I was going to do with rails. The hangers are very simple and small ones I had in a random drawer. Lights are light enough they're more than adequate.
 
phc567 said:
Dunno if you guys follow Parker’s reef. He built one on his dream reef aquarium. It’s been a few years since I watched it. But I think he used rams for the canopy opening and a garage door opener for the light rack up and down.
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I believe the light rack is powered using parts from an stand-up desk
 
richiev said:
No one asked, but I just remembered this thread and took a picture :)

Here's the hanging lights from a distance.

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Getting them hung and lined up took probably an hour total, and under $5 in parts. I'm very happy with it compared to what I was going to do with rails. The hangers are very simple and small ones I had in a random drawer. Lights are light enough they're more than adequate.
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Looks fantastic. I want to hang my lights and was going to build a box canopy to hide the lights. Then hang that to chains or braided wire (industrial look) to a mount on the ceiling. After seeing your pic, I'm rethinking that!
 
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Noticed my big dragon soul torch suddenly has a couple very unhappy heads. Is this brown jelly disease? Something else? Seems to be already very rapidly from head to head.

Going to try and pull it for a KFC dip unless there’s a better suggestion.
 
SepToob said:
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Noticed my big dragon soul torch suddenly has a couple very unhappy heads. Is this brown jelly disease? Something else? Seems to be already very rapidly from head to head.

Going to try and pull it for a KFC dip unless there’s a better suggestion.
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Frag it up ASAP (if you have a band saw) and maybe KCl dip (reef primer) or your dipping strategy if you have it. Then maybe put them in different spots in the tank to isolate or give them different lighting/flow conditions.

I honestly haven't had much luck with KFC dips. The dying polyps would hold on a little longer if I treated for 4+ days consecutively in a separate container, but still eventually died. But I have had luck with the fragging and scattering method.
 
Darkxerox said:
Frag it up ASAP (if you have a band saw) and maybe KCl dip (reef primer) or your dipping strategy if you have it. Then maybe put them in different spots in the tank to isolate or give them different lighting/flow conditions.

I honestly haven't had much luck with KFC dips. The dying polyps would hold on a little longer if I treated for 4+ days consecutively in a separate container, but still eventually died. But I have had luck with the fragging and scattering method.
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Erin texted me the same advice. I don’t have a bandsaw but I’ll try and chop it up anyway. My phosphate was pretty high for a lot of this growth so maybe the skeleton is kinda soft :p

I just finished a peroxide and lugols dip and cleaned out the infected heads. I’ll give it a few hours in the sump and then frag up what still looks OK.
 
Yeah go low on the skeleton in the neck of a branching point if you can to avoid shattering them. You can use a hack saw or dremel maybe to reduce cracking. Then clean up the frags later on the sharp edge with the band saw another time.
 
SepToob said:
Erin texted me the same advice. I don’t have a bandsaw but I’ll try and chop it up anyway. My phosphate was pretty high for a lot of this growth so maybe the skeleton is kinda soft :p

I just finished a peroxide and lugols dip and cleaned out the infected heads. I’ll give it a few hours in the sump and then frag up what still looks OK.
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These often seem to bring trouble. I gave away the only hammer I owned during the last special frag swap (which was healthy though), gonies do it for me for now (and my son for some odd reason does not like torches).

Do you think this is a phosphate issue? You love to feed a lot :). Would be a good case for Aquabiomics, but it will take forever to get the results.
 
Update here - the dip didn't really save the colony, the plague continued to spread to new heads as soon as a few hours later. Amazing how quickly this stuff spreads once it starts, whatever it is.

I fragged up the surviving 9 heads (started with 14) into 4 frags placed around the tank. Gave one to Erin but the other 3 are looking pretty good. If anyone wants to trade for a Dragon Soul frag, lemme know! I don't need to keep all of them.

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Since some of my corals have been getting bigger, I've started seeing some issues with "shading." Decided to move in a new direction with lights to solve this problem, and after doing a lot of research (and seeing @Darkxerox tank in person) I settled on the Reefi Uno 2.0. My reasoning was that the Reefi would achieve the same good looks as a Radion but without the awful, deal-breaking glare. Also a lot more power in the Reefi than the Radion dollar for dollar (like, a lot more).

Attached them to a simple 10-series aluminum rack (dogbutt):

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Hung them about 15" off the surface of the water:

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The first thing that must be said is that the tank looks incredible, aesthetically speaking. I was texting Thomas that I always thought my coral color was kind of meh, but I think it was just my lighting - I have never seen my corals look so good, and haven't been able to take my eyes off the tank. Even at a whiter color temperature, the corals just look so much better than with Kessils. There's a lot I love about the Kessil but man, they just don't come close to the Reefi.

I can't really capture this in a pic but here's one anyway, with a fairly white spectrum:

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I also actually like the app quite a bit (technically not an app - but a direct IP connection on your wifi network - I set it up as an app on my iphone homescreen, though). Managing the large group of 6 is very easy and it's surprisingly better than my Kessil wifi dongle app which is pretty unintuitive.

My only gripe is when it comes to shimmer - nothing beats Kessil shimmer, IMO. The shimmer with the Reefi is still present, but it's less natural looking and a little disco-bally. I will do some tweaking with reflectors and mount height.

I also need to do some cable management and installation of the aluminum end caps and such. Really happy with the change so far, though!
 

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Coral reefer said:
Glad you like em! You can play with surface agitation so effect shimmer as well. Just an idea. Might be easier than moving the lights around.
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That's the plan, will report back when I get a little more time.

I just did some PAR testing - it's ludicrous. Absolutely obscene.

Measured 10" below the water on my "designer SPS rock" in the center of the tank: about 650 at just 25% intensity. The PAR readings start to approach 2,000 as the lights ramp up to 100% but I honestly did not get that far.
 
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