Thomas' 29G TruVu

[Darkxerox]

The tongue coral can really look interesting in the early morning

It's been moving around on the sand slowly but surely, really cool animal and recommend it to anyone that needs to spice up their sand bed!

Also picked up a tank bred scooter dragonet at AC during the black Friday sale. Seems to eat pretty much everything.

Fired up the 18 year old nano cube too! Got about 30lbs of sand from Tim and Mike at Seven Stills and I'm curing it in here since I had to leave it in a bucket for 4 days with no heating. This will replace the sand that's gotten siphoned out over the last 17+ years.

Amazing that adult aged power compact bulbs and pumps still work. Anyone remember these?

Note that the price of refractometers has gone down in that time period:

I still have some of that black sand in the basement if you need more @Matthew Meyer

Lastly, I ordered a new light to replace my 8+ year old AI Hydra 26. I'll keep it a slight secret until it arrives, but it's something pretty different.

 

[Darkxerox]

New light update: got a Reefi Uno 2.0 Pro. The light is insanely powerful, more details here for my first impressions on light spill, coloration, etc. I just love how it makes the tank look. I've switched it to this profile:​

Even at 50% on these peak settings (in reality ~35% of total output), I'm getting more light than my old Hydra 26 could do at 100%. I'm setting it to 75% of this output to acclimate for the next 14 days. Might be a bit too much for the lords in the bottom left, but I'll keep an eye on them. Everything pops now and it will be interesting to see how colors shift over time.

Plus look how ugly the tank looked in July:

Getting my refractometer corrected, adding tons of herbivores (copepods, tuxedo urchin, trochus snails, blue leg hermits), and balancing my nutrients helped a ton. New ICP numbers confirmed the corrected salinity. TE dosing has been inconsistent (aka when I remember to add Tropic Marin K+ and A- about twice a week) so I'll step this up to try and get things like Manganese in range. But going off my old school "eye" things look way better and are more stable. The clam is putting down new shell as well, so glad it made it past the 2 month mark without starving. I'll see if I can keep it going indefinitely.

Still running "high" nitrates and phosphates, but with no algae and lots of feeding, who cares!

Parameter	Date
	12/7
Nitrate (ppm)	25
Alk (dKh)	8
Calcium (ppm)	440
Magnesium (ppm)	1260
Salinity (ppt)	36
Phosphate (ppm)	0.38

For transparency, this is almost $2k in new hardware, corals, salt, fish, inverts, testing, etc. this year to get the tank back into true "display" shape.

 

[dochou]

The tongue coral can really look interesting in the early morning View attachment 43620
It's been moving around on the sand slowly but surely, really cool animal and recommend it to anyone that needs to spice up their sand bed!

Also picked up a tank bred scooter dragonet at AC during the black Friday sale. Seems to eat pretty much everything. View attachment 43621

Fired up the 18 year old nano cube too! Got about 30lbs of sand from Tim and Mike at Seven Stills and I'm curing it in here since I had to leave it in a bucket for 4 days with no heating. This will replace the sand that's gotten siphoned out over the last 17+ years.

View attachment 43622
Amazing that adult aged power compact bulbs and pumps still work. Anyone remember these?
View attachment 43623

Note that the price of refractometers has gone down in that time period: View attachment 43624

I still have some of that black sand in the basement if you need more @Matthew Meyer

Lastly, I ordered a new light to replace my 8+ year old AI Hydra 26. I'll keep it a slight secret until it arrives, but it's something pretty different.

Hey, I have that same nano cube. It's in my garage right now and I've thought about setting it up again.

 

[dochou]

Your tank's looking good!

 

[Darkxerox]

Update after the CFM frags sat in quarantine a little over a week.

Left to right: Australophyllia wilsoni adapted to 78F, Lobophyllia rowleyensis (kinda rare to see a healthy white coral), what looked to be a pink Micromussa lordhowensis that actually is pink/orange/green. Then those two tank spawned bicolor "torches" that I'm not 100% sure on until they get bigger.

The Christmas tree worms are starting to get more color and the Porites host is encrusting more:

And a FTS before I move things around (the Yuma wiped out a tequila sunrise mushroom and is stinging the hammers).

Still getting too much violet in my photos with the new lights and Pixel 7 but I'll need around later on.

Nitrates have been dropping quite a bit too the last few changes since I switched to the Bio-actif Tropic Marin (went from 30 to 5 in 3 changes while I've been feeding tons of oyster feast and phyto for the worms). The other potential cause is switching from New Life Spectrum pellets to Reef Nutrition TDO in my auto feeder. Anyone else make these switches and see similar results?

 

[salty_taste]

Update after the CFM frags sat in quarantine a little over a week.

View attachment 45275
Left to right: Australophyllia wilsoni adapted to 78F, Lobophyllia rowleyensis (kinda rare to see a healthy white coral), what looked to be a pink Micromussa lordhowensis that actually is pink/orange/green. Then those two tank spawned bicolor "torches" that I'm not 100% sure on until they get bigger.

The Christmas tree worms are starting to get more color and the Porites host is encrusting more:

View attachment 45276

And a FTS before I move things around (the Yuma wiped out a tequila sunrise mushroom and is stinging the hammers).

View attachment 45279

Still getting too much violet in my photos with the new lights and Pixel 7 but I'll need around later on.

Nitrates have been dropping quite a bit too the last few changes since I switched to the Bio-actif Tropic Marin (went from 30 to 5 in 3 changes while I've been feeding tons of oyster feast and phyto for the worms). The other potential cause is switching from New Life Spectrum pellets to Reef Nutrition TDO in my auto feeder. Anyone else make these switches and see similar results?

Christmas Rock is thriving!! Love to see it

 

[Darkxerox]

Less than a month and I can confirm they are tank spawned torches, not galaxea! Plus they've grown a lot:

Feb 7:

Feb 24:

The wilsoni coral is eating a lot of captured food as well and color is improving:

New actinic FTS with the dragon soul and the fuzz acro (center) from @The_Lazy_Reefer and @jhuynh respectively:

Oregon tort is not doing hot unfortunately and likely on its way out.

 

[richiev]

Less than a month and I can confirm they are tank spawned torches, not galaxea! Plus they've grown a lot:

Feb 7: View attachment 45730
Feb 24: View attachment 45731

The wilsoni coral is eating a lot of captured food as well and color is improving:View attachment 45732

New actinic FTS with the dragon soul and the fuzz acro (center) from @The_Lazy_Reefer and @jhuynh respectively:
View attachment 45735

Oregon tort is not doing hot unfortunately and likely on its way out.

that's awesome! congrats on the spanwing!

 

[Darkxerox]

Some growth photos:

Almost dead forest fire digi and another monti I haven't identified on 11/4/22 vs. 3/14/23:

 

[MolaMola]

The tongue coral can really look interesting in the early morning View attachment 43620
It's been moving around on the sand slowly but surely, really cool animal and recommend it to anyone that needs to spice up their sand bed!

Herpolitha! I love that thing! Never saw one so big or all puffed up - cool shot.

 

[Darkxerox]

Picked up a nice coco worm at Neptune a couple weekends back and it's already repaired a v shaped crack in its shell.

Lost my octospawn last week despite a three antibiotic dip for 12 hours. Pretty interesting how it disintegrated into this bizarre structure (threw it away after):

FTS as of today before I go on vacation for a couple weeks and have a coral overload at Reefapalooza Orlando!

 

[salty_taste]

Tank looks great! Christmas tree rock and Clam are definitely my favorites! Wish I could keep them!

 

[Darkxerox]

Post Reefapalooza updates!

WWC acquisitions:

Orange bowerbanki and really orange Echinata (I know @Hella_Salty650 is going to like these):

Really bright Australophyllia wilsoni (has more colors in person):

Also picked up some Halymenia stipitata macroalgae from Colin Foord (Coral Morphologic) that originated in Julian Sprung's refugium. Hard to see here but it's got an amazing fluorescent sparkle under actinic lighting:

It tumbles better than chaeto, (supposedly) grows faster, doesn't build up detritus in the same way, and you can glue it. Will be adding it to DBTC once it grows out. It's not the same species as Dragon's Breath and is much brighter in color. Still trying to find out what light spectrum to keep it under since it isn't green so grow spectrum lighting might not be best.

 

[salty_taste]

Love all the new pick ups! Great taste in selection. That macro is a showstopper, can't wait to see everything grow out

 

[Darkxerox]

Post CFM. Grabbed a couple of corals from OMG Jesus Corals at the CFM. He had stuff at RAP Orlando that I wanted to take home but couldn't. Another addition to the Wilsoni Warehouse on the left:

And a Micromussa Pacifica (previously known as Acan maxima):

 

[Darkxerox]

Couple additions from the Cali Kid swap:

Really nice indo gold torch from a 5+year old mother colony (I forgot the name of the reefer):

And a nice little hammer from @Metopian Reef that's almost identical to the one I got last swap (oops!):

Also picked up a Hydros X3 Controller package from @Azurc14 via @Srt4eric delivery service.

Really simple set up and easy to use interface:

The Wi-Fi power strips control 4 plugs each along with some USB ports and are super reasonable (only $40 each). Can control everything on/off based on a few inputs. I really like the minimum off or maximum on time feature so I don't forget to turn my return pump back on or leave on a kalk addition.

 

[salty_taste]

Please share feedback on Hydros when you get a chance to mess with it, my dad was really interested in going this route!

 

[Kensington Reefer]

@Darkxerox
text sent

 

[PjFish]

Post CFM. Grabbed a couple of corals from OMG Jesus Corals at the CFM. He had stuff at RAP Orlando that I wanted to take home but couldn't. Another addition to the Wilsoni Warehouse on the left:

View attachment 47291

And a Micromussa Pacifica (previously known as Acan maxima):

View attachment 47293

That Australophyllia wilsoni looks amazing! Do you target feed it?Also any coral issues with 1000's of flatworms visible? Everything looks super happy and thriving great job!

 

[Darkxerox]

That Australophyllia wilsoni looks amazing! Do you target feed it?Also any coral issues with 1000's of flatworms visible? Everything looks super happy and thriving great job!

It kinda catches random food from when I feed the tank but I do fish roe (Rod's food tentacle teasers) that all my LPS eat super fast.

The flatworms I've had for 15+ years and don't go onto live corals, but are an eyesore. Just waiting on a yellow coris right now. Sixline wiped them out in the 90g but that's probably the smallest tank I'd say they're community fish safe in!

Note that you can get huge Wilsoni colonies for a fraction of the price of a trachy, and you can frag them!