Full tank 8/12/2010

I swung by a store yesterday afternoon and left with some aqua cultured frags. Picked up some green birds nest, a chunk of awesome purple with green/orange polyps superman montipora, and some nice plating orange montipora. I plan on attaching plating monti frags to the back wall to see if I can get a nice shelf effect.

Orange Montipora

Green Birds Nest

Superman Montipora

Acclimating

24 hours later and everyone is looking good. The fish are eating like horses and all the corals seem to like the lighting. I raised the fixture high and won’t be running the halide. I’ll lower it a bit each day and work up to running the halide a few hours a day.

Here’s what made it in:

• Black and white clown
• Yellow coris wrasse
• One large (4-5 inches) and one small (maybe half an inch) Acropora yongei
• Small (one inch) mystery acropora
• My dear old red/green favites brain. I had to frag all the edges off this one due to some previous die off with uncontrollable algae growth
• The nice blue brain given to me by Mr. Pilkington
• Small (about quarter sized) bit of green hydnophora
• A pretty large bubble mushroom
• four smallish blue mushrooms
• 5 orange/green zoanthid polyps
• Three mexican hermits
• One tonga nassarius

Bags!

Coris wrasse

Hydnophora, zoos, a mushroom

Mystery acro, blue brain, blue mushrooms

Clown!

Acropora yongei

Favites Brain

New Rock

The new light is a 24″ Giesemann Infiniti T5/MH fixture. Yeah, it was damn expensive. But the quality is really top notch. The finish looks very durable. It’s not black, but a nice glossy deep grey. It is entirely passively cooled, so it make no noise at all save a very faint buzz from the small electronic ballast. The fixture sports four 24 watt T5 lamps and one 150watt metal halide. I’ve populated it with two actinic+ (22K) , one aqua blue+ (60:40 combination of 6k/22k), and one pure actinic bulb for florescence. The MH is a 12.5K bulb that shipped with the Giesemann.

The only kind of oddball thing about the lamp is the MH is offset from center a bit. With all the lights on, plus the reflectors, plus reflection from the tank walls it doesn’t seem to make any noticeable difference in the tank. But it is a bit odd.

Left to right (back to front) -- actinic, actinic+, halide, aqua blue+, actinic+. The bulbs give off quite different light, it's just difficult to tell from the picture.

The tank is looking nice. Snapped a few shots of the rocks with the lights on, and grabbed some video to see how well it works in WordPress. The live rock is setting in. Tons of astrea stars, amphipods, spionid worms, and stomatella snails. Even has some nice patches of purple coralline algae.

Snagged a short video of the fish in the holding tank while I was at it.

I had previously cannibalized the RK2 temp probe as a replacement for my Reef Keeper Elite on the Solana. Not really willing to buy a new one for such a short term purpose I had to MacGyver my spare RKE probe to fit the Rk2. (Why did they change the connector??)

Transferring the critters went pretty well. I dipped all the rock in water dosed with flat-worm-be-gone to remove as many of the little buggers as I could. Many thousands were shed, but there are still plenty crawling around a few days later.

Three days later and everything seems to be doing well, with the exception of my yellow coris wrasse. He appears stressed and has some fin rot on one pectoral fin and his tail. He doesn’t look at worse (or much better) than yesterday, but he is still eating well so I have hope.

This guy’s Solana amazes me. He’s invested some serious dough into his gear. Not sure I’m prepared to drop quite so much but it sure gives me some ideas.

• I want a combo light. (T5/MH) Mr. Pilkington has one an I like how his tank looks and his critters seem to love it. Unfortunately, Current USA has discontinued the unit I’ve had my eye on. The Giesemann Infiniti HQI/T5 Light Fixture looks nice… but pricey!
• I may seriously look into auto top off and CA/Alk dosing this time.
• I’ll reuse the Solana. I still have the old aquapod 24, so I’ll use the to hold critters while I recycle the Solana.
• I’ve been buying salt water from the LFS to do my changes. The quality in terms of SG had varied widely and I’m never sure which salt they will use. I’ll start mixing my own again.

Handy links!

Dosing calculator

Parameters for common salt mixes

Ye olde schooling on CA/Alk chemistry

Picked up a great little juvenile Carpenter’s McCosker’s flasher wrasse over the weekend. (Thanks to Mr. Pilkington!) He’s very tame and friendly, swimming right up to the glass and picking out of my fingers after only one day in the tank.

McCosker's Wrasse

McCosker's Wrasse

McCosker's Wrasse

McCosker's Wrasse

McCosker's Wrasse

McCosker's Wrasse