Ace25's 75G Build Thread

[reefbumgm333]

I have the Tyree flower petal monti, its definitly not ready to frag yet, but I will add you to the frag list first DSR. I do not have the chili monti, my small piece did not make it, but Scott does have a mother piece and will frag it out once it has grown out again.

Hows the tank breakdown coming Ace?

 

[Ace25]

Just got back from wal-mart buying a bunch of $4 18gallon rubbermaid tubs to help with the teardown. Still getting my "to do" list all finalized. Each time I think I have everything written down I want to do I think of one more thing I can easily change if the tank was empty so I add that to the list. Last night I discovered www.fragarack.com and ordered one of those so I can remove the unsightly white egg crate racks in the back of my tank now. I think I have about 10 different items to work on now. I would much rather get it all planned out and done in one shot instead of doing it partially then regretting it the next day like I did 1 hour after setting up my tank with the SCWD last time, I knew it would be a problem as soon as I sat down on the couch to take a breather when it was all up and running.

My flower petal is ready to frag. As you can see in the picture I have a nice "leaf" coming out the bottom that is about the size of the original frag I got, my problem is every reefer in my local area got out of the hobby in the last 6 months, pretty much killing my local reef club. I am the "last man standing" so to speak. I used to give away about 6 frags a week to local reefers.. now in the last couple months, none, so I am building up quite a bit of "fraggable" corals.

Edit: DSR, I read on his site he states he does NOT ship corals which sucks. If you were willing to pay shipping cost I would gladly mail you some frags, but I would wait at least another month on your tank since your still adding equipment. Let your tank really stabilize before you add hard to keep SPS corals.

 

[Ace25]

Ok, pic overload. These are most of my corals. My battery died when I had a few left.

 

[Slappy*McFish]

Awesome

 

[DSR]

Reefbum, please keep me on the list for a frag of that coral... that would be awesome.

Ace, are you trying to kill me or make me end up in van down by the river? Those are incredible. What is the second to last pic? That is wonderful

 

[Ace25]

That is an ORA Green Stylophora. One coral that is highly sensitive to heat and is known to quickly bleach out at temps above 82 according to some websites. I have had my tank up to 84.5 last summer and it did fine. There are some other much nicer varieties of Stylophora out there that I have since found after buying this one. I believe even Garretts Acropolis as some nice Rainbow Stylophora corals if you click on the Pocilloporidae link on the left side.

 

[Amphiprion]

Temp. recommendations are all over the place. I think a recommendation as low as 82, however, is not very well supported by all the data we have on reefs. This is the average reef temperature, so it makes little sense that under normal circumstances, these corals will bleach. I think that has more to do with keeping them in much cooler water conditions, like 77-78. My boss likes keeping his personal display tank at around 77 degrees. When our air conditioning broke and the mean tank temps rose to 82-83, that was the only tank that actually exhibited thermal stress and loss of many corals (even fish). Certainly interesting results.

 

[Ace25]

Ya, I figured that out when I saw other corals reacting more negative to 84 degree temps than the stylophora. Funny though, even my LFS gave me a warning about that coral and temps before I bought it. Never got that warning about any other coral. I am glad I raised my chiller temp up to 80 then.. sounds like it could actually do more harm than good for me if I would have kept it at 77 because on real hot days the chiller has strugled to maintain temps. Chiller turns on 1 degree over your set temp and off 1 degree below, but on hot days it would kick in at 81 and actually keep rising and level off at 81.5 the hottest part of the day then finally start coming down as temps cooled. I have my pump that is dedicated for my chiller actually on my reefkeeper controller and the pump turns off at 80 then the chiller just cools the water that is left inside it which happens quickly. Saves some $ on electricity and keeps my tank within 1.5 degree difference on the hottest day so far. It was only 95 in the living room that day.. hate to see what happens the next time it is 110.

 

[DSR]

My chiller gets here today. I believe that it has an internal pump but after reading some more about chiller I am a bit concerned that it is not going to come with the necessary fixtures to hook it up to the tank. I have looked around for the attachments (like the ones found on canister filters) but none of the LFS have them around here (actually, our LFS carry very little gadgets...they say they can't sell anything because people just order online).

 

[reefbumgm333]

Very nice Ace, I can tell you that 90 does not help corals either. That one mistake helped wipe out most of what survived from the red bug fiasco. I still have a couple of things holding on. A yellow digi and a couple of acros have still yet to color up, but are still alive.