jlanger's 120gal Arts and Crafts Inspired Reef Build (1 Viewer)

[BEAV9900]

Saw this today. Even more impressive in person. Great mix of fish and coral!

 

[jlanger]

The RR Nautispiral looks good. Is yours getting some green sheen in the middle?

It's a "dirty" orange; green tinge, yeah.
Edit: In looking back at the photo, the green streaks are shadows from the Birds of Paradise above the coral, but the orange color has a dirty green tinge.

Did you completely lose the miyagi or is there a small piece recovering somewhere?

I cut off three tips to try and save the coral, but they all crashed right after. No more Miyagi.

Tank looks great, I need one of those rabbit fish.

Thanks. I need one of those Splendid Pintail Fairy Wrasses.

Nice clean colorful tank!!

Thanks. I like color!
I took a Color Theory class while on college and thought it was a waste of money and time. Boy, was I wrong! I use those lessons in color theory with just about everything I do now.

Saw this today. Even more impressive in person. Great mix of fish and coral!

Thanks, Mark!
How do those panels look on your stand? And the shroud on the lights?

 

[jlanger]

I did my water change tonight, so here's some more pictures.

Back to that unusual stag frag.
Here's a pic from when the frag was high and dry with no water distortion.
That's a whole-lotta corallites for a typical stag; right?!

Here's a top-down pic of the RR Nautispiral from Eric.
Still not the best color representation, but you can see how could be a dirty shade of orange.
The pink color turned out really nice, though.

Back to some of the coral frags that are showing signs of recovery.
Here's one that I'm really impressed with; a PC Rainbow Acropora frag.
This frag was RTN'ed right down to the three main tips. The color of the coral was very green (like the small patch at the base; which is also growing) for the longest time, but over the past few months it has really blossomed into a true rainbow of color. You can even see new branches beginning to form, so I have great expectations from this tough coral.

Another "Just the tip!" survivor is this "Fuzzy Purple Acropora" frag that I have pictures of in earlier posts.
With most of the coral a loss, I saved two of the tips and placed them on a new rubble mount. The tips have encrusted and are showing new polyps, so it looks like this should be another tough coral.

With the Miyagi Tort gone, I'm able to see down into a space that has been covered with what used to be a boring brown and pink dot zoanthid. But over time under the new lighting, the polyps have colored up quite nicely. I used to consider these a nuisance zoanthid as they have small patches throughout my tank, but these have a nice look to them now.

Now for an invasive zoanthid, these Emerald Dragon Eyes have wiped out the other zoanthids nearby and have taken over this rock. Although, the blue mushroom has plans of it's own and doesn't seem to mind.
And I like the look of the Bangaii Cardinalfish from the top-down; nice looking fish.

And a couple of the fish were kind enough to come out and be photographed after the water change.

Here's my Mimic Tang; with its tail mostly healed.
My daughter always wants me to get a Naso Tang due to its lipstick coloration. But I try to sell her on the fact that my Mimic Tang also sports the lipstick; she's not buying it.

And here's the little Flameback Angelfish; appropriately named, I'd say.

And look what I found in the dark; a "hitchhiker crab"! Ahh!!!

This Scarlet Reef Hermit Crab was riding on the Banded Trochus Snail. I would think the crab could move faster than the snail, but hey, a free ride is a free ride.

 

[eschulist]

Omg tell me know you turned your green PC rainbow to become rainbowed. Mine has been solid green forever. You're looks awesome.

The pink rim on the spiral is way more vibrant than mine. Must be growing well!

 

[jlanger]

Omg tell me know you turned your green PC rainbow to become rainbowed. Mine has been solid green forever. You're looks awesome.

How'd I do it?
Steadily increase your salinity to 1.033 and cause the coral to RTN to almost extinction.
Dose soda ash directly into the water flow to blast the coral with possible toxic levels of pH.
Correct those issues and wait.

Actually, I keep the frag very high in the tank directly under the LEDs.
The frag is also mounted on the outer most peak of the shelf so it receives a lot of flow.
I'm not sure if the change in the Radion program caused any change as I'd have to search through images and timelines to see if it coincides with anything. I was running the Radiant Colors template with slight modifications and recently changed to the Tyree template; which looks very similar to the Radiant Color template.

The pink rim on the spiral is way more vibrant than mine. Must be growing well!

Growing really well; and fast.
Montipora spp. corals seems to be my green thumb; I cannot kill them.
I have that monti frag located low in my tank, but it still gets a fair amount of light and flow even down there.
I'm tempted to find a piece of the Phoenix Montipora to see how that does in my system; my next trip possibly.

 

[aero175]

Another great looking tank! One of these days I am gonna have to come see these in person!

 

[cypho]

Do the zoanthids harm the SPS? If not, would not call them pests. Perhaps that is just because I have never been able to grow zoanthids, but I love the way it looks with the zoanthids filling in the space between each coral leaving no visible live rock.

With the Miyagi Tort gone, I'm able to see down into a space that has been covered with what used to be a boring brown and pink dot zoanthid. But over time under the new lighting, the polyps have colored up quite nicely. I used to consider these a nuisance zoanthid as they have small patches throughout my tank, but these have a nice look to them now.



Now for an invasive zoanthid, these Emerald Dragon Eyes have wiped out the other zoanthids nearby and have taken over this rock. Although, the blue mushroom has plans of it's own and doesn't seem to mind.
And I like the look of the Bangaii Cardinalfish from the top-down; nice looking fish.

 

[jlanger]

Another great looking tank! One of these days I am gonna have to come see these in person!

Thanks.
If you're ever over into Wisconsin, let me know and we can schedule a stop.

Do the zoanthids harm the SPS? If not, would not call them pests. Perhaps that is just because I have never been able to grow zoanthids, but I love the way it looks with the zoanthids filling in the space between each coral leaving no visible live rock.

The zoanthids don't really harm the SPS, but they do fill in and take up some prime real estate that I would like to place some other frags.
But when you have multiple zoanthid colonies placed together on the same rock, it seems that there is a pecking order and one of them will win out over the others; and it's usually the blandest of them. The rock that is completely covered in the Emerald Dragon Eyes had four different types of zoanthids on it at one time, but the EDE moved in and dominated the others and wiped them out. I think if you want to have various zoanthids together, it's best to have individual rocks placed near each other, but not touching; or having a LPS/SPS coral placed to keep the zoanthids separated. This same scenario played out in my Fluval tank where one zoanthid overpowered the others.
But I could be completely wrong, but it's been my limited experience with keeping zoanthids.

I don't consider zoanthids a pest (like aiptasia or vermetid snails), but I do consider them to sometimes be a nuisance.

 

[AsianReef]

Very nice tank indeed, Jason. I'm glad everything start recovering and doing well.

 

[acharpenter]

That tank is fugly!!!! lol

 

[jlanger]

That tank is fugly!!!! lol

Yeah... I'm working on it.

 

[acharpenter]

Yeah... I'm working on it.

About time! ; )

 

[aero175]

How often do you do water changes? How big are you doing? I am tossing around the idea of setting up an automatic setup.

Thanks!

 

[Uwdanno]

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[ChristopherKriens]

Wow, stealing Eric's thunder just days later. The audacity.

 

[jlanger]

Wow, stealing Eric's thunder just days later. The audacity.

Eric and I needed to strike now while you're rumored to have moved on from "us" (them).
RIP ChristopherKriens! You'll be missed!
We all know that as soon as you are resurrected, we'll all be yesterday's news.

 

[jlanger]

How often do you do water changes? How big are you doing? I am tossing around the idea of setting up an automatic setup.

Thanks!

I try to make sure I do a weekly water change of 24 gallons (20%).
Once in a while a week will be missed, but I don't make up for it with a bigger water change.

 

[eschulist]

Eric and I needed to strike now while you're rumored to have moved on from "us" (them).
RIP ChristopherKriens! You'll be missed!
We all know that as soon as you are resurrected, we'll all be yesterday's news.

Yep Chris is going to do a huge photo reveal of all of his new fish and a long overdue FTS and he'll be #1 on the featured threads in a few days. We got our time Jason, it was short lived.

 

[cheezybuda]

I did my water change tonight, so here's some more pictures.

Back to that unusual stag frag.
Here's a pic from when the frag was high and dry with no water distortion.
That's a whole-lotta corallites for a typical stag; right?!



Here's a top-down pic of the RR Nautispiral from Eric.
Still not the best color representation, but you can see how could be a dirty shade of orange.
The pink color turned out really nice, though.



Back to some of the coral frags that are showing signs of recovery.
Here's one that I'm really impressed with; a PC Rainbow Acropora frag.
This frag was RTN'ed right down to the three main tips. The color of the coral was very green (like the small patch at the base; which is also growing) for the longest time, but over the past few months it has really blossomed into a true rainbow of color. You can even see new branches beginning to form, so I have great expectations from this tough coral.



Another "Just the tip!" survivor is this "Fuzzy Purple Acropora" frag that I have pictures of in earlier posts.
With most of the coral a loss, I saved two of the tips and placed them on a new rubble mount. The tips have encrusted and are showing new polyps, so it looks like this should be another tough coral.



With the Miyagi Tort gone, I'm able to see down into a space that has been covered with what used to be a boring brown and pink dot zoanthid. But over time under the new lighting, the polyps have colored up quite nicely. I used to consider these a nuisance zoanthid as they have small patches throughout my tank, but these have a nice look to them now.



Now for an invasive zoanthid, these Emerald Dragon Eyes have wiped out the other zoanthids nearby and have taken over this rock. Although, the blue mushroom has plans of it's own and doesn't seem to mind.
And I like the look of the Bangaii Cardinalfish from the top-down; nice looking fish.



And a couple of the fish were kind enough to come out and be photographed after the water change.

Here's my Mimic Tang; with its tail mostly healed.
My daughter always wants me to get a Naso Tang due to its lipstick coloration. But I try to sell her on the fact that my Mimic Tang also sports the lipstick; she's not buying it.



And here's the little Flameback Angelfish; appropriately named, I'd say.



And look what I found in the dark; a "hitchhiker crab"! Ahh!!!



This Scarlet Reef Hermit Crab was riding on the Banded Trochus Snail. I would think the crab could move faster than the snail, but hey, a free ride is a free ride.

I think I have that same "stag". Mine went purple with green shading. I like your version.

 

[jlanger]

I think I have that same "stag". Mine went purple with green shading. I like your version.

Have you experienced the same unusual growth?