jadams7

Looks good! I'm going to be very jealous of this new setup of yours. Almost exactly the dimensions I'm wanting.

Beauties! Tank looks great man!

Great idea! Where did you find that at?

Well fragging went well yesterday. Got a few fragged up and are already open and looking happy today. Even fragged a red spackle too!

Awesome, how are the red spackles doing?

 

Great! Up to 4 heads now. Did yours make it through the crash? 

My Clarkatoas are ripe to be fragged, if anyone has interest shoot me a pm!

With the calcium reactor running I rarely do water changes now, and have seen no ill effects of doing so. I do about 30 gallons every 2-3 months (on a roughly 150g system total). As long as my temp, salinity, alk, cal, and mag are in line I do not check/worry about much else. I do not feed very heavy, do not have a large bio load, but also do not run carbon or any other type of nutrient export outside of skimming. Equipment failures this year have had their toll on me, but water quality from lack of water changes were not the culprit. 

Zoas: 12 heads

Palys: 3 heads

 

voted! Good luck, you are in the lead by a few now.

what do you mean by messing with fish? and do you think it is due to changing the aquascape?

By messing with...doing anything out of the ordinary. Fiddling with water parameters, having your hands in the tank excessively, trying a freshwater dip, trying to move the fish from their regular environment, introducing new fish to the tank. Things like that. All of those could potentially induce stress. Basically feed them regularly and let them be. If they are eating, odds are they will be fine.

 

And it's hard to say the cause. Could be plenty of things or nothing in particular. Way too many variables usually to say it was one thing specifically. Aquascaping I'm sure didn't help, as it probably took them out of their 'comfort zone', especially in smaller tanks (where they don't have many other places to hide). But if your rocks were falling all over the place you didn't have much choice there, it had to be done.

Anyway, I haven't lost a fish to ich in over 5-6 years. I'm a firm believer that people overreacting to things is usually worse than letting nature take its course. So just feed them regularly. If they are eating, odds are they will be fine.

Let me know how you like that starboard bottom after a while. I have been tossing around the idea of using that for years, just never have for some reason. Its a real nice look!

You may stress the fish more by doing the tank transfer, if the fish are eating well Id continue feeding them and cross your fingers which has worked for me 75% of time the other 25% half my fish died, just the expensive ones tho.

 

Tangs suck a@# IMO, more trouble for me in all the years than enjoyment, I vow to never introduce another tang into my display

 

Hope all works out for you-it sucks, sorry to hear

 

I am with Brad on this one. It may not be the popular opinion right now, as it seems that QT and hospital setups are all the rage, but the best success I have had over the years is if the fish are eating, let them be and keep them well fed. The 75% success rate for tangs is about right for me too. Clowns are darn near impossible to kill (at least they have been for me). The moment you go crazy introducing them to a freshly set up new tank/environment (which will stress the hell out of them) you decrease your chances of living IME, and that doesn't address the pain it is to go get another whole tank up and running. Now going forward if you want to be proactive instead of reactive, looking into a hospital tank may be of some benefit. Or you can buy the fish and if your LFS is cool with it, and has a medicated setup, just leave the fish in their medicated system for a length of time. 

But short term, my advice is to not mess with the fish. Just feed em. 

Congrats!! Good guy to have involved!

Just to piggy back on what the others are saying...Yes, it is possible. Color will be the main issue you will fight IMO. I got very interested in this subject back before the LED craze hit, and even had a tank running with a Solatube over it for a period of time. Saw good growth, everything lived, but the color wasn't the best. There used to be someone years back around here (portland area maybe) who grew ricordea in a greenhouse and had beautiful pieces. 

Also I travel to Ohio for work usually at least yearly, and always make it a point to go by ReefSystems coral farm. They have a greenhouse behind their store, a huuuuge setup that has been growing corals for 8ish years I believe. It is an impressive setup to see (12,000 gallons, maybe more now). They said the sunlight in the winter is plenty, and in the summer they actually have to add some shading of some sort because the lighting gets a bit too much if I recall correctly. Many of the corals do have that brown look to them (natural sunlight after all is not the 14-20k we are accustomed to), but last time I was there they had added a LED that slowly traverses across the length of the tank. They said this has helped them with coloration and the transfer to (mostly) LED lit tanks once transferring the corals from the greenhouse. Also it assists with making colors 'pop' more when looking at the tanks as the LED works its way over a certain section. I had a more recent thread that was lost in the crash, but here is an ancient one I found to give you a rough idea:

http://www.pnwmas.org/topic/25868-my-ohio-saltwater-exploring/?hl=ohio

 

Also check out their website if you want to know more:

http://www.reefsystems.com/

 

So yes, even in non-tropical climates (Ohio, Oregon) you can successfully grow coral using natural sunlight. The issues you will fight IMO will be heating and cooling of the tanks/greenhouse, coloration, and the transition from natural sunlight to a tank lit by LEDs/halides, etc. 

In the good old days, before all of this new fangled LED talk, there seemed to be a lot more interest in the idea of using natural sunlight to grow corals (I have seen some SAWEEET reef tanks using Solatubes and supplemental lighting for coloration over on RC), but as lighting costs have gone down, LED technology has increased, and we all aren't fighting electricity bills and bulb replacement costs like we used to, so it seems the original driving factors to look at using natural sunlight for coral growth have gone by the wayside a bit. Makes sense I guess, if gas was $1.50 a gallon, and cars got 50mpg on gas I don't think there would be the push for hybrids. Same mentality here to me. Fun to think about either way. 

If you decide you want a par56 I have a reefstar I am not using.

If you are still looking for montis, I have more than I know what to do with. Shoot me a pm if you ever want to swing by. 

Sliding in here like Indiana Jones with the door closing!

 

My setup is a 93g rimless cube, with 2x ORs026 lights over it. Flow in the display is 2x Jebao RW15's, running a little under half speed on 'pulse' mode. I feed Rods about 3 times a week, flake most days, pellet roughly 2 times per week, no target feeding plans as of right now. The display is plumbed into the garage where I have a 40g breeder frag tank, sump with a Vertex 180i skimmer (and neck cleaner, woot). I run a calcium reactor and do not dose anything else on a regular basis. Lights are on 8 hours. These will be placed on the sand bed at the bottom of the tank. 

 

Here are the frags, both a little angry as I got back from a work trip and mr wrasse decided to flip them over. Punk. 

Zoa has 8 heads, paly has 3. 

 

 

Voted. Out to a good lead early!!

Maybe try some red planet? It sorta has a darker pink hue to it, is pretty hearty, and is pretty readily available.

Haha made ya look!! But seriously that would be amazing if they keep getting red spots. You and your crazy morphs!

It's not a planaria is it? If not, very cool!

This has sold, sorry I forgot to close the thread. Thanks though Kev!

I would love to borrow the little guy. I Could use him in the frag tank for a little bit whenever you are done with him

The PC Rainbow is a steal, no SPS lovers what a shame-killer deal on the mystic aka reverse superman.

 

Nice stuff

 

Edit: nice score James-100.00 frag easy

Someone beat me to the punch! Dang! Next time...