FarmerTy

Mine go through it no problem... and I don't even measure... just dump it in until it's cloudy white... like milk. I've forgotten it once in there for 20 mins... no issues. The one you have to watch for is surhasoni... they no likey the bayer.

My particular strategy for reef keeping is heavy feeding, heavy export. Just give your system time to adjust to heavier feedings by slowly ramping it up. Also, make sure you have the appropriate systems in plus to efficiently remove the nutrients/excess food as well.

So everything is happy right now and you want to stop running the skimmer? I'd just stick to your regularly scheduled program if it's working. Mg will get uptaken and used so you have to dose it back into the tank, especially if water changes aren't enough to keep levels within appropriate ranges. Just shutoff your skimmer for a couple hours when you feed the frenzy and turn it back on afterwards. You really don't want it lingering in the system or else your start having nutrient issues. I'd go very lightly on the initial feeding of coral frenzy and allow your system to adjust to the new input of nutrients.

That's a shame! Can you just remove all the acros and bayer dip a couple of times just in case? The Bayer isn't really harsh so I figure just do it just in case.

Small chitons... I got them all over my tank. That's another 0.15 cents you owe me!

The left one looks awesome! I should have snapped a piece when you weren't lookong!

When I had them in the old 125-gallon, bite distribution was everywhere and random... though it was easier seen from the underside due to the pigmentation of the coral.

He meant feeding Rod's food. http://www.rodsfood.com

I'm of the thought that feeding your fish is enough... and the rest gets passed down the food chain. If you want to try to keep the goniopora alive though, I've heard TLF gonipower has had great results.

Not to derail this thread but chloroquine phosphate treats both very effectively and can be bought in this form. Out of display tank only treatment though.

Sadly, that's true in my house too... except she also makes me pack away the bows and boxes it came in, just in case a giant box that used to hold a purse is needed for something... [emoji58]

Well said sir! Go get a flame angel with marine velvet if you want to throw some wrenches into your livestock. [emoji30]

Forget that, I say that's the perfect excuse to upgrade tanks! [emoji6] Beautiful clam by the way!

Maybe more of a soft science. [emoji39] Here's my process with new maris: 1) Float bags for 30 mins-1hr for temp acclimation 2) Test water in bag for salinity and alk (you wouldn't believe some of the levels I've read) 3) the levels above would determine how much I feel the need to acclimate to my water. Very close in parameters and I literally dip and chunk it in the tank... far apart and I use a series of tubs with various percentages of mixed water to transition the mari. 4) dip in bayer insecticide for 5-10 mins (only species I avoid doing this with is surhasoni... they are the only ones I've observed that are sensitive to it). I've been experimenting with potassium dipping... I'll report back on that one. 5) place onto sandbed with medium flow and about 250-300 par of light 6) after 2 weeks of acclimation, I put it on the rocks at 400-600 par and let it do its thing Coloring up usually takes anywhere from 2 weeks to 3 months. I just put it at a spot and don't move it. Sam likes to frag a couple pieces and distributes them around the tank to see ideal conditions for best coloration. I may start doing that. He also feels like throwing them immediately into the fire (higher par) helps keep coloration. I'll experiment with that too but I trust his ample experience with maris. I should say that the common procedure is to remove the coral from the plug it came on and reglue to another frag plug. The reason for this is potential introduction of nuisance algae and also to minimize pests. If you only put in living flesh from the SPS and nothing else, you could avoid any chances of the dreaded AEFW! Again, something I might employ down the line but I find the large plugs useful for mounting purposes.

Here's what I am having success with so far: Blue mille

Here's a website I use often for help with identification. http://www.baliaquarium.net I like this one because you actually get to compare your non-colored up colony with the pictures of theirs in the mariculture area... the coloration is close to the same as well as growth form. It's literally what the coral would look like if someone hadn't just plucked it from the facility and shipped it here. Once they get into our tanks, the growth forms can change and for sure the coloration so it's hard to cross identify.

Wanted to start a thread on maricultures, the selection of them, the identification of them, the art of coloring them up, and before and after pics of them. I thought it would be a nice discussion thread to share what we have individually learned about them. I am keenly interested in understanding potentially color changes that occur... for instance, your purples seen on a mariculture will most likely end up blue... or your yellows will turn green... etc.

SPS = Self-inflicting Pain Seekers Okay, really that's probably SIPS but that's not as fun.

Haha, I only splurged from my coral sales account. Whatever I make for selling corals feeds the cost of purchase for the new coral. I'll throw a purse at the wife every once in awhile to keep her happy about it. [emoji6]

Ty - that pic was BEFORE the Xenia was looking poorYeah, I realized that. The xenia still doesn't look terrible to me... I know it doesn't look like its full glory in the FTS but it's not terrible enough for me to worry if it was my own tank. I was mentioning the FTS to observe the health of the other corals in the tank... and they look fine. I'd heed Nvrenuf's advice on trying to lower the xenia for a bit to see how it does. For feeding, NvrEnuf hit the nail on the head as far as feeding your system... I just worry about nutrient issues on a tank that size running only a hang on the back filter. You'll want to combine heavy feeding with heavy export of nutrients as well... something he employs with an algal turf scrubber very efficiently and I do the same with a skimmer and various reactors.

I can see a little spot where your Xenia looked ticked but overall... to me it looks fine and the FTS everything looks healthy and happy. I'm just going to assume that it's probably fine and just being xenia... sometimes mine would just randomly not inflate all the way one day but a couple days later it was happy again. I would just observe it and if it gets worse, then worry about it. If it totally dies, I can almost guarantee you that someone in the club will be trimming their Xenia too and you could probably get another stall for free from them. I will say that the goniopora is probably a goner and will probably die in 6 months-year. The green variety is notoriously hard to keep alive. They have microfoods these days that are helpful to maintain it but it's usually a slow death and the over feeding of the microfood to try to keep it alive will probably ruin your water quality even of if you try. Besides the goniopora feedback, the tank looks great and everything looks happy and healthy. Kudos!

I actually don't think it's a bad idea to allow nutrients to increase a bit as you reintroduce SPS to your tank and allow their health to increase. Once their stable again, I think you'll end up lowering nutrients again to minimize algae and regain some color in the SPS... but if everything looks great... I wouldn't touch a thing. [emoji6]

Haha, the mystery wrasse has a look on his face like... help me!

Those disbars looked great! I was tempted to get some myself!

Thank you sir! I could have used your eyes there with me! There were a lot to look at!