FarmerTy

I read your post real quick and somehow my eyes picked out wrapped and beacon, and all I could think about was a bacon-wrapped aura of truth.... ummmm... bacon....

I'm sure I've said it a million times but my personal opinion is that T5s are the best for SPS coloration. I only run halides because I'm lazy and cheap. I don't want to change out 8-10 bulbs on my fixture every year at $25/bulb. If I were to switch to LEDs, this fixture may be my choice. [emoji33]

Everytime I do that people just look at the floor when picking up their items.

This is a great light I hear for SPS. BattleCorals uses one over a frag tank and he's a die-hard MH/T5 guy for SPS. It convinced him at least... which for me carries a lot of weight.

Ahhh, I see. Well, I'll be on the lookout for the coral burrowing kind! Good catch!

Did you just read my previous post? I lied about 3x on that and it's definitely on the internet.

If it is indeed a Cirratulid, I don't see the harm in them. I have them all over my tank substrate and they do a good job of assimilating the fish poop and food that falls on the sandbed.

Oh good, I charge a pretty reasonable hourly rate for floating bags.

It's your guy's middle man upcharge... do what you want with it. [emoji6] I can pick up yours too. Just putting it out there but I'll be leaving them in the bag until you pickup. These sucker aren't touching my tank water until I'm all clear on the velvet in two weeks.

Nothing against bud but I don't quite trust retailers for sources of information nor do I think a singular observation in my tank or yours can be decreed as the rule of thumb. Just because it gets stringy for me in high flow, doesn't mean that's the rule. Nor does the lack of effect of par in stringiness in my tank, doesn't mean your observation is incorrect either. I just am hesitant to say it is a fact because it hasn't been proven yet either way. My RBTA is currently at 300 par and is crazy stringy. In my old tank, it was at 300 par, and was bubbly as all get out. The difference was flow for me. That was an observation in my tank only though, I wouldn't consider it a rule. If liveaquaria.com is entirely correct, then my RBTA should have fat tentacles right now.

I can but the middle man upcharge is ridiculous! [emoji12] Be happy to bud.

I will say that the rainbow BTA OceanTraveler has in her tank was one of the fattest, and healthiest BTAs I've ever seen. If the brown one is in there too, I'd imagine it's getting sufficient flow and light for its needs. It just probably needs to color up over time. Once they lose their color, it can take up to a year to regain, especially RBTAs.

I don't know if I 100% agree with the stringy versus fatter tentacles observation. I've blasted with 600 par and it has also sat in 200 par. The par had no effect on tentacle girth. It is still unknown the reason why some bubble and some don't or why some string out and some fatten up. I have observed though that lower flow allows for thicker tentacles and higher flow strings out, at least in my tank.

That's why I'm leaning towards the wrasses for your tank. It'll look really cool with one big show size fish like the emperor swimming around. Yeah, I'm a big fan of the one spot. The rest of the rabbitfish I haven't had direct experience with but I know they get huge.

I like your positive thinking! Emergency upgrade!

Option 3: Emperor with a bunch of anthias and wrasses swarming the place. I would strike Desjardini and rabbitfish from the options for option 1. They all get HUGE! I'm sure the emperor will probably need to be rehomed eventually too when it starts becoming a full size adult... but that's just the perfect excuse to upgrade and turn that closet into a tank room.

PM'ed

Well if your tank comes crashing down in a heap of glass and rock... then I'm pretty sure OceanTraveler came up with the idea. [emoji14]

Plastic dip? Just doing my volume shooting of ideas again. [emoji24]

The rhinining on my stand is awesome. I'm glad the previous owners did that. They even laid a plywood bottom to the stand and had it rhinolined with it to be able to hold water. Sascha had a good idea with lining the interior of his stand with bathtub liner and stapled it to his wood stand. LineX is another brand of rhino liner you could look into to as well as the spray on bed liner in a can if you wanted a DIY option. Scott the welder I believe knows a guy that can powder coat the stand for you as well but it's pretty expensive I believe.

That's great that the welder worked out for you. I thought he was a great guy and did great work with the modifications to my stand. I would check out some of the "offroad" stores in town and see if they can do it.

I use their website as my unofficial reference guide to identifying coral.

I might have some old DE 250 watt bulbs laying around. I'll check later this afternoon.

Per a good basketball analogy... I'm more of a volume shooter. I just throw a ton of ideas out there and hope a couple hit their mark. [emoji6]

Haha, you called me out! I've had placeholder corals on the left side of my tank for awhile now. 12" in diameter screaming green birdsnest colony, 9" in diameter purple stylo colony, 8" in diameter kryptonite candy cane colony, and a 5" in diameter pagoda cup. They will all be making an exit from my tank sometime late Spring or early summer to make room for some new mariculture colonies. I just wanted to make sure all my current SPS were happy and growing before spending the money on some more mariculture. I usually get my mariculture from Austin Aqua Farms, RCA, and Nikos. I may look into Battle corals as well since ol ' Aggie had a great experience with them. I'll hit you up when I'm thinking about it if you want to join in.