FarmerTy

A monster like that... who needs biopellets. It'll probably suck out all the nitrates in your tank just by itself!

Yikes! Make sure you poke air holes in that box for it to breathe! If he's too pretty, I'm going to tell you his foot attached to the bottom of the tank and you'll just have to sell him to me now.

Excellent closing remarks Planeden, you might have a successful career as a trial lawyer! Let the record show that my head is oval, Makena is funny, and the defendent is an astronaut.

I look like a young, asian Cuba Gooding Jr! Show me the money Jerry!

I could host a giant clam but not sure about the room for a ton of colonies. My rockwork is simple and I have a giant 10" x 24" gap in the middle of my two rock islands that a giant clam could make himself comfortable in for a few months.

My 2 cents... the ich is symptomatic of a larger issue... thereby allowing ich to attack the weakened and stressed fish. To me, removing ich from a system is like trying to remove GHA or cyano. Good luck with sterilizing your whole tank and trying to keep it that way. It's just unnatural to me and more work than I think its worth. I've have ich outbreaks in every one of my tanks when I first set them up... and IMO, if a fish died, I was able to trace back to something else that caused the stress in the first place that allowed the ich to set in and finally push it over the edge. When I upgraded to the 210-gallon, my fish looked woolly from all the ich on them. They were literally covered from head to tail with ich... had a shaggy appearance to them. Did any of them die? No... well, I take that back, my powder blue that I added died but that was because of flukes. They all kept eating and survived it. Once they acclimated to the new tank (and unknowingly to the super high salinity), they recovered nicely. Do you know your parameters? Are they being bullied in that tank by your goby/pistol? Do they have a place to feel safe (anemone, euphyllia, GSP, etc) where they can hole up? Parameters-wise, what do you have for the following: -Salinity -pH -PO4 -NO3 -ammonia -temp And also, have you had those numbers double-checked with a LFS or another reefer?

Bwahaha, okay, you're hired after that last one Brian! Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk

Welcome to the club and at the same time, sorry for your loss! I take fish deaths pretty hard too... they become part of the family eventually.

Not you too el jefe! Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk

The lightning took my arm!!! Why!?! How will I frag with only one arm? No more Ty frags!!! The horror! Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk

I thought it was brownchickenbrowncow?

I was a thermometer purchase accomplice as I happen to be in the LFS at the time. So... about those floating bags of ice I was mentioning. Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk

I don't have one for you KimP but the Skimz' ones are awesome!

Just like coral spawning in the wild... synchronized...

I think green means go! Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk

He's got more coral frags in his tank than I have in my entire 210-gallon! Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk

Glad everything is transitioning well! Thanks for checking that salinity for me!

58? Wuh? Do you float bags of ice in your tank?

I like the coralife tongs as well. They are essentially my bionic reef arms. They come in various lengths too and the grip is a soft rubber so they don't damage SPS frags... extra bonus. Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk

I have one frag left with your name on it. PM'ed. Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk

Looks like a green surhaisoni. Gorgeous piece! Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk

Looking good! Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk

Don's tank is amazing, one of my favorites in Austin for sure. When I saw his, that definitely tipped the point for me believing it can be done with LEDs. I have no doubts though that we put T5s, MHs, LEDs, heck even VHOs, and it will still look amazing! That is just purely down to husbandry and stocking choices. Don has primo SPS in his tank only and he makes sure he gives them the best environment to grow. To me, on his system, the lights are an after thought. Plus, that giant achilles makes me forget there are even corals in there sometimes. To me, that's more kudos to Don and his meticulous creation of his reef tank, than purely just LEDs. For me though, he's my gold standard for an LED lit tank in Austin that focuses on SPS.

My thoughts are this. Initially, it was a question of whether LEDs could even keep SPS corals. I think that question has been answered fully, else we wouldn't have local tanks like Juiceman's, Don Duncan's, Richard L's, and the myriad of others that have been using LEDs over their tanks for quite some time and keep a lot of SPS successfully. Do they keep them better than MH, who knows... and honestly, if nobody can tell right now, then who cares. To me, that means that they can perform the same function and its just merely down to preference, or as Sascha highlighted, economic pressures. If one was superbly cheaper than the other, with both giving roughly the same results, then to the cheaper option the crown goes. My preference between the two is MHs. Just purely preference based (okay, a tad economically-based as well since I don't have $1k-2k to drop on new LEDs right now, I'd rather get a larger CaRX) but I just enjoy the full spectrum lighting more. It might just be in my head, but to me, I see gradations of color better with MHs versus LED tanks that I've seen. It's no knock on the tanks as they are stunning, and the LEDs really make the colors pop on the SPS, but to me, I miss out on the subtle changes of color... the more natural look... the subtle hues of color... that I feel you lose out on with LEDs since they are so spectrum-specific in their color reproduction. The best analogy I can think of is digital versus analog... you want 420nm on LEDs, here it is... bam, exactly 420nm. You want 420nm on MHs... you get some 410nm... some 430nm... etc. You get the full spectrum with the focus on 420nm but also everything close to it as well. I may be rambling here, but I feel like there is much to be appreciated in between the wavelengths we desire and the wavelengths we also get in a full spectrum lighting source versus a more precise lighting source like LEDs. To be honest, I actually prefer the colors of SPS I see under T5 the best, but I just don't want to pay for 8-10 bulbs each year at $25/bulb and it drives me nuts that you have to have every bulb perfectly positioned or it won't turn on, but that is another gripe for another thread. I appreciate people's passion for one lighting technology or the other... for me, I'm not a fanboy of one or the other. I just appreciate what I get from my MHs and if someone gives me some free LEDs to throw over the tank, I wouldn't turn them down either. If I like the look, I'll keep it. If I don't, I won't. It's that simple... either lighting choice though, I know it'll grow my SPS and they will look good under either lighting, it's just whatever my preference may be for the look of the tank.

Kim, I love these videos! They are awesome! Are you reading from a teleprompter in the first part of the video? I can't believe how you can remember all the dimensions for the video. Big fan of a Jonathan sighting in Part 2 this time and the blooper reel at the end. Ready for Part 3 when you got it!