FarmerTy

What's DL Victoly?

Almost a decade as an environmental scientist, then decided real estate is my true calling. Haven't looked back! -Ty

I hope I can get the 210 sometime this summer... it will come just in time because I fear my colonies will outgrow this one soon! Fragfest!!! Thanks guys for the compliments... I will work on getting a better camera than my camera phone one day.

James, typically you will need to turn down your LEDs. Have a friend who experienced the same thing on his tank and after turning down his LEDs he is noticing his colors coming back. -Ty

Updated FTS because I got bored... the getting my SPS color back journey continues... but getting closer.

I have only experienced pods eating dying zoas... they are like the janitors of my tank.

Excellent pics! Look at those greedy little tentacles!

Glad to hear James. The plate is a pig so feed away if you want it to get big fast. -Ty

Sweet! Congrats!

gig'em, all my green plates have been tank raised in my system as well. I have had a producing parent plate for 3 years now that has produced over 40 plates consistently over that time span. I feel like a fungia farmer!

Unfortunately I don't have par readings on my tank Tim but they start out in a low flow, shady area in my sump until I see polyp formation (150 watt MH). Then I transfer them to the main tank under medium flow about 22" under 250-watt MH light/T5 light combo. Takes about 6 months to get a good sized baby plate about the size of a nickel (extended). I do see plenty of twin plates that seem to grow at the same point of attachment but once they get to a certain size, I separate them so they can form normally.

I have had 3 skeletons reproduce daughter colonies. Everytime, they all started producing them within 3-4 months. I just tossed them in my lighted sump/frag tank and check on it in a few months and presto... I am a fungia daddy.

All PMed, except Wildman. I think your inbox is full.

You got it Aggiemedic!

They are like the size of a small zoa polyp right now!

Nothing like baby neon orange fungia plates to put a smile on your face. Grow my little one's... grow! -Ty

Clearing out some more stuff so I can get my sandbed back! Pickup starts next Monday since SXSW will keep me pretty busy now through weekend. -Ty Green baby fungia plates - $15 silver dollar sized (inflated), $10 half dollar sized (inflated) - -all sold Heart-shaped fungia plate - $25, diameter of a baseball (inflated), 3-4 mouths, heart-shaped -pending Dragonfly zoas - 30+ polyps on frag disk, $25 -sold Mother colony AquaSD Dragon soul favia - 3 heads, $20 -sold Superman monti- fully encrusted frag disk, $20 (lost color since I put an SPS colony over it) -sold

Bomb that tank with interceptor! I got red bugs about 1.5 years ago from a fellow reefer... back before my stringent QT procedures were adopted. Interceptor took care of it though it did kill my pod population as well but the pods came back eventually... the red bugs did not since I bombed the tank the same week that I put the infected frag in the tank. I haven't seen a red bug since and I have tons of SPS! It works great. The bayer will kill everything on the frag itself but I always worry about the bugs not on the frag at the time I remove it. If it were me, I would set up a QT tank and put all new corals in there when they arrive and treat and monitor for 3-4 weeks for signs of pest. I would remove and toss the northern lights frag and let the tank run "acro fallow" until the new corals have finished the QT process. By then I would imagine that all red bugs and larvae would be dead by then but check their cycle online to make sure. -Ty

Thanks man! You are too generous sir to offer to take those annoying frags off my hands. Haha.

Now, what to do with all my little frags that broke off when I was doing my dippng campaign... I got a hot mess of little SPS frags (couldn't really even call them that... more like SPS encrustments). Look for something on the for sale forum sometime soon... need to get rid of them and reclaim my sandbed and frag tank.

Also, just for fun, if you ever wondered how a war coral got its name... (just turn down the volume unless you are a big fan of hearing water trickling into the sump)

Another quick update. Snapped some additional shots as my SPS are coloring back up nicely. They are almost there but still need a bit to go (at least they aren't brown anymore like it was post-dip). Slowly but surely I am getting my tank back! Please forgive the overproduced-ness of some of the photos. Was playing around with the photobucket in-house pic editor to get my phone pics up to par with what my actual eyes were seeing and some of them came out like coral glamour shots. LOL! My tricolor Right side of the tank Maricultured tenius (almost there, it was a little more blue and then had green rings surrounding the polyps) Vivid Strawberry Shortcake (the tips are the correct color, now just waiting for the rest of the coral to catch up) Center shot of my tank

I have observed that the star polyps nearest to a neighboring coral start to protrude spikes from the usual polyp "fronds". I don't know if these have stinging potential but I have seen it kill other corals that it touches. So yes, the cheap, weed-like coral can take a toll on neighboring corals... at least what I have observed. -Ty

I ran my RO/DI line directly into the container with a stop valve on the line and a float valve in the container. When the top-off water gets low, I open up the stop valve and let it fill up. The float valve will stop it if I forget to turn the water back off. No more buckets or filling up the top-off container. The stop valve is a must as otherwise your container will automatically fill up each time your top-off turns on. Those short periods of refill will get you the dirtiest water as the initial water coming out of your RO/DI unit is typically dirtier than if it is ran for a bit. Hence why I won't refill the container until it is almost empty. -Ty

I am very happy you kept the MHs! Big fan of the coloration from LEDs but I still prefer a MH-lit tank for SPS dominant tanks. Now you will have the best of both worlds. -Ty