FarmerTy

Brief article on the historical demise of the Great Barrier Reef. **** you Pavona!!! http://www.livescience.com/24583-historic-great-barrier-reef-collapse.html

Tagging on to this thread... want to see if there are any big time SPS players out there that have had excellent long-term results from LEDs.

My brother has success with his SPS in LEDs as well. He gets pretty good growth. Can't really compare to other lighting options because there are many other variables than just light but he's doing just fine with his SPS as well. One odd thing I did notice is that his SPS when put in my system look completely bleached out, but in his LED lighting look amazing. I'd imagine the zooxanthallae adjusting to the light source but its just interesting to see the difference. -Ty

Updated list, added my baby fungia plates, and fragged the giant colony of fairy dusts to smaller mini-colonies.

Nice setup James! Now where's that drooling face emoticon at? I envy the in-wall builds!

He's always been cool with the club. Good guy!

Just a quick update, nothing happened at all other than some of my SPS colors got even better... funny... but that was because they were still recovering color anyways after I had that fight with dino's a few months back. I lucked out of this one!

Trust no one! There are pests everywhere!

UV super actinics are the way to go for actinic supplementation. I never used them for regular lighting, just for actinic supplementation. Shane at Fishy Business is the only one I know in town that carries them since he uses them on his large tank. I would call to see if he carries your size first before driving down. If you do drive down, it's right up the street from my house. -Ty

I use the Red Sea Iodine test kit once every couple of months. That's the only "other" test kit I use.

Yeah, my first reaction was a cali tort as well but it's hard to tell with the bluer cast on it from the picture. I thought you only had the actinics on so I was going to ask you to take a picture with regular lighting. I heard LED is hard to photograph but I have no experience with it. Coloration would take awhile to match if its a newly acquired piece... and I'll have frags of the same coral in different places in my tank look totally different. So... final answer.. I don't know what it is. Sorry! Haha. -Ty

YGPM Pecman!

I feel ya. Luckily tank capacity has gotten me now so I'm in an exchange mode with one species going out before one new one come's in. Looks like you won't be having a capacity problem with your new tank coming in. Definitely do a tank build thread and keep us in the loop so we can all collectively drool as a group! -Ty

Hi Sherita, What is this zoa called? It's awesome! Sweet pics btw! I'm jealous... my phone camera is not making the cut. BTW, I know you're a zoaholic. Neptune's Cove up in Plano has some pretty sweet zoas... pricey but you're a collector so I just wanted to mention. They will cut single polyp frags while you wait if you are interested. The store doesn't look like much but they have some cool stuff and they keep it pretty updated on their website if you want to check it out ahead of time. I didn't get any discounts on the price for pickup... internet price is walk-in store price but they have some unique stuff if you are a collector. Figured I'd mention since you are heading up to the DFW area anyways. Heard there are some great stores in Arlington which is closer to where you'll be in Ft. Worth.

1. daily pH swing - 7.9-8.2 2. Would prefer not to swing that much but causes no alarm on my part 3. Refugium runs 1am-8am, display tank runs 12pm-1am 4. Calcium reactor for alk/calcium , Ca=450 ppm, alk=8.8 dKh 5. 150 gals

Great find! Oh the jokes I am resisting to post on this matter... it's good to know inside of every grown man is a childish twelve year old that never grew up.

I put my carbon in a bag in my sump for about 1 week out of each month, in one of my baffles in my sump. In that area, flow is funneled and is faster than in other areas, but is not reactor speed or anything. I do that to minimize the carbon dust distribution in my tank.

I enjoyed the experimentation in this article with carbon. Good read. http://www.fishchann...d-carbon-2.aspx Below is the link to the research Mframe mentioned about lateral line disease and carbon use. http://www.advanceda...or-hlle-disease

No problem James. Nice meeting you too. Let me know when you want to drop by Sunday. Thanks!

Even crazier in person. Lots of personality and just beautiful... like a Midas Blenny on crack!

If only I could afford a blue spotted jawfish... they are awesome!

Thanks for everyone's input. I'll have to keep a close eye on the SPS today. I wasn't planning on even turning on my lights today and just start with a shorter photo period tomorrow for a few days and then go back to normal. I did this once too with an LPS/Zoa tank and the effects were immediate. I wonder though if half of the melting the first time I did this was more due to temperature spike since I didn't have a fan on that tank nor a controller.... Derrick - that's a good idea to use the Feed setups. I'll have to get my programming cap on and redo some of those Feed options. I think the fact that I didn't have a controller before and my temperature would swing 4-5 degrees in a day somehow helped build up tolerance in my corals for a day like today!

Hey ARC, While meeting some nice folks off ARC picking up frags, I decided to turn on my T-5 and metal halide lights manually instead of leaving them automatic. Lo' and behold, I wake up this morning to find that my lights had stayed on all night (15hrs), while my photo period is usually 7.5hrs of T-5s and 7hrs of MH. So, I basically cooked my corals for an additional 7.5 hrs last night, doubling their usual photo period, not to mention raised the temperature from a normal deviation of 81-82 to a peak of 85 in the tank! The thing that has be stumped is: 1) Why didn't my Apex shut off my lights once it hit my temperature threshold 83.5 for lights? Is it because I manually turned it on so it overrides any programming? I'm sure that's the answer but I just want to verify. Also, is there a way to override the manual on with programming to turn off if it hits 83.5? 2) More baffled by this one but... why didn't 7.5 additional hrs of lights (3 x 250watt metal halide and 4- 48" T-5 bulbs = total 966 watts) and a temperature rise of 3-4 degrees above normal didn't affect a single one of my corals... not a single one. They were all happy and fine, not a single sad looking specimen. Baffled. My fish were a little confused like they just pulled an all-nighter, but that's it! Leads me to some conclusions... a) my PAR in my tank is lower than what I think it is (bad reflectors? lights too far above tank -16"? old bulbs?) so 7.5 hrs of additional light didn't affect anything; b) my corals were used to a higher temperature already (I usually aim to keep at 82 degrees) so 85 isn't that far off; c) I'm the luckiest ******* today in the ARC community. I appreciate any thoughts or any other hypothesis/conclusions other than my own. Call me stumped! -Ty

Your welcome. It was nice meeting you too. Have fun stocking your new tank!

You beat me to it Jestep. Just wanted to make sure everybody was looking at the same thing here. Thanks man.