gizmoody

Beth, I have two pumps forming part of a closed loop system that are rated for 640gph and 320gph. I also have a Vortech MP40 running at 60% power in wave crest mode. The MP40 really helped to get flow to a few dead areas and now I don't have issues with cyano bacteria.

My Kole Tang was hiding between some rocks today lightly disturbing the sandbed and while I was checking it out visually it spawned!! It was kinda creepy because I felt it was something I wasn't supposed to see. Has anyone else seen this in their tanks?

Bellina polyp extension?

Blue hornets

I really like your tank and aquascape. It looks much bigger than 20 gallons!

Thanks dude!

Thanks dude! I'm already seeing some coloring returning daily. I have the alkalinity at 11 to lean more towards growth than color for now but good to see brown disappearing.

Front top angled shot Right angled shot Left angled shot Right side Left side I am waiting for some of these to color up again and start growing well. I am probably going to lose the ice fire and pearlberry frags. Man, I've have got to work a bit more with my camera to get the fish to be in focus. I am trying not to use flash. Oh well...

I am not sure if it is a typical crash, but my acros stopped growing, lost color, had bite marks and some died due to AEFW. It was terrible since most of my corals are acros and tank was "crashing" out of control. I tore the whole tank apart, took all corals off of rocks, some nicely encrusted and dipped for weeks. They were kept on the sand bed and most turned brown. I am not sure if I still have AEFW but all problems with acros have been reversed. I'll keep a close watch and have wrasses to help. I also took the opportunity to redo the tank the way I wanted it and correct a few other beginning learning mistakes that were annoying. I wish I had a quarantine tank but I don't.

Thanks Maureen! Same here. Just wish the new Red Sea Max 500 and 650 weren't over $5000...

This tank is really looking great especially with corals growing in so well.

Thanks Ryan S.

Thanks Steve. Sorry for confusion, the Red Sea Max 250 tanks have 6 39 watt t5 bulbs in the lid. You can see the color of the t5's below (ATI aquablue special, blue plus and purple plus). There are also 9 or maybe 12 blue led's for moon lights. If you are in the Rockville area, drop me a line and stop by to check out the tank.

Time for an update. If my tank crashes anytime soon I don't think I will have the willpower to continue after my recent disaster and work put into this tank. Tank before I took all the corals and LR apart: Tank during my disaster: Tank yesterday, 18th March, 2012: Let me know what you think. I have no idea what to think since I stare at it everyday to the point that I can't "see it" anymore, if you know what I mean. It's hilarious that the rocks look almost exactly like the first week I added LR just over a year and a half ago! Thanks for looking.

Repping Rockville MD over here.

Those look great! I especially like the third. Need more!

I try very hard to keep at 160. That's about 50 mls/day alk dosing. The Red Sea Coral Pro Salt I use has a kH of 12.2 which is apparently good for fast coral growth. My kH is never that high though.

Thank you very much guys. I notified everyone in that sale thread. The last thing I want to do is spread pests. I have dipped twice so far the acros that were infected (ones that could detach) as they seemed to be localized to and may have come from two that I bought recently. I used FE and also I've cut back feeding and my six line wrasse is back to eating anything off of corals. This scared the crap out of my when I saw those bitemarks and working hard to remedy it. Since I haven't seen any with my macro lens anywhere and have been treating I though I was done. However, that now seems like maybe wishful thinking. Selling with pests wasn't my intention as I just need to get rid of corals since they are growing fast. It wasn't intentional and pologies to all and if you have any other advice (yep, I have read the hundreds of threads on RC) that works for you, please let me know.

Thanks dude. I may have to "snap" bits off soon. Thanks. I am used to looking at my tank everyday and would stop seeing it if you know what I mean, so pictures give me a 2d slightly different perspective so I can see the big picture, the whole tank. I also look at the reflection in a glass door next to it. Try looking at your reef through a big mirror and you might be surprised at what you see. So I took the pictures to help me decide what I wanted...and blog. www.redseamaxreef.com. Yeah, changed around the rocks too many times. In such a small space if you don't have the right sizes and shapes like in my tank, it's hard to get something pleasing....so yeah, I rearranged too many times. I am still not happy.

Dude, how do they become a pita? I was just happy to see it grow but now that you mention it, this green monti grows fast! What should I be worried about and how do I prevent it now? Any advice appreciated. BTW do you live in Bowie? My sister lives there.

Added the powder blue last and they get along, swim together and only once in a while there might be a one second chase. Great fish, but since I can't upgrade, they'll have to go to a bigger home. Thanks everyone for the comments. Treated for flatworms (the opaque ones, not brown) with Flatworm exit today. I had dipped 3 corals a week ago in Coral Rx that seemed to have flatworm bite mark/loss of color and I couldn't believe it...there were a lot of those suckers falling off. Hopefully Flatworm exit has done it's job today with a whole tank treatment. Thought I saw some floating around.

BTW this was in June 2011 but it might give a better perspective of the size of this glass box for holding expensive water.

I have never come across a gallon to inch of coral ratio like fish to gallon ratio, as the important things to consider are light per gallon and distance from light source, water flow and if you want to supplement calcium, magnesium, alkalinity and/or kalk when things start to really grow. I looked at other peoples' tanks with corals on the web and saw what sizes the corals I wanted to get or acquired could grow to. Small frags take a long time to grow and the bigger the coral the faster it seems to grow (proven by scientific papers). I made the mistake of placing corals too close even when considering size. I didn't realize that they all seem to grow differently based on flow and other things. You've got good advice above already. My best advice is glue your corals to small rocks and then glue those to your big rocks. This way, you can always move corals around without having to deal with encrusting on large rocks. Intercepted those bad boys and girls and their eggs a few months ago. Now I have flatworms. I got them when they were tiny. The idea was to upgrade by now, but circumstances prevent that and those tangs are growing. They still have space but I don't want to stress them. Unfortunately, I'm going to have to find new homes probably with WAMAS members who can take great care of them. :( Don't know how in the world I'm going to catch them!

Wow! Thanks for all the great comments! I started in August 2010 so it's been about a year and a half. I had about 6 months (about 6 months ago) where nothing grew and corals died due to low alkalinity that I didn't catch and a whole lot of red bugs so you wouldn't believe how happy I am to see growth. At this rate I think it'll be completely filled in about 6-12 months from now. It's just a 65 gallon tank. Does it really look that big?! Should I drop the tank progression shots in this thread? If you click on the pic you can see them on Flickr also. Only if anyone is interested though.

What do you think? Need to get rid of that large GSP, Frogspawn, rock of Rhodactis mushrooms and valadia soon and frag that torch. Corals are finally growing in and I still have the urge to get more. Baby on the way so no upgrading anytime soon.