Ricky's Reef

PAR Readings

2011-10-16T15:15:00.000-04:00

I broke out the PAR meter today to take some readings, here are my results with two 8 month old 250 watt Phoenix 14K metal halides and two 8 month old ATI Blue Plus 54 watt T5's.

6 Month Photo Update Part II

2011-10-11T22:59:00.002-04:00

Yellow Tang & Mystery Wrasse

Pink & Red Acan

Male Melanurus Wrasse


Pink Millepora

ORA Hawkins Echinata

Right Side

Male Filamented Flasher Wrasse

Tyree Purple Monster

6 Month Photo Update

2011-10-10T19:07:00.000-04:00

Banana Caroliniana

Green & Red Acan

Full Tank Shot

Male McCosker's Flasher Wrasse

ORA Pearlberry

Tyree Pink Lemonade

Reefermadness Rainbow Nasuta

Rocket Pop Hyacinthus

ATL Shades of Fall

Purple Turaki

6 Month Update

2011-10-09T17:39:00.003-04:00

My tank has been up for 6 months, here is an updated video, still not much to see yet.

Blue Zoo Aquatics

2011-09-08T11:50:00.004-04:00

I received my first order from Blue Zoo Aquatics and I must say I am very impressed. I have ordered from many online fish stores and Blue Zoo is one of the top online livestock stores available. All the fish and inverts I ordered were very colorful as I requested. The two flasher wrasses I ordered had their elongated dorsal fins intact and were flashing their vibrant colors. There were also no DOA's as I have encountered this with other online retailers. I also like the acclimation kit that is included with every order. I will definitely be purchasing from Blue Zoo Aquatics again!

On a side note, the dinoflagellates have disappeared after keeping the tank completely dark for three days and dosing hydrogen peroxide.

Dinoflagellates

2011-08-14T14:06:00.002-04:00

I have recently been battling dinoflagellates in my 120. I am running 500mL of Two Little Fishes NPX Biopellets but I am not dosing a bacteria product. I reduced my photo-period to 5 hours for the metal halides and 7 hours for the T5's. My skimmer has overflowed three times in the past two weeks which dumped nutrients back into the display. I am currently testing the new Vertex Generation 3 skimmer pump on my skimmer instead of the Bubble Blaster 3000, so far the skimmate production is much more stable and is almost twice as much! Surprising for a $70 Vertex pump vs. a $205 Bubble Blaster pump. I covered the tank and turned the lights off for three days and once the lights came back on any algae and dinoflagellates on the rocks were gone! Now, four days later they are slowly coming back. I am now topping my tank off with kalkwasser to bump the pH up and I am giving H2O2 a try. I am going to dose 0.5mL of hydrogen peroxide per 10 gallons of tank water the first two days then bump up the dose to 1mL per 10 gallons. I am hoping this will knock out the dino's within a week. Just to make sure my top off water wasn't adding nutrients to my tank I decided to test it. My tap water has a TDS of 238ppm while my RO water is coming out at 2ppm and my DI is 0ppm. I tested the tank water and the PO4 is 0.05ppm (Hanna checker) but I there is a thread on Reef2Reef about how even the Hanna checker values are flawed. My fresh RO water tested at 0.04ppm! I would have thought that the RO/DI unit would take out phosphates but I guess not.

July FTS

2011-07-24T21:30:00.000-04:00

New Top Down Shots

2011-07-08T16:23:00.001-04:00

Here are a few shots of my favorite corals that are beginning to color up.

Blue Gomezi

Reefermadness Rainbow Nasuta

Purple Turaki

ORA Red Planet

Rommel’s Ultimate Stag

Blue Hoeksemai

New FTS

2011-06-28T19:45:00.000-04:00

Finally . . . Corals!

2011-06-21T17:41:00.001-04:00

Here is an FTS and video of my 120 now with corals

Quick Video Update

2011-06-12T14:15:00.000-04:00

Not much has changed since the last video other than adding some more fish and inverts. Corals will be added later next week, stay tuned.

Eye candy

2011-05-12T15:36:00.000-04:00

Here some eye candy from the frag tank :)

Clownfish Breeding Project

2011-04-24T10:01:00.000-04:00

A friend who was breaking down his clownfish breeding system dropped off seven small Oscellaris clownfish and one large female Tomato clownfish yesterday. I'm not sure if I want to breed the Tomato or not but I will try to breed the Oscellaris. The Tomato is huge and was the female used to breed his Tomato clowns. Here are a few pictures.

The tank is cycled

2011-03-26T14:23:00.002-04:00

The tank cycled in six days and yesterday I added my ten Green Chromis to make sure the tank is cycled before I return the larger fish. The rockscape is not as minimalistic as I would've liked but it will allow me to place more corals and there are a lot of openings within the structure to allow for good water flow. Here are a few pictures to show you what I've been up to.

New Build

2011-03-18T14:17:00.003-04:00

Today marks the first day of the rebuild. Everything is up and running and the rocks are cycling in the tank. Within a month I can add fish and a few weeks after that I can hopefully add my first corals. Once things get going I will be starting a new build thread. I had a massive die off of fish when I moved everything over so I will be rethinking about what kinds of fish I want to restock my tank with.

120 Tear Down Update

2011-03-03T10:57:00.001-05:00

So far everything has been going smoothly. The tank is finally empty of coral and live rock. I still have to remove the sand and move to fish into the 40 gallon breeder where I will be quarantining my newly arrived fish. The live rock is currently being dried outside in the 30 degree weather before I re-cure it. The corals are doing well in their new frag tank and are beginning to color up. After removing all the live rock and seeing the mass amount of detritus release from the sand bed I am without a doubt going bare bottom in a few months. Removing the corals wasn't too time consuming, here are a few pictures.

Treatment Update

2011-02-15T21:27:00.000-05:00

I finished my first treatment of Interceptor on Sunday in my frag tank and I started my first dip of ReVive today. Surprisingly after dipping 200+ corals only one had AEFW (Eggplant Nana). AEFW seem to love Tri-Color's. I still have a long way to go but this is a good start. I added one tablet of Interceptor and let the tank run for 24 hours before hooking the airline tubing to the skimmer and adding the carbon back. I did not perform a water change because Interceptor is ineffective after 24 hours. When I dipped the corals in ReVive the dips are at the recommended strength and are dipped for five minutes. The Turaki, Lokani, Echinata, and Caroliniana are dipped at half the recommended dosage for three minutes because their tissue is very sensitive.

And the tear down begins . . .

2011-01-29T14:33:00.005-05:00

I started moving corals from the 120 into my frag tank. I moved all of the LPS corals and some of the SPS corals. I plan to have all the SPS corals moved over within the next two weeks. My buddy Jim came over to build me a top down viewing box, I decided to test it out. Here are the results.

It is also a great viewing box for dipping new frags.

Jim's 120

2011-01-08T01:12:00.000-05:00

Here is my buddy Jim's tank. He has a reef ready 120 gallon AGA aquarium, Super Reef Octopus XP-2000, Two Vortech MP-40's, eight bulb ATI T5 fixture, and a frag tank hooked up to his system.

120 Gallon Video Update

2011-01-03T09:57:00.000-05:00

Stan's one year update

2010-12-28T23:56:00.001-05:00

I stopped by Stan's house tonight to see what his tank looks like a year later, here is a video for everyone's viewing pleasure. He has switched his metal halides bulbs to 400 watt Radium 20K on IceCap ballasts. He is supplementing with Super Actinic VHO's on the 180 gallon. One of his frag tanks is lit by eight T5's and the other is powered by the 120 watt Evolution 20K LED.

Live Aquaria Diver's Den

2010-12-09T19:20:00.002-05:00

Here are some nice looking acropora's that I would eventually like to add to my tank.

Australian green Acropora Subulata coral with purple corallites $159.99

Bali Maricultured blue Acropora Hoeksemai $89.99

Bali maricultured pink and green Acropora Abrotanoides with bright green polyps $69.99

Bali maricultured blue and green Acropora Insignis $69.99

Australian super blue and purple Acropora Loripes $179.99

Fiji green, purple and pink Acropora Sarmentosa $79.99

The real deal, Australian blue Acropora Echinata $349.99

X-large Australian neon green Acropora Aculeus $199.99

Bali blue and green Acropora Loripes $99.99

Wild Strawberry Shortcake $399.99

Australian green and blue Acropora Loripes $139.99

Vivid blue and pink Acropora Millepora $99.99

Bali maricultured green with purple tips Acropora Loripes $89.99

Corals For Sale

2010-12-05T13:17:00.000-05:00

I have quite a few corals for sale as I'm breaking down my tank to rebuild it. Once I get rid of these pieces I will be able to start over. I plan to grow everything from 1" frags and to scrap the old mother colonies. I am selling the following corals. Feel free to email me with any questions.

SPS
$25 for any of these 1" frags
ORA Blue & Green “Cali” Tortuosa
ORA Green Birdsnest
ORA Chip’s Acropora
Sky Blue Turaki
Pink Millepora
Forest Fire Digitata
Purple Digitata
Turquoise Parilis
Orange with Blue Rim Montipora Capricornis
Pink with Blue Polyps Pocillopora
Green/Lime Pocillopora
Pink with Green Polyp Stylophora
Pink with Purple Polyp Stylophora
ATL Rainbow Cat’s Paw Stylophora
Tub’s Orange, Green & Yellow Birdsnest
Orange with Green Tips Birdsnest

$35 for any of these 3/4"-1" frags
ORA Red Planet
ORA Purple Plasma
ORA Hawkin’s Echinata
ORA Roscoe's
Upscales Microcladus
Greg Hiller Aqua Delight
Reefermadness Limeade
Rainbow Nasuta Ecto Cooler “Sunset” Millepora
Purple with Blue Tips Turaki
PP Purple Tri-Color Cerealis
Green/Pink Verweyi
Green with Blue Rim Montipora Confusa
Eggplant Nana
Purple & Green Miyagi Tortuosa
Lime in the Sky Acropora

$45 for any of these 3/4"-1" frags
Fire & Ice “Rocket Pop” Acropora Hyacinthus
Tyree Sunset Montipora
Tyree Superman Montipora
Tub’s Mystic Blue
Tyree Purple Monster (1 available)
Tyree Pink Lemonade (1 available)

LPS
2 heads for $20-$25
Green with Pink Tip Branching Frogspawn
Green Branching Hammer
Neon Green Trumpet

Zoa's
Montezuma's Revenge Zoanthid (3" rock $30)
Gorilla Nipples Zoanthid (2" rock $20)
Mean Green Zoanthid (fully encrusted on 8" rock $90)
Green Crossettes Zoanthid (2" rock $25)
Painted Desert Palythoa (7" rock fully encrusted $50)

Mushrooms
Green with Orange Spotted Mushroom (3" rock $25)

Soft Corals
Green Starburst Polyp (7" rock $50)

New Pics

2010-11-25T12:56:00.000-05:00

I chopped up the ORA Blue & Green Tortuosa, it was getting too big for the tank and need to be fragged. It was easily 12" across. I have the frags sitting on an eggcrate where the Tort use to be. Here are a few new shots.

Bubble Blaster 3000

2010-11-23T20:11:00.001-05:00

Today I installed the Bubble Blaster 3000 on my Vertex IN-180. The connection plumbing needed 1" I.D. PVC plumbing and a few minor adjustments but other than that it was an easy modification. This pump easily outperforms the stock Resun pump. I will post photos tomorrow.