Christy's 180 build

[Lance]

I know I've said it before but that is the brightest mushroom I've ever seen! And of course I'm happy to see Old Purple again. What did you do, go back to the old camera?

[christyf5]

I got the portal from progressive reef. I think it was $80. Its pretty cool, I have no idea who makes it. Oh wait, I wrote it down somewhere. Its made by ivsportal.com I've never heard of them. Its kind of cool though as its magnetic so you can move it on the glass and it also sort of acts like a mag float and cleans the glass as well. I have no idea if the side in the water floats though, I haven't tested that yet :biggrin:

[christyf5]

I know I've said it before but that is the brightest mushroom I've ever seen! And of course I'm happy to see Old Purple again. What did you do, go back to the old camera?


Yeah those mushrooms are pretty cool but way too prolific for my liking. I now have them in about 4 different areas. The purple tang is just luck of the draw, same camera but who knows where the blue is coming from, I don't have any actinics on this tank. However, I did just change out the bulbs to new Ushio 10Ks. They're definitely bluer than the old 10Ks. It always amazes me how yellowy they get without me noticing until I put the new bulbs on :biggrin:

[christyf5]

Your tank looks good! Even if it looks like crud. Lots of pretty crud !

Thanks Kien, I tried to stick to the pretty crud versus all the reddish slimy crud and that other crud we call detritus but is really just fish poop :razz:

Oh I forgot to post a pic of my little garden. I'm cultivating caulerpa for fun, ya know cuz I'm so bored with reefing I felt the need to branch out...

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b365/christyf5/Feb%2018%202012/IMG_0460.jpg

[lastlight]

With corals that nice you've got no case. A tank is as nice as the corals in it so I'm afraid your tank is pretty damn nice :)

[marie]

.....

Oh I forgot to post a pic of my little garden. I'm cultivating caulerpa for fun, ya know cuz I'm so bored with reefing I felt the need to branch out...



I've been cultivating a caulerpa patch and didn't even know it until it started spreading out into the sandbed. I traced it back to the rock and pulled a thick 2" clump out from underneath a mushroom.......on the brightside it is a particularily attractive form of caulerpa :lol:

[Chowder]

Tank is looking great Christy. Some great pieces in there.

Chris

[fishoholic]

Looks good to me. Have to say that portal thingy is cool!

[Tom R]

Hi Christy

The tank is looking great.

Looks like you have a solid grasp of this Reef Keeping stuff.

Tom R

[christyf5]

Tank took a big hit last year. Fall of 2012 saw some hair algae move in after using a phosphate reducer that wiped out some corals. I suspect the stuff slowly leached out of the rock or something. Where it came from I have no idea, I haven't had hair algae problems since I started in the hobby. It started out as a small patch that I wasn't worried about as the fish picked at it and I thought they'd take care of it. I didn't pay much attention and then the next thing I knew it was everywhere. By february the tank looked like this:

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b365/christyf5/IMG_1109_zps63653e06.jpg (http://s23.photobucket.com/user/christyf5/media/IMG_1109_zps63653e06.jpg.html)

I went on the hunt for a seahare and ended up sharing one with another local reefer, her tank was smaller so she took him first. By the time I got him into my tank though, I was already losing corals as I couldn't get the algae pruned and scrubbed fast enough. The seahare finally went in and cleaned every last bit of algae from the tank over the next few months, and I mean EVERY last bit, even the turf algae and various other algaes I've had for ages. It was like I had started out with new rock. Crazy awesome. However I didn't have very many corals left. By then I had a new baby to deal with and tank maintenance was chucking some food at the fish nightly (if I remembered) and it wasn't long before the cyano set in and the last of the SPS were on their way out. I have 2 colonies left and a few LPS. The tank was looking pretty bare and it was pretty depressing. I finally decided to give it another go. The fish are sticking around so might as well have the tank looking decent :wink:

So heres the tank as it looks tonight. I added a bunch of frags courtesy of Brad on Sunday night and I will be working on getting the last of the cyano out of there. Turkey basting and waterchanges etc. Fun stuff.

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b365/christyf5/2014-01-06%2017.02.30_zpsuxscdhmt.png (http://s23.photobucket.com/user/christyf5/media/2014-01-06%2017.02.30_zpsuxscdhmt.png.html)

Man that is a crappy photo. Looks ok on my phone LOL! Anyways you get the idea :razz:

[Aquattro]

Looks great, won't be long and it'll be back to what it was!

[gregzz4]

Holee molee, from here it looked like your tank was being over-run by GSP :surprise:

Glad to see you had some time to deal with stuff and hope it turns around for you (baby aside)

[kien]

ooh, looks sparkly clean ! And so much real estate potential :-)

[Delphinus]

Nice to see a bit of the purple Dory :)

Good luck with the new frags!

PO4 is the bane of a reefers existence (I'm sure it's not alone but it's certainly up there.) There are times I wish I could afford my own seacan of gfo and then I could not feel misery doting it out half-cup by half-cup each week :lol:

[christyf5]

Ok reef-wise the last couple years have sucked. Big time. After the clearing of the GSP things were okay for awhile but having a couple kids really takes time away from the tank. It did okay for awhile but eventually I lost pretty much all of the SPS (save a couple pieces) and about half the LPS due to various issues, none of which I can seem to recall due to severe baby brain.

Anyhoo, its been awhile and I'm doing the yearly "kickstart the interest in my tank" so here we go.

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b365/christyf5/jan%202015/IMG_3343_zps801cd66d.jpg

I've restocked the tank a couple times without success. The ricordea and mushrooms have attempted to have their way with the tank. I've attempted to tame the mushroom population but pretty much left the ricordea alone. I used to have about 5 different colors of ricordea but the orange ones have outcompeted almost everyone at this point and there are only a handful of the other colors left. The two yellow acropora colonies are the sole survivors of the hair algae outbreak of 2012 (which is slowly returning on the right hand side of the tank).

All of the fish are doing well, at some point I lost the filefish. No idea when that happened and no carcass was found. I lost the royal gramma as well. There was no indication that they weren't doing well. They were there and then they just weren't. Currently, the regal tang is going through some sort of issue. I'm not sure if its old age or what (he's almost 12) but he appeared about 3 weeks ago as skin and bones and unenthusiastic about live in general. Upon feeding the tank the usual pellet food, he was only moderately interested so I broke out the big guns: frozen mysis. That seemed to do the trick and in his usual way he has convinced me that I need to feed mysis at least 3 times a day to keep him happy. He has since turned around and is starting to slowly regain weight and look half decent. I say only half because he's a pretty battered looking fish and has lost a lot of the darker coloring around his face over the years. He's no cutesy Disney Dory thats for sure (although he certainly fits that character).

Ugh, I can't upload the rest of the photos. I wish we had a "save post" function. More later :)

[lastlight]

it's just good to get an update at all welcome back to your journal lol. sorry to hear about your regal but hopefully things continue to improve. 12 years is crazy awesome!

[gregzz4]

Sucks to hear about your losses but glad to hear about the 'kickstart'
I've run across fish boredom with pellets before. In my case it's usually an indicator to buy a fresh container as I can't even use up a pair of 125 gram ones in a year - too many other foods
I keep it in the fridge but it doesn't last forever, and I feel it gets stale in the autofeeder

[christyf5]

it's just good to get an update at all welcome back to your journal lol. sorry to hear about your regal but hopefully things continue to improve. 12 years is crazy awesome!

thanks! I think so too, I thought maybe he was just advancing towards his "golden years" but it would appear theres some life in him yet! :)

[christyf5]

Sucks to hear about your losses but glad to hear about the 'kickstart'
I've run across fish boredom with pellets before. In my case it's usually an indicator to buy a fresh container as I can't even use up a pair of 125 gram ones in a year - too many other foods
I keep it in the fridge but it doesn't last forever, and I feel it gets stale in the autofeeder

that is quite possible, I don't think my jar was open for more than 6 months but who knows. My concept of time is kind of out there these days. I have a new jar on the go now though, just cracked it open a few weeks ago. Frankly I think the little turd is just more interested in mysis. I used to feed it exclusively until about 6-12 months ago (again that time thing) when I just found I didn't have the time for it and it was so much easier to just chuck some pellet in. All the rest of the fish are fat and happy and now thanks to the 2-3x daily mysis feedings are looking quite portly :razz:

[christyf5]

the other pics I was going to upload. They ain't the prettiest but I had about 5 mins before my youngest came downstairs to find me (again, there is just no escaping that kid :razz: ).

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b365/christyf5/2014-12-30154229_zps90d702c2.jpg (http://s23.photobucket.com/user/christyf5/media/2014-12-30154229_zps90d702c2.jpg.html)

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b365/christyf5/2014-12-30154241_zpse7f3597c.jpg (http://s23.photobucket.com/user/christyf5/media/2014-12-30154241_zpse7f3597c.jpg.html)

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b365/christyf5/jan%202015/2014-12-30154253_zps55aab939.jpg (http://s23.photobucket.com/user/christyf5/media/jan%202015/2014-12-30154253_zps55aab939.jpg.html)

Back in March my 4 year old squamosa was having issues and I realized it had a broken hinge. TimT suggested I doctor it up with a piece of velcro (http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=106102) and he's still going strong (yay!).

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b365/christyf5/2014-12-30154315_zpsf086dce2.jpg (http://s23.photobucket.com/user/christyf5/media/2014-12-30154315_zpsf086dce2.jpg.html)

[Delphinus]

Your tank looks way nicer than mine these days! So at least there's that.

And actually, I can't stop looking at that squamosa. It's looking great, nice and open, good colours..

[christyf5]

Your tank looks way nicer than mine these days! So at least there's that.

And actually, I can't stop looking at that squamosa. It's looking great, nice and open, good colours..

It is pretty happy these days, hopefully it can keep growing without any more "surgeries" or replacement of that velcro