A few pics before the move

[christyf5]

Dang impressive Brad!!! I love that "windswept" birdsnest. Looks great One day you'll have to tell me your secret for getting your corals to grow so fast. I'm still stuck in frag mode it feels like.

[Aquattro]

Thanks Christy. Really, no secret. bi-monthly water changes, Ca and Alk at proper levels and low nutrients. Bright lights help, but only so much

[christyf5]

Hmm, I'm doing weekly waterchanges, ca and alk are spot on. Must be that nutrient thing as I seem to be growing algae rather well. No great surprise for me

[Aquattro]

Christy, do you have a sand bed? I went BB this time, and I can see the difference in growth from older tanks with sand.

[christyf5]

Originally Posted by reef_raf

Christy, do you have a sand bed? I went BB this time, and I can see the difference in growth from older tanks with sand.

No I don't have a sandbed, that was my final resort to get rid of the dinos last year. I have had great success since I got rid of the sandbed last May and will never go back to having one.

Guess I just need to deal with the nutrients issue now.

[Aquattro]

How much and how often do you feed the fish? And how many fish?

[christyf5]

jeez, I'm kind of ruining your thread here aren't I?

I feed the fish a 1cmx1cm chunk of frozen mysis every day. I thaw it out and drain off the liquid before I feed it. I used to feed a 5cmx10cm chunk of nori every day but have since stopped doing that and only feed it about 2x a week now. If everyone ate nori I'd stop with the frozen.

Currently I have a 4" regal tang, 4" scopas tang, 5" tailspot wrasse, 3" bangaii cardinal, 2-1" neon gobies and a 1-1" lined blenny. Mostly the frozen food is for the cardinalfish, he's a picky little bugger.

[reeferaddict]

Sorry to hijack... Christy, after looking at Brad's system... I'm thinking OUR nutrient issues are in the rock... Brad has very little comparitavely, NO refugium, ultra clean setup, WAY more flow and really minimizes feeding. I know I feed too much, and with your fish biology background you likely feed more than the corals should be exposed to as well. Brad's rock is very clean while both of ours has different stuff growing on and in it. Also in my case the sandbed... but I am going to get rid of it and add a couple more Tunzes while I'm at it along with 400 watt lights... I already removed the RDSB out of the sump... so my sump is now absolutely bare... I wasn't a BB fan... (Well I LOVE bare bottoms really!), but after seeing Brad's Porites encrust and a Monti filling in another big area that you can't see in the pics, I figured his isn't BB anyways!

[SuperFudge]

Very Nice Brad !

The Desalwii/Plana is insane....aswell as the Hoekesami(?)...i wish i could get that purple to come out on mine like that.

Thats one i could say thats stuck in frag mode for me aswell.

Very nice, and best of luck with your move.

Marc.

[Aquattro]

Thanks Marc! Ya, that purple really jumps out, hopefully it spreads to the rest of the tank