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illumnae

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Posts posted by illumnae

    illumnae's SPS shallow reef

    in Members Tank & Specs

    Posted

    Now that everything is finally set up and running after the reboot, it's time to share the scape!  After the Dino nightmare I bleached all my existing DE Rocks and reused them for the rescape.  As I have a long term back injury, I'm not physically capable of lifting heavy rocks into my tank and bending over to scape them.  That's why I always need help in scaping my tanks.

    The scape was actually already done up many weeks back, but I've been busy with cycling and the replacement of the sump and equipment.

    Here's Steven from Seasonal Aquarium hard at work:

    IMG-20170426-WA0005_zpseld53ewp.jpg

    Some pictures of the finished scape:

    IMG-20170416-WA0017_zpsevzzd7o0.jpeg

    IMG-20170418-WA0010_zps76jzl0ci.jpg

    I'll try and get some livestock pictures soon. 

    illumnae's SPS shallow reef

    in Members Tank & Specs

    Posted

    Expensive lesson learnt... made in USA is not necessarily better than made in China.  Hand tightening the screws on the Geo reactor caused it to cracking and leak.  It's entirely unusable now :(  I can't believe anything with decent build quality would cracking under hand tightening.  Now I got to find another calcium reactor and the cost of the Geo is entirely wasted.

    I think I'm really the unluckiest person on earth.

    IMG-20170518-WA0029_zpso2cm7ybk.jpeg

    illumnae's SPS shallow reef

    in Members Tank & Specs

    Posted

    So in my aim to get rid of all things related to AM in my reef, I got a new toy...

    20170430_130430_zps3u7prpsw.jpg

    Last item to remove is the calcium reactor.  Any recommendations for a good one with a small footprint?  Hope to be able to get one before I replace my sump in 2 to 3 weeks.

    illumnae's SPS shallow reef

    in Members Tank & Specs

    Posted

    Oh, if you could tell by the blue hue in the Christmas FTS, I also changed the lights in the meantime!  I absolutely HATED the ATI and so decided to go back to the look I liked best - LEDs!  I know many of you out there swear by T5HOs and worship ATIs, but this is my personal preference la.  I was impressed by the reviews of the spread of Radions (the only issue with my previous Hydra52s was spread - which is why I bought into the hype and went with ATI T5HOs) so I decided to bite the bullet and go ahead with the change - after all why have a tank if every time you look at the light over the tank you get angry (I cannot forget the piss poor service from the distributor of this product)?

    Before:

    IMG-20170203-WA0008_zps0jvxrtzg.jpg

    After:

    IMG-20170206-WA0002_zpsoa8ookow.jpg

    I'm so so so so much happier with the new lights :D 

    illumnae's SPS shallow reef

    in Members Tank & Specs

    Posted

    It's been a long time without an update.  Long story short, I battled and lost against a very persistent strain of dinoflagellates.

    This was what the tank looked like last Christmas:

    PSX_20161210_014132_zpstrd8awkg.jpg

    Very unluckily, on the first day of Chinese New Year, super ugly dinoflagellates started to invade my tank and blanketed everything.  I tried every possible solution in the book (except the experimental to dose bleach with livestock still inside method) and nothing got rid of the dinoflagellates.  I even lost all my algae eating fish and invertebrates to the poisonous dinos.

    After 2+ months I finally threw in the towel and here's my tank as of 2 weeks ago:

    IMG-20170413-WA0008_zpsnufyvd3a.jpg

    I bleached everything including all my equipment to get rid of the dinoflagellate spores and am starting afresh.  Tank has been cycling since 2 weekends ago, and I just ordered a new sump as well - decided to go old school this time and include a refugium to cultivate more microfauna in the system and hopefully the chaeto will outcompete nuisance algae as well.  Inspired by recent BRS videos on the power of chaeto! :)  Waiting for the new sump will also give me the patience to go with a longer cycle this time as well to allow the tank to stabilize fully before adding livestock. 

    Just Sharing

    in General Reefkeeping_

    Posted

    So what are your thoughts on common names like "radioactive birdsnest" or even "strawberry shortcake" or "watermelon millie"?  All these names started when someone coined them out of nowhere.  Do you think that they should be sold as "neon green Seriatopora hystrix", "regular Acropora microclados" and "pink Acropora millipora with long green hairy polyps"?

    Ultimately reefers here coin names all the time.  Does the scientific community recognize what is a "rainbow blasto"?  Yet we reefers do.  How fanciful or plain do the names need to be before your objections are triggered?  

    It might not be such common practice here yet, but if you look up the websites of famous usa coral sellers like Battle Corals, Reef Raft USA, Cherry Corals etc, the weird names they have for their corals will make your head spin.  And you must remember even our common coral names like "pikachu", "wolverine" and "strawberry shortcake" came from these online retailers at some point in the past.  So again, as these older more conservative names were "allowed" into the market, where do you think the line should be drawn in the local hobby?

    In my personal view, if an already named coral is given a new fanciful name then that is wrong.  However, given that wild unnamed corals are plentiful here, there's nothing wrong with a name being given to help identify the coral.  If that name gains traction in the market then good, easier for us hobbyists in the future.  If not, who cares?  It will fall into disuse in future.

    • Like 1

    illumnae's SPS shallow reef

    in Members Tank & Specs

    Posted

    On 10/12/2016 at 8:08 PM, sharonleong said:

    May i know you did mention the scape is done by steven. Did you do up together with him?

    Nope, he did it for me

    11 hours ago, ReDDeviLs said:

    nice clam! 

    your camera setting dont seems to do justice to your corals bro.

    Haha please come down and take photos for me shifu ^_^

    illumnae's SPS shallow reef

    in Members Tank & Specs

    Posted

    So the tank is slowly recovering from the pH crash.  Thankfully corals are responding well and kH/calcium consumption are starting to rise again.  They were 0 for a couple of weeks after the crash.  Still need to recover from the browing that occurred during the crash, so colours are not optimum.  

    Managed to take some photos to share during water change yesterday.  Some things I noticed during phototaking:  1. The Red Planet frag was entirely pink when I got it, but despite being at the highest spot in the tank under the LEDs and within full blast of the T5 tubes, it's still turning green.  Does that mean I need to lower my lights?  Currently the lights are 12" above the water line.  Previously when the lights were 7" above the water line, corals were bleaching. 2.  It's damn hard to capture the glowing light blue lines of my clam - they appear dull in the photo.  Do I need a yellow filter to capture?

    Ok enough talk, here are some photos!

    PSX_20161010_181605_zpspwefuv72.jpg

    PSX_20161010_181840_zpsd3ijwikn.jpg

    PSX_20161010_181936_zpsyift47fe.jpg

    PSX_20161010_182040_zpsvyswni0d.jpg

    PSX_20161010_182307_zpsesei0r4v.jpg

    PSX_20161011_092319_zps6leaj27a.jpg

    PSX_20161011_092428_zps8cdye4qk.jpg

    PSX_20161011_092526_zpsazdajuxz.jpg

    Here's a lousy FTS:

    PSX_20161011_092840_zpszljijfnr.jpg

     

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