- [Reefman] Hi guys and girls.
I'm Reefman
and I wanted to give you the
February/March 2019 update on my aquarium and my reef
and how everything's doing.
There's been not really much new stuff added.
Worldwide Corals seems to have closed down
their platinum coral group or coral club.
So, no more interesting new coral every month.
But, we did get quite a few,
that's been doing pretty well.
So I've been very happy with it,
and we still have some of the original
unique corals as well in here.
But things have been growing really well, actually.
We have, like this, yellowish-green one
in the front here,
just six months ago was just a little frag
and now it's this big colony about the size of my fist.
Especially this green one has been growing super well,
just some kind of a random acropora,
but, really has been doing well for us in the tank.
Something keeps maybe nibbling on the ends,
I'm not sure what it is.
I've yet to see what it is that is biting the ends
of this coral, but some of the tips
look like they're bitten off, it's very strange.
The Tort is doing well.
I think Organ Torts generally grow pretty slowly,
so I can attest it's growing slowly.
But, doing well, getting some branches now.
It's expanding mostly encrusting out over the rock
more so than really growing out.
We do have some montiporas,
they're doing nicely.
I'm trying to get them to actually make the
swirling, the caps that the Capricornas does
but these ones happen to do that.
And of course, the blue spotted angelfish
and the clown fish always like to be in the frame.
I do have a Gorgonian here, it's been doing pretty well.
It's all closed up right now
because I changed water a couple hours ago,
but I feed it a few times a week, when I fed the acropora
and I just feed "reef roids" to it
and it seems to be doing well.
Getting some new growth and new tissue on it,
so I think it's happy.
The Achilles tang is still doing well,
still ruling the aquarium.
Its definitely the boss in here.
We got some zoanthids at, oh what was it, Reef-A-Palooza,
and they're still doing pretty well.
They're encrusting over this rock that we have them on.
And we've got some random frags still in the bottom,
including the only anacropora in the tank.
That green one is an anacropora.
So that's the only one that we've got in here,
and you noticed that it doesn't have axial polyps,
there's no polyp at the end of the branch on that one,
so its a sign that its not a acropora.
And of course it doesn't look like a montipora either
so then that gives you the key to it.
Our strawberry acropora, or our strawberry shortcake
or whatever you want to call it, the green and pink ones,
they have several names, is doing well.
This one, we originally got,
it's one of the oldest ones in here,
it started as just a little frag from Unique Corals
and its finally started to grow some additional branches
so we'll keep an eye on that one.
My favorite one in here is this one from Unique cor-
not Unique Corals, from the Worldwide Corals, coral club
they call it a blueberry gonzo acropora,
not sure what it is actually
but its a really interesting colony.
I had it down low and it wasn't doing much,
and then I moved it up to the top of this rock
where it think its probably getting somewhere around 700 par
and then good flow all around and its doing really well here
It has several new branches on it
and I'm really looking forward to seeing what it looks like
as a bigger colony.
In the back you can see another one
that is sort of a original coral to our tank.
This branching acropora of some sort,
if it will focus,
is one of the oldest ones in here
and its been doing a good job at growing and splitting off.
The individual branches of this one
are probably bigger than most of your thumbs at this point,
its really a very massive colony.
So that one we put in the background, you can see,
so its in the background and I think it will make a nice
sort of background view to the tank there.
In other news, coral and algae growing on the back
cause normal.
Our other frags are all doing well.
The only tabling acropora that I have,
you see sometimes in my videos.
This one's doing well, it was also a Unique Corals frag
from way back.
Then we have the starki damselfish and the coal tang.
And looks like some colonies got knocked over,
so I'll have to fix that.
The only chalice that I have that's really doing well
is this one here in the middle.
This is from Cali Kid Corals.
I think they are in Whittier, California.
If you're ever near there you should check them out,
or on their website as well.
Then we have some random frags on the frag rack,
some blastomussa and random things.
We are trying to grow this colony, this montipora colony,
on to this rock, its a really pretty colony,
it has kind of a metallic pink sheen and then blue polyps
but its not like a Superman montipora,
so, very interested to see what it looks like
as it grows out and grows across this rock
and I see its finally encrusting on it slowly,
I think it'll look really cool.
We have another colony, this little favitis I think,
from Cali Kid Coral as well, I forget what he called it,
some kind of a superhero name.
Our torch coral, our gold torch has been doing well,
euphyllia.
If we feed it, maybe it gets some food once a week
but nothing too much and its being doing well,
its been filling in its kind of little cave.
I worry that the fish that go through there
one day will brush a little bit too closely to it
and become a meal, but there has been no problems so far.
On the other side of the tank we have the millepora,
this was a frag.
It grew and then it died, but I was able to frag off
a little tiny section of maybe the size of your fingernail
and its grown into this nice colony since then.
Then of course we have this unidentifiable green acropora
that's doing well and some other random things.
The fish are all doing well.
Zoom out for a sort of a family photo there,
most of the fish at least.
The clown fish that I have are old enough
that they have laid I think one set of eggs
on the back of my algae scraper,
so that's always interesting to see.
The clown fish are really easy to get to breed
as long as you feed them nicely.
Other than that, the algae that I had trouble with before
is pretty much all gone, there are a few areas where
Cyanobacteria is growing in the tank, you may have noticed.
I am going to be adding some additional flow.
My plan is to get another pump and see what that does.
So right now I have two MP40's on each end,
what I'm going to do to try it out
is probably buy another one and then put one on the back,
sort of in the middle by the overflow and then I'll have
two on each side and one on the back.
So on this side I did move one of the old ones,
you can see where it used to be, and that one's on the back
and then I'll replace the one that's in the front
with the new MP40 when I finally get it.
Otherwise, yeah, everything is going well.
I'm still dosing Kalkwasser for calcium
and that seems to be doing enough to keep my levels stable.
I think I will probably need a calcium reactor
of some sort soon, because as all these corals
start to grow more and more tips,
there will be more and more demand for calcium
and alkalinity in the tank
and I think that will be unsustainable
using just Kalkwasser.
I do have one other interesting thing
its much prettier in the actinic light but back here,
sort of nestled in the back amongst all of the Cyanobacteria
we have these clove polyps
which are not photographing too well,
but they do have really pretty sort of neon green centers
and sort of electric orange marks in them as well,
so under actinic light, those are really pretty
and they've been doing well although we all know
how clove polyps like to take over so that's why
they're kind of back here where they can take over
the snail shell graveyard and not the actual rock work.
Well yeah, hopefully you enjoyed it,
I enjoy showing you all the stuff
that's going on in the tank.
Its not full of coral yet but its getting there
with a few more months or a year more of growth,
we'll have big huge colonies
and if nothing goes horribly wrong
I think the tank will be filled in.
So yeah, looking forward to it, hope it was interesting.
See you next week, bye.