Xmoji 57 Gallon Reef Tank

Looking good! I’m not sure how you’ve managed to be rational with this, when I think about needing more space my mind immediately goes to a bigger tank!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
SPS Spotlight:

Back in February I took part in one of WWC’s Live Sales. I have only ever taken part in 3 lives sales ever. I ended up winning/purchasing one SPS. That coral is WWC Nuclear Grapes.

I was super excited about this piece not just because of the coloration, which is what usually attracts me to a particular coral, but because of the thickness of the branches. After seeing WWC’s mother colony pic of the Nuclear Grapes, I was taken back. The branches of this SPS are a lot thicker than most SPS and they also grow in a very straight pattern. The base and coralites are vibrant purple and the polyps are bright green.

According to WWC this coral loves light. They have it very high up in their grow out tank. In an effort to duplicate WWC’s success I placed my piece in a very high position in between the two pucks on my AP700. The perfect position, my overflow box.

So far my growth has been moderate. I would say for an SPS it has a normal growth rate. I’m hoping that with age my colors will turn out to look more like that mother colony I saw so many months ago. As we all know nothing good happens fast in this hobby. The purple is pretty apparent in my piece but the green polyps aren’t quiet there yet. My growth tips show more green than anything. Only time will tell.

The first and second pictures below were taken July 2018 and the third is from yesterday, December 2018.

11a90c59b99d11befead8429cb5584dd.jpg

f6f9e8818d45ae501a87f0c09fb8c461.jpg

e10170976ef5fb8b690fdac9d232664f.jpg




Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
That's pretty good growth rate. In a couple of months, you can cut me a piece =P. The pink lemonade I got from you is doing great.
 
That's pretty good growth rate. In a couple of months, you can cut me a piece =P. The pink lemonade I got from you is doing great.

Glad to hear the PL is doing good, that coral is such a great grower and awesome colors. As for the Nuclear Grapes I’m waiting till I get better colors, I want to try and get the best colors before I stress out by fragging. :a26:
 
Hey reefers, so today was a lot of fun. Spent the morning with my wife finishing Xmas shopping. She then had plans with her lady friends which left me FREE!! Anyway I was able to take a trip out to a couple fish stores. One of my stops was Blue Line Coral. While the owner isn’t a stick guy I still enjoyed the store and the awesome one year anniversary sale he had. I ended up getting some dry goods and food but the true stars of my purchases today are a couple of characters who will definitely make my tank more fun to watch.

Symbiotic relationships in animals can be a truly special thing to see. Today I saw a goby and pistol shrimp that were paired at the store. I was very interested but someone had purchased them already. Fortunately they had other goby’s and pistol shrimp that weren’t paired but for sale. I ended up bringing home a Wheelers Goby and Tiger Pistol Shrimp.

At the LFS they were in separate tanks and never met before so in an attempt to kick start that symbiotic relationship I didn’t put them freely in my tank after acclimation. Instead I have a net breeder box that I put together and placed in my tank to introduce the two to each other in a more confined environment. Hopefully after some time, not sure how long yet, they’ll pair up and live happily in my tank.

In the net breeder box I placed two halved biomedia spheres and put some sand from my tank in the box. Immediately the shrimp went to work and started to push sand around. The two weren’t really close to each other for the first couple hours but they are now side by side in the sandy area of the box. There seems to be some chemistry between the two!! Time will tell if they pair up and hopefully by the time I let them go in the tank they stay together.
 
I like the net setup you have and it seems to be that they are starting to pair nicely.
Thanks, it’s just a cheap little box from Petco.

Good news is I transferred them into the tank a little while ago and they are sticking together!! I placed the halve biomedia spheres in my sandbed where I wanted the to burrow. Following that I scooped up both the shrimp and goby together with my hand and placed them in the spot I wanted them at.

First, they separated but quickly found each other. After they found each other the shrimp went to work and started to make their new home and burrow under a rock. The goby stood guard while the shrimp worked. Very happy with the outcome. I hope my method can help other pair shrimp and goby’s.
 
Good evening everyone! I hope everyone has had a great holiday season, now it’s back to reefing! So I have been busy buying coral the past couple of days. Being off of work has given me time to do some local and online shopping. I was able to score some sick pieces and some pieces that have been on my want list for some time so I’m super excited about them.

As you know, I have been slowly collecting higher end sps. Slowly changing my tank over to an even more dominate sps tank is really exciting. Fortunately, our Chicago Reefs forum has a par meter they loan out to Premium Members. I was lucky that it was available and Tom was able to send out for me to use. It’s been extremely useful as I now have concrete information on my AP700’s par output. I’m slowly making adjustments not to shock the existing sps. Using the par meter I was able to see how little light the back, sides and bottom of my tank were getting. Good this is I’m able to get about 380-400 in some areas of my tank but need to be patient and be careful not to kill anything!

As for some of the new pieces well here they are:

PC Rainbow
CRT Insidious
CRT Dragon King
RR Euphoria
ARC Fireworks
TCK King Acro
TSA Princess Peach

I will post some pictures of the new purchases later.
 
Here are some pictures of the new additions plus some of my existing collection.

ARC Fireworks
f77add7176a90f5e0f002005796ce80d.jpg


TCK King Acro - very green right now
122806e8a1112991ed5ee0d4f15c1a5f.jpg


TSA Princess Peach- very excited about this one
fc418396280ceb4306eaa00810ce0cca.jpg




Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
Blue Acro
ec3f0c49aeeab541b6bf221243089dab.jpg


Strawberry Shortcake
89a26f96471efd1c67eab12b5781702d.jpg


WWC Nuclear Grapes
bf2702289b912018e10be21b97038a59.jpg


Pink Lemonade
1c95e5cac92fd1cd06f7f9cd625d2996.jpg



Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
TSA Princess Peach- very excited about this one
fc418396280ceb4306eaa00810ce0cca.jpg


You won't be disappointed. I've gotten 6 or 7 pieces from them and they are doing great.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk[/QUOTE]
 
TSA Princess Peach- very excited about this one
fc418396280ceb4306eaa00810ce0cca.jpg


You won't be disappointed. I've gotten 6 or 7 pieces from them and they are doing great.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
[/QUOTE]
Awesome! Do you have the Princess Peach? If so what kind of light do you have it under?
 
Back
Top