Ritter's 75 Gallon Reef

I'm diggin this camera! Still not the best pics but I'm getting the hang of it.

The blenny, always photogenic,


Bird of Paradise, growing some tips already,


Ponape birdsnest, if everything grew as well as this I'd be out of room in my tank already,


Green birdsnest,


ORA Hawkins,


ORA Purple Stylo,


Green Milli, still growing but no PE since adding the Flame Angel,


Zoanthids,
Unknown,


Green Dragon Eyes and Fire and Ice,


Gorilla Nipples,


Orange BamBams,


Group shot under the blue leds,

That's a nice camera bud! Some very nice pics of some very nice coral. If you want the kind of focus that can even get clear shots of the polyps on your SPS snag a tripod and either use a remote so you don't have to touch the camera or put it on a timer delay so it doesn't wobble the camera when you push the button. I've got mine on a cheap tripod and put it on delay. The pics look fantastic!

Tripod is my next purchase. I would have bough one already but my wife says her Mom has an extra we can have. We'll see.

Check through your settings and work on the delay. When you take those pics with delay on a tripod every single pic you take has perfect focus. You'll love it! I love mine! :-)

I hope I'm getting back on track with my tank. The corals that survived what ever went wrong are doing great and growing fast. Tripod...it's much better.

Saweet! that War Coral is looking awsome Gabe.

Tell me it's time for you to frag.... Glad everythings coming back in balance. Great pics... you get a Canon? LOL

What's the purple with lime green centre and stems? A great looking specimen.

Yeti wrote:What's the purple with lime green centre and stems?

Neon Clove Polyps.

Looking great gabe. I never would have imagined the war coral would grow down and around the rock like that. Very unique, very cool. Tripods rock!

How's the frag rack area doing in your setup Gabe?

Did you ever develop your opinion on which of the LEDs grew corals better, the higher k's or lower?

I was going through your thread because I knew you had a Reef Octopus skimmer. Is it a recirculating? What do you think of it?

The frag area is doing fine but I ended up moving one of the par38's to Jaiden's tank so I didn't keep both of them down there long enough to form an opinion on which would do a better job growing corals. I will say for a display that I like the color of the 20,000k better but there is only one bulb difference in the two fixtures so don't think it would make that much of a difference in growth. I haven't put a lot of healthy frags down in the frag area lately. Most of what I have down there are rescue pieces from the little sps crash I had a little while ago. I gave most of the healthy frags away. The healthy ones are growing great down there.

I love the Octopus skimmer. There aren't any directions in the box so it took me a little while to figure out how to tune it in but I haven't done anything to it lately except clean the cup every other week. It's not a recirculating skimmer though. It's just an Octopus NWB 200. The only think I regret is that I should have bought the Octopus Extreme but the only difference is a better pump but the pump I have now works just fine. The skimmer pulls out some nasty gunk and I have no signs of cyano since I got it tuned in. I was experimenting with heavy feeding lately too and the skimmer cleans it all out no matter how much food I dumped in there. I quit doing that though and went back to my regular feeding routine.

Been a while since I posted any new pics. I pulled the kalkwasser and ever since I have the sps look better. Not sure what I was doing wrong but I went back to baking soda and things have improved. I lost a lot of sps but the ones that survived but were damaged seem to be recovering and the ones that never had any issues are growing well. I added a Crocea clam also.



Red planet is doing well.



Acans are doing fine under the leds. This colony has crazy colors under blue lights that you can't see during the day. With just the blues on it has blues, greens, purples, pinks and a gold color.



Montipora Setosa. This was one of the only Montis that survived my tank issues and it's finally starting to grow. I lost all monti caps and digitatas. The superman is recovering and the orange cap is starting to grow back from where dead looking skeleton was.



This is the orange cap that is starting to recover on it's own.





Not sure what got into this blue milli but it has been a nub for 2 years and suddenly is the fastest grower in the tank.



Zoanthids and palys are growing like weeds.



FTS

All I can say is WOW! Everything looks good Gabe so whatever you are doing now is working well.

Looks great! I see several things on my "Wish List".... !

That red planet and acan are gorgeous!

I wish I could keep my brain looking as red as yours. I'm going to keep it in for a few months when I start dosing and see if it colors back up... if not I'm going to go ahead and get rid of mine. It's nearly entirely pink now. :-(

Thanks everyone.

Matt, mine was bleaching too. I moved it to the 40 gallon and it colored back up. I just recently had a accident in the 40 gallon so I just moved it back. Mine may lighten up again but all my LPS have better colors now so maybe it won't.

Dam... just Dam! (So much to aspire to)

Thanks for the kind words Yeti.


Since I'm a glutton for punishment I added the GFO reactor again. The difference in growth is so noticeable in my sps corals when using GFO that I had to try it again. In just a weeks time I can see the growth on my sps improving. Since removing the kalk my water color and clarity has improved and I didn't even really notice it until I stopped using the kalk. Basically I'm back to doing what was working for me before and it's working again. My only problem is that I'll have to manually dose calcium now or work on some kind of dosing setup that doesn't involve kalkwasser.

First update pics of 2012.








Not much new going on but I like keeping track of my tank here in one place.

Tank is amazing Gabe! Looks good under those leds and I can see lots of new growth too, love the red planet.

Looks great buddy! Love your tank. :-)

looking good, I will be moving stuff around in my tank again once my wife's 65 is set up. Might have to try the GFO if you get that much growth.

Red Planet? ... didn't even notice it! LOL

Thanks for the compliments everyone.

J.Davis wrote:Red Planet? ... didn't even notice it! LOL

I hid it from you.

grawlfang wrote:Might have to try the GFO if you get that much growth.

Be careful with GFO if you decide to use it. It's so easy to over do it. I actually only run mine now for a few hours every now and then when I think I need it. Seems like every time I run it constantly it causes problems. I wouldn't run it at all on a softy or LPS tank. It increases my sps growth almost immediately though.