Matt's 29g Custom LED

Took a few pics tonight. :-)

I love this angle of my tank!


Still growing like a weed...


Still love these clowns. :-)

How do your zoas like the light? I've always heard they were low light corals but mine are being blasted just like the sps and they are spreading and looking great. Awesome colors. My LPS don't like the light so much even being at the bottom. I have a few favias that do better under the bright lights but the fleshier ones like Trachyphyllias and Scolys didn't take it too well.

My zoas do just fine but do seem to grow slowly. My keds reds seem to do well, but then recede, then grow well, then recede. All the others seem to be growing, but slowly. The best grower by far are the pink palys I got from you. The waving hand athalia stuff is just crazy. It's got to go before it takes over!

The corals that seem most upset about the high light is the meteor shower and the open brain. The open brain doesn't actually look upset or anything, but it's losing it's red and turning pink.

My favia is just a great coral. Doesn't seem to do any less than great no matter where I put him.

That was the problem I was having. The trachys looked fine but they lost the nice color and turned all glowing green. Since I moved them to the tank with t5s the colors are coming back. It's like from bottom up the colors are returning. BTW I lost my Keds reds just by moving them! They looked great and I relocated them to make room for an sps and they withered away as soon as I moved them. I've heard zoas don't like to be moved but those REALLY don't like to relocate.

Maybe that's it... I was trying to relocate them higher into the tank and they said no thanks. Might not have been the higher light, just the relocating. I was trying to get them to grow side by side with some snowflake polyps. I thought the red and blue would look great side by side. The snowflakes have really lost quite a bit of color under these LEDs though. They're growing well, but they're a tiny clove with a blue tint instead of that vibrant blue color they usually are.

Exciting new stuff for the tank. Got my new reactor and pump installed on the tank and a new fish! The clowns won't be in here for too much longer since they'll be moving to the 10g and I couldn't pass this guy up.

Royal Gramma



Lawnmower Blenny, I still love this guy. :-)


The new montipora colony. Sadly USPS beat the heck out of it during shipping. :-( It's got a little more red than yesterday. Hopefully it comes back full force in the next few days. They broke a lot off of all of the tips too. Curse you USPS! lol


New Full Tank Shot


The new Shorty NextReef reactor installed on the side of the tank, and my son Alaric checking out the tank. :-)


Purple & Red Blasto Frag (going to be a beautiful piece!)

The new chalice I won from the meeting is in and looking good. I wanted it up front, so I had to move a few things around to get it where I wanted it. Moved the duncan and the frogspawn over to the right. I had to move the duncan, the open brain and derasa were kicking it out! Here comes the eye candy...

New Chalice

Under Blue LEDs


Derasa & Open Brain


Great growth on this pink birdsnest


Snowflake Polyps - Already growing over the epoxy.


Clownfish Pair


Blasto Frag - It's lived this long... I think it's going to make it just fine! Looks absolutely beautiful. Can't wait until this is a nice colony of red & purple!


Candy Apple Red Zoas


Green & Purple Branching Hammer - When I got it (June 7th, my birthday... thanks Jason!) it had two heads... one has already split. It's got three heads now.

Everythings looking good Matt... your gonna need a bigger tank:)

Looking good Matt, I love those clowns they are really a ham for the camera!

Little text update. I haven't got the camera out in far too long. Everything is looking great. I need to increase my water changes a little and replace my Chemi-Pure and Purigen. I had to pull out a little two inch patch of GHA that started to grow this week.

All of the corals, clams & fish are doing well (except for the Lawnmower... found him on the floor... I think I'm going to build a canopy... it broke my heart). The Derasa clam is still doing it's insane growth deal. I seriously might have to get rid of it soon. The digitata and pink birdsnest are still growing insane. The more "difficult" SPS aren't seeming to take off. The acros and milli basically. They're just not growing as quickly, that might be par for the course though. :-)

Oh great, you tease you!
I start off my tank, and then...and then.. you say "Oh I may have to get rid of my clam"...yikes, it's a beauty...and here I'll have a tank ready..sometime..oh and look..it's got a space saying "reserved for clam", well ok it actually has about 3 spaces saying that, such is my liking for them.

OK what I'm saying is if my tank is ready and stable when you decide it's time for it to move, please let me know.

By the way, the cheato you gave me is Copepod nirvana, I have baby pods all over my glass, and the adults are scooming around the cheato.
At 50 eggs per day/pair of breeding adults, and several adults, I have areas by the rock that are teeming with the smaller ones.
With such fertility thine lady must live in fear!

Hahahahaha! Thats classic. I was barely awake reading your post until I got to that last line there. Hilarious. Thanks for the help waking up! Lol.

If I do need to get rid of my superclam I will absolutely let you know! :-)

Ok.. just becuase "I" wasn't up @ 1am... put me in-line on the clam...LOL

Oh it's not going anywhere in the next few weeks. But man at this rate I'll have a species only tank pretty soon!

Jason, you could think of me as just bringing it up through it's teenage years, before it moves on to settle in your swimming pool, I mean, your 2000G tank :-)

Finally took some pics!

Full Tank Shot


Sour Apple Birdsnest


Pink Birdsnest


Check out the Derasa Clam! :-)


Lord of the Rings Zoas


Goblin Fire Zoas


War Coral

Looking good Matt, that Deresa is amazing!

Wow... the Deresa really has put on a growth spurt, it's looking awesome.

Nice LED! That Clam is looking nice!

Amazing tank and great thread just finished reading through it lots of info just what I need Thanks a lot Matt.

Thanks for the compliments! :-)

Today I did a bit of work, cleaned the GHA up from the bad RO water, cleaned out my reactor and replaced my chemi-pure elite and purigen. Also grabbed a few frags from Tony (Grimreefer)... of course they were more like mini-colonies. Tony always exceeds expectations... always. Really loving the tank... and I'm starting to truly run out of room. I keep saying I'm out of space, but I never truly am. I'm guessing I could fit a few more in there. :-)

I purchased an MP10ES today, should have it going on the tank end of next week. Will also be getting in two part and starting to dose that. My cal/alk consumption is just too much for my water changes.

Took some pics. Enjoy.

First of all, Full Tank Shot - The Duncan wouldn't open up. I waited for awhile and it just wouldn't open for those 30 minutes while I had the camera.


I thought this was an interesting view of the tank, I took it while adjusting the settings of the camera to the tank. Came out nice! :-)


My Maxi-Mini Carpet Anemone - I hate the things I've lost to this guy (two anemone crabs & my barber pole shrimp goby named Lefty) but it's totally worth it. It's the absolute centerpiece of this tank when viewing in person. It doesn't look as great in the full tank shot pics for some reason.


My Derasa Clam - Still growing like a weed. Passed the Maxima Clam many times over!


Purple Acro that I picked up today from Tony (Grimreefer). He's calling this a frag! I'm thinking mini-colony. ;-)


Peach w/Green Polyp Milli I picked up from Tony today as well. Once again... great piece, good size. Love it! My favorite piece from today. :-)


Pink Birdsnest - Growing well. Looking great. Gotta get that piece of GHA out of it though. *mummbles about LFS selling crap RO water* New unit will be here in a couple of weeks. Thumbs up!


Sour Apple Birdsnest - I love the bright green tips on this guy... lights up from across the room under both whites and blues. Great piece.

Lookin good Matt. If you need some clean RO 'till your unit gets in, lmk

Thanks Jason. I shouldn't need too much. When I get the two part in I'm going to cut back a little on water changes. That new hannah phosphate checker showed I had undetectable phosphate, and I've had 0 nitrates since like week 3, so I think I can back off from twice a week! lol.

Nice tank and nice growth Matt. Looks like you thinned out the hairy shrooms a bit.