saltwater newbie attempting a 55 gallon reef

[BTB0923]

no problem still looking for ID on the macro can you describe more about it?

mr.reef24

Well, I don't know that there is much more to tell other than what you can see in the pics. The red stuff around my hammer coral seems to grow a bit slower than the blue/purple stuff around my zoas, but they both had an explosion in growth in the past three weeks, both at least doubling in size.

 

[BTB0923]

I got some new stuff I'm pretty excited about.

First thing I got is a new Seachem calcium test kit. The API kit I was using wasn't very consistent and far from precise. So far I am very happy with the new Seachem kit. Its giving me much lower calcium readings than the API kit was, but I trust it more.

I also got one of the new Stealth Pro heaters, which is awesome. I've used the regular Stealth heaters in my 180 for a while and I've only had one complaint...they don't have a light on them that tells you when they are on. The sweet thing about these new Stealth Pros is that they not only have a light that turns red when the heater turns on, but it also stays lit up green when the temp is ok. The light is in the knob on top of the heater that you can see in the third pic down.

I also decided I didn't like the constant direction of flow in my tank so I was going to rig up some sea swirls to move my koralia pumps around like Myteemouse showed a couple pages back.....until I found out how expensive sea swirls are. In lieu of finding some cheap used sea swirls I bought a couple more Koralias and a power supply that rotates power from one jack to another. Its works pretty good so far. If I had to complain about anything I guess it would be that the Koralias are a little noisy when they start up.

I numbered the pumps in the last pic. Every 20 seconds the power gets rotated to another set of pumps. Pumps 1 and 3 run for twenty seconds and then it switches to pumps 2 and 4 for 20 seconds, and then back to 1 and 3 again. It just rotates like that constantly. It creates a kind of wave effect in the tank so the corals aren't being pushed in just one direction all the time.

 

[BIGgourami]

dictyota?

i found a picture of looks like what you got... no ID though
http://nanoreef.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/bluealgae002.jpg

 

[BTB0923]

That looks a lot like it, but what I have is all blue/purple and that stuff seems to be kinda multicolored. Still a definite possibility though. I looked at some pics of dictyota and it seems to be a little too leafy.

 

[BIGgourami]

the flash from the camera may play tricks with the color, but w/e

 

[BTB0923]

I'm wondering if it might be some type of gracilaria. It looks a lot like the red gracilaria in my fuge, but it has a lot more branches and its blue/purple instead of red.

 

[mr.reef24]

I like all the goodies you got goodies are fun

mr.reef24

 

[Otto_VonBacon]

Your tank is looking great still. Are those coralline spores I'm seeing on the back? And I still find your abundance of crabs and snails hilarious.

1000th Post!
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[BTB0923]

Are those coralline spores I'm seeing on the back?

Yup

And I still find your abundance of crabs and snails hilarious.

Yeah, I'm actually starting to wish I hadn't put so many in. I found a shell inside the mouth of my candycane coral yesterday And at night when they cover the glass of the aquarium I think they are an eyesore. They do keep the tank relatively clean though.

 

[~ocean]

your tanks looks awesome!!!