My humble tank pictures - Page 2

vpham24 · #26 05/20/2005, 10:53 PM

My favorite blasto, somehow I lost half of this piece.

vpham24 · #27 05/20/2005, 11:08 PM

This is beautiful.

vpham24 · #28 05/20/2005, 11:09 PM

I don't think I can frag that one, so don't ask.

vpham24 · #29 05/20/2005, 11:11 PM

Hanging out with friends. Feeling blue?

vpham24 · #30 05/20/2005, 11:13 PM

This little guy was colored red and was sold as a red sun coral. Turns out it was painted by some kid in Indonesia.

vpham24 · #31 05/20/2005, 11:15 PM

Pink pom pom xenia, my favorite. I spent $100 to buy 10 stalks in the beginning. Knowing what I know now, I would just buy 1 stalk.

vpham24 · #32 05/20/2005, 11:17 PM

I need to take a break, get some grub. There's more to come.

Birdlady · #33 05/21/2005, 12:46 AM

WOW! Everything is soooo beautiful!!! Thanks for sharing!

This thread just reassures me , that my love for LPS is not misplaced! Where there is all the rage over sps, I like lps better! LPS tanks rock!!!

Now, if I could just find some of these beauties here on the East coast, I would be in good shape!

vpham24 · #34 05/21/2005, 02:04 AM

Birdlady, with the internet, FEDEX delivers straight to your door.

vpham24 · #35 05/21/2005, 02:05 AM

Well, some of you may ask "where's the fishes". I started out buying a tank just for fish only. I fell in love with saltwater after that darn Nemo movie came out. I was more of a fresh water guy before this. So I didn't know what I was doing when I decided to drop 1000 on a tank.

I was told to let the tank sit for a month before getting fishes. Well, I didn't know about the cycling phase. After having an empty tank for two weeks, I got some damsels as I was told, then within a month, I went out and bought every fish I can get my hands on. Well, let's just say, if you name the fish, I would probably tell you that I've flushed a few or most of them during my 4 months of learning. Then I got on this site. If you follow the thread below, you will notice that I have quite a nice collection of Acans, so, the fishes are not too good for these guys. I tore down my tank twice to catch the Damsels, Yellow, Purple and Blue tang. I tore down my tank to get the lemonpeel. After a while, I figured I'm too tired to be doing this. So, now I have a pair of clowns and 1 anthias. I've lost quite a lot of fishes over the years. But since the tank is stable now, I don't like to put any fish in that would disturb my corals. Plus, I feed a lot, so not having much fish to grab the food from the acan is a major plus.

vpham24 · #36 05/21/2005, 02:07 AM

this is me, in MAUI last year looking for some cleaning crew. I can't believe I paid a buck for a snail or $3 for one blue legged crab when they're all over in Hawaii. Hahahaha.

vpham24 · #37 05/21/2005, 02:17 AM

My ball of blasto. I can't believe that one there was a time that I can't find any of these guys. It's like Acan in the beginning. Now they are everywhere.

vpham24 · #38 05/21/2005, 02:23 AM

OK, how about some fishes.

vpham24 · #39 05/21/2005, 02:24 AM

This guy always bring some happiness to me. The color just brings live to the tank. Too bad he eats my Acan.

vpham24 · #40 05/21/2005, 02:25 AM

Here's my little one in front of my old 150g, the one I said cracked in the middle of the night. He's very photogetic, loves to take pictures.

vpham24 · #41 05/21/2005, 02:31 AM

A few Rics hanging out.

I liked how I stack this one. It gave me the apartment complex housing arrangement.

vpham24 · #42 05/21/2005, 02:48 AM

This polyp is huge.

vpham24 · #43 05/21/2005, 02:49 AM

soooo colorful.

vpham24 · #44 05/21/2005, 02:52 AM

Odd looking bunch.

vpham24 · #45 05/21/2005, 02:58 AM

This is nice, the green mouth is crazy.

vpham24 · #46 05/21/2005, 03:02 AM

Does the picture says everything?

vpham24 · #47 05/21/2005, 03:10 AM

Now, here is the weird thing about these Acan. Look at this when I got it. I decided to cut one polyp from the 3, well it ended up being fish food cause when it was recovering, I had a bunch of tangs that seem to love to eat Acan. So I have two polyps left. Notice the color difference in the first pix and the second.

It's the two polyps in the middle. Now there are around 8 babies surrounding it.

vpham24 · #48 05/21/2005, 03:12 AM

Here's one I got when it was 1 polyp and a 3/4 polyp.

Check out how it looks now.

vpham24 · #49 05/21/2005, 03:50 AM

My favorite coral right now would have to be the Acan Lord. To see how it changes over just a few months is just fascinating. Not only does it grows, and multiplies like rabits, it eats like a pig too.

I'll end tonight post with a story of my first Lord Colony and a few pix of how it looks over the years. I got this piece from an LFS one summer day. I came in and looked around in the buy 2 get 1 free section. I didn't even notice it, my friend was eyeing it and was going to get it. Then I told him, hey, I want it, since he already got my red one and I don't have one. So he decides not to get it. Well, needless to say, I got it as the free coral. All 3 corals costs be about $60.

This is what it looks like when I first got it. After a few months, it still looks like this. I didn't even know what it is, but was told that it's an Acan. I was puzzled, why the heck doesn't it look like the other one.

Then a few weeks later, after moving it closer to the light, it started to look like this. I was using VHO at the time, I can honestly say that I will NEVER, EVER go back to VHO.

Then a miracle happens. I decided to get an upgrade on a tank, well, I went out and bought a used 150g tank. Bad idea, I wouldn't recommend it unless you know the seller really well. As this was the tank that end up cracked and leaked all 150g of water out. Did I mention that before? Well, beware.

Now the VHO is not going to work on this 24x24x60, so I had to get new lights. I ended up getting 3 250 watts MH. What a miracle. In the next few months, this guy turns into this beautiful, gorgeous looking thing.

vpham24 · #50 05/21/2005, 03:51 AM

So I figured, hey, it's beautiful, I should post this on the Acan thread and join in. Well, you guys know what happen when you start posting these things right? PMs started to flood my box. Hey wow, when did this happen. After a little nudge from va_reefman, through many PM and emails, he called me up. Told me to get a dremel and a diamond cutter. It's easy he said. If you don't know what a dremel is, here's a picture of it.

Let's just say that it aint that easy. But I manage to cut up and chop up whatever I could to satisfy some of the people I have promised to trade with. Can you tell that I'm not very good at it?

This one turns out well.

After I was done chopping everything up, I epoxy back on a nice rock I could find. Then the color changed, I think the stress was causing it to lose the dark color. As you can see, it's not the same.

This one was one polyp that came out of that colony that I recently traded. The color is different than the mother colony.

As the months go by, I've taken some pix of this guy to see where it will land. Here are a few.

Orange?

Then this.

This was taken in April

This is recent. The piece is depressed, but it seems to be spreading and encrusting right now. I've seen it grown a lot.

So I'm still waiting for it to come back to what it was, but I seem to doubt it right now. But it is amazing to go through and see this and follow it day after day, months after months.