Our Tbs

[BrianPlankis]

Originally posted by patsan
The one in your picture is beatuiful! Your urchin is HUGE too!!
SC reef & fish is probably 25 minutes away from me, so it's certainly not as bad as pw is.

I find that things in the tank aren't really growing. They're just more or less staying the same, and even some zoas have disappeared. I don't know if it is because Bob's light bulb placement was different than what I had in the tank I sold or what. But I was always seeing growth in my tank, and now I find it more or less stagnant. The corals open nice and full during the day.
The candy cane has not grown at all nor gotten any new heads. It is a different candy cane than the one I had that got a bunch of new heads, and I had only gotten it a week or two before I sold the tank....so I don't know if it's just Bob's tank, or it would have been the same in my sold tank.
Benny the blenny is constantly throwing sand all over the place and knocking zoa frags all over the place. Many of them have disappeared because he knocks everything he can off the rocks.

I don't even see a tremendous amount of coralline growth. So I don't know what the story is.

Pat,

A few suggestions to help you with growth.

1. Remove the blenny...at one time I had more than 20 different kinds of zoas. Before I finalized my rockwork most were on the sand. They got knocked around by snails, hermits, urchins, conchs and moved by Eunicid worms. Their growth was pretty slow. Once attached to rocks in one place their growth has taken off. I use the 2 part epoxy to do this.

2. I have started using kalk to keep my Ca and Alk more stable. The values still aren't STABLE, but better. I've used it for about 2 months now and the corals are really taking off. My candycanes stared off as 3 and 2 heads. They are now 5 and 4 heads and getting ready to split into 7 and 8 heads respectively. I'm trying to shoot for 450ppm Ca and 10-11.5 Alk and STABLE.

3. Target feed your corals. I feed mysis, cyclopleeze and store bought shrimp (uncooked, unseasoned) and I think that has helped my growth.

BTW....People were talking about a feeding tube a while back...what is it called and where do you get it? I want to stop putting my arms in the tank to feed the corals.

Brian
Brian