Coral

If you have ever acquired liverock that came from Florida, odds are it had a few individual polyps that extended short tentacles.  Those are called Cup Corals, and don't live long in our aquariums due to a lack of a regular food source. Generally I would just advise that you enjoy them for as long as they last. Cup Corals are not sold to hobbyists, they are a free hitchhiker coral that come on rock sold in the aquarium trade.

At Aquashella Dallas, my plan was to pick up some ricordea and zoanthids for Caitlin's Reef.  Here are the frags from the first day. The following day I came home with 7 more, making it a total of 18 new items for her little tank. This tank has dirty water compared to an SPS reef, and I expect soft corals to do well.  They aren't light demanding, and can tolerate minimal filtration.

These pictures were taken under Neptune SKY lighting in Coral Growth mode. I cleaned up the images in Lightroom. 

The reef has been doing well lately. I've been staying on top of water testing, and of course daily glass cleaning duty.  Some of the other things I've done lately:

Dosed Prodibio
Changed the RODI filters
Cleaned the Nyos 300 skimmer's collection cup and squeegee assembly
Cleaned and re-set the algae turf scrubber, pulling out over 2 lbs of green hair algae.
Sent off and received a current ICP test.

On March 17, this coral (pictured above) turned bright green, after looking perfectly heathly for nearly 2 years in my tank.  When a coral suddenly changers color, it's a bad sign. Usually, they won't surive it.  This colony was a total loss, which was a disappointment. Look how pretty it was. It's called a Seattle Dreamcatcher, and came from Duane's reef.  Unlike a regular tri-color acro, this was a quad-color.

Here are a few pictures I took over the weekend of my reef. Everything is running smoothly, and I've decided to begin dosing vodka to lower nitrates in my system. I used to do so years ago, and I'm ready to do it once more. 

Drew's Acropora

Unknown acro, but it may end up being something that tables beautifully. Lobophyllia polyps in the background:

Back in February I purchased an unknown acropora from a local store at our frag swap. I thought it was interesting, that it had potential. I had no clue what it was, but something grabbed my interest so I bought it. Looking back at it today, I don't know what I was thinking. lol

Under white lighting:

I'm behind on blogging - and that's not good.  Overall, things are just growing quietly. I took a bunch of pictures, primarily from above. That's because the best view is from that vantage. If you aren't making it a point to look down on your reef from time to time, you're definitely missing out.

All pictures were taken with a Nikon D90 and a 35mm lens with a low f-stop.