Steve's sunlit outside build

Looks great Have you considered any clams? A nice gigas would look sweet!

Just spent hours reading through this whole thread. What an awesome setup. Beautiful corals. Great job. Would like to see some new updates, kinda left me on the edge of my seat, lol.

Id like to see an update too. Curious how everything looks and is growing under sunlight and how everything held up with the heat of summer.

And lets hope that he was no where near all the crazy flood waters that was going on a while back.

Hey guys been awhile

All is well here in Oz (missed the floods they where over the other side of Aust we had fires here)

Nothing special this will be the last month of sunlight next month I will set the lights back up for 4 months. I am down to about 6 hours of sunlight I have had a few frags brown out due to a loss of sunlight duration and intensity (I am running without shading at the moment)

The tank is holding up well with the heat (at the moment we are on a run of 28 days above 33"c) the 2 1/2 horse power of chillers I have running outside seem to do the job though my carbon foot print is damn large (like big foot large) and my electricity consumption is crazy (I believe Western power is installing another Gas Turbine to meet my needs)

Some photo's of the system







Afternoon sunlight (6500K)

Rose Millie in sunlight



Rose Millie in the shade



Superman Monti



Some frags



Pocillopora

4 Years old was one of the first SPS I acquired it was the one that hooked me when I got it it was solid brown and I was astonished when it changed from brown to hot pink I have been hooked since that day







Red chalice melting over the edge of the rack



Full tank



















Checking my ballast took some snaps

250W MH Radium 20K Electronic Ballast

nothing much has changed?! are you NUTS? ......awesome and incredible growth in ALL corals........amazing colors and PE......and looks like your frag racks are a bit fuller now too! obviously you're doing something right there steve! ......when you switch over from sunlight to "fake" light, do you do so slowly to acclimate the corals? do you have any plans for all those gorgeous healthy frags? and a HUGE thank you for updating us steve!

Steve that's amazing!!!

Everything looks very happy. They look great under sunlight and MH lighting.

Are you dosing anything or just doing your usual water changes? I've sure a water change will take as much water as a pool, but it's got to be fun to do.

WOW

Are you kidding me, that has not been set up very long and you have full blown colonies there. Everything looks amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So what are you doing these for local sales RESEEDING the ocean The fun on it all??

Great update. Everything is growing like crazy. That green cap even has good color and polyps on the underside.

Yeah cheers everyone.

Originally Posted by Barbara

nothing much has changed?! are you NUTS? ......awesome and incredible growth in ALL corals........amazing colors and PE......and looks like your frag racks are a bit fuller now too! obviously you're doing something right there steve! ......when you switch over from sunlight to "fake" light, do you do so slowly to acclimate the corals? do you have any plans for all those gorgeous healthy frags? and a HUGE thank you for updating us steve!

Nah no acclimatising just a straight swap from sunlight to MH

Originally Posted by rgrking

Steve that's amazing!!!

Everything looks very happy. They look great under sunlight and MH lighting.

Are you dosing anything or just doing your usual water changes? I've sure a water change will take as much water as a pool, but it's got to be fun to do.

Calc reactor, dosing pumps @ 400mls each of 2 part & finally manually adding alk, cal & mag once a week I change out 10% about 160 liters a week + 400 liters every second month.

Originally Posted by billrob71

WOW

Are you kidding me, that has not been set up very long and you have full blown colonies there. Everything looks amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cheers

Originally Posted by billrob71

So what are you doing these for local sales RESEEDING the ocean The fun on it all??

Bah just for ****s and giggles no one like SPS here in Western Australia I make more selling Xenia

Originally Posted by chris&barb

Great update. Everything is growing like crazy. That green cap even has good color and polyps on the underside.

Cheers

Bit of an update (literally after posting the last set of pictures) I decided to dip 1 or 2 suspect corals in RO to determine whether I had a AEFW problem low and behold yep you guessed it AEFW.

Well not to worry another learning curve.

Saturday was spent stripping out all the rock work on the left hand side along with the mature colonies Unfortunately my big Loripes colony took a nose dive from 2 meters (6 foot) onto the cement (**** happens)

3/4 of the corals where dipped for 30 seconds in RO water unbelievably harsh on the Acro really bleaches them badly but IMO is the best way to treat AEFW (not the first time I have had these pests I believe everyone has them it is just how they manage them here in Australia)

So the system is looking slightly worse for ware BUT it has pushed me in a direction that I originally wanted to go in and that is experimenting in the keeping of Goniopora in a sunlight environment.

So the first 2 Goni's went into the bottom rail on the weekend now I am not the best at classifying what is what outside of Acropora I know they are not a Stokesi but could be any of the others.

So not to worry where one sees disaster another sees a opportunity to try something new.

Cheers

That sucks to find that out after everything has been going so well. Good luck on getting them under control and with your Goniopora experiment. What exactly are you trying to do with that?

Hey Steve

Any new pics??

Hey steve nice frags you got there. can you share the secrete about the coloraton of you corals ; do you dose anything or is just the sun light that makes them so colorfull;

Also what is the name of that fish blue with yellow lines; is it some kind of a wrasse;is amazing fish.

that fish IS awesome!
so.........is it winter yet there steve? how did everything fare this past summer for you?

Looks absolutely fantastic. I would love to have a build like yours.

I have to agree with 'ya Ray...............it's stunning! .............would love to hear and see some updates though ..........

Steve, how are things down under? How's the sunlight doing for your growth?

Any updated pics