Reef Forum threads
- Newbie looking for advice
- Fab Friday
- Ventura Frag Swap ,Ventura ,CA on Dec 5th -09
- Manhattan Reef Fall Swap December 6th-09
- ailing Acanthastrea
- Awesome Trachyphyllia
- Depth of the sandbed in a 100gal tank?
- 55 gallon sump
- 21 new Ricordea, 16 Zoanthids, and 5 St. Thomas added... Free Astrea Snails...
- Reggie's 30g SPS Tank
The deluge of Australian LPS corals which have flooded the US aquarium market may have all but overwhelmed the SPS subculture of the reefing community but now that many of us have had our fill of lords, hillaes, moseleyas and scolymias for several lifetimes, Australian divers are now being instructed to collect more and more Australian Acropora. The aquarium above which was installed and is maintained by LiveAquaria’s director, Kevin Kohen, already contains a number of Australian acro gems. When we visited Kevin’s office tank a couple weekends ago we saw a fair number of “dotted lines” on his acro colonies which could make fine frags for a future Reef Builders giveaway, any takers? Hit us up in the comments telling us which corals you like best and which ones you think are Aussie, and let’s see if we can make enough to noise to get Kevin to pull out his fragging tools.
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This thing has 9 Comments
That is very col. I like the humilis looking coral, the efflo-ish big piece that appears to be scrolling. The deep water and pink & yellow acro are alos very nice. As to which are from Aus. who knows. They are all very nice. What size tank was it & how many fish? Zeo? That song was great BTW.
MFR
Yeah that looks like a Zeo tank to me . . . . I would love to know what they are dosing to get those colors.
This aquarium is not a Zeo tank, and I do not dose a thing. I feed very heavily as there are 10 fish in the aquarium (they must not have liked Jake’s video camera) which makes the nutrient export challenging. Just good husbandry performing weekly water changes with Reef Crystals salt, RK2 Skimmer, calcium reactor, phosphate reactor, and a ton of current (4- Vortech MP40 on a 4 foot 120 gallon) and plenty of light.
thanks kevin for the tank info,(and for not using zeo)
tank looks great,as it should
KK:
Excellent! What is the size of the tank? How much water do you change (always my favorite way to keep stuff looking good)?
Best,
MFR
Kevin
I was wondering what type of lighting are you using,also the color temp. of the bulbs.AS you have very nice coloration on the coral you have nice coloration in the water.
Thanks
Kevin
How long has the tank been set up?
Many colonies look like freshly harvested corals, is this a new set up?
Thank you all for the wonderful comments; I spend a good amount of time at 6AM before work, and on the weekends caring for the three aquariums in my office.
This Acropora spp. dominated display is a standard 120 gallon (48” x 24” x 24”) with dual overflow boxes, a large AquaMedic glass sump, and the water returns via two Marineland 5500 Maxi-Jet Utility pumps mounted externally.
The bare bottom aquarium is lit with 2- 400 watt mogul based Radium 20K’s in Ice Cap pendants that sit in the back half of the hood, and 2- 250 watt DE Aqualine Buschke 20K in AquaMedic Oceanlight pendants in the front half.
All of the aquariums in house here at Drs. Foster and Smith (including my office aquariums) are testing grounds for the products we offer on http://www.drsfostersmith.com and all of the livestock and frags of these corals are offered on http://www.liveaquaria.com.
I perform weekly water changes by filling up a 50 gallon barrel on wheels while the aquarium is simultaneously filling at the opposite end so the water level never changes in the aquarium or the sump. I would estimate by performing water changes using this method that I am changing 25-30 gallons of water per week.
This aquarium has been set up since 2004 and has been moved twice since then. With every move there is a good overhaul as you can imagine a good amount of damage can take place with some of the larger corals. Some of the Acropora have been around for years, and have been fragmented far too many times to count. There are a few ORA coral frags that are growing in, as well as some Australian Acropora that are relatively new to the display.
Unlike most home aquariums, the look of this display has changed significantly over the last few years, so that we are able to utilize the aquarium inhabitants for photographs in our catalogs and on the LiveAquaria.com web site.
Thank you again for all of the positive comments and happy reefing!
Kevin
Sick ….. just awsome sick!!!!!