03.01.2022 -- #

New year, new coral

Happy new year! Welcome to 2022. To celebrate my birthday I added coral to my aquarium. Fish Nerd 🐠 Birthday. Decided to try capturing some of their beauty with a DSLR camera. Enjoy.

This month marks the one year mark since I first lowered Masha’s aquascape into a barrel to start the cycling process. You can read more about that here, and wow things have come a long way since then. There were ugly stages, cynao and green hair algae, but thanks to stable water parameters the tank has pulled through. I’m loving it.

In other news I’ve recently started selling frags for local pick up via my community corals shop Freundliche Korallen München. If you are in the Munich area take a look. My prices are LOW LOW LOW ha. Mostly I just need more space in my tank. Lots of accidentally bumping corals and breaking them while cleaning the glass. Figured why not sell the frags.

Now on to the four new corals I just added.

Euphyllia

Euphyllia, my wife’s favorite coral, is now making it’s third appearance in my tank. A green Frog Spawn Euphyllia was in the first batch of corals I added to the tank. Sadly that one decided to leave this world. Mostly likely do to fluctuating water parameters. It was followed up by a purple Hammer Euphyllia which now one of the largest colonies in the tank. Growing from four polyps to eight in five months.

This new Euphyllia is not exactly a Frog Spawn or a Hammer. Rather it falls somewhere in between. My limited taxonomy skills say, Euphyllia baliensis? Also turns out Hammers are a Fimbriaphyllia 🤷‍♂️ not Euphyllia. I invite you to consult the lexikon.

Big thanks to the local coral farmer I purchased this from. Her corals are always extremely clean. I’ve not alwasy has such luck. In the dipping phase of the Purple Hammer I remember taking flat worms off with a needle… Aquarium stores simply can’t compete with someone’s living room tank they truly care about.

Rainbow Montipora

My first encrusting Montipora! And what a specimen to start with. Shades of: orange, red, yellow, and green all present. Went for encrusting because the rocky arms that make up the top of the aquascape are already dotted with Acropora, plating Montipora, Stylophora, and Pavona corals. Looking for someone to fill the spaces between the other colonies. The high PAR levels, hopefully in the future even higher 💡💡💡, and high flow should make the Monti feel right at home.

I’m not sure exactly which Montipora this is. Still trying to figure that out in the lexikon. Also considering buying this guide to help identify corals.

Bernardpora

A flower pot coral joins the tank! This was the driving purchase behind the four. My first of this type and in red! I’ve seen the mother colony and I’m very excited to see this one grow. Potential center piece one day.

Now to the taxonomy of this coral. Confusion. I originally thought it was Goniopora or Alveopora but my seller insisted on Bernardpora. Reading up the topic I’m still not convinced its Bernardpora because the polyps are extending with at least 24 tentacles. Red Goniopora?

Strawberry Short Cake Acropora

After having some success with my first Acropora, a more tame purple verity, I decided to step it up. This one though on the easier side of Acros is more challenging. Acros themselves are difficult to care for SPS, so fingers crossed.

The catchy name “Strawberry Short Cake” does not get translated into German. Rather we simply break into English like it is a brand name. Just makes me laugh when German sentice is broken up by cake 🍰. As with all my coral transaction and advice everything was in German. I’m on the fence as to if these kind of names do any good. Perhaps a little fun is welcome.

I also tried using the DSLR to capture the SSC Acropora in the twilight. Will have to do more research and purchase a lens filter in order to knock out back the purple. Overall the camera worked great in daylight.

What’s next?

2022 is going to be a big year for the reef.

Hopefully we’ll see a lot of coral growth.
Fingers crossed the algae stays away.
Probably a Brown or Blue Scopas tang in the tanks near future.
Giesemann Steller t5-led hybrid light on the horizon.
As long as nutrients stay low no plans for skimmer or roller mat system, plan in place.
Got a Fauna Marin Total ICP test going out soon.
Need to breakup the big orange montipora plate to give light below and hopefully sell it.
Thinking of redoing the refigium with sandy bottom and different macro alges.
Sell corals, check out the shop
My big DIY aquarium controller project is nearing installation phase! Will definitly be blog post on that.
More DSLR shots to come

Stay tuned 👋.

\- [ reeftank ]