The Journey Continues - Mike & Terry's 280g Reef Savvy

[Victoria M]

Hi Terri and Mike, I followed your old thread on RC and posted twice how your thread read like a Disney feature, full of joy and heartache. I finished reading this one today and I must say thank you documentng and sharing this journey with us. I love reading your story as much as I enjoy your photos. I feel inspired to make my aquarium beautiful again. I am definitely adding a pyramid butterfly to my new fish list.

 

[Preme]

Stunning

 

[Mike&Terry]

Hi Terry and Mike, I followed your old thread on RC and posted twice how your thread read like a Disney feature, full of joy and heartache. I finished reading this one today and I must say thank you documenting and sharing this journey with us. I love reading your story as much as I enjoy your photos. I feel inspired to make my aquarium beautiful again. I am definitely adding a pyramid butterfly to my new fish list.

Hi Victoria! Thank You for your kind words and for following our journey over the years. If we have given you some inspiration, then that makes us *really* Happy! We could not be more pleased with our new Reef Savvy tank and are confident it will stand the test of time.

Stunning

Thank You, Rex!

 

[Mike&Terry]

Our apologies for the delay (blame it on the flu), but we finally have some feeding video which was taken earlier tonight. Mike got a wee bit heavy handed, so it's a bit more than we typically feed at one time which is usually about 4 to 5 cubes of mysis/pemysis blend:

 

[Nick James]

How tall is the green Stag in the top right? Just for my own curiousity

 

[Mike&Terry]

How tall is the green Stag in the top right? Just for my own curiousity

It's about 10" (25.4 cm) tall.

 

[Nick James]

Thanks, I am creating my aquascape and was pondering how much room to leave for Acro growth.

 

[Mike&Terry]

Thanks, I am creating my aquascape and was pondering how much room to leave for Acro growth.

Makes good sense. That particular coral has branched out wider than it is tall now due to the height constraint with a couple of tips out of water.

 

[Mike&Terry]

ORA Pearlberry is looking so much better than it did 6 months ago. Thought we would lose the coral when it completely bleached out two weeks before the move to the Reef Savvy.

 

[justingraham]

Wow pretty ur tank is truly amazing and in inspiration to me I hope one day my tank will look like urs and I mean it

 

[Mike&Terry]

Wow pretty ur tank is truly amazing and in inspiration to me I hope one day my tank will look like urs and I mean it

Thank You Justin!

 

[Mike&Terry]

Our Orange Spotted filefish staked out his place at the salad bar tonight, LOL!

 

[Stylo328]

Our apologies for the delay (blame it on the flu), but we finally have some feeding video which was taken earlier tonight. Mike got a wee bit heavy handed, so it's a bit more than we typically feed at one time which is usually about 4 to 5 cubes of mysis/pemysis blend:

That was very helpful. Thank you!

You have a beautiful reef and fish collection.

 

[ws6kid]

Your fish are awesome and the corals look great! Love watching the videos

 

[prsnlty]

It's about 10" (25.4 cm) tall.

My green slimer is about the same size and its tips also out of the water so I fragged the top. Do you do the same or will it just stop growing upward on its own? I really hated cutting those pretty tops off

 

[prsnlty]

ORA Pearlberry is looking so much better than it did 6 months ago. Thought we would lose the coral when it completely bleached out two weeks before the move to the Reef Savvy.

The pearlberry has always been a favorite of mine, so glad you saved it! It's beautiful

 

[prsnlty]

Our Orange Spotted filefish staked out his place at the salad bar tonight, LOL!

He is such a cool fish! Does it also eat aptasia?

 

[Mike&Terry]

That was very helpful. Thank you!

You have a beautiful reef and fish collection.

Glad to hear and Thank You very much for the kind words! We still have a few fish on our "want list", mostly wrasses which will take some time to acquire as we prefer to add young females or initial phase males since most have such short lifespans. Plus it's fun to bring them in as "babies" so that we can watch them grow while we enjoy them for a few years.

Your fish are awesome and the corals look great! Love watching the videos

Thank You very much! The corals will take time to grow in, but it is definitely looking more like a reef.

My green slimer is about the same size and its tips also out of the water so I fragged the top. Do you do the same or will it just stop growing upward on its own? I really hated cutting those pretty tops off

Unless, the tips that are breaking the water line start to grow algae, we just leave them alone. It won't hurt to cut them, but we've just found that they tend to branch even more where we cut.

The pearlberry has always been a favorite of mine, so glad you saved it! It's beautiful

I wish I had taken an isolated picture of the coral when we first moved it over just to show how bad it was. It literally had lost all of it's zoozanthellae. It can be seen in some of the early shots and video we took after the move and looks light pink due to lighting. The only color it had was a very pale shade of lavender on most of the tips and it did not flouresce under actinics or blue led's. We were very lucky.

 

[Mike&Terry]

He is such a cool fish! Does it also eat aptasia?

He is very entertaining to watch and a "ham" when he's begging for food, but no, he doesn't eat aiptasia.

 

[xaflatoonx]

hey guys - would love your guidance on the CL system a bit.

If the idea is to have the "drains" and the returns of the CL - both from the bottom side of the tank. I have a couple of questions.

1. How do you prevent sand to get into the drains since the holes are at the bottom of the tank. (for the reutrns, since the water is blowing out - nothing goes in so THAT i understand)
2. how do you hide the drain and return from the CL so well in your scaping?