So lets get back to business. First up, some great LPS for your liking. We have all seen the common Indonesian Euphyllia species (such as the Hammer and Octobubble), and its multiple color combinations. But have you had a chance to see its brilliant cousins from down under? Here is one of their bloodlines, the orange/gold E. glabrascens pictured by stoneyj33on ReefCentral:

photo by stoneyj33 on Reef Central

 The best part about these corals is that they are super easy to take care of. Just give them enough flow and medium amount of light, and they will flourish.

How does Mother nature figure out to color this nasuta with yellow, green and pink?

photo by ct vol on Reef Central

The story of this coral comes from reeffarmers.com (Steve Tyree):

This Acropora is an exotic coral with brilliantly colored pink polyps that extend during the day. The main branch stems are colored bright lime green. One of the tentacles in each polyp will super extend and this gives the thin branching Acropora a hairy pink appearance. The coral also has some purplish/blue pigments that can appear in the base or on branches. Reeffarmers acquired our fragment from Hugo Zuniga (snipersps). The coral has a very interesting captive history. Hugo acquired his fragment in late 2003 from John Susbilla (Tubs). John had been growing his captive grown fragments from an imported colony that he probably acquired back in the late 1990′s. John was calling the coral Lime Green Acro and a few fragments were distributed. Unfortunately it appeared that everyone lost the coral for a time except for Alex (Reefer on a Budget) who had acquired an early fragment from Tubs. Alex then distributed fragments to Tubs, Mingwei and Joleen of Atlantis Aquarium. Hugo acquired an Alex fragment through Tubs. Early on this coral had interesting but not spectacular coloration. Alex believes that under 10,000 K the coral was more of a yellow with orange brown polyps and a purplish growth edge. He then noticed that when Rob Zayan placed a fragment under 20,000 K halides the true spectacular pigment morphs developed. Eventually Hugo’s fragment grew into a colony and through Tubs a fragment from Hugo was sold on Ebay for $550.00 . Tubs decided to change the name to Pink Lemonade Acropora for marketing purposes. Atlantis Aquarium began calling the coral ‘Shades of Fall’. A second Ebay sale of the coral went for $400.00 . It now looks like both Reeffarmers and Atlantis are going to use the name ‘Pink Lemonade Acropora’. The coral grows slowly and it has not been widely distributed. Hugo believes he only distributed about 10 fragments before his colony was recently lost in an accident. It also turns out that John Susbilla acquired his original Lime Green Acropora from Steve Tyree (owner/operator of Reeffarmers) many years ago. Steve remembers handling a few of these Acropora species morphs and he currently believes the coral was originally exported from the Solomons. Only a few ever came in and it was a very delicate to ship colony. Only tiny colonies of frag colonies made it alive from the Solomons. Steve sold the coral to John Susbilla (Tubs) back before John started his online company. John was a collector of exotic stonies back then and at that time Steve was one of only a few people who specialized in handling stonies. Steve has not seen this coral morph imported since the Solomons experienced a civil war.

This coral comes with a steep price-tag. A lot of US online vendors sell 1/2″ specimens at a minimum of 60$, upwards to 120$ for a 1″ frag. Fortunately for Canadian reefers, we at Fragd.it have acquired this coral and will have fragments up for sale within a few months. Stay tuned here for all the latest.

Dubbed the Purple Virus by Aquatic Collection, this Favia displays a combination of unique colors, only assembled by mother nature. A vibrant pink, green and purple make this Favia a must have for collectors.

photo by SDguy from Reef Central

Reef Central's kenguym, and his Acropora valida.

For those who haven’t kept this coral, you will find it is very versatile in its requirements. I found it placed in many areas of the tank, some with lots of light and flow and vice versa. Its a great starter coral for those interested in keeping SPS.

Kicking things off is a spectaular colony of a true Acroopra echinata by Reef Central’s tnyr5.

Here is a little bit from the coral farmer:

The blue and white Acropora echinata is kept 12″ down from the surface in a high light spot. Kept in the same tank under a 250w ushio 14k bulb in a lumen max elite reflector. The corals are in my 30 x 30 x 21″ rimless 80 gallon reef. I use reef crystals salt. SG 1.024, temp 76-78, calcium 420 , dkh 9.5, magnesium 1340 – 1390 bi weekly 14 gallon water changes.

Want your coral featured, send us an email with your best picture at info@fragd.it

Have a great weekend reefnecks!

Got you thinking of going there? There some dive information sites like this one, and dive/adventure like this one. Let us know how it all went!

So… lets chat results. If you are lost, and have to catch up, here is the article that changed the way a lot of us clean our acrylic.

If you still don’t know how to use one, here is a sample:

Step 1. Wet sponge with tank water.

Step 2. Lightly move sponge against the acrylic pane.

Step 3. Algae comes off.

Still worried? A famed, and on-call reef chemist Randy Holmes-Farley had his take on this at Reef Central:

Melamine as a plastic is likely OK. I’d be more concerned about tiny fibrous bits of fine plastic breaking off and irritating things, but that’s random speculation.

It is located in the cleaning isle, second shelf, near the everyday scrubbers. Thank us later.

For the rest of us, lets get to the meat of the results:

Elite Reef (R2R):

i have glass so i can scrub with whatever i want but i do use one from time to time. i wont say i find it better then any other method i use but it does work well. as for otehr household uses however it works GREAT!!. love those things.

FYI target sell a generic brand that is larger in size and half the price. it is the exact same thing.

ReefRunner (R2R)

I’ve been very happy with it. It makes cleaning my acrylic tank and my glass bowfront very easy. It does not take the coraline off though so you do have to remove that like you normally do. I find that it seems to polish my acrylic as well.

zoous (R2R)

I used it yesterday and it works like a charm. But you still need to apply pressure in order to remove tougher stains. Yeah, coralline algae is a no go. It does very well on scratched surfaces as well.

gparr (R2R)

I always thought it had some kind of embedded chemical in it. Apparently, that’s not the case.

Ladypig (the oroginal discoverer of this magic tool)

A few notes I’d like to add. Others have said that this will definitely scratch a tank. I have drop the level of my tank 5 inches to allow it to dry to see if it showed any signs of hazing or scratching…there were none…ZERO…NADA..my tank is crystal clear. On another forum there was someone who claimed to mask off part of an “acrylic” ruler and was able to scratch it with the Magic Eraser. I have not been able to find an acrylic ruler locally at the office stores etc to try and duplicate his findings. Plenty of plastic but not acrylic…that being said…my tank is of a MUCH higher quality acrylic than what it available for 50 cents from a dollar store. If there weren’t different grades of acrylic then there wouldn’t be different prices. Also, I don’t think I could use an acrylic polishing kit to buff out an acrylic ruler.

While the Magic Eraser will remove coraline with a little elbow grease, I really would not recommend it. Coraline is a hard deposit and I’m sure pieces of it would stick in the sponge and that might possibly scratch your tank, same as getting a piece of sand or crushed coral caught in the sponge…it would scratch and you would want to blame the sponge..when it was what was caught in it that did the scratching.

Do a good, one time cleaning on the tank then use the sponge as a daily maintenance step. Don’t wait 6 months to clean and then moan that it doesn’t really work. A little daily swipe saves a lot of time and elbow grease effort in the long run.

Use common sense…if you’re not comfortable doing a front pane, try a side pane for a while and see if you are happy with the results.
This is something I researched before I tried it…I should start a “Lazy Reefer” blog with all my short cuts. Some will not want to try this, the decision is of course, theirs.

SaltySteele (R2R)

upon nina’s recommendation i started using this a couple months ago. works great, and acrylic looks better than it did before i started using it! no abrasive, other than the material is tightly stranded material (kinda like fiberglass, but different material, and much denser, but even thinner strands). i use my dobia pad for the coraline, but everything else is made quick work of by my mr. clean!

Smann (PNWMAS)

Picked up a box last night after reading this thread. seemed to work well. After it was wet it sliced very easily with a razor into thin sheets which I used with my Hammerhead magnet. It stayed on fine but you cant jump corners. going to let things dirty up a little then try one area with the white pad and then with the eraser to see if I can notice a difference.

colorfan45 (ReefCentral)

I use them on my zero edge aquarium and they rock.

snorvich (ReefCentral)

Having now tried Magic Eraser, I find it works well with some kinds of algae and not so well with others. Still, a good product.

jpa0741 (ReefCnetral)

I shaved off a thin piece and have been using it between my magnet now for about a month. I have been very happy with the results. I would definitly say it is less harsh then the dobie pad I was using before this.

Lots of evidence that this thing works! Have you tried it?

Here are some really good ones:

• If when visiting your grandmother in the hospital you are more interested in stealing an IV drip line to use for your auto top off.
• Have salt creep on your forarms.
• If you carry a picture of your reef tank in your wallet.
• If your living room is starting to look like like a pet store because of all the tanks you have set up.
• If you’ve ever had visitors to your home smell your skimmate.
• If you skip lunch for a week to buy a new coral.
• If your fish drink and bathe in cleaner water than you do.
• If leave your best friends daughters graduation because you forgot to top off the tank.
• If you never took your digital camera outside.
• If your LFS asks you for advice.
• You cry when you eat sushi.
• The words “nemo” and “dori’ are considered worse than the “F” word.
• You can tell the SG of water by taste. (my favorite)
• You bake baking soda.
• You get excited by valves.
• If your childrens’ kiddie pool starts to look like a good refugium.

You can read the rest at the think provided!

Why Vitamin C you ask? Well the proprieties of vitamin C, at least in human consumption, are essential for metabolic reactions. To be specific, it acts as an antioxidant and a cofactor in many enzymatic reactions. Many, if not all vegetables contain this essential vitamin as without it we would have high mortality rates and shorter lifespans.

Transplanting this information into our reefing use, we can see some correlation. Marine plants are high in Vitamin C, such as Kelp, Spirulina, and Seaweed and are being consumed by many types of fish. But what about coral? Does it have any effect on coral heath and its ability to withstand disease?

Some aquarists believe that adding vitamin C to your tank just because someone said it was good for your livestock is foolish and that you should only ever do something that has a direct and specific purpose. Generally speaking, this is good advice, although there is little to no anecdotal evidence of dosing vitamin C being harmful to livestock. It is known that insufficient levels of vitamin C are linked to spinal abnormalities and hemorrhaging, so if you see these signs, you may want to consider dosing vitamin C.

The retailers never think, they just do. They pump out products without any thought of usefulness. Case in point.. Kent Marine Marine-C. This excellent article touches on its probability of actually having any effect in your tank. So what do you do?

Here is what people are talking about on the net:

Treating with Vitamin C at ReefCentral.com

Vitamin C dosing (I am clueless) at Reef2Reef.com

Does anyone dose Vit C at TheReefTank.com

Vitamin C? at 3Reef.com

This will be very interesting to see if it does have positive effects in overall coral metabolism and health. I know that I will venture down that road and will try to put these theories to the test.