If trench warfare were a coral grow out contest.... Ladies and Gents we have a winner! Rainbows Army grow out 2023!

[Battlecorals]

What can I say about the Rainbows Army? Fantastic acro to be sure, but a challenging pick for a year long grow out, as we all kind of observed. Every contest we learn and evolve more, seeing what works and ultimately what doesn't. However, the odds were definitely beaten, if fact I'll say annihilated by some of you sps pros. And the finalists were as tough to judge as this piece is to get to thrive. I hacked up 3 separate colonies of mine for this contest, and I am sure they will never be the same. lol.

As with so many of these contests in the past, it's been really difficult to choose a winner, and this time was no exception. And after seriously careful deliberation the organizers and I agree that the crown goes to.......




@abc123 Congratulations on a well deserved victory. Your final entry exemplified outstanding growth, structure and perfect coloration! Your colony is absolutely beautiful! A truly impressive representitave of the "Army" at its best. Well done x 10!

And, I said it was tough, because in second place

@Sidsreef 's colony was equally as impressive and growth was practically explosive for this thing. It really was a tough one and came down to fractions of minutia in both structure and overall colony girth. You have a gift for sure my friend and as I am typing this I am thinking. Along with the prizes, an additional bonus for the top three contestants will be free entry to the next grow out if you guys want in. We'd love to have you!

And in 3rd @dewy with another fantastic specimen. Your colony is just about to hit critical mass and I have no doubt in another three or four months you'll probably be double in size. Nice work!

And with that, another epic BC grow out comes to a close. Thanks again to everyone who participated. I hope it was a fun trip.

None of these contests would be even remotely possible without the crew! Biggest thank you of all to our grow out organizers!

Please join me in thanking these guys for their extraordinary effort on these contests! Theses guys are the meat of the BC grow out mega-sandwich!

The Boss of Bosses @Reefing102

my man @BranchingHammer

& @StatelineReefer

Thanks again guys! I'll contact the winners real soon to arrange the prizes!

 

[Minifoot77]

Congratulations can't wait to get in on one of these soon

 

[Reefing102]

Congrats guys!

 

[Mikeltee]

Congrats guys. It would be cool for the top 3 to give a skinny of their system, light and oar description, and parameters. I bet they are all over the board.

I want to know what secret sauce third place is using. Lol

 

[spsick]

I request a recount! Sid’s colony grew WAY more.

Congrats everyone either way!

 

[100gallonreefer]

Congratulations guys! Great job!

 

[MoshJosh]

Congrats!! Nice work on growing out this awesome coral!!!

 

[Haggisman14]

Congrats to everyone who participated, I always enjoy watching these!!

 

[Sidsreef]

Well congratulations ABC! Looks good. Your color was pretty
@abc123

 

[Battlecorals]

Well congratulations ABC! Looks good. Your color was pretty
@abc123

PM sent! please check your inbox my man

 

[Sidsreef]

PM sent! please check your inbox my man

Ok copy. I just sent you a reply

 

[mrpontiac80]

Congratulations all of you! When we started this particular contest I had just been able to keep acros alive for more than a month…. I’m just ecstatic that mine is alive and made it through the whole contest!

 

[Sidsreef]

Hello so for some of yall that want the drop on my system here it is:

I have a waterbox 90.3 (about 75-80 with sump)
i pulled the sump it came with out and put a fiji sump in there. if you wanna see that click the build thread badge.

Lights:
I run 4 T5 for the spread 1 hydra 32 in the middle and (2) prime 16's on the side's:

I test my tank monthly with reef labs for trace elements:

I can say this is my secret to keeping coral growth fast and good and overall healthy IMO. i always dose trace elements and keep up with them because I saw a huge change in my tank early on when I didn't test ICP because there was so many elements my corals were using that were deficient.

Dosing:
for the main stuff I dose AFR:

For amino acids I do AF power elixer:

For PH and some added calcium i also dose kalkwasser. Higher PH= faster growth.


for bacteria and stabilization i dose AF life source (another product i swear by):

I do weekly water changes at 30 gallons a week. this is the salt I use:

The method I follow is the coral euphoria method. High in high out. you can watch his youtube videos to see how he does it and I try to follow the same guidelines as him.


these are my guidelines as far as numbers go:

PH between 8.3-8.5
CA between 380-480
Alk between 8-12
Mag between 1400-1600

if any of those number go outa that range it tells me and I can bump it or decrease it. and then I spend 4 hours trying to figure out why my tank did that. an aquarium is like a human body it will buffer up and buffer down and the key is to keep that buffer from moving to much... example. if my alk is high I know my CA is low. gotta find your tanks sweet spot and just slowly ride with it and slowly make changes.


here are some corals i grew in the time of this competition:

And then here is the RA:

I have another corals like a Duncon colony that was only 2 heads and now it's like 12

I had a single head candy cane and now its a giant soccer ball lol


everything is automated on my tank. all the dosing. only thing not is the life source.


I enjoyed this competition. ready for another =]

 

[Battlecorals]

Hello so for some of yall that want the drop on my system here it is:

I have a waterbox 90.3 (about 75-80 with sump)
i pulled the sump it came with out and put a fiji sump in there. if you wanna see that click the build thread badge.

Lights:
I run 4 T5 for the spread 1 hydra 32 in the middle and (2) prime 16's on the side's:

I test my tank monthly with reef labs for trace elements:

I can say this is my secret to keeping coral growth fast and good and overall healthy IMO. i always dose trace elements and keep up with them because I saw a huge change in my tank early on when I didn't test ICP because there was so many elements my corals were using that were deficient.

Dosing:
for the main stuff I dose AFR:

For amino acids I do AF power elixer:

For PH and some added calcium i also dose kalkwasser. Higher PH= faster growth.


for bacteria and stabilization i dose AF life source (another product i swear by):

I do weekly water changes at 30 gallons a week. this is the salt I use:

The method I follow is the coral euphoria method. High in high out. you can watch his youtube videos to see how he does it and I try to follow the same guidelines as him.


these are my guidelines as far as numbers go:

PH between 8.3-8.5
CA between 380-480
Alk between 8-12
Mag between 1400-1600

if any of those number go outa that range it tells me and I can bump it or decrease it. and then I spend 4 hours trying to figure out why my tank did that. an aquarium is like a human body it will buffer up and buffer down and the key is to keep that buffer from moving to much... example. if my alk is high I know my CA is low. gotta find your tanks sweet spot and just slowly ride with it and slowly make changes.


here are some corals i grew in the time of this competition:

And then here is the RA:

I have another corals like a Duncon colony that was only 2 heads and now it's like 12

I had a single head candy cane and now its a giant soccer ball lol


everything is automated on my tank. all the dosing. only thing not is the life source.


I enjoyed this competition. ready for another =]

this is about as close to "secret sauce" as we are going to get. thanks for the info!

 

[abc123]

I’d like to say thank you to @Battlecorals for putting on these grow out contests and @Reefing102 @BranchingHammer @StatelineReefer for helping manage them. This was my first grow out and when I got my frag my current tank was only 4 months old. I started with dry rock so my only goal was to just keep it alive and make it the full year . To be honest, I thought @Sidsreef was the clear winner as far as growth. After reading his post I noticed we run our tanks almost the same. I also believe in heavy in heavy out. My tank is a 40 breeder with a 20 long sump. I do a weekly 5-10 gallon water change. I feed 1-2 cubes of frozen food as well as an auto feeder with flake/pellet everyday. I run filter socks changed every 3 days and run a vertex 180 skimmer. I run t5 hybrid lighting 2 XR15 blue and 2-24” t5 both coral+ for the whole grow out. Dose all for reef and dose kalkwaser at night as my ATO. The only real difference is I don’t test. I have no idea what my levels are except temp and salinity. I look forward to future @Battlecorals grow out contests.

 

[Sidsreef]

I’d like to say thank you to @Battlecorals for putting on these grow out contests and @Reefing102 @BranchingHammer @StatelineReefer for helping manage them. This was my first grow out and when I got my frag my current tank was only 4 months old. I started with dry rock so my only goal was to just keep it alive and make it the full year . To be honest, I thought @Sidsreef was the clear winner as far as growth. After reading his post I noticed we run our tanks almost the same. I also believe in heavy in heavy out. My tank is a 40 breeder with a 20 long sump. I do a weekly 5-10 gallon water change. I feed 1-2 cubes of frozen food as well as an auto feeder with flake/pellet everyday. I run filter socks changed every 3 days and run a vertex 180 skimmer. I run t5 hybrid lighting 2 XR15 blue and 2-24” t5 both coral+ for the whole grow out. Dose all for reef and dose kalkwaser at night as my ATO. The only real difference is I don’t test. I have no idea what my levels are except temp and salinity. I look forward to future @Battlecorals grow out contests.

Wow we do run pretty much the same stuff. Sweet. Looks good! Congratulations! I’m not worried about first or second place or any of that. I had fun that’s all that matters. Yours does look better coloration wise