The calcium reactor needed a refill badly, and the media finally arrived today. I'm using TLF's Reborn media this time. I cleaned it out and refilled it tonight and here it is, ready to go. I've had this reactor since 2004 and it has served me well.
Here's my "How to set up a calcium reactor article: https://melevsreef.com/articles/how-set-calcium-reactor
Day 335 commemorates the 11 month period the 400g and 60g have been running. During that time, I've watched corals grow into colonies and fish get fatter. The biggest hurdle was a big setback about eight to twelve weeks ago when I realized the tank was overdosed with bacteria. Corals faded, green pigment vanished in many corals, SPS died back. I've discussed this in detail in my blog on ReefAddicts.com, and will do a video on Youtube to talk about it to help others avoid similar fates...
From time to time, my fish seem to want the spotlight. I was about to shoot a cerrtain coral and this gal (yes, it's a female Lyretail anthias) decided to swim into the frame. Fine, if you want to block my efforts, I'll just shoot you instead. Ended up with a really great shot. 
I took a picture of a lobophytum with a macro lens, and loaded that RAW file into Lightroom 5.0 for the normal adjustments. This picture was taken under 20,000K lighting with VHO super actinics, and I used a flash to add some light from the side to avoid the dreaded shadows...
This is the original picture, only resized for my blog.
This is a Collonista snail. It's a little hitchhiker, and doesn't grow to be bigger than a bb. Usually you'll see them late at night coming up the glass as tiny round dots. Great little grazers. In one of these two pictures, you'll see an astrea in the shot for a size comparison. This little guy was actually bigger than most. I do feed a lot. lol
When I set up the 60g Anemone Cube, I knew I'd be using a Mp40w ES Vortech pump for flow, and that I would have to keep a sponge on the intake grate at all times. Every few days I pull it off and give it a good rinsing because as it clogs up, the flow rate lessens due to restricted intake. Anemones do what they want when they want to, and you can't always predict their latest move, but you can protect them from themselves and the in-tank pumps. Find what fits your pumps and install one now, rather than after an accident occurs.
Shooting a few shots with my macro lens yesterday, I spotted an oddity on a branch of the staghorn coral and focused on that area momentarily. It looks like a SPS polyp captured a small piece of a LPS hammer's tip that came off somehow. It's about the right size and shape. It was moving in the flow, held on by mesenterial filaments. Hope it liked the snack.
What's a vermetid worm? It's a creature that casts a web into the water column to trap food as it blows by. Webs appear quickly as soon as the worm smells food in the water. To eat the trapped bits of food, the worm reels in the webbing and consumes those morsels. The web may irritate nearby corals, or you the hobbyist. You can break off the calcified tube and cover the spot with super glue gel to eliminate this pest. If you leave it be, you may end up with more of them in the tank. Here's the page in the ID section on this site:
