Makassar, Sulawessi Part 6!

So google is good to me today. I'm able to upload pictures. Let's continue on to my coral adventures Makassar.


I usually go to Makassar for two to three days. I stay in a friend's hotel right in front of the wharf. This place is very convenient, as the suppliers are all nearby. Add to the fact that there is a street vendor that opens late and has pretty good food, I can't ask for more!

This is a sign in front of the entrance. The hotel name is called Agus. It is pretty nice and good price. I really like the fact that they have cable like on TV. So I can watch Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, Cinemax, Cartoon Network (I like cartoons, especially those three knuckleheads Ed, Edd, and Eddie), and others. I don't have access to these stations in Bali, so it is very nice.

This hotel doubles as a travel agent. This is the hotel lobby. The main desk is on the right and the travel agents are on the left. It is open 24 hours a day and there are always many agents working to help customers. I even bought my airplane ticket to Jakarta from here. They also can book tours all over the world.

On the top floor, there is an office area. The owner (his name is Onky), is a fellow reefer! And he is into sps! It is nice to see that this hobby has reached all parts of the world. Don't think that just because we are in third world, that the equipment is also third world. Onky has top notch equipment and is a dedicated sps keeper. I'm going to be bringing him some nice sps's from Bali in the future.

The aquarium has been running about a year and the corals look very good. The dimentions of this tank are 70 inches long, by 31 inches wide, by 30 inches tall. The volume is around 280 gallons.

A couple of friends from Makassar. The guy on the left is Johan, and he introduced me to Onky (on the right). Johan is also an addicted reefer. He has just finished setting up an sps tank. I will do a post on his system later when the aquarium matures. All I can tell you is that he really put a lot of effort and thought to designing the system.

Cool little fulidized calcium reactor. Note the salifert test kit on the right.

The chiller and the refugium is located outside. Here is the refugium. Onky takes advantage of the bright natural sunlight to grow macro algae. The intense heat does not really effect the overall temperature of the system.

Some cool Tunze equipment to help with circulation! Two of these are 6100's and the other two are 6060's. They are being controlled by a 7095 controller. Onky also utilizes an Iwaki MD 55 (3500 l/h) (924 g/h), as a close loop circulation. The main circulation is provided by two locally made pumps that run 6000 l/h (1585 g/h).

Double injected Beckett skimmer to do the dirty work! Note the Iwaki MD 55 running close loop.

Onky runs three 400 watt metal halide pendents along with four 40 watt actinics. The halide pendent in the center is a 14k. The other two are 10k's. All are BLV bulbs. Onky plans to replace the flourescents with T5's in the future.

He also plans to add this kalkwasser reactor in the future as well.

Here are some corals from this tank.

Beautiful bright pink seriotopora. I can see the new growths on the tips.

Check out this ultra Tridacna Maxima! Clams are not common here. Only aquaculture cites are available for export. This clam is definitely an eye catcher!

Beautiful rose anemone!

Another great looking bivalve! This one is a Tridacna Crocea. Again colors like this is a rarity in Indonesia. Even the ones I've seen for sale at LFS's are all dull colored. Reminds me of the super nice ones from Vietnam.

Nice raspberry acropora millepora. The color is hard to make out because of the hairy polyps. Corals like these are best viewed from the top. A very nice acro!

Beautiful Stylophora. These guys get no respect in the sps world. I haven't really seen too many nice ones here, only the usual pink or yellow with green polyps. But this one, definitely stands out!

Nice purple montipora digitata in the front and a nice acropora gomezi in the background. These are definitely from Bali.

A very orange encrusting and plating montipora. In the south Pacific, encrusting montiporas dominate. In Indonesia, these are less common.
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These two aquacultured montiporas are from Turtle Island in Bali. The beautiful encrusting green one is called a rainbow montipora. I'm not sure how it got its name, but this is what the aquaculture farmers are calling it. Even the exporters market it as that. But we all know, rainbow montis have multiple colored polyps. However, I've seen monti polyps change color, so maybe this is the case. We will see. The monti on the right is a cap of some sort, but is growing funny.

Another super nice encrusting/plating monti. This one was almost red in color. Note the whitish new growths on the edges of the coral.

How I judged Onky's tank was based on this particular aquacultured acropora. His water quality must be super, as this is one acro that is very hard to keep colored up. It looks like an acropora insignis, but hard to tell. I have customers overseas requesting that I don't send this particular acro. It turns brown if you look at it funny! It is that sensitive. Unfortunately, when it is grown in the ocean, it is beautiful. So the aquaculture farmers grow this coral in large quantities, not knowing that it is a very difficult coral to keep colored. This piece goes brown in three days in our facility. I've seen it go brown very fast at the wholesalers in the US too. I avoid this difficult coral whenever I can. But Onky's piece is doing great! He had it for a few months and you can clearly see the new growth, evidenced by the whitish tips.

The aquarium picture of acan max that was featured in the earlier post is from Onky's tank.

Most of Onky's acros are from local waters. I will bring him nicer pieces from Bali in the future. I will update as the tank progresses. I'm excited as now I can monitor some of the rare acros in an sps aquarium.

Now let's talk about two corals, that I think are exceptional.

This is a very rare coral. I've only seen a hand full of these guys and the color is always the same - brown green with brown red stripes. But it colors up nicely and easily. This one came in banged up and is recovering in our Jakarta facility.

This piece looked just like the above picture when it started. But in two months, it colored up nicely at my friend's place under T5's.

The last coral I want to mention is this piece. It may look like nothing, but it will turn bright orange with super green edges. This is an acanthastrea rotundoflora. I've had larger pieces before and it is easy to confuse this coral with a chalice type. It is a strange acan, as it plates out as it grows.

Well everyone, this concludes the Makassar, Sulawessi series. But not to worry, as I have new exciting threads coming up!!

cheers,
Eddie