coral growth vessels

[periphery]

Genady if you do forums we've already chatted, years, I recognize this handle if it's a reef profile

I'm on reef forums for 21 straight years, pico reef expounding. 

 

Reef2reef reefs.org and reefcentral

 

brandon429

You seem reasonable

Do my systems seem fake

What reasonable question do you want to know 

 

First Google: pico reefs via images search

 

I don't have an abstract, I'm a hobbyist. 

I have a few friends in the online forums

here is what I would ask of someone who knows coral

before I can get home, to make my proof video

we acknowledge corals are low output of nitrogenous waste compared to fish

 

did you see anyone using a lot of fish? they're shown to be low bioload, coral focused in the research compiled online and posted in forums since 2001./ pico reefs searchable info.

 

scientists back in the day like Moontanman used to rail against me over allelopathy

 

the abstracts we know are available discuss nematocysts and allelopathic repelling compounds

 

over 20 years, online nerds figured out which species are compatible, or habituating to a  positive pressure loop (potential theory, you work it out, Ill just build the vases across a million willing friends documented in forums we dont require peer reviews to build pico reefs, we just do it and leave you the data trail to behold)

 

something suppresses the war mechanisms all the scientists said were sure to happen. I used to get this  a lot rougher than here...in 2001 I had no friends to have you look up with a quick google search before posting here

 

you guys have it easy, 30 seconds work like M has already done shows the info

 

 

you are supposed to be judging me off how this works in other's systems, you knew how it worked in my system in 2009.

 

my video is coming in a bit.

 

 

 

 

Edited January 12, 2023 by periphery

[Genady]

51 minutes ago, periphery said:

if you do forums

I do not do any other forums. Never did.

51 minutes ago, periphery said:

did you see anyone using a lot of fish?

I am not even sure what it means. I guess it relates to home aquariums. My aquarium is too big to keep at home. Fortunately, it takes care of itself pretty well. It has a lot of fish, naturally.

[periphery]

Can you take a pic of your tank

 

I like tanks, would be interested to see yours. I'm on way home mine w be ready in a bit

[Genady]

My tank: Bonaire National Marine Park - Stinapa Bonaire

[periphery]

Let me get this straight

 

My two doubters, critics, regarding coral reefs in a home are not going to post me pics of their coral reefs in a home

Or even a simple fish tank in the home. 

Heh ok. I'll still post some, don't over exert anything almost home. 

 

Edited January 13, 2023 by periphery

[Moontanman]

Without specifics all your videos and magazine quotes mean nothing, I do not believe you, I require specifics verified by something other than your claims. I can claim anything, in fact I have claimed I could grow coral in a shot glass and I could with a significant amount of technological and volumetric back up. You posted a picture that was obviously a photo shop and then you think we should believe everything you claim after that... not gonna happen.  

1 hour ago, periphery said:

Let me get this straight

 

My two doubters, critics, regarding coral reefs in a home are not going to post me pics of their coral reefs in a home

Or even a simple fish tank in the home. 

Heh ok. I'll still post some, don't over exert anything almost home. 

 

Proves nothing, we don't know how long it's been set up or how often you do a water change. How do you deal with coral aggression, what do you feed them and how often do you feed them? I could stuff all that stuff in vase and call it a pico reef, doesn't mean it's a long term stable environment. The bio-waste build up is the first but not the least of my concerns.  The inserts that hold the organisms suggest it is a short term fake and how do you keep the plastic free of Coraline algae? The questions I have are not being answered by this display. 

 

[periphery]

That’s a laughable assertion at this point Moontanman
 

and I don’t believe you were misrepresented by someone online, it’s just you holding course. I don’t believe you, and that’s because your syntax lines up with that other Moontanmans jerk mode 

 

does my syntax line up with brandon429 and 5000 pics of that vase online for twenty years? 

 

lets part ways, I’d want nothing to do with your science any further Moontanman, and you never kept corals. Called out, you’re posing. You didn’t keep corals, you have no pics no post history of them at all, just a 40 year tale your peers here bought until tonite.
 

Genady, what’s your assessment / lemme have it, I bet it’s not a bandwagon assessment but might show some insight into *coral keeping at home*

 

it’s a stretch for me to expect that, you have peers to prop up.

 

Videos of that vase on my YouTube page are older than this thread. Moon, what a disappointment it was working with you.

 

 

Edited January 13, 2023 by periphery

[Genady]

6 minutes ago, periphery said:

Genady, what’s your unreasonable assessment

My tank is larger than your tank.

[periphery]

Genady, lol, I 100% believe that

Thank you Genady for not furthering the destruction of my thread documentation.

[Moontanman]

32 minutes ago, periphery said:

That’s a laughable assertion at this point Moontanman
 

and I don’t believe you were misrepresented by someone online, it’s just you holding course. I don’t believe you, and that’s because your syntax lines up with that other Moontanmans jerk mode 

 

does my syntax line up with brandon429 and 5000 pics of that vase online for twenty years? 

 

lets part ways, I’d want nothing to do with your science any further Moontanman, and you never kept corals. Called out, you’re posing. You didn’t keep corals, you have no pics no post history of them at all, just a 40 year tale your peers here bought until tonite.
 

Genady, what’s your assessment / lemme have it, I bet it’s not a bandwagon assessment but might show some insight into *coral keeping at home*

 

it’s a stretch for me to expect that, you have peers to prop up.

 

Videos of that vase on my YouTube page are older than this thread. Moon, what a disappointment it was working with you.

 

 

Don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out. 

It's kind of sad, I have a 3 gallon glass sphere that just begs for live coral, I'd really have loved to have been able to repeat his results but he never did provide anything but anecdotal evidence. 

[periphery]

I was going to ask you again to butt out, I wasn’t leaving, was going to ask you to

 

Ill make friends on here eventually, we will build some cheap coral carriers. I’ll stay here another 14 years to find some willing friends 

 

but you have a workable sphere eh? Let’s reef it

 

ill set it up for you remotely here, your proof will be the setup instructions along the way and you’ll learn the parameter control without measuring anything but temp and salinity. Now don’t retract it after such a savory offer, you know I do remote jobs.

 

if you’re just going to bait that, then decline anyway, it’ll be such a letdown.

 

can you get, are you willing to access, saltwater, common Carib sea reef sand from a petsmart store or reef store, and a two pound chunk of live rock cured with coralline algae on it (this provides skip cycle setup, a searchable term with ten thousand examples, my terminology my examples online)

Your challenge will be that you need a lid that fits on the inner diameter like my fluted vase

 

thats key in saltcreep control, and controlling evaporation rate so that daily topoff isn’t required. This thing doesn’t require much work, it sits bubbling on the counter and I do a one gallon water change weekly, I add coral food, that’s it.

 

all the fancy dosers and tests you thought were required in 1979 just simply aren’t, so let’s set you up one
(weekly water change combined with low waste acid output of a coral dense, fish-less system keeps params in balance. It can’t go a month without a water change, for example, alkalinity would be used up by then lending bad pH swings)

 

todays reef salts from 2023 are better than 1979’s salts, so they save you having to adjust like you’re used to 

 

 

notice my positive pressure air vent, this is driving co2 out from respiration production in the vase. Fresh air from the home, electrically heated (not gas) = no big co2 loading from ambient air, this too lends pH support as an inherent offgassing design 

I’m not going to spoon feed you further, if you want more pellets show up with a workable container, couple gallons of reef water, a chunk of live rock, a preset tetra common fish tank heater from wal mart, twenty bucks in common coral frags, a $40 light off Amazon to run corals and I’ll help you. I’m betting .004% you’ll do this. Prove me wrong and I’ll go edit all the mean stuff out and we will get to pico reefing remotely / it’s what I do.

 

if you’re serious the light you want isn’t mine, that’s a $259 ai prime 

 

you can replicate those same spectra with a $25 abi tuna reef light from Amazon. Maritza did that for six years before upgrading, she runs the kessil a 160we tuna  blue

 

Edited January 13, 2023 by periphery

[TheVat]

Wow, I had no idea aquariums were such a battleground.

My question concerns chlorine.  When I was a teen, I had a 55 with Oscars, a tropical cichlid.  I was told to let tapwater stand for a couple days so chlorine could evaporate out of solution before adding to aquarium.  Never was sure how important that was.  Is that necessary with reef tanks?  

Anyway, interesting thread, at least where one can step around the blood puddles.

[periphery]

That method surely does work to dechlor, additive-free, with a brief standing wait time. 

 

dechlor drops are mighty fast stand-in as well. 

 

Thank you for posting so friendly. I hope it was evident on my very first post I wanted to be friendly, I don't hold lifelong aquarists to any task for initial doubt / its a reason presenting the science is so fun. Im surely hoping Moontanman will simply turn friendly today, for the rest of our time here and I would be so happy about that. 

 

we could talk aquarium science bigtime, and even better maybe setup some remote systems/ planted tanks/reefs / any of it

 

the truth is most/99% of reef tanks will not use tap due to its dissolved solids/phosphate-bound little chunklets of calcium carbonate or magnesium salts/that which makes up hard water deposits on faucets

it will fuel massive algae outbreaks in a reef, though if dechlorinated it won't kill them / used as one emergency water change for example rarely

in freshwater those tap water constituents are not harmful in most cases (some planted tank won't want high TDS like that they'll want low carbonate-hardness RO water, cleaner, easier to get pH lower etc) but reefs need RO water, plus deionization stage/ truly zero tds water pure and then we reconstitute it with our salt mixes and at times other additives (large tankers do, pico reefers do not)

 

 

I think the ideal use for this thread would be someone setting up a new aquarium of any type and we predict every phase it will go through in anticipation and make it shine. There's a good market in being able to troubleshoot and build aquariums from afar, I like to do it free as the bulk feedback from thousands of friends gives me snippets of prediction I can use in my own vase. Im doing remote learning about reef tanks and planted tanks and cichlid tanks and oscar tanks constantly via pm's on about ten different forums/so fun. 

Right now somewhere in middle USA, a high school teacher and I are conversing about his biocube 15 gallon micro saltwater reef he built for his kiddos to stare out/tease out animals and look at them/collect microscope samples for ID

 

we used a fun method above mentioned as skip cycling, which will no doubt gain the ire of all aquarists not practicing in this decade. this got him a basic reef, with two clownfish, a stack of rocks, appropriate light/a running reef tank all set up in about 5 days total. they're enjoying it now: that's remote aquarium consultation in action. 33 kids I dont get to see I know are smiling and staring closely at a reef tank today, just like I did in 83 at school fascinated by the little microcosm in front of me (which was really just baby guppies under a plastic bridge he he/ lit the fire I guess)

 

exactly like Moore's law governs computing speed, rate of ascent in ability, the same thing happens to aquarium science and perhaps the firmest tenet in reefing truly for 40 years has been that you don't start a reef tank fast, it'll die

 

that's not the case anymore

 

today there are 15 brands of instant-cycling bottle bacteria. I have threads where $1800 in reef animals go in day one, with bottle bac, that were never supposed to survive per the old rules, and they shine just like an aged tank. We are able to skip the wait cycle now, to meet public demand for fast aquariums

 

ever seen the show Tanked? = skip cycle setups. the part they don't tell you on the show is each tank has filtration media already cycled in their warehouse/stuff that goes into canister filters.

 

they move it to those big show tanks, and bacteria also get in on the sand they use, in every single build, look at the label: caribsea arrive alive sand, that's what I recommended above to Moontanman or anyone here who wants to build a fishbowl coral keeping reef tank. 

Edited January 13, 2023 by periphery

[Moontanman]

11 hours ago, periphery said:

I was going to ask you again to butt out, I wasn’t leaving, was going to ask you to

 

Ill make friends on here eventually, we will build some cheap coral carriers. I’ll stay here another 14 years to find some willing friends 

 

but you have a workable sphere eh? Let’s reef it

 

ill set it up for you remotely here, your proof will be the setup instructions along the way and you’ll learn the parameter control without measuring anything but temp and salinity. Now don’t retract it after such a savory offer, you know I do remote jobs.

 

if you’re just going to bait that, then decline anyway, it’ll be such a letdown.

 

can you get, are you willing to access, saltwater, common Carib sea reef sand from a petsmart store or reef store, and a two pound chunk of live rock cured with coralline algae on it (this provides skip cycle setup, a searchable term with ten thousand examples, my terminology my examples online)

Your challenge will be that you need a lid that fits on the inner diameter like my fluted vase

 

thats key in saltcreep control, and controlling evaporation rate so that daily topoff isn’t required. This thing doesn’t require much work, it sits bubbling on the counter and I do a one gallon water change weekly, I add coral food, that’s it.

 

all the fancy dosers and tests you thought were required in 1979 just simply aren’t, so let’s set you up one
(weekly water change combined with low waste acid output of a coral dense, fish-less system keeps params in balance. It can’t go a month without a water change, for example, alkalinity would be used up by then lending bad pH swings)

 

todays reef salts from 2023 are better than 1979’s salts, so they save you having to adjust like you’re used to 

 

 

notice my positive pressure air vent, this is driving co2 out from respiration production in the vase. Fresh air from the home, electrically heated (not gas) = no big co2 loading from ambient air, this too lends pH support as an inherent offgassing design 

I’m not going to spoon feed you further, if you want more pellets show up with a workable container, couple gallons of reef water, a chunk of live rock, a preset tetra common fish tank heater from wal mart, twenty bucks in common coral frags, a $40 light off Amazon to run corals and I’ll help you. I’m betting .004% you’ll do this. Prove me wrong and I’ll go edit all the mean stuff out and we will get to pico reefing remotely / it’s what I do.

 

if you’re serious the light you want isn’t mine, that’s a $259 ai prime 

 

you can replicate those same spectra with a $25 abi tuna reef light from Amazon. Maritza did that for six years before upgrading, she runs the kessil a 160we tuna  blue

 

I want to believe you but I know that you aren't addressing all the problems, evidently you don't even know all the parameters of a reef tank. You have dismissed surface skimming as though it doesn't matter, surface skimming was a big plus in the search for a viable reef tank. Your "coral" would seem to be glued to plugs inserted into the sides of the tank and it doesn't seem you actually have any hard coral in the tank. Only small beginning clusters of soft coral. If it had been set up as long as you say the polyps would have outgrown the "vase" by now. Your whole presentation is deceptive, I wonder what motives you have. If I ever decide to set up a tiny reef, I really don't have the money to spare at this time, it will include methods of dealing with things like surface organics and calcium ions. The way yours is set up you could replace the animals on an on going basis, in fact it seems to be set up that way. I keep going back to that photo shopped pic of the tank setting in a car seat.  

Oh BTW, I live near the ocean and can, if I want, collect animals for a tank. No pet stores required. 

[periphery]

Here is the example of eighteen hundred bucks in reef gear all put together one day, then being tracked out to currently running today. it shows the life arc of a quick start reef. it shows for the last time to potentially harsh critics that for the rest of this thread if I'm stating something, a huge proof work thread using someone else's reef tank exists for the statement. any will be provided upon request, but moving forward I'd like not to have to proof every statement/ I'm here for friendly and real outbound aquarium work. 

 

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/bio-spira-works-great.668674/

details from that post than an aquarist will recognize

 

*look at what we do with nitrite (ignore it)

 

that is a fundamental change in aquarium science for reef tanks

it turns out per searchable chemistry articles from Randy Holmes Farley (2006) nitrite can be ignored in a reef tank solely due to ratios of chloride salts that plug up receptor channels in the animals we keep that would otherwise be burned by nitrite if said ions weren't present in the ratios saltwater presents them

 

nitrite burns deadly in freshwater tanks, but that doesn't mean a blanket rule upheld by saltwater aquarists since the dawn of the hobby was a correct transfer. reef tanks can ignore nitrite, not own the test kit, and never factor it. we ignore nitrite above

 

*look at the rate of speed basic ammonia control, the deadliest waste compound in reefing given pH and temps we run, is set up. at the same time the active bottle bacteria are poured into the reef, the resulting waste from that instant fish load is also balanced out. The system would die overnite were that not the case. 

 

I have demonstrated above why we don't have to test for ammonia and nitrite in marine setups any longer, using one of 500 example threads readily available. 

 

This is why above for Moontanman, I didn't tell him to buy saltwater testing kits. what we need to run a nano reef is a basic swingarm salinity tester, ten bucks from petsmart, and a common thermometer so that we can set water change levels accordingly.

when I recommended the common preset heater from wal mart, that keeps our small tanks at 78 degrees and there's not much need to actually verify that in the tank. 

 

 

@Moontanman

 

Going forward I'm aware of your disbelief. I want you to not state that any more, don't redirect my work thread here / we get that you're not agreeing to what I write. I'm formally asking you to stop posting unless you'd like to participate, I'll report it as such if it continues/I want to work in peace now.

 

-wipes the slate clean-

 

you can collect living ocean materials/that means you get the best live rock 2 lb chunk ever. I don't want to talk about those things with you live time before you build; you will just deny anything I say. 

 

however

 

if you want to get a micro tank going and we talk along the way, your surface skimming and proteins-in-suspension statement is indeed a real factor, we can talk about it then. 

 

You won't have as easy of a time debating my every sentence if a living micro reef is making you and your family happy each day. if we can't pull it off, then you can be reinforced in what you're saying.

 

but if it lives, and you are happy because you broke new reef ground, then this is worth it and thats a +1 for me. thanks for posting reasonably above. 

I think your big hurdles are attaining the light @Moontanman

 

they are usually bulky, require creative setup and cabling. 

 

search out the ai prime 16 hd off amazon, best reef light in the world for nanos

 

if you really want it long term this is the one

 

but if this is an experiment short term, get the $25 abi tuna light off amazon and plug that into a creatively hung light setup like a gooseneck desk lamp/ we can grow my same corals all day long under that. reef lighting is your big hitch, and the preset 78 degree heater from Tetra brand, get one of those shipped to you off amazon. 

look how happy people, nano reefers, are with this light

https://www.amazon.com/ABI-Coral-Optimized-Spectrum-PAR38/dp/B01LWP37SD?th=1

Edited January 13, 2023 by periphery

[CharonY]

!

Moderator Note

I think it is time for everyone to step back and take a breath. From skimming the topic it seems to me that a lot of the back and forth can be rather easily addressed. Since OP has a functional system, how about a short summary on its setup and function, including critical parameters (such as overall setup with details on filtration system, regular maintenance and so on) on this site would be beneficial, as opposed to referring to another forum. This would ground the discussion on something more concrete and would reduce the likelihood of getting personal. 

 

[periphery]

Excellent, will do

 

details: pico reefs started because I was too cheap to buy a real reef/no cash

 

but I had been keeping planted tanks for 15 years prior, wasn't unfamiliar with saltwater basics just by hanging out in pet stores. I gave a lot of thought walking around the isles of wal mart looking for interesting fits, knowing that evaporation control would be the biggest issue in a micro reef tank. I simply got lucky and found the vase/planted dish lid combo. the lid happened to rest on the -inner diameter- of the vase; I could envision my popping bubbles being housed within and dripping back *down* into the water vs a common lid that sets on top, and will wick saltwater out to dry in the air, making a salt creep "crust" so common in reef tanks I saw in person and at the pet stores all through the 90s. 

 

I had solved the first parameter of control by luck and by contemplation walking around wal mart determined to try a micro reef, partially motivated because all my peers said it simply could not be done. It needed to be tested, but was a sound start. I bought the pump, the tubing line, the heater, the vase, and took them home and inputted saltwater set to .023 and watched it all bubble. and when it had barely risen to .024 in five days running I smiled at that point; normal reefs are topping off once or twice a day-five days controllable to even longer by slowing the bubble rate? amazing, I could get nine days no topoff in needed if required. 

 

First hurdle, salinity, handled. the device was setup and I bought a common reef light way oversize to hang above it. I had to use a large fan for obvious reasons; lights in 2001 were bright and ran very hot. my lid seal prevented the blowing fan from harming anything, it was a bulky setup (not clean like above) but it worked. 

 

now for corals they said could not run. Remember, all I cared about was temp and salinity at the start, not the myriad other params the pros were touting. if a $5 coral frag, clavularia, died it wouldn't be a great loss. 

 

so I went to pet store and bought aquarium cured live rock, we didn't use dry rock requiring bottle bacteria back then. all pet stores had live rock

 

I set that into my vase on top of six inches of common reef tank sand. this was now a mini reef. I inputted a $5 frag of clavularia and waited for it to die. 

 

but it added two new heads in a month, I smiled again/ luck/ why stop now

 

buys pulsing xenia, adds to clavularia, awaits death.

 

clavularia now six extra heads two months later, xenia grew enough I had to cut some out with scissors, by then my reef club friends in Lubbock TX were already coming over to see it. 

 

enter only forum posting 2001, I begin sharing my two-coral setup online. I get the bug to push it further, and whats online as a pic history shows me slowly packing in any coral that fits.

 

Parameter control:

 

please realize I wasn't testing for anything other than temp and salinity because I didn't care if two cheap corals died. I IGNORED all params other than temp and salinity, because I didn't care-not that I'd calculated some innate control over them. I *happened* to be changing out most water weekly because I could see algae forming and even a planted tank aquarist knows that wiping off the walls of algae and changing water are the basics

 

***that mode was re balancing out calcium, alkalinity, pH via waste acid raw export, it was offgassing any pent up Co2 by inputting new change water roughly like a crashing reef wave does on a crest full of corals

 

all this was luck, the frags simply kept not dying and I was able to pack so many in that no current aquarist ever let me off the hook without an accusation of photoshop, which secretly made me feel great at the time. 

 

fast forward to today

 

we can figure out in hindsight, with fancy testers, why simple weekly water changes keep about half a million currently running pico reefs alive, I simply lucked into it the first time.

 

*small tanks at 1-3 gallons IF evaporation can be controlled don't need to measure all the common parameters, the water changes are exporting the proteins Moontanman was referencing, that skimmers normally have to pull out from large tanks whose water changes constitute 1% of their volume, my water change constitutes 100% of mine

 

weekly

 

the degree of corals I run, plus food input, simply does not crash the system in 1-2 weeks and I never pushed it longer to see how far it would go. those corals are sucking up alkalinity and calcium strongly now, and still a once a week water change handles them. 

 

 

I don't know what my major parameters are because I don't have to, and because I got lucky. 

 

this is exactly how pico reefs were invented. 

FIltration:

 

no external filters are present due to my live rock, it's internal

 

consider a common freshwater tank setup. that's slick rocks, slick plastic leaves, a lot of tetras and gouramis and swords and guppies + feed + whole particulate waste they make, that's a low surface area setup prone to crashing without extra surface area packed in a canister or hang on back filter. accessory surface area needed, because the insides are slick polished plastic

 

enter the cured aquarium rock

 

if we took a 2 lb chunk of knurled cured live rock for a reef tank and measured it's surface area laid out flat it would be multiple football fields of contact in just one rock, that much surface area

 

so when it's in a vase, and there aren't fish taxing the nitrogenous loading (corals are low to neutral waste output due to internal symbiosis we know) this massive surface area makes me need no filter. 

 

 

**Feeding/protein input

 

corals are not autotrophs they're heterotrophs and must feed in accessory to sunlight energy. that's their design. 

 

I started off simply feeding normal pellet food and it works, nowadays I feed the fancy refrigerated stuff and it still does not crash with 1-2 x a week feed, and one water change weekly/bi weekly if I'm traveling a lot. 

 

I give you my word that is an account for every parameter a micro reef will ever need to know. If someone wants to experiment with low/no water changes, they better buy a lot of digital test kits and the respective dosers. that's what big tankers do, little tankers are opposite in every conceivable way.

why these work without skimmers:

 

 

towards the end of my water change the bubbles are frothy 

 

Moontanman, consider  my vase as the skimmer, look at how popping bubbles hit the lid and run down the sides of the fluted neck back into the water. I'm wiping out scum from the lid and walls weekly, it's literally skimming some whole proteins out from suspension

 

by luck, I didn't plan for that. 

 

Surface skimming: look at my rate of water boil from the bubble driven system

 

your reef/any other reef doesn't use bubbles because they make saltcreep

 

you/other systems use water pumps which swirl eddy currents all around inside, but actually can't compete on any scale with my rate of surface boil due to bubble popping and making my water's surface area many times larger than the actual container would allow if the top was stilled. My water boil creates surface area which offgasses CO2/ metabolic byproduct gas and brings in O2 by the inherent nature of what laminar currents do vs eddy currents, this is on water treatment plant charts available to lookup efficiency rates having nothing to do with aquariums, its a universal principle of hydrology...surface boil, eddy vs laminar currents, and offgassing.

 

I don't have to surface skim because waste proteins are kept in the water vs ejected, serving as coral food as well, and then my lucky weekly water change saves it all. 

 

If I simply quit changing water in the vase, those proteins in suspension unremoved would break down, feed algae and cyanobacteria and the system would be a filthy eutrophic mess. 

 

but I intervene with 10 mins work 1x a week for all these years, I'm actually doing far far far less work than what a large reefer would have to do to keep 12 species of corals alive. I rate the ratio as 60% luck lol and 40% that teacher who showed me guppies in a micro tank when I was in third grade, she had me contemplating micro systems for the rest of my life. this is the fruit. 

Edited January 13, 2023 by periphery

[TheVat]

3 hours ago, periphery said:

corals are not autotrophs they're heterotrophs and must feed in accessory to sunlight energy. that's their design. 

They are mutualistic symbionts, aren't they?  Zooxanthellae are the photosynthetic algae which team up with the polyps, paying rent with sugar and aminos.  

Then parrotfish come along, eat the coral, and poop white sand.  I love that I can type that sentence and be completely factual.  Do larger scale reef aquariums introduce parrotfish and generate their own sand?

[periphery]

Yes agreed, but their trophic classification is heterotrophic, must take in protein, can't gain all required items from zoox

 

The zoox need the metabolic waste produced by coral feed/ their base nitrogen comes from that and other sources / what that means to reef aquarists is that a truly sealed system isn't possible. Without some form of fresh protein input, a coral system will die in time

 

Moontanman was alluding to this originally, these micro systems can't really be hands off and sealed

I'm working them weekly with feed, water change, spot algae removal, all like a big tank

 

*i know of no reef tanks replicating the sand production  hawksbill turtles and parrotfish and other raspers/rock biters do, that's worth looking into. They certainly won't keep corals with the parrots, eaten right up and we can't keep any marine turtles in home tanks so that element of modeling is elusive in my opinion. I've never seen it done once in 20 continual years interacting in forums

Those little glass ecospheres with a dead gorgonian and six Hawaiian opulae shrimp in the sealed glass circa 1996, anyone ever see those? Google up ecospheres to see

 

Classic example of downward trending closed ecosystem, no protein input, algae cycling can't continue forever it all dies at one point/ buy a new one. I'm so against that kind of setup. 

[swansont]

On 1/12/2023 at 2:05 PM, Moontanman said:

the pic of the tank in the car is just silly and obviously photo shopped. That tank would weight between 35 and 45 pounds

Can you explain why you think this is the case?

[Genady]

Do they spawn in the aquariums?

[periphery]

Yes they sure do at times, sexual reproduction not just asexual mass expansion like my tank / 99.99% of all captive reefs do. I have not coaxed mine into gamete production and mix yet but there are growing examples online in my forum work and I want to relay a few examples. Mods I'm thinking w be ok with brief examples of captive coral asexual reproduction linked from a reef forum/ it hasn't happened in mine but here are a few examples

 

the first is a google run, google up "pocillopora took over my reef tank"

or "pocillopora spawned everywhere"

 

the small-polyped stony coral pocillopora finds such favor in a common reef tank they're near nuisance levels for some. I bought a tiny nub of poci just about a week ago, its glued on a magnet set right up front/let's see if it eventually does so

 

they like today's extremely high quality retail feed, packed with hormones or growth stimulants/biochemical concentrates like packed in astaxanthin for example, feed eliciters, so many corals will nowadays truly spawn in a home reef tank setting. if you catch the planulae, coax them to plate onto a small chip of tile, you then develop a bunch of $15 for sale fragments and reefers like me will buy them right up for use and testing. 

 

 

next example comes from nano-reef.com and it may take me two hours to find the thread but I will. in '04 a tank of the month person was routinely coaxing sun corals to spawn all over his 2.5 gallon micro tank by this feeding trick:

 

don't feed the coral bommie inside the small reef, it'll pollute it. 

 

what he did was lift out the entire sun coral weekly and set it in a bowl of water

 

when the coral opened back up with feeding tentacles, he's feed it copious brine shrimp littered all over the bowl. polyps uptook full feed possible each interval, and all the feed waste went into the feed bowl not the small reef. 

 

so lol all he did was sit a little fat coral back and forth into his reef and a feed bowl until it spawned into hundreds of frags, they'd go for about $20 apiece nowadays/he had so many he would throw them away/no where to keep

 

coming up in a bit

here's a decent one anyway/not the primary mentioned above but it's really common these corals will spawn

 

tubastrea species/non photosynthetic types in this case/obligate feeders:

 

https://www.nano-reef.com/forums/topic/118615-sun-coral-spawning/

Edited January 13, 2023 by periphery

[Genady]

Thank you. It's curious. Our corals, in the open water, spawn once a year all together during several days in September-October. It seems from the forum linked, that those corals don't have a spawning schedule.

[periphery]

* if it is a schedule or lunar-influenced we haven't pinpointed that yet, someone in the hobby should measure these events against a lunar phone app to investigate~~ would be neat to find. I think its just because we remove all competition/starvation challenges they'd expect in the wild and plainly just fatten them up all the time + params always in control and at full support mode, few natural insults to cull off weak ones / just my guess. 

 

 

 

any chance a reader would build one with us, right here live time?

School teachers/high school/college/we've done countless remote reefs before thousands of students have enjoyed, that would be my ideal situation would be to runcoach a classroom reef startup from here

 

if you live near a common Petsmart, everything biological you need is there including the live rock base I'm requesting, coralline cured aquarium live rock. 

 

 

cost estimate and procedural breakdown:

container with lid=~$30

reef sand 5 lb wet pack caribsea ocean direct small bag $12

reef water/saltwater $5 for five gallons usually

$20 tetra preset 78 degree heater

-2 pounds of cured aquarium live rock with coralline algae on it, don't get anything else=$30

incidentals for the build: $80 (tubing, thermometer, hydrometer, silicone, super glue, some spare reef salt, odds and ends, cheap reef food like reef roids)

abi tuna light shown above $25

 

common air pump: $20

corals range $10-$100 a frag and some are top shelf/ $500 +

lets say $50 in frags for round one. 

total cost: $275~ to get a pico reef going. 

 

 

 

 

that big red brain coral of mine would go for $400 in a pet store if I took it out for sale. Its an eight pound full colony vs a small fragment. all grown in the bowl from a chip the size of my fingernail in 2008. 

 

get a vase with a fluted neck like mine and a garden center plastic planter dish lid that sits on the inner diameter. you have to really look around for them, or order them. That's crucial for the lowest topoff (you adding freshwater to maintain salinity constants in spite of evaporation) 

 

if you must get a common large/two gallon fishbowl that works too but you'll be searching for luckily-fitting various glass lids to seat on it, where you won't be bumping them off and breaking them, consider that small nuance. A reef vase + plastic planter lid, that sits on the inner diameter  of the vase neck is ideal because it makes you work the least of all pico reef designs. 

 

a common fishbowl is easy to find, however, and might be the more popular option. To prepare it, do this:

order aquarium-safe silicone off the web

get a large goldfish bowl. go to home depot and get 1/4 inch plastic flexible tubing, the clear flexi see through kind

 

cut a length equal to the circumference of your fishbowl opening

 

split the cut down the middle, use a razor blade to slice the tubing open right down the middle so you can press it onto the glass rim of the goldfish bowl, to make a cushioned seat for some type of glass lid you find and match. glass on glass isn't good: use this seal approach. split aquarium airline tubing sometimes makes a good seal. 

 

press this split seal onto the neck of the fishbowl, and leave a 1/4 inch gap in the back so that any glass lid resting on that seal has a small gap in the back seal/hose part

this is your wire pass through, over the opening of the goldfish bowl, you'll be draping in a heater (the tetra preset common 78 degree auto submersible heater 20$ from anywhere) and one airline where bubbles come out the bottom

 

don't use an airstone, leave the airline open at the end/big pushing bubbles not frothy ones. 

 

 

If you buy a vase, cut a notch in the plastic lid to run your cables through. 

 

now you have a basic design that will control salinity in a pico reef and allow you to start keeping the kinds of corals I keep, IF You buy one of the lights I've linked. we need to have control over the type of lighting you buy if you want our results (collective results posted by pico reefers)

 

take either setup and buy now:

-a 5 lb bag of wet pack carib sea ocean direct sand

 

rinse all the sand in a small bucket in tap water, stirring roughly for hours on end and pouring out all the silty mud water, until your final rinse is so clear the sand does this:

 

 

see how clear that is? that's cloudless pre rinsed sand.

 

do a final rinse in clean saltwater, to evacuate the tap water from the rinsed grains, put into your bowl. That's prepped sand to use, cloudless sand

 

Saltwater acquisition and storage planning:

 

what I do is get premade saltwater from a pet store so I don't have to mess with all the pure water gear to produce it. one five gallon bucket lasts me a month, I don't mind driving to the pet store once a month for twenty years. 

 

petsmart or petsplus sells Imagitarium boxed saltwater, that's fine. **if you score premade saltwater from a pet store, the kind you buy from a spigot and it comes out as saltwater into your container provided, do not store that capped off in your home

 

you would store it open capped, in a pantry, and just bring it down to salinity levels needed to match your display reef at water change time if it evaporates. Capping off your storage saltwater from a pet store can kill your system, too much detail to add now. just dont store it closed 

 

figure out how you'll continually access or make clean saltwater before beginning this journey, my pet stores do it for me and I pay them about $5.50 for premade saltwater I just walk in, cart out and put in my pantry under the bread. 

 

 

build the base setup, add your light, incoming air line and heater draped over mouth of bowl and your lid seal pressed into place. glue it in spots with silicone to hold, let it fully dry before building the life into the bowl

 

 

 

get a swingarm hydrometer salinity meter from petsmart/any store =$12

 

and a thermometer. I tape mine on the end of piece of wire so I can insert it down into partially filled water bottles as they heat in a sink, preparing for water change.

 

go into Petsmart, a pet store etc and ask for cured premium aquarium live rock, not fake painted rock, live cured aquarium rock with real coralline algae on it, and buy some. stack it into the vase and glue 2 or 3 cheap starter corals to it when you're ready for corals (super glue gel is what we use, it adheres underwater to reef rocks and isn't poisonous to the system)

 

live rock cost= $12 a pound usually, get 2-3 pounds if possible. ideally. 

 

$cost of corals ranges, get the ones I mentioned at the start if you like, they're still cheap.

your water change routine weekly is pour off some held water from the vessel in the pantry into a smaller container, equal to your bowl's full volume or close to it. 

 

set small container in a few inches of warm sink water, pull out when 78 degrees. takes about 2-5 mins depending on how cold your stored open topped water is

 

*adjust your salinity in the small container then, when up to temp, using distilled water specifically or extra reef salt, whichever way is needed to get to .025

 

you now have change water ready

siphon out all the water from your bowl with more half inch clear tubing from home depot

 

pour in your change water, that's a water change. 

unplug the heater before you drain it dry of course

**your feeding interval for the system is not daily

 

that would rot up the water with proteins awaiting water change at the end of the week 

 

feed it all relatively heavily, half a day before you do the full water change. that lets corals eat full, then you're going in and removing all the uneaten food via siphon cleaning and this removes suspended proteins in the old water before they break down. when you refill, your polyps already ate yet the water is totally clean, that's the trick. 

 

then just enjoy it another week and repeat this forever and hope you don't accidentally knock the bowl over lol. your goal is to try and get it to live longer than anyone else's reef tank, big or small. 

Edited January 13, 2023 by periphery

[Moontanman]

3 hours ago, swansont said:

Can you explain why you think this is the case?

3 gallons of water weigh in at 33.5 pounds, (8.5 pounds per gallon) the gravel weighs in at around two or three pounds, the glass another two or three pounds, the live rock another 2 pounds, substract the displaced water and you are still talking about more than 30 pounds, maybe 35. 

Edited January 14, 2023 by Moontanman