ADA 120-P + Elos Mini dual NPS tank journal

[Western_reefer]

what is that coral with big white polyps on orange stalks? looks very beautiful,havent seen anything like it

It looked like some sort of Balanophyllia.

 

[uhuru]

Gorgonians and what we call soft corals fall under the category of Octocorallia. Octo = 8. All of them have 8 tentacles per polyp. Each tentacle has pinnules running along its edges.

Look at the polyps on the orange one. It is most likely a branching Dendrophyllidae.

 

[uhuru]

Nice ninja edit Moses

 

[Western_reefer]

Nice ninja edit Moses

I edited my post after a minute. lol

 

[uhuru]

This is how I feed my tank these days. I dose this every hour using a timer and BRS dosing pump.

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[Aquabacs]

So you now using the BRS dosing pump on you food reactor instead of the aqualifter pump? Same mix of foods?

Mike

 

[uhuru]

Mike, I use a BRS pump now. The aqualifter seemed to slow down after using if for a while. I can see that the tubing for the BRS pump is going to have to be cleaned or replaced much more frequently than normal due to the food buildup along the inner walls of the tubing. This is the mix I currently feed automatically:

• 3/4 teaspoon each of - Ultra Clam, Ultra Seafan, Ultra Min F
• sometimes, I add - 1/2 teaspoon Ultra Pac*
• sometimes, I add - 1/2 teaspoon Ultra Life*
• 8-10 drops Ultra Min D
• frozen cyclopeeze - standard cube size
• frozen Nutramar Ova - standard cube size
• Elos SVC Zooplankton
• 900 mL chilled RO/DI water

*Ultra Pac and Ultra Life will cloud up the water

Manually, I feed:
• More Cyclopeeze
• More Nutramar Ova
• Instant BBS
• Spectrum Reef Micro Feeder

 

[Aquabacs]

Thank you Mike for sharing that information with us. It is good to keep the forum transparent



Mike

 

[flying_dutchman]

So you do you keep the mixture cooled? How long does it last? How much of the solution do you feed per hour?
BTW how is the sea apple doing?

 

[uhuru]

I agree Mike. At this stage of NPS reef keeping it should be more about learning than anything else.

dutchman - I don't keep it cooled. I use chilled RO/DI water and the frozen foods when mixing, and this helps prolong the life a little, but during the summer it doesn't last more than about 8 hours. I'm waiting on DFason to come up with a solution to keep the food chilled, but I may resort to getting a mini fridge if that doesn't work out. My space is limited especially once I get my ADA tank set up next to the Mini so I was hoping to avoid that but it may be unavoidable.

 

[dainiusiva]

what kind of solution can be better at keeping food cold other than mini fridge a-la aquabacs?

 

[flying_dutchman]

^
I was thinking a chilled food reactor, isolated with styrofoam or something and chilled with a ice probe chiller.

 

[uhuru]

Yes Dave is working on a food reactor with the cooling element built into the reactor. Just plug and play.

 

[uhuru]

what kind of solution can be better at keeping food cold other than mini fridge a-la aquabacs?

The mini fridge with the way it is plumbed is ideal. The chilled food reactor is more for dosing a mix of powder and frozen foods together. Sort of an all in one, plug and play solution that can fit under a stand. Who knows, if it works well it might make NPS keeping a lot more realistic for people. Frozen and powder foods (like FM foods) are very cost efficient too. That's another factor that will make NPS keeping more possible for people.

 

[dainiusiva]

IMO the mini fridge as seen in aquabacs setup is best solution for feeding nps corals,but it has downside - cost.chilled food reactor on the other hand is less costly,but it will not cool food enough for it to last lets say a few days ( if i am imagining the reactor the right way - general kalk reactor with iceprobe chiller incorporated for cooling) of course i can be wrong,but is it really justifying not going the mini fridge way?mini fridge is really much less maintenance vs somewhat less cost of chilled food reactor.

 

[uhuru]

It should be much smaller than a kalk reactor so it can be cooled significantly. Therefore it should keep the food for the same amount of time that it would in a mini fridge. Steve is only able to keep cyclopeeze in the fridge for about 3 days. I would expect similar for the food reactor. It's something worth trying IMO. Even if the food only lasts 1 day, the amount of work you put into feeding your corals is no more than the amount you put into feeding your fishes.

 

[Aquabacs]

Honestly, what is important is what ever method is used, is to make it reefer/user friendly. Honestly no matter how much we love our tanks, you dont want to have the aquarium control your life and be a slave to it. Now if I can only figure out how to automate the hand feeding of polyps

Mike

 

[uhuru]

You brought it upon yourself by getting all those monster colonies Mike!

Here is a slightly better video of the auto feeding. I followed the food around a bit so you could see how it distributes in the tank and gets to all the inhabitants. I think it gives a pretty good idea of the flow and the pattern of it too.

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[Aquabacs]

I know but I can't help myself. Also got something nice today from Ian at Reef Odyssey Nice vid by the way. When the food is added that quickly to your tank have you run into any skimmer issues or is the skimmer timed to shut off for a period of time after the food is administered?

 

[uhuru]

I leave the skimmer running, and it really hasn't given me any issues with it. It used to shut down for a long time from feedings but now it recovers within minutes. I don't know if its the ozone or what, as I do run a very small amount into the skimmer (it is fed from the bypass of the actual ozone reactor). When I use Ultra Life the skimmer becomes noticeably more productive.