WDLV
Skunk Hybrid Freak
Anemones, Corals, Water Flow and Aquascaping.
I have been observing reef tanks for about 11 years now. I mean to include those in my own home, other’s homes and on multiple discussion forums. One of the biggest things that I have noticed that will hurt a system is human intervention. By this I mean our seemingly inherent need to always tweak this or that for our own viewing pleasure. Every change that we make inside a reef tank will have a consequence. By "inside" I mean within the main area inhabited by animals. I know there are other external variables but they are not the focus of this article. I believe that any change that you make to the aquascape inside a reef tank will have some negative effect.
Corals
I've noticed that new coral colonies have a much higher mortality rate than frags. I don't know if this is just because it has cost me more money every time I loose one or if I am right in my assessment. I believe Eric Borneman also touched on this in his book. But it seems like the logical reasons are food availability, the ability to have decaying organic matter rinsed off its tissues and oxygen supply. If a large colony is placed in a new system, it is highly likely that the flow in that system is not exactly the same as that of its previous environment. This means that all the adaptations is made in the year or years leading up to the day you inherited it are now null and void. The tendency is for dead spots to exist in places that used to receive good flow. This will cause RTN or STN. Your best bet is to break the colony up and place it in various places in your system or to place it so that it will eventually grow back together.
Anemones
Anemones are a lot like corals in that they become accustomed to and adapt to their environment, but they do it a lot faster because they are mobile. They also have the added feature of not having an endoskeleton. This means that they can live on their own tissues and shrink during the process if they are unable to catch (or make) food.
At this point in the hobby, when an anemone becomes sick it's usually a death sentence. I have on one occasion been able to "save" a Haddon’s anemone that had shrunken in another hobbyist’s taken from about 12" to about two inches. I thought it was a hairy mushroom! It is currently between 6"-8" depending on its mood.
Flow Dynamics
I recently sat in on a lecture by a Jake Adams who was very passionate about what he called linear flow. There are different ways to obtain this but the basic idea is this… Visualize a long tank (like a 180 gallon) with a partition that lies horizontally in the center of the tank and extends most of the length of the tank. There are a couple of inches on each side that are not partitioned. If you were to take a powerhead, closed loop or other water moving device and place it on the top left of the tank, you would have essentially a clockwise water motion as viewed from the front. The water above the partition moves from left to right and the water under the partition moves right to left.
This was something I’ve been doing and observing in my own system for the last two years but never had a name for it until the lecture. Linear flow enables a consistent directional flow with a very low amount of energy used to keep it in motion. The water slowly builds then maintains its own inertia. I have not done a lot of SCUBA diving or snorkeling but I have done enough to notice that there are currents on a reef. These currents are the same day in and day out. Whether that means that they go opposite directions during low and high tides or follow a huge ocean current like the East Australian Current or the North Atlantic Current. Those of you who have ever done a drift dive will be familiar with this phenomenon. Imagine a current that is moving at a speed of about 5 knots. It doesn’t sound like a lot until you try to swim against it.
I don’t want to discount the need to have a “storm†once a day or so that will break up the flow long enough to get any collected detritus re-suspended. This is something that Joe Yaillo of the Atlantis Aquarium taught me both during his lectures and while observing his 20,000 gallon reef.
I believe that in a reef tank the corals that inhabit reef aquariums are like any other in the ocean. Once in a niche they adapt to it. This seems far more prevalent in corals like Acroporas. I think the tighter the branching the less adaptive they are if moved and more likely they are to sustain damage if their current direction of water flow changes.
Current direction in a reef aquarium can be changed by something as seemingly harmless as the moving of an adjacent coral or piece of liverock. This can also cause problems with shading whether that be a sudden exposure to intense light or a sudden decrease in light. If a coral has gradual changes in current (like the growth of its neighboring corals) it will be able to adapt by growing in another direction, stinging and growing over the adjacent coral or altering it’s growth pattern. Competition in this way seems to actually make corals grow faster. In my own system I witnessed a Montipora digitata being overtaken by a particularly fast growing colony of zoanthids. A couple months later the Montipora had grown a flat horizontal projection that effectively shaded the zoanthids and halted their encroachment.
This goes for anemones too. But because they are able to move immediately, rather than having to change their physical appearance they can reek havoc on a reef tank’s other inhabitants as they move around trying to find the right niche. There’s also the risk of them getting sucked into a powerhead or closed loop intake while they’re looking for the right spot. The good news is that once they’ve found it they seldom move unless something in the system changes.
In summary, I am a proponent of consistent strong currents in reef aquaria. They wash away deposits of detritus before they start, feed corals with said detritus and provide a constant source of gas exchange. I am also in favor of constructing a rockscape that will allow maximum flow over, under and through it when you first set up your system. This provides not only a coral mounting platform but also a way to nourish those same corals and the cryptic or (dark) zone inhabited by sponges, tunicates and other non-photosynthetic, nutrient absorbing organisms. It also reduces or in my case eliminates the need for target feeding corals or otherwise increasing the bio-load of the system through excessive feeding.
There are many ways to run a reef system “right†this just happens to be my way. For me, most of these concepts were hard won. Hopefully someone can benefit from this and incorporate it into his own reefing style.
Happy Reefing
I have been observing reef tanks for about 11 years now. I mean to include those in my own home, other’s homes and on multiple discussion forums. One of the biggest things that I have noticed that will hurt a system is human intervention. By this I mean our seemingly inherent need to always tweak this or that for our own viewing pleasure. Every change that we make inside a reef tank will have a consequence. By "inside" I mean within the main area inhabited by animals. I know there are other external variables but they are not the focus of this article. I believe that any change that you make to the aquascape inside a reef tank will have some negative effect.
Corals
I've noticed that new coral colonies have a much higher mortality rate than frags. I don't know if this is just because it has cost me more money every time I loose one or if I am right in my assessment. I believe Eric Borneman also touched on this in his book. But it seems like the logical reasons are food availability, the ability to have decaying organic matter rinsed off its tissues and oxygen supply. If a large colony is placed in a new system, it is highly likely that the flow in that system is not exactly the same as that of its previous environment. This means that all the adaptations is made in the year or years leading up to the day you inherited it are now null and void. The tendency is for dead spots to exist in places that used to receive good flow. This will cause RTN or STN. Your best bet is to break the colony up and place it in various places in your system or to place it so that it will eventually grow back together.
Anemones
Anemones are a lot like corals in that they become accustomed to and adapt to their environment, but they do it a lot faster because they are mobile. They also have the added feature of not having an endoskeleton. This means that they can live on their own tissues and shrink during the process if they are unable to catch (or make) food.
At this point in the hobby, when an anemone becomes sick it's usually a death sentence. I have on one occasion been able to "save" a Haddon’s anemone that had shrunken in another hobbyist’s taken from about 12" to about two inches. I thought it was a hairy mushroom! It is currently between 6"-8" depending on its mood.
Flow Dynamics
I recently sat in on a lecture by a Jake Adams who was very passionate about what he called linear flow. There are different ways to obtain this but the basic idea is this… Visualize a long tank (like a 180 gallon) with a partition that lies horizontally in the center of the tank and extends most of the length of the tank. There are a couple of inches on each side that are not partitioned. If you were to take a powerhead, closed loop or other water moving device and place it on the top left of the tank, you would have essentially a clockwise water motion as viewed from the front. The water above the partition moves from left to right and the water under the partition moves right to left.
This was something I’ve been doing and observing in my own system for the last two years but never had a name for it until the lecture. Linear flow enables a consistent directional flow with a very low amount of energy used to keep it in motion. The water slowly builds then maintains its own inertia. I have not done a lot of SCUBA diving or snorkeling but I have done enough to notice that there are currents on a reef. These currents are the same day in and day out. Whether that means that they go opposite directions during low and high tides or follow a huge ocean current like the East Australian Current or the North Atlantic Current. Those of you who have ever done a drift dive will be familiar with this phenomenon. Imagine a current that is moving at a speed of about 5 knots. It doesn’t sound like a lot until you try to swim against it.
I don’t want to discount the need to have a “storm†once a day or so that will break up the flow long enough to get any collected detritus re-suspended. This is something that Joe Yaillo of the Atlantis Aquarium taught me both during his lectures and while observing his 20,000 gallon reef.
I believe that in a reef tank the corals that inhabit reef aquariums are like any other in the ocean. Once in a niche they adapt to it. This seems far more prevalent in corals like Acroporas. I think the tighter the branching the less adaptive they are if moved and more likely they are to sustain damage if their current direction of water flow changes.
Current direction in a reef aquarium can be changed by something as seemingly harmless as the moving of an adjacent coral or piece of liverock. This can also cause problems with shading whether that be a sudden exposure to intense light or a sudden decrease in light. If a coral has gradual changes in current (like the growth of its neighboring corals) it will be able to adapt by growing in another direction, stinging and growing over the adjacent coral or altering it’s growth pattern. Competition in this way seems to actually make corals grow faster. In my own system I witnessed a Montipora digitata being overtaken by a particularly fast growing colony of zoanthids. A couple months later the Montipora had grown a flat horizontal projection that effectively shaded the zoanthids and halted their encroachment.
This goes for anemones too. But because they are able to move immediately, rather than having to change their physical appearance they can reek havoc on a reef tank’s other inhabitants as they move around trying to find the right niche. There’s also the risk of them getting sucked into a powerhead or closed loop intake while they’re looking for the right spot. The good news is that once they’ve found it they seldom move unless something in the system changes.
In summary, I am a proponent of consistent strong currents in reef aquaria. They wash away deposits of detritus before they start, feed corals with said detritus and provide a constant source of gas exchange. I am also in favor of constructing a rockscape that will allow maximum flow over, under and through it when you first set up your system. This provides not only a coral mounting platform but also a way to nourish those same corals and the cryptic or (dark) zone inhabited by sponges, tunicates and other non-photosynthetic, nutrient absorbing organisms. It also reduces or in my case eliminates the need for target feeding corals or otherwise increasing the bio-load of the system through excessive feeding.
There are many ways to run a reef system “right†this just happens to be my way. For me, most of these concepts were hard won. Hopefully someone can benefit from this and incorporate it into his own reefing style.
Happy Reefing
) We also used tank water from the original tank to help fill it.
)
