My 65 Gallon Mixed Reef

[biggles]

Great tank!

What's a good instructional thread/post that talks about using kalk in the ato?

Thanks mate This is the first time i have not used kalk but previously i used it to maintain alk and calcium very successfully up to the point where 2 gal a day saturated top off along with 1 teaspoon mixed in a cup of RO and poured slowly into the tank each night was unable to meet demand and then i would supplement with turbo calcium and baking soda as levels dropped - i really needed a calcium reactor but had no money so you do what you can afford to lol. Here's a couple of good links i think.

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-01/rhf/index.htm

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2276957

That was a very informative post....well, apart from your bottom in the shower :lolspin:

I've often pondered the same with regard to your placement theory. I have a couple brown pieces now that I'd like to experiment your theory with...at my risk of course.

Have 2 different systems running at my house at the moment, one is lower nutrient, and the brown pretty much sheds off in this tank in days. This doesn't seem to work on all acros though, would guess that some need that additional light blast also :reading:

I'm very curious about the implementation of the bonsai techniques in reef aquaria. Would greatly appreciate it, if you could post your methods and its subsequent effects

Would love to hear your take on this... in the spirit of discussion
While, I enjoy the current trend of minimalistic and iwagumi style scapes. Do you believe that the same principles that apply in bonsai, would apply if you were trying to duplicate a reef scene that you saw? , say in my case, a bommie? or a reef crest? or would it apply more in terms of coral placement?

Will definitely be following this tank

^^ I'm with Bello.

I've been into bonsai for many years now, and have myself wondered if I could adopt the pruning practice for aquarium use. Are you simply speaking of pruning off the tips of branches?

Great looking tank, man! Can't wait to see further updates. Followed you over here from the thread about tank maturity. :thumbsup:

Glad you guys are interested in using bonsai techniques because many similar principles are easily applied. Take for example using wire to force a branch to grow at a certain angle - change the wire to water flow and you can easily influence the growth pattern of a coral. I use two different methods to force more axial growth tips and thus speed up the expansion of the colony.
The first i discovered by accident when i smashed 3-4 branch tips on a yummy blue tipped acro with the back of my hand trying to recover an ugly frag that fell down the rocks - it was lucky it didn't go lawn surfacing as a couple have when they p*ssed me off over the years, btw golden retrievers like to chew on acros and i actually chased my dog down to recover one once lol..... sounds bizarre now but i didn't think it was when i was prying the acro from her mouth - i do weird stuff at times :fun5:
Within 2 weeks of crushing those tips the entire stub ends had encrusted back over with pure tip pigment and rather than producing a single new tip they all produced 3-4 new tips from the end and since then i routinely crush the tips on branches to force faster multiplication of branch numbers.
When i say i graft a branch i mean i cut 1" branch tip, grind the base to a concave shape that fits the rounded form of another branch and then glue it directly to the side of the branch attached to the colony. The cut area encrusts and heals within a few weeks and you would never know it was the result of manual intervention.

You see the green stag frag in the middle of the pic, it is two different pieces glued together 2 weeks ago and you can see the encrust line where the healing over is almost complete. I do this to test that it won't result in ugly swelling at the graft point which can occur with some acros sp. prior to actually grafting the colony. When i placed the stag i had to cut a few branches off to fit it against a ledge and rather than grow them out as frags i am going to graft them back onto the colony just like i would if i was grafting a tree branch. I'll take pics this weekend when i carry out my frankenstein acro grafting.
The three frags on the right recently went through light stress as they were very dark almost brown with zero pigment anywhere, you can see how they now look unhealthily pale brown. They have been out of high light for about 5 days and if you look at the edges of the encrusting bases you can see blue pigment appearing - that will occur at the tips shortly and then they will go back into more light. That's what i mean when i talk of light stressing a coral to force faster appearance of pigmentation in wild stock. That's what i do but i don't suggest it is based on science just my experience and as i said earlier i do weird things to corals at times to make them pretty in faster time lol.

My name is Andrew and i'm a coral abuser..............

 

[Bello]

Thanks for the reply!

I didn't understand the first method correctly. Do you mean crushing the acro tip with your fingers/pliers and leaving them be, as opposed to slicing a tip off? Understood the second frankie method

Could you elaborate more on your light stress observations for colouration? Assuming you received a new brown coral, as you said before, you would first it place on the bottom and observe PE. Once PE observed in a couple days, do you choose to place it in higher light or in the above case, in lower light?

This is very interesting

 

[biggles]

Thanks for the reply!

I didn't understand the first method correctly. Do you mean crushing the acro tip with your fingers/pliers and leaving them be, as opposed to slicing a tip off? Understood the second frankie method

I crush them and leave as much tissue as possible because the more deformed and irregular the end is the larger the area is to be encrusted with tissue. Small bumps etc at the newly encrusted tip quite often result in new growth tips forming from the 'bumps' - i hope you get what i'm describing. If you slice them cleanly off i found the result is normally a single new tip. To crush them i just use my metal bonsai/coral cutters and lightly smash the tip flat.

Could you elaborate more on your light stress observations for colouration? Assuming you received a new brown coral, as you said before, you would first it place on the bottom and observe PE. Once PE observed in a couple days, do you choose to place it in higher light or in the above case, in lower light?

This is very interesting

The process i described is what i do to healthy looking corals, not browned out corals such as the one on the left edge of the back frag rack in the pic i posted before. This is what it looked like when i bought it - resembled a turd tbh lol.

Even though it was dull brown with zero PE and looked like a waste of money i knew it was a coral that would color up with fluorescent pigments so for $20- i knew it was a bargain. How did i know it was worth buying and contained fluoro pigments - easy since the advent of cell phone cameras. I took a pic in the store of the coral and as camera phones typically skew the light to the blue spectrum used in reef bulbs giving actinic results which we all hate normally but which display any fluoro pigments amazingly well. Even though i just took this pic it was a similar result when i took the pic in the store just less bright.

It's very easy to do and works on any coral under reef lighting whether faded, brown or colorful - take your phone next LFS visit and give it a try, especially if they have a bargain section for crappy looking SPS they are dumping cheap. I always ask permission to take pics and explain why i am doing it and they never say no because they want you to buy the sickly SPS before they die and usually want to see the results on your phone lol.
That acro took 3-4 weeks from memory before i saw the slightest PE even at night - it was seriously unwell and remained very brown. It stayed on the bottom in good flow and after a week of PE it went to the top third of the tank and over 3-4 days it paled considerably and you can see the difference between the before and after - even though much paler due to the shedding of zoo it showed zero pigment. That was about a week ago and it was placed back down to where it is now and if you look at the bottom left side of the recent pic you can see the fluoro green pigment rapidly developing already rather than taking months to slowly raise it and achieve the same results.
I hope i explained it better this time Bello

I would like to make it clear that i have been experimenting like this for years and i don't advise anyone to rush into following my example unless you have a good deal of experience keeping SPS alive and healthy. Remember also that i always run ULNS tanks and i have always used radium bulbs supplemented with blue spectrum fluoros. At the very least i hope you give the cell phone trick a try when you next visit your LFS - bit hard to do it with online purchases however lol.

 

[Bello]

Thanks for the explanation, I believe that I've understood the rationale behind the method

No doubt, your experience coupled with your lighting and tank conditions, must be kept in mind before trying this out, but the logic seems sound. And I've already observed the same on one of my pieces. All the more reason to try it out . I will probably make a frag of the next piece before the attempt though.

I don't quite have the experience yet, but working on it . At the moment, the tank is fairly ULNS, 95% of Acropora have decent PE, although, Colours are another story. Greens & pinks come out fine. Blues are pale, purples are a mystery. I'm pretty sure you'd describe some of the frags to be "deathly pale". Working on increasing feedings to improve colours. I'm running LED's, which are nowhere as proven a light source as the Radiums. The tank is about 7 months old, and I'm afraid I've made too many changes too soon, and not allowed it to mature properly. Also working on that at the moment.

The cellphone trick is really neat! Unfortunately, i have no other choice but to order online. ALL of my purchases are online, and I would say about 50% arrive a beautiful shade of crap brown . I have to pretty much order by looking at coral structure, and guesstimating. Basically, while I'd love to get the colours right at some point, but, for now healthy, growing and NOT BROWN, will suffice.

I will be trying out the growth and colouration methods shortly . Really appreciate your reply

 

[sahin]

Wow, this is such an interesting and informative thread. :beer:

Andrew, please keep the posts going. Makes for quite a refreshing read.

 

[biggles]

Basically, while I'd love to get the colours right at some point, but, for now healthy, growing and NOT BROWN, will suffice.

That's a great philosophy to follow mate, as long as your corals are healthy and displaying good growth you shouldn't stress so much about the colors. Bare in mind also that many journals here contain amazingly detailed and colorful pics of SPS but in many cases that has a lot more to do with the camera and the photo skills of the user than it does with reef keeping abilities. On quite a few occasions i have been invited to check out tanks that i wasn't overly impressed with having only seen their tank journal pics yet when i see the coral colors in person they are stunning so don't pressure yourself trying to achieve color results that are not at all a true indication of what is seen in real life. Don't get me wrong, many tanks are wonderful displays of color due to the skills of the reef keeper but it's easy to think you're way behind everyone else when you see a journal of frag macro shots taken with a high end camera - everything looks amazing in macro lol.
I've been reading lots here about amino acids and their influence on SPS pigments and since i basically don't do water changes unless it's to replace water i've removed to do fragging etc i'm going to starve the tank again of anything but RO and 2 part dosing for the next 3-4 weeks and then just add amino acids to see what happens in regards to color and growth with no other chemical or food additives.
Going for a LFS scavenge this weekend to grab 5-6 new corals unless all i see is green in which case i'll give them a miss and try to get a blood shrimp or at worst another skunk cleaner. Skunk - $120 Blood - $175..... pretty sure you pay a lot less for them than we do in Aus . I also want to get rid of most of the frags i have as a result of pruning back the corals i purchased already that were too big for my liking when i tried to place them. LFS will be happy getting a heap of free frags and i'll be able to get rid of the frag racks from my display - win win lol.

 

[Bello]

I'd be more that happy to take those frags off of you but....alas

Can't believe that these "regular" cleaners can be so expensive!! Aren't there any locally available cheaper alternatives? In any case, with the kind of sps that you have access too, I remain jealous.

Thanks for your thoughts on the photos, and post processing. I did purchase a DSLR, cheap one, and am still learning. Still can't justify paying a whole bunch of money on lenses though, rather buy some coral. You're right about feeling waaayyyy behind though . Hopefully, with patience....

I did try using amino acids, and still have them, but they were used in conjunction with a whole lot of additives, so can't say if they made a difference whatsoever. Waiting to hear your observations on their use. Seems you're setup for a good 'ol ideal scientific test.

I'm intrigued by the no water changes approach, and have been tempted to try it out, but have always been too chicken for it . Could at least reduce my water changes a bit, should boost up nutrients also. I do about 10% weekly religiously, but it can get exhausting.

Do your LFS give you store credit or freebies when you give back frags? Picking out any fish this visit?

If you have the time to have a look, this is my main display http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2274344

 

[biggles]

Here's an iphone top down just for you Bello - shhhh, don't tell my corals they need phos, nitrates, fish poo & wee and are living in a 14 week old immature tank or they might stop colouring up.........

I don't expect anything for the frags as they're doing me a favor taking them and i don't want to see them die so if i give them away the store can sell them cheap and hopefully they'll go to good homes
Btw you see the frag turning aqua blue to the left of one of my SCC frags - that's taken from the browned out colony i showed you yesterday :dance:
I'm off to check out your journal :thumbsup:

 

[Bello]

Wow!! The colors!! They look stunning!! That SSC is gorgeous!!! It's not only the individual coral colors, but their placement relative to each other that makes for a beautiful pic. SSC is A. Microlados, right? Do you also get them with different colors?

I actually like the color of the browned out frag as is, but lemme see it in aqua blue

Do you think that the lack of water changes, is compensating for the lack of poop/wee?

That's a very healthy attitude towards your frags, and whoever buys them from the LFS, is a lucky dude!

I'm thinking about attempting to duplicate the radium spectrum through LED's. Obviously without the right tools, it won't be precise, but maybe an approximation would helpful.

 

[biggles]

Ummm don't ask me what any acro is lol, i've never bothered much looking up what my acros etc are but i think i will start annoying Jason Frick more - he's the Sherlock Holmes of SPS identification It actually has a green tinge to the white areas but that's hard to capture with a camera phone. I have 5 More SCC frags stuck here and there all from the wild 3 x 2" branch i bought 2 months ago and chopped to pieces - can you guess what my favorite acro is lol. 3 of the others are in less light than the one in the pic but they have white branches atm with no green tinge. The tip on one has suddenly started turning blue so i have no idea what's up with that frag - the one on the right in this pic.

I don't really see how the lack of new water would compensate for the lack of anything tbh mate - add no NSW and i can't be making up for anything already lacking through salt water additions. Maybe i'm misunderstanding your question.
I don't envy you trying to figure out LED's lol - my blue white 120W unit in the sump was well received by blue and green acros only - reds, pinks etc looked like crap after a month. Maybe check what spectrum the guys having great success with fuller spectrum capable light units are running their light spectrum at. LED's work, there are lots of beautiful LED driven tanks on here. I know zero about LED technology lol.

I'm fairly certain that this thing is about to go nuts with red tips starting to appear down the branches rather than just on the top growth areas......

Don't get disheartened about you colors Bello, they will improve mate - it's just a matter of fine tuning that LED of yours i think. :thumbsup:

 

[Bello]

Those SSC frags can be classified as reef p0rn!! Hope you're aware of that!! I did get me an SSC frag, chopped that up into 3 smaller frags. They did well, as in they grew, not colourwise. One fine day, RTN, bye bye SSC . One of only 2 acros to RTN on me for the last 6 months! Still have a nub left, and it looks like.......crap!

I think you're right about the LED spectrum. Greens look good, blues decent.... the rest very so so. Good thing is, since its DIY, its easy enough to tweak around.

This looks great, and the top down shot, does justice!

About the lack of water changes, you are feeding some coral foods right? Was wondering therefore, if the corals have enough nutrients, since none are removed through water changes? Sheeeshhh....this seems to have gotten rather muddled

Bottomline: I'm trying to use the above as an excuse to do fewer water changes myself

 

[biggles]

I put an SCC frag under the LED for 3 weeks and had to pull it out because it not only turned deathly pale no matter where i placed it, it lost all color and was about a week away from RTN - i think i have a good eye for that after years of nuking wild acros with light lol. I'm going to say it was your lighting spectrum considering just about every other acro is ok. There's nothing wrong with your lights, i'm certain it's just a matter of finding the sweet spot with your LED spectrum and then wham ! - your SPS are going to go nuts Wish i could send you an SCC frag but i doubt it would survive the trip. I used to send people snails to help them out with a good CUC years ago, back then there were donated snails criss crossing the country all the time lol, we all did it for free just as someone did for me when starting out. Lots of great people in this hobby
I was feeding reef roids and cyclopeeze until a day ago but i've stopped all feeding now as the postman brought me a small jar of 'something' today which is now going to be the only thing the corals get to chow on for a while. My skimmer goes nuts after feeding for an hour or two, i grow GHA in a section of the sump which i'm sure is why i have consistent zero phos and nitrate levels existing in the water column. Rotting food left in the water cannot be compared to the belief that fish poo and wee are required for colorful or healthy corals, the two are worlds apart. It might however suggest that all this 'feed the fish more' is feeding the corals as well before[B/] they turn it into water pollution......... I used to feed my SPS the juice from defrosted mysis cubes and throw the mysis. I crushed good flake food to powder and fed my corals. That was all they got in one of my previous tanks as it had no fish just like this one and it was the one that the acro spawned in so i'll let you ponder that before you jump into cramming your tanks with more and more fish feeding. I am not saying fish poo and wee isn't used by the corals, maybe just the amino acid part of it i suspect, who knows for sure, i'm no reef chemist lol. I do know however that it isn't required whatsoever along with all the other equipment and methods required to deal with the resulting nitrate issues.
I am going to add a few fish one day but not for quite a while. The 4-5 blood and skunk shrimp i want first will cost me a fortune here but i think it would look cool to see just shrimp crawling all over my SPS reef one day.

Snake oil......... thanks Pete

 

[Bello]

That was a good read. It's nice to hear about the passion for the hobby the world over, and knowing that I'm not the only one who could be loosely classified as "insane".

There goes my theory of getting lazy . I believe you're right about the fish feeding before it turns into pollution part. I can't bring myself to overfeed, dreading the inevitable algae. But I gotta have some stupid fish in the display. My poor 12 year old Regal tang wouldn't agree with you . I'm really not in favour of adding more fish than I already have, but I might change the composition slighty.

I'm getting very tempted to setup a similar simple sps dedicated tank like yours, but may end up on the streets after my wife decides to neuter me

The more I think about it, I need to get the lights and stability part correct, but gradually.

Would the blood and skunk shrimp combo co-habitate peacefully? Never tried that before. And for that kind of pricing, they'd better!!

Waiting to see your results on the amino acid experiment :thumbsup:

 

[Bello]

just thinking about the SSC that turned pale under leds. that would be in your sump, same system water?

could you conclude that either the led spectrum was not optimal or the amount of light received was too much?

 

[biggles]

I've read the experiences of others in regards to keeping multiple cleaners, particularly the blood and skunk together and it seems they co-exist peacefully so i think i'll give it a shot.
Yes the LED unit is in a 20x20" section of the sump so the water is shared. I'm pretty sure it was simply the lack of red spectrum in particular that caused the deterioration as i moved it around to areas that were low light etc - tried everything. I might grab a $20 red LED light bar from the auto accessory shop and try again as the frag section of my sump is wasted. If that doesn't work i think i'll turn it into a nano system and fill it with stuff that loves the blue/white LED's.
Of course i could always put the 250W radium over it and put a 400W radium over my display........... even though everything appears to be going well in the tank it's 40x24x18" so i can justify upgrading to a 400W to myself - you know how we all do that at times lol. I need to get a real reflector too because what i'm currently using is a cheap nasty hydro bat wing type with roofing aluminium flashing i pop riveted to the inside which isn't very reflective at all so i'm know i wasting a lot of the radium output.
I'll post a few pics this weekend so you can see what SPS i manage to hunt down - going to buy at least 5 new acros as i haven't bought a coral for over a month and i'm feeling withdrawl symptoms.......

 

[troubadour11]

Wow, this is such an interesting and informative thread. :beer:

Andrew, please keep the posts going. Makes for quite a refreshing read.

+1 to that! This has been an awesome read so far. Really interesting ideas...

The bonsai approach is interesting and making sense from the explanations. I would love to see more documentation of crimping the ends of the branches next time you do it... Uh-oh... I feel a new hobby and area of study approaching for me. hahaha

Thanks for the cool ideas, keep them coming. I loved the tip on the cell phone camera pics exposing the fluoro pigments. I can't wait to try it myself :beer:

 

[Bello]

I think you're right with the lack of red spectrum :reading:

There are some cheap ones that you could pick up from eBay. From your analysis, you want something closer to 700nm. Closest I've seen are the 3w 660nm bulbs. Most of the others are around 630nm or lower. I plan to pick up some 3w Luxeon 660nm and give it a go.

400w on the display, and 250w on the sump, sounds like a party :jester:

Waiting to see your new pickups. Hopefully, they'll all be brown, and we can watch the colour up process .

 

[biggles]

Thanks for the kind words troubadour11 Reef bonsai - you know you're going to do it mate, it's just a matter of time.......
Since i know there's a couple fellow reefers interested in my unconventional approach i'll keep you updated on the weird goings on in my tank. :beer:

Hey Bello Thanks for that info on the red LED's mate, i definitely want to give that a try before i retire the 120W LED unit to the closet.
I'll try to grab an acroporapoo sp. tomorrow. - i'm sure the LFS will have stock as usual lol.

Pretty red macro algae growing at the front of the display .

 

[Bello]

Do you have link to which 120w LED fixture you have? The older LED models, are very easy to modify

Pretty macro, any idea what species?

Hmmm, you may have coined a new word,
Acroporapoo/Acropoopora - Defn: Acropora that goes from looking like poop to looking like THE POOP!!

Lol

 

[biggles]

Here's the unit i bought for $165- mate.

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Dimmable-165W-AQUARIUM-Led-Grow-Light-Royal-Blue-10000K-White-Marine-Coral-Reef-/271117778246

Appreciate it a lot if you can advise me whether i can swap out some of the whites for reds
No idea what the species is but i'll look it up, i like the amazing array of 'stuff' happily living without predation that you don't get to see normally.
Tomorrow i will be purchasing an Acropoopora 'Bello Brown Bomber' - very rare and highly prized in the reefing community..........:beer:

A single polyp of color emerges from a browned out branch - he's the point man of the blue troops lol. Not bad for an iphone camera.