Ive been doing quite a bit of research on Nepthea-type coral care, and have decided to give it an earnest go. Much of the information Ive come across has been traced back to the same- Few- original sources, so I was quite happy to find this thread providing new, current, and constantly changing info from tanks-in-progress. Kudos to yall for that.
I thought I would add my own thoughts and experiences with this project/experiment as the tank develops, hopeing that I can help out members in this group, and that yall can give me some feedback as you feel like it.
The aquarium Im using is actually one of several well established reef displays that have been around for years in the LFS I work at; Ive just been overhauling and modifying the tank to better suit the corals I want to house now, so the tank is biologically very stable. I am using a 75 gallon w/ corner box containing approx 60lbs Fiji and Tonga live rock and a +/- 3" super fine grain sand bed. The rock is arranged with a large open space in the front, smaller open spaces to each side, and a rock wall that curves up and in from the bottom sides capped with a hanging cave of liverock (supported by PVC running across 2 crossbeams) that spans the middle 2/3 of the tank. There are 4 powerheads of various size scattered around the tank, hooked up to a Red Sea wavemaker, which provides good circulation with a decent surge (for the other corals in the tank). There is also a 12" spraybar running along the top back of the cavetop that runs almost constantly. I will be adding another large circulation pump, T'd off 2 or 3 times sitting in the bottom of the cave with the returns all aimed at the back wall of the tank with an upward angle- the aim here is to create heavy flow curling through the back of the cave out towards the front and across hanging dendros in a way that will provide an even, constant, heavy flow- without the problems of individual powerhead streams hitting the coral directly (think of it as a crude form of upwelling).
The tank is actually rather bright- it sits facing a 40' long glass wall that faces the South- its blinding up there in summer lol. The tank is lit more directly by 2-65wt actinic PCs and 2-65wt 50/50 PCs (and a single moonlight LED for fun). Ive been asked several times if the corals will react poorly to such lighting, but in my experience, and with the research Ive found, they shouldnt care that much about intense lighting, as long as there is sufficient food, and algae is not allowed to grow on the coral itself. As I mentioned, there is a cornerbox- the tank runs through a sump (no bioballs) that I pretty much just use to hide equipment. Im currently running a ProClear 75 skimmer in there. Im leary to use a larger skimmer because of the posibility of some dendros being pure chemotropes, so I dont want to remove a Ton of organic matter. Water quality is coming out perfectly clean regardless, despite very heavy feeding. A 10-15% weekly waterchange is done to make sure levels dont get too out of whack.
Current tank residents: Potters Angel, Rainfordi Goby, Male Watanabei Angel (looking for a mate), and a single Blueeye Glass Cardinal (with about 10 in quarentine to join him soon). It will be a fairly heavy bioload, but again, my thought is potentially free food in the form of detritus and bacteria (again- weekly water changes).
There are a number of palythoa and protopalythoa in the tank that I couldnt bring myself to take out- weve had them forever. There are also: 1 Deresa Clam, 1 Koko Worm, 2 black-1 pure yellow- 3 orange Tubastrea colonies, 1-small patch Anthelia, 3 Dendronephthya, and 3 unidentified Nephthea types (I think sclero, but who knows), and 3 deepwater Acropora sp. All are currently in great shape- inflated well and all respond to food when it is offered.
I may try the sponge method for collecting some food- good idea. Currently, I feed heavily with a slury of DTs live phyto, frozen Cyclopeeze that I grind into a liquid (more size appropriate for the dendros), and... the juice of several handfulls of squeezed macroalgae (I have tons of sawtooth- it harbors a lot of detritus, bacteria, algae, asst microfauna- it gives a great brown runoff that I blend with the other food- same Idea as the sponge method I suppose). As I said, all colonies give a feeding response, but who knows if the dendro/scleros are actually consuming it.
YOURE STILL READING THIS LONG POST- GOOD FOR YOU, YOURE PATIENT! LOL
I believe my feeding method may work for a few reasons, please tell me if this logic is really flawed. Each of the Dendronephthyas has a number of brittle starfish that are colored to match their host perfectly living among the corals branches. This leads me to believe that these particular individual corals came from an area with a significant amount of largeish particles suspended in the water, which the stars were able to feed on. This may point to the idea that these corals also fed on relativly larger particles rather than feeding on bacteria or straight chemicals since they were available. The Unidentified coral colonies each have small living barnacles buried into their tissue, which leads me to think they may have come from areas rich in phyto or other small, but still not necessarily nano-sized food particles. Do these guesses seem reasonable?
OK, I dont think Ill ramble on more right now. The newest corals have been in the tank nearly a week at this point, so it is really WAY too early to tell if there will be any success with this endevour. I will post some pics later on when I can get them if anyone is interested in seeing the tank as it is now. ~Aaron
I'll be lurking with interest.
