New non-photosynthetic tank

[airinhere]

I recently started a non photosynthetic tank with a large number of yellow sea rod gorgonians in it.
Here is a link to its page on y website. http://www.airinheresreef.com/Florida Non-photosynthetic.html

I am approaching this from a slightly different angle.
I am doing frequent water changes like any SPS reef (20% weekly),
I am running actinic lighting only on the reef to help minimize algae growth (seems to be working),
Instead of algae grazers for my clean up crew, I have some white tipped hermits,
several coral banded shrimp about ten arrow crabs,
many, many pencil urchins and several large red serpent stars.
My thinking is that detrius from regular feeding is going to be my biggest issue.
So I have a carnivorous clean up crew.

Since I put this together at the end of January,
I am already seeing new growth at the base of several of the gorgonians.
They appear to be encrusting onto the rockwork. (And faster than any SPS have ever encrusted for me)

I am very pleased to see a non-photosynthetic forum here on RC.
I feel this is a great step toward discovering how to make non-photosynthetic tanks succesful.

Quick shot of my tank

 

[Whalehead9]

I love the look of this tank. it is what I am going to be trying very soon. What kind of foods for the yellow sea fans?

One minor other point, the upsidedown jellies are photosynthetic, and while they do require feedings to grow, they also need strong lighting to thrive. Somehow I think they might be a bit out of place.

Aside from that I think that tanks like these will start to be more common place. GREAT JOB!

 

[airinhere]

Thanks.

I have been feeding cyclopeeze and baby brine shrimp to the gorgonians.

I am torn on moving the Cassiopea. They are in a tray about an inch and a half deep in the water and seem to be staying healthy. (One has even healed up from escaping and making it to a Koralia pump).

 

[Whalehead9]

In truth the Cassiopea are the easiest things that I have ever kept. 10 Gallon tank, aragonite substrate, large air driven sponge filter, small heater and PC lighting. Should outgrow your 10 gallon in about 6 months.

For a client I even had 3 tiny ones in a 2 1/2 gallon with an undergravel filter, for a year. They finally outgrew the tank and she changed the tank to a small planted tank.

back to the NPS, Why just yellow Gorgonians? Could put a few red ones in there also

 

[airinhere]

I went on a dive trip tp Florida last January. While I was there, me and some of my friends collected our own specimens for our tanks. I ended up keeping almost all of the yellow sea rods we found. There was one red that we got, but the guy who collected it wanted to keep it.

All the rest of the stuff in there, is what i collected while I was there. Including a sweet scorpionfish about three inches long. He eats the arrow crabs and I will have to get more eventually, but there are plenty in there and in about the same concentration I found them in where I collected them. My only regret is not taking some of the large bristle worms that were all over the place. They would have made for great detrius eaters.

Maybe when I return to Florida this Summer, I will get lucky and find some red ones.

 

[aninjaatemyshoe]

Dear god that is an army of clean-up inverts!

I'm thinking that could be a bit counterproductive. Many of those guys will simply tear through any microfuana population, especially those brittle stars. I wouldn't typically recommend a single brittle star for anything but the largest tanks, knowing how incredibly voracious they are. The thing is that if you did not have these guys cruising your tank, you'd probably be looking at a significant pod population. Pods are among the very best detritivors and they would also be a food source for your gorgonians. I would also keep an eye out on the arrow crabs, they are quite opportunistic and may decide they like the taste of gorgonian polyps. They may never touch them, but it is a gamble.

If your methods have been working for you, then you're obviously doing most things right. I would just re-evaluate what your "clean-up crew" is in fact doing for you. Realize that they are not a type of filter, whatever they eat is excreted back into the system, mostly in the form of ammonia which is converted to nitrate.

 

[sammy33]

Very unique looking reef. I like the yellow contrast with the red critters. :artist:

Some other details about your tank? Is it plumbed with your other tanks? Maybe post some more pics?

 

[airinhere]

My main concern for using an alternate type of clean up crew is to account for the
frequent feeding of small foods like cyclopeeze and baby brine shrimp.
Left uneaten, this would still decay and pollute the water, but with a large
load of meat eating inverts, the amount of meaty foods left unused in the
tank is significantly reduced. While the food is still processed and released as waste products,
Much of it is utilized for growth by these organisms. The Arrow crabs I was finding
when I dove were in a very high nutrient area and were larger than I ever thought
Arrow crabs (or bristleworms) could even get. Some arrow crabs were over 8 inches across
and the bristle worms were bigger than my fingers.

Of course there are drawbacks to having a clean up crew of meat eaters.
They can potentially eat something they are not supposed to eat.
And they can produce a heavy bioload in the tank.

To anticipate this, I made sure that the tank was very well established
(its over a year old) and had a decent amount of live rock to help keep nitrates under control.
Filtration is starting off very simple. A hang on back filter filled with carbon and some GFO
is used to help maintain some stability to the water quality. Carbon is changed
every two weeks, GFO is swapped every month.

Koralia 4 powerhead and a Maxijet provide flow in the tank. Just barely over 20X flow in the tank.
Currently I am working on a modification to the koralia 3 to get better flow from it.
(similar to the koralia 4 mod)

Water quality is maintained by water changes every week.

Will this work for the long term? I will find out.
Is this working for the short term? Everything is growing.
No crabs eating the polyps or each other so far.
(The scorpionfish likes eating the crabs though)
(and the pencil urchins kep knocking the gorgonians off the rockwork before they get fully encrusted onto the rock)
parameters
SG 1.025
pH 8.2
Temp 78.8F
ammonia 0
nitrite 0
nitrate 20ppm (time for a water change)
phosphate (0.25) (API test kit)
dKH 8
calcium 400ppm

I missed doing my water change last weekend, I was out diving in Monterey.
so I get to make it up as soon as my container fills with RO/DI.

Here are some shots of the gorgonians encrusting onto the rockwork.
Its the easiest method of showing growth I can think of.

 

[dendro982]

Thanks for sharing, nice tank!
Do you have the new growth of the branches?
I also have only encrusting growth at the base for all gorgonians.

 

[Qckwzrd]

Cool tank. The cleanup crew seems to work for you but I would change it up a lil. Don't arrow crabs eat bristleworms? Cause the bristleworms in my tank eat the left over mysis and cyclops. I also have tons of pods and a few nassarius snails. Urchins knock everything over and damage the corals unless mounted really good. I also have a few of those mini brittle stars. These guys clean up my 15 gallon Dendrophyllidae tank. With the %20-%30 water changes. But keep the pics coming

O great to see RC has this forum, I'll be here and the lps forum a lot!

 

[airinhere]

Really hard to tell if the tips of the branches are growing. There are just so many to keep track of. So first I am taking baby steps. Get every gorgonian to encrust onto the rockwork and then start making growth pics of everything. I will try and compare every three months and see if there is noticeable growth. This is a learning experience for me. At least everything appears to be doing well.

Arrow crabs are highly predatory and feed on bristleworms (at least where I collected mine from). But my train of thought is that there should be enough food from the regular feedings of cyclopeeze to keep their appetites under control. Snails would be doomed to a very short life if put in a tank with them. Pencil urchins were picked out because they are detrius eaters along with eating algae. But the big ones do knock everything over they come accross.

Last night I swapped some extra Koralia4 impellers for the stock props in my Korallia 3's and now have 2 of the modified Korallia 3's in the tank. (Up to about 36X flow in the tank).

This tank is lots of fun and a real challenge. I am really enjoying my non-photosynthetic tank.

 

[Kreeger1]

great looking tank, could you get us a few more shots

 

[Kreeger1]

how was the water flow where you collected them? turbid? laminar? low flow?

 

[airinhere]

Here are a couple shots from just a few minutes ago.

FTS (With actinic lightin)

Polyps extended (white balanced to regular lighting)

Scorpionfish might be getting a meal......

Picture of polyps extended (White balanced)

For some reason, not all the gorgonians put out their polyps at the same times.
I started using a dry erase marker on the front glass to mark when each one
extended polyps so I can make sure all of the gorgonians are feeding
(or at least trying).

Seems like one week half will put out polyps,
and the next week the other half put out their polyps.

Anyone have any helpful ideas for getting all of the
gorgonians to extend polyps at the same time?

All of these guys were collected in 80 or more feet of water.
It was January, so the water was pretty murky,
but this is just off the Palm Beach shore, so the water is usually very clear.
Flow is extremely strong (drift diving conditions) and is all in one direction. (south to north)

You can see what the reefs there looked like on my webpage about diving in florida.

http://www.airinheresreef.com/SCUBA Diving.html

 

[Fredfish]

Nice dive photos. I would love to be able to keep some of those sponges!

Fred

 

[dendro982]

Good, that you could obtain a lot of big healthy specimens!
Such size is quite uncommon in LFS.

As I understand, you have Koralia 3 and Koralia 4, directed onto opposite glass walls? And Maxi jet somewhere.

If the gorgonians are on the way of Koralia 4 or 3, and close to them, it may (or may not ) cause them to be reluctant to open. See on the photo: gorgonians, that are close to powerheads, are closed. Just a thought.

I tried to make a non-photosynthetic tank for scleronephthya with 7 in/sec flow, bought Koralia 2 (600 gph) for 12g Nano-Cube. before moving sclero there, moved red finger gorgonians there (like yours, but red, and fewer branches - smaller colonies). They didn't liked that at all - not only tentacles of the polyps were bent, but the body of polyps too.

 

[Kolognekoral]

A really wonderful collection of Diodogorgia nodulifera. Have you seen other colour morphs on your dives? Such as the red?

 

[airinhere]

Yeah, I think much of my success with them so far is that they are all just a couple days out of the ocean and I know exactly what stresses were put on them all. That takes a bunch of the unknown out of the equation. Plus, I know that they only went without food for a short time before I got them home and started feeding them.

I saw more types of gorgonians than I could even describe. I did not see any red ones on the reef. (Although, the red ones look green at that depth because of the water absorbing all the red out of the light.....) So maybe I did see some and just didnt realize it.

Interesting side note. If you get cut while at depth, the blood looks green. Shine a light on it, and it looks red.

Red serpent stars however look purple red even at depth. I have no idea why.

I tried bringing home some sponges, but the weather prevented me from boat diving except for the first day I was there. A week later and the sponges I had collected were all looking pretty sad. None made the trip home. I really want to try again. All the reeftanks I have ever seen look unnatural without some sponge growth. I know that if I could have collected on the last day or two I was there, those sponges would have survived the trip home. Same for the couple of tunicates I found there.

Sponges and tunicates did live up to their reputation for being hard to ship, but I really do think it is possible.

I swapped out the MaxiJet for a Koralia #3 that I had modified with a K4 impeller. So I have 2 modded K3's. The gorgonians seem to like the heavy flow more than the slower areas of the tank. I try not to blast any of them, but in a 55 gal tank, its pretty much blasting everywhere right now.

Thanks for all the support and insight. I really am just making all this up as I am going. I am so glad there is a forum like this now so I have somewhere to go for insight and support.

Now could we try starting a coldwater reef forum?.....I know lots of cool places to get really neat stuff!

 

[airinhere]

This is a little better picture of the tank. Much better polyp extension on most of the gorgonians tonight.

I am thinking that the increased flow is having a positive effect on them.

 

[Qckwzrd]

Man I envy you, must be amazing being able to see those corals in nature. I lived in FL and use to go to the bahamas every summer, but wasn't into saltwater so didn't appreciate what I was around. Your tank looks really cool (looking at it on my Sidekick). Is that a tubastrea in the bottom middle? Can't really see it too good on my phone.