Newby Question

[cmlloveless]

So "Non Photosynthetic" meaning that they do not use the sun light for photosynthesis, but is sun light detrimental to these corals as well? Or are they not tempermental either way. I would love to put some dendro or schlero in my tank. However it will be very well lit as it will have other photosynthetic corals as well. I have seen a few photos with dendros right out in the open (bright lighting).

I have the water current covered as I would place them on the wall that gets direct high water flow. As well as it is were the food flows into the tank first too.

Please let me know exactly what these corals are all about! As they are some of the most beautiful available.

Here is a perfect example of what I am talking about (I have a very similar aquascape):

Sorry the IMG vB Code not working for me.

 

[cmlloveless]

Newby Question

So "Non Photosynthetic" meaning that they do not use the sun light for photosynthesis, but is sun light detrimental to these corals as well? Or are they not tempermental either way. I would love to put some dendro or schlero in my tank. However it will be very well lit as it will have other photosynthetic corals as well. I have seen a few photos with dendros right out in the open (bright lighting).

I have the water current covered as I would place them on the wall that gets direct high water flow. As well as it is were the food flows into the tank first too.

Please let me know exactly what these corals are all about! As they are some of the most beautiful available.

Here is a perfect example of what I am talking about (I have a very similar aquascape):

Sorry the IMG vB Code not working for me.

 

[cmlloveless]

Sorry I have no idea why this posted so many times. Please delete all but one of them!

 

[aninjaatemyshoe]

Non-photo corals do not require light, but are not necessarily harmed by it either. It really depends upon the individual coral, some may very well be harmed by the intense light we use in our typical reef tanks. Dendros and Scleros do not seem to be harmed in bright light, however. The real issue/reason why most non-photosynthetic corals are associated with dimly lit surroundings in the wild is due to the fact that they have a difficult time competing with algae and photosynthetic corals. They have their niche in areas where other corals and algae cannot dwell.

As far as maintaining a mixed lighted tank with non-photo corals, some of use, myself included, are doing it currently. I am not about to claim any kind of success personally as I haven't had most of these corals more than a few months. I have a dendro and a sclero colony in my tank, along with some gorgonians. The dendro seems to be doing well with the copious amounts of shellfish diet and rotifeast that I am adding. The sclero has been difficult sofar. It hardly opens up ever and I am not sure why. I think that the colony simply was in poor condition when I got it. We'll see if it ever pulls through. The major issue with doing such a mixed tank is trying to feed enough for the non-photos without harming the photo corals. I do not have any SPS or finicky corals in my tank, only softies and LPS. Sofar, most of them are thriving rather well in the conditions. My frogspawn and acan colonies are rapidly growing. I would probably not expect the same thing from any SPS, but who knows until you try.

One more thing: I've always had my doubts about the corals in the picture you posted. I've seen that exact picture a number of times before, but never any other pictures of the same tank. I just don't believe, until someone proves otherwise, that this is a thriving tank. I'm pretty sure it is a posed tank - where someone took a bunch of pretty corals and fish and delicately placed them in a tank for the purposes of taking that photo.

 

[dendro982]

I was told several times, that this Japaneses tank likely was assembled as a display for some event, for a short time.

Only pink and orange corals at the left are non-photosynthetic - dendronephthya. The most difficult coral, requiring big amounts of specialized food. And an excellent filtration.

Sorry, can't tell more about them - they can't live in my tanks.

 

[cmlloveless]

I know what the corals are. And I know that the tank was probably set up for a quick show as it does not have any growth on the glass or substrate.

I have read a lot about how to care for these corals, but know one has ever said whether they could tlerate light or not!

 

[aninjaatemyshoe]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12058282#post12058282 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by cmlloveless

I have read a lot about how to care for these corals, but know one has ever said whether they could tlerate light or not!

Did you read my response? I said Dendros and Scleros seem to tolerate light just fine. If you are asking about all non-photosynthetic corals, then who knows? I'm sure there are some non-photosynthetic corals that do not tolerate intense light. I am unaware of any, however.

 

[sammy33]

Sunlight or intense lighting would likely cause problems in a dendro/sclero system with constant dosing of foods. In a setup where you are target feeding corals such as tubastrea then more intense lighting would not be as big of an issue. imho

I think the other consideration for NPS setups is temperature. 75F or even 76F seems to be the ideal temp. This is naturally more difficult with intense lighting.

I think the best route for keeping these corals is to set up a dedicated system for these corals. I like the idea of a flow through style system with a sump and refugium that matches the size of the display. I think extra water volume 2 to 3 times the display volume are also important to buffer against the heavy food input.

Did I mention flow? Lots of flow and laminar in pattern. Put all of your powerheads on one side of the tank to get all the water moving in one direction. This also seems to be the preference.

The picture in your post is from CP farm in Japan btw. CP farm is a coral farm in Okinawa. That display tank is managed as on open system and gets daily seawater changes.

 

[cmlloveless]

Yes I read your thread. Thank you for the info. I think that I will be trying out a dendro or two. Do they prefer direct current or inderect currents? My tank will have a lot of current in it as I will be doing softies and LPS. I do not like SPS except maybe montipora capricornas or hydnopora.

 

[dtaylor123]

Keep in mind that these corals are pretty much impossible to keep alive and growing. There are a few here that have been able to keep them alive for a year, but they are very dedicated and are willing to put the time and money into housing these corals. If you try and put the NPS's corals in your tank, the chance of them living and growing are about nil. Some people keep them alive for a little while, then they starve to death. This is an area of coral husbandry that is in it's infancy and the normal hobbyist should not try to keep them. But this forum is a good place to learn from those that are trying to keep them and maybe someday these corals will become as common place as SPS corals, I am not trying to be harsh, but if you are asking the questions that you asked, then you probably shouldn't be trying to keep them.

 

[mhurley]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12049119#post12049119 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by cmlloveless
Sorry I have no idea why this posted so many times. Please delete all but one of them!

OMG, MY EYES!!!

Probably because you kept banging on the submit button when you were getting one of our system busy messages.

Next time, please step away from the keyboard for 5 minutes before resubmitting

 

[cmlloveless]

Actually, just so you know, I only hit the submit button once. It just posted a whole crap load of times! I did not get any system busy messages!

 

[cmlloveless]

Keep in mind that these corals are pretty much impossible to keep alive and growing. There are a few here that have been able to keep them alive for a year, but they are very dedicated and are willing to put the time and money into housing these corals. If you try and put the NPS's corals in your tank, the chance of them living and growing are about nil. Some people keep them alive for a little while, then they starve to death. This is an area of coral husbandry that is in it's infancy and the normal hobbyist should not try to keep them. But this forum is a good place to learn from those that are trying to keep them and maybe someday these corals will become as common place as SPS corals, I am not trying to be harsh, but if you are asking the questions that you asked, then you probably shouldn't be trying to keep them.

I guess when I titled this "Newbie Question" it made it sound like I had never had a reef tank before. I have been in the hobby for around 10 years now. Have had much experiance with all types of setups and species of fish and inverts. However this will be my first with non-photosynthetics. In the 10+ years of this I never took the time to learn the husbandry of these corals. Mainly because the majority of people say it cant be done, or it should only be done by those people they consider "experts". I use the word "expert" loosely because it depends on who you are talking too what they consider an "expert". Because if you ask my wife, or any of my friends they might consider me an expert because they don't know anything about it. If you ask me it would be someone who can answer any and every question I ask with the correct answer. I think that these forums should shy away from the comments like this. The reason you ask questions is so you learn how to care for them. Not so someone can tell you you have no idea what you are doing and so you should not even try it. I have read only about 50-60 books about reef keeping, inverts, corals, fish, and husbandry with a large list still to be read. Not to mention I had about 4 years experiance in a large aquarium store in Utah. As well as 10+ years of keeping my own tanks. Now I dont't know, but I would not consider myself a "normal hobbyist" as much as a obsest finatic!

I am defenetly trying to be harsh. Because if I had listened to comments like this 10 years ago I would not have even gotten into this hobby. And look where its at now. It is commen place to have corals that were impossable to have 10 years ago, why because people tried it out and learned how to keep them. Not necesarily "experts" either!

 

[aninjaatemyshoe]

I agree completely. It's not like you approached the subject saying "I just bought a carnation coral, now what?" You're just trying to get a straight answer to a simple question. There is no need for discouragement of that.

I would however say that most of these corals, especially dendronephthya and scleronephthya, clearly require very special dedicated care. I think it is doable to have a mixed photosynthetic/non-photosynthetic reef tank using some of the easier photo corals. But, the entire system should be primarily dedicated to providing for the needs of the NPS corals over those of the photo corals. If your system is already well established with your current photosynthetic corals, then you might not be willing/able to make the radical changes necessary to provide for NPS in that tank.

 

[cmlloveless]

I have not even set the tank up yet. However I will be designing this tank to house what I want rather than getting what can be housed in this tank. I am looking to run around 400-500g in the tank and another 600-1000g in the filtration, sumps, and multiple types of refugiums. The filtration system I am currently designing might be a little overboard for this size of system, but atleast I know it will be able to handle the large load if I want to put a couple NPS corals in there and need to feed them heavily while still maintaning good water quality for the rest. The skimmer alone that I am looking into getting is designed for a 2000+ system. I will have a few different sumps. One for all my chemical filtration. One with a deep sand bead and some type of macro. One that all the plumbing will draw water from (i.e. skimmer, UV sterilizer, calcium reactor <-maybe, chiller, inline heaters). I will be filling this all with an automated top off system hooked up to an R/O unit that will fill a 100g drum daily if needed. Another that will have biological filtration. A few smaller ones that will be used for fragging and quarentine. The quarentine tanks will be plummed right from the main system, but also be seperatly plummed to a drain. I will also have a couple of smaller containers for the sole purpose of providing a live food supply. I am going to be running rotifers, brine shrimp, phyto, mysid and a couple other live feeders. The goal is to have a completly self sufficient eccosystem minus a few items that will need to be purchased on a regular bases. All in all there will be a huge water turn over every day through the filter system that whopefully will also have a steady but small supply of live food in it upon return to the show tank. I like to get away from the twice a day large feedings as this does not happen in the wild. I will be giving very small amounts regularly throughout the day (atleast for the corals).

The reason I ask about the light toleration is that I will most defenatly be running MH lighting supplimented with T5 actinics. This tank will be bright.

 

[Kreeger1]

With a system that size, your main draw back will be money spent in food. I could see a few hundred dollars, probably more a month in food spent to keep dendros alive.

I run MH on my non photo/mix tank btw

 

[cmlloveless]

That is why I will be running my own live food cultures to help cut that cost back

 

[aninjaatemyshoe]

You're going to need some seriously large cultures to match what you get out of SD (Shellfish diet) in terms of phytoplankton. SD is 1800x the phyto concentration of a dense culture. So you'd need to dose gallons and gallons of cultured phyto if you're attempting to keep dendros via the Stottlemire method.

You could try what I am doing, which is to use a syringe pump to dose SD directly in front of a powerhead, which is directed at my dendro. This way the phyto gets to the dendro directly before it is lost to the rest of the system. If done properly, it should mean that you wouldn't need to dose nearly as much to keep the dendros alive. Of course, if you have a system full of dendros, this will do no good.

 

[Kreeger1]

IMO running your own cultures will never be able to feed dendro's. It's just not dense enough, you'd really pollute your tank feeding a home brew.

 

[GreshamH]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12083940#post12083940 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Kreeger1
IMO running your own cultures will never be able to feed dendro's. It's just not dense enough, you'd really pollute your tank feeding a home brew.

I shudder at the thought of 1800 liters of F2 media going into a reef tank, or worse, 1800 liters of Miracle Grow