"pastel" colors vs. deep dark coloring

Well, it is pretty well documented that photosynthesis results in O2 and sugar, by taking in CO2 and light energy. It's the same with land plants and the zoox. No animal can live on sugar alone, proteins are required to build tissue, the same with corals.
 
stony corals,

I'm referring to sceintific info that refutes what I just posted.

Where are these newer recent studies that say corals get 70% of their needs from zooplankton & Sorokin was in errror.

If this were true then I should be able to have corals thrive in normal florescent lighting as long & I can give them all the zooplankton they need. I'd like to see someone try this.

This would be great........we can all get ride of our halides & HO t5's.


Letme ask this...........Do you think a coral would last longer without lights or without food?
 
Interesting discussion everyone.

BigE---------my guess would be without food. As their primary source of food does come from photosynthesis. Its like asking.....What do you think your corals could do without longer....their primary or secondary source of food? Without the food the coral could still produce its own food with light. Without light, one would have to supply tons and tons of prey/food and hope that they "eat"/consume it.

One thing...ive been watching all the blue planet series and quite a few of the national geographic shows that are showing for the most part the great barrier reef.....one thing that someone mentioned was the particulate matter flowing in the Waikiki aquarium. My guess is that particular tank is slam packed full of zooplankton. Also, if you watch the "Largest European Aquarium" show you will notice that they strive to bring about this great particulate matter, and micro life. On the natural reefs that are LOADED full of healthy Acroporids you see thick waves of "stuff"/particulate matter/zooplankton flowing over and through them. I mean THICK amounts of the particulates.

I believe this is actually healthy for a reef/aquaria situation. I used to be on the skim skim skim...destroy nutrients bandwagon, but after seeing, studying , and watching videos on the GBR I am starting to move away from that. Hopefully, my corals will show less of a pastel coloring along with it. ------------I am like HORACE...my main problem is with greens. I get a lime green in caps, and Acros show that yellow/lime/green color. Blues are outstanding in my tank and show no pastel coloring at all. I just want all of em to be perfect.

Horace---------do your purples(in Acros only) tend to seem a little more bluish and less of a deep purple...i know mine do

I was considering the ultralith/zeo type systems, but the goals of the system are already achieved in my setup and after reading it induces pastel colors.........that is not what I need either.
 
Serious, my blues are all pretty darn nice I think. My purples arent too shabby either actually. My tort has nice blue tips with a pretty deep purple body, also with green in it. When it lightens, the green is the first to go away. My oranges also shift to more of a pink color, and my greens to more of a yellow color.

Blues/purples both look great IMO.
 
Good post Serioussnaps,

I consider dissolved organics, bacteria, particular organic matter(detritus) most of the food corals consume in our systems. I can supply that just by feeding my fish & still be in control of the excess nutrients.

I have little concern for the zooplankton population in my system feeding the corals or adding a bunch of supplements that aren't needed.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9248580#post9248580 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Big E
stony corals,

I'm referring to sceintific info that refutes what I just posted.

Where are these newer recent studies that say corals get 70% of their needs from zooplankton & Sorokin was in errror.

If this were true then I should be able to have corals thrive in normal florescent lighting as long & I can give them all the zooplankton they need. I'd like to see someone try this.

This would be great........we can all get ride of our halides & HO t5's.


Letme ask this...........Do you think a coral would last longer without lights or without food?
Click to expand...

So you think Sorokin was wrong? Why? Sorokin is one of the most respected coral researchers.

I'm sure it could live on sugar alone, but would you want to? Yes, there are some institutions that have had success in maintaining acropora under flourescent lighting, the Eilat Zoo or something in Israel is doing just that. Sure it's brown, but it's growing under two fluorescent lights, see TRA3.

I'm looking for those papers.....
 
It all comes back to bioload and what you are feeding your fish and what kind of fish you have imo. To me the high metabolism of Anthias and Chromis and Wrasses gives the needed breakdown of meaty foods and releases(detritus) them in a very soluble form(amino acids as well as nitrates) for the pods and other microrganisms that live in the rock along with corals. I have no problem keeping any color in my systems and I run a BB tank with heavy skimming and a healthy amount of Macro algae.

Macro is another overlooked aspect of it all imo. It takes away Co2 and Po4 and leaves lots of good stuff behind as well as hosting pods and such.

PE is extendend the most at night, pods are the most active at night. Pods are consuming detritus and other forms of bioload and is also releasing thier own which is being consumed by corals that have those extra long polyps out! This is just my observations that I have been documenting now for the past year. I don't have a degree(yet:rolleyes:) but I have done a tremendus amount of research and I hope that this may help.
 
So you think Sorokin was wrong? Why? Sorokin is one of the most respected coral researchers.
Click to expand...

Uh no..........my post quoted Sorokin.

I NEVER said corals didn't feed, I disagree with the overemphasis of feeding with commercial products & the comment concerning that 70% of their demands are met by ZOOPLANKTON.

I mentioned bacteria, dissolved organics, & particulate organic matter.....all food. That's not zooplankton. Zooplankton plus the aformentioned make up that 8-25% demand..........all of them together. That equals what I'd call bacterioplankton in our systems mentioned by Sorokin.

Whatever.........it's not worth arguing the point when its right in front of your face if you look around.
 
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Big E,

bacteria is certianly zooplankton! It's not a plant and there are two main types of plankton, phyto and zoo. The term bacteroplankton is used as a sub-chapter under zooplankton when one is making a comparison in the same sense that micro and macro planktons are not necessarily phyto or zoo unless otherwise explained. In the studies I had read, bacteria is one part of the zooplankton considered.

Feeding suppliments is no different than feeding typical foods. There is a fluid run from flakes to animo acids. And, whe feed the aquarium, not just the fish. Everything benefits (or not!) from the nourishment, whether through their mouths directly or indirectly or through osmosis.

I agree, it's not worth arguing the point. You follow your method and report back other will do the same (and hopefully report back)

By the way, the US edition of Coral ran those articles on nutrition by Jürg Kokott in their first issues. Very interesting stuff all around. I read the originals in German, so I can only assume the translations are the same. The sections on nitrate vs phosphate defecit are very enightening. I still cannot find the study on zooplankton, I don't even remeber what language it was!
 
Lol.........no reason to get caught up in semantics. Whatever you care to define it as it makes up 8-25% of the corals demands.

We are saying the same thing............I feed the fish, but everything in the systems gets some directly or down the line in some form. That's all that's needed. There's plenty for the corals, they don't need that much.

Nothing to report back about...........I run BB don't have light colors & I only feed the fish. I don't use any chemical export, UV, ozone, filter bags, ect.
Water changes & a skimmer make up my export system & this strikes a balance for me.

It's all about finding a balance for your system, no two are going to be the same.
 
OK, this is a link to part 4 of the series where I referenced the 70%! By the way, in this breakdown, the bacteria are listed seperately although, as I understand the graphic, the end % is considering all heterotroph sources, which should include the bacteria. (correct me if this is not the case)

The rest of the series is great and should be read and considered by all. It is A LOT of information, but creates a fascinating window into the knowledge we now have. Any, yes, some things do seem to contradict, but that may be my inability to assimilate all this info.

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2002-12/eb/index.php

enjoy
:)
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9234007#post9234007 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by RichConley
no, I know, my point was that the fact that the Waikiki aquarium was higher than natural doesnt mean that the average hobbiest that complains about lightening is.
Click to expand...

I know that was your point. Do you know what your DOP and DON levels are? The only way to find that out is by sending them to a lab as there are no hobbyist test kits currently that test those.

This is just something I'm trying to explore... I am in agreement that pastel colors indicate that a color isn't getting enough fish poo... Just trying to stimulate some discussion. DOP can become a source of DIP, as unlike N, P doesn't leave our systems unless the P is uptaken by algae and subsequently harvested. I do not know, though, if DON makes it's way into the inorganic cycle that we all know about.
 
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Big E, yeah, we're in agreement. I'm guilty of skimming and not reading.... part of that ADHD thing... Curious, do you have Sorokins book? I've not been able to find it anywhere. Yeah, as long as the corals have some source of N, that should suffice to provide enough for growth. I think there are some decent commercial food products out there, and hope that they only improve. But you can't beat throwing a few raw shrimp, mussels, clams, etc into a blender and putting that into the tank as well...
 
Stony - Sorokin's book is out of print I'm pretty sure - though you can find a used one around now + again. [that's how I got mine]

Now to get past chapter 3 [beyond just skimming] :lmao: ... not exactly light reading.
 
I had the light, pastel 'zeo' colors, which I don't care for. I had 0 nitrates. I dosed 2ppm potassium nitrate for a couple months (the tank went back to 0ppm each night). The colors darkened, looking much nicer to me. Then I stopped dosing and started feeding double the amount I had been. Now the nitrate level stays at about 2ppm, and my acro colors look nice. The lesson I learned is that my light colors were due to the fact that I had been feeding too little.
 
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