Sustaining good plankton levels.

[MARINECRITTERS]

Hey, so I have been in this hobby for quit some time now, I went from a freshwater monster fish keeper to a reef keeper. As soon as I got into reef keeping, the corals that caught my eye were of course non photosynthetic.
From carnations to dendros, these corals are some of the most beautiful in the ocean. But the main issue is feeding them/ sustaining planktonic foods in the home aquarium. After months and months of research, I know run a algae scrubber, bio pellets and a pump which feeds various foods. I don not run a skimmer. Now what I want this thread to be about are systems which have copious amounts of plankton in them without having to manually dose it in the tank. Whether you run some sort of mineral filter or algae scrubber or even some special DIY system, you can share it and explain it in this thread.
Thanks

 

[coralreefdoc]

MC. How are your nutrient levels, i.e. NO3, PO4, etc, considering youre carbon dosing without a skimmer to export the bacterial blooms ? I'd imagine if it weren't for the corals assimilating/consuming some of that bacteria you find experience a negative effector doing so ...

NO3 is likely not a problem, given the algal turf scrubber, but Im curious how PO4 is recycled/exported efficiently in that system, if in fact it is ...

 

[MARINECRITTERS]

Nitrates are about 10 ppm, phosphates are unreadable, and the nutrient levels in a sense are "good", meaning there is enough for the corals and micro fauna, but not so much that it is promoting algae growth in DT and stopping coral growth.

 

[coralreefdoc]

Excellent. My apologies for having to decipher that last post, never turned off the autocorrect feature on the new iPhone 5

 

[MARINECRITTERS]

Just picked up a small flower tree coral ( Scleronepthea ), for five bucks... what a steal!

It seems to already be fully open, with only being in the tank for 5 minutes.

 

[nicewicz]

Following this one...

I'm constantly dosing three types of live phyto that I culture (nannochloropsis, tetraselmis, isochrysis), cultured L-type rotifers, cultured copepods and freshly hatched brine shrimp. The "dead" foods that I dose with pumps are oyster feast, roti feast, reef pearls and cyclopeeze. I have several species of gorgonians, sun corals and a chili coral. All are doing well, but my nutrients are out of control (nitrates are at 40 ppm even with 30% weekly water changes).

I've started biopellets about three weeks ago, but they either haven't kicked in yet or I need to add more, as my nitrates are still too high. My goal is to have enough live plankton, as you say, to avoid have nutrient build-up. My sense is that you really need an oversized sump system in order to provide enough of a "safe haven" for plankton.

I'm glad you started this thread and I hope more reply. The folks on this awesome forum have really pushed the envelope with NPS corals via automatic feeding. I feel like the next frontier is establishing ways to sustain live plankton in aquariums to avoid nutirent buildup.

 

[MARINECRITTERS]

Following this one...

I'm constantly dosing three types of live phyto that I culture (nannochloropsis, tetraselmis, isochrysis), cultured L-type rotifers, cultured copepods and freshly hatched brine shrimp. The "dead" foods that I dose with pumps are oyster feast, roti feast, reef pearls and cyclopeeze. I have several species of gorgonians, sun corals and a chili coral. All are doing well, but my nutrients are out of control (nitrates are at 40 ppm even with 30% weekly water changes).

I've started biopellets about three weeks ago, but they either haven't kicked in yet or I need to add more, as my nitrates are still too high. My goal is to have enough live plankton, as you say, to avoid have nutrient build-up. My sense is that you really need an oversized sump system in order to provide enough of a "safe haven" for plankton.

I'm glad you started this thread and I hope more reply. The folks on this awesome forum have really pushed the envelope with NPS corals via automatic feeding. I feel like the next frontier is establishing ways to sustain live plankton in aquariums to avoid nutirent buildup.

Give the bio pellets some time, eventually they will do miracles for your system ( take it slow, to many pellets at a time can crash your tank ).
For me, I found phytoplankton to be more of pollution then a benefit.
It just adds nutrients to the system and causes algae, again in my mind.
I just feed zooplankton and oyster feast manually, It seems my scrubber feeds the herbivore filter feeders. In my tank the safe haven is the algae scrubber tank, i have live rock rubble in it and there are tons of shrimp, pods, worms and other creatures.
( at night my water is filled with creatures from polychate epitokes too mysid shrimp )
read this http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2012/2/aafeature

 

[nicewicz]

Yeah, I read that article about the Dymico systems. Really interesting stuff. They claim that they will have smaller systems on the market for hobbyists, but they've been saying this for years...

I have a fuge with amphipods and other critters that I catch and dump into the main tank every so often. I have two seahorses in the main tank that love amphipod hunting, so it is great for them.

Interesting thought on the phtyo; I've tested my phyto water for nutrients by letting it settle out of a sample and testing the water to see if there is any additional fertilizer remaining. At best I see 5 ppm of nitrate. I agree that as the phyto dies it could pollute the water with nutrients, but when it's alive, that shouldn't be the issue. On that topic, has anyone ever quantified what types of food contribute the most to nitrate build-up, for example? I've done tests of a great deal of the foods that I mentioned in my previous post, but I never see detectable levels of nitrates if I dissolve them in a water sample. I assume that they need to break down in order for you to see nitrates. I'll try leaving a few different types of foods out in jars of fresh seawater and see if I can quantify how much each food type contributes to waste build-up.

I've added the biopellets slowly in four portions over 2 weeks. Tonight my skimmate looked pretty gunky, so maybe they're starting to kick in. We'll see what nitrates look like over the next few days.

 

[MARINECRITTERS]

Interesting about the food test, may have to try myself.
I would let the rinsed food ( if frozen ) in a tub of saltwater.
There would be three different foods phyto plankton, zooplankton and maybe some powdered coral food. After 5 days I would test the water for nitrates and phosphates.
Another cool thing about the pellets is that you can really feed mass amounts of foods and the pellets will consume the left overs.

Here is a video of my tank, as of right now it is about 9 months old and I have not stocked it with many non photosynthetic corals as I want to be sure these guys will do good in my system. Some day I wan't the tank to be dominated nps with a forest of carnation corals. Right now I have mainly photosynthetic softies, lps and two nonphotosynthetics ( lace coral and small flower tree, which are both thriving ).
http://www.youtube.com/user/MarineCritters?feature=mhee
So let's get some more guys explaining there " planktonic " systems.

 

[MARINECRITTERS]

Interesting about the food test, may have to try myself.
I would let the rinsed food ( if frozen ) in a tub of saltwater.
There would be three different foods phyto plankton, zooplankton and maybe some powdered coral food. After 5 days I would test the water for nitrates and phosphates.
Another cool thing about the pellets is that you can really feed mass amounts of foods and the pellets will consume the left overs.

Here is a video of my tank, as of right now it is about 9 months old and I have not stocked it with many non photosynthetic corals as I want to be sure these guys will do good in my system. Some day I wan't the tank to be dominated nps with a forest of carnation corals. Right now I have mainly photosynthetic softies, lps and two nonphotosynthetics ( lace coral and small flower tree, which are both thriving ).
http://www.youtube.com/user/MarineCritters?feature=mhee
So let's get some more guys explaining there " planktonic " systems.

Are their any of you who have a way to feed corals who need a larger food type ( such as sun polyps ), and if so how do you keep these large chunks of food from polluting your water. Also has anyone experienced a phyoplankton/algae bloom ( green water ) in your planktonic aquariums.

 

[sqwat]

I use natural sea water and have a fuge with a scrubbed and add all types of wild macro pods and organ isms to my fuge pluss pregnant grass shrimp I still must feed my nps..in the ocean nps are by current swings and narrow concentration of rocks that pass copias amounts of food by them in the tank you can only make a few places that mimic this you will allways have nps in spots that are Ianthe open or a dead spot andthey need to be fed.I live by the ocean and I can get all these things easy if you have a constant flow of fresh salt water maybe but not possable at home I would love to see a tank that can sustain itself pluses if you don't feed they will not open during viewing time.you should see my tank when my shrimp let the lfry go full bloom.

 

[nicewicz]

There was an interesting article in Advanced Aquarist about the Steinhart Aquarium in NY, which houses one of the most spectacular displays of tubestrea that I've seen. The marine biologist who maintains the tank says in the comments section (I asked him this question) that he does not target feed the tubestrea because it is too time consuming. Rather, they add freshly hatched brine shrimp via peristaltic pump over the course of 8 hours during the day. I imagine that this minimizes excess nutrient build up. I've been heading in this direction as well. Will post results in a few weeks.

 

[MARINECRITTERS]

Interesting....
sqwat, with natural sea water it has mass amounts of plankton in it, as long as it is fresh.
For you water changes are quite beneficial, but with people who have artificial sea water then are water changes a benefit or a drawback? the trace elements are a benefit but what about the removal of plankton and nutrients from the system?, do any of you guys not do any water changes?. For me I do one once every 2 months, I dose mg, ca, kh with a dosing pump 36 times per day. I am thinking about starting potassium, from what I have heard is that it is very important for various bacterias and planktonic animals.

Nicewicz, Very good idea. When I used to dose Baby brine shrimp I had a holding container which would be automatically pored into the tank, then with a pump the container would be filled to the top again ( with a float valve ), and then the eggs would be dropped into the container with a auto fish feeder, then the same process would happen again in 4 days. Also I had the drain above the bottom of the container so I would not suck up any unhatched eggs. The main reason I stopped is that there is a harmful bacteria that forms in the container from the eggs.
We should figure out a way to drain the water from the container and somehow release the brine shrimp into the tank ( after the pumps obviously ).

 

[sqwat]

I hallways wanted to do the brine shrimp thing sounds worth it. They have a hatcher you can put in a tank it would fit in my fuge perfectly and they also sell the eggs I am going to get it and give a try hallways wanted to.that is still feeding you're tank and causing some bioload.allot of the public aquariums by me are next to the ocean and have pipes running constant fresh salt allot in California do that too.

 

[MARINECRITTERS]

I hallways wanted to do the brine shrimp thing sounds worth it. They have a hatcher you can put in a tank it would fit in my fuge perfectly and they also sell the eggs I am going to get it and give a try hallways wanted to.that is still feeding you're tank and causing some bioload.allot of the public aquariums by me are next to the ocean and have pipes running constant fresh salt allot in California do that too.

Same with me, I am going to try feeding brine shrimp to my reef, although from what I have heard is that they are not very nutritional after the larva stage, does anyone no how to enrich them?

I am also thinking of something new. I am testing out what will happen is I let large amounts of detrius accumulate in the bottom of my scrubber tank.
This will feed zooplankton and create larger amounts present in my aquarium.
To keep the nitrates down I am running bio pellets, and a algae scrubber.
what do people think about this, as of right now my nitrates are very low.

 

[MarineSniper]

The best way to enrich brine shrimp is to add Selcon to the water they're in an hour or two before releasing. I don't know how that can be managed with an in-tank setup but you are correct in that their nutritional value is very poor. I'm in the early stages of setting up a mysid propagation system and the main food for them is newly hatched brine, and needs to be enriched; even for the them

As for nitrate reduction, I had a fellow hobbyist give me a probiotic called Aquabella. I was skeptical and when the instructions stated no skimming or water changes for 2 weeks, I almost lost my nerve! I was doing weekly, 30% water changes since nitrates would start to climb at that point. Day 8, 10, day 9: 20. I kept a close eye on the levels and my nitrates stayed at 5 until day 18, without skimming, at that. It has enabled me to cut my water changes in half, which more than pays for the $59 spent on 2 packages purchased when I moved my nps to a larger system. I plan on adding a pair of turf scrubbers to my new sump and am hopeful that the mysid propagation will take off. The larger volume (650 gallons total), turf scrubbers and live food will hopefully eliminate any need for large water changes and allow me to use a daily water change system of 2%. I'll keep you informed!

 

[knight2255]

Good discussion, in for later

 

[MARINECRITTERS]

Finally got my aqua medic plankton reactor and I am starting to hatch some brine shrimp, I am going to feed them at the nauplii stage as it is when they are most nutritional and they are a good size for the corals I plan to feed. Something I have heard recently is that nps corals will do better with the addition of shrimp, squid, clam, etc juice added to the aquarium water, I tried t early today and my flower tree coral opened up right away and then I added some live brine shrimp to the water. I have also heard that corals such as carnation, flower tree, chilli and black coral do a lot better when flipped upside down, they seem to not enjoy touching the sand from past experience.
Lastly I am going to try out some different flow, they enjoy laminar flow but I have realized that there is a " slack period " in their environment when the the slow slows down. Since lots of people seem to not know why these corals deflate and inflate I think this might be a factor. I will just set my tunze pump to turn off half way through the day and see what happens. Does anyone have experience with the slack period?, and how long you run the pumps.

 

[MARINECRITTERS]

Some pics of my system

 

[Bratyboy2]

your pictures are not showing up