MaryBebo
Premium Member
Talk about Nano's have you all seen this? It's hard to believe one could keep some like these.
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6354256#post6354256 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by brandon429
Thanks master and hceiv/No prob on the longer posts guys, as you can see I don't mind typing small volumes about anything, thanks to a job that also requires that I hammer my employees with huge emails daily (you know they love it!). We're talkin 95 wpm so this is a drop in the bucket..
The heat buildup is a small issue, not too bad if I keep a small fan blowing across the system during the day. If the ambient temp is about 70, like it is during this season for us in panhandle Texas, I don't need a fan. There are two PC microfans built into the back of the canopy that are always on when lights are on, so between these fans the temps stays at 80 degrees. The only NDE (near death experience) on this tank was once in the summer when I forgot to turn the rear fans back on after a servicing...temps got to 86 and nearly killed it@ things were stressed for a while and I lost some small blastomussa frags. The mussids I purchased were large-polyp blasto frags, not sure on the species. I think they're the expensive welsii variant and not the merletti which has the little tubules under every polyp? Bright red and orange, they've added a nice color scheme to things and I hope to get update pics soon.
Perhaps one of the most interesting aspects of these systems is some form of chemosensory steady-state these corals reach after being housed together for so long. I really don't know why allelopathy doesn't shrink or kill the chemically weaker or receptive corals...one would think with a small leather coral and 4-5 mushrooms (and plenty of zoanthids) along with all that stuff in .5 gallons would oppress someone...but they do not. In fact, my aquascaping theme is centered around corals that can touch so I can absolutely cram them in that space. Touching in this system are: small sinularia and caulastrea/caulastrea and zoanthids (but not palythoa, they injure the candy corals in my system) blastomussa merletti and welsii touching caulastrea and zoanthids, acanthastrea can't touch anything, it's bloodthirsty!
My hammer coral doesn't send sweepers anymore after the first week, neither does the hydno, sometimes extended polyps of the euphyllia touch a tubipora below and parts of the green hydno above. I've seen the hydno retract somewhat after a touch, only to re-inflate later with no sliming or wound appearances. So, with all this floating around in the same water column, sometimes for 8-9 days before a water change, all I have to do is keep the non-touchers apart physically . The close proximity and shared small water volume have all adapted together such that these corals expand just like they would in a larger system. Usually in the first few days after addition a coral won't open up all the way, I suppose this is the acceptance period as they learn to cope with nematocyst soup!!!!! I consider them happy and well adjusted if they will eat, inflate and calcify as the should after a few weeks. I hope to include macro shots of acan buds and blastomussa buds, sps plating and tiny "leatherlets" as evidence of growth/satisfaction in the system after my home pC gets working again.
There are always re-stockings to be done...move a candy coral here or there and move that darn acan far away from anyone...tiny puzzle-piece adjustments are my weekly maintenances with this system. Here's another old system, the reefbowl. Two huge euphyllias, frogspawn and hammer were sure to wipe out everything in the 1 gallon space (so they thought) but after a week or so of half-inflating they came out and never showed signs of stress for nearly three years! Growth rates and physical forms are also adjusted in the pico reef environ, my xenia has stayed the size of a marks-a-lot marker cap for 6 months where in your larger systems it would have outgrown the 3" space by now...I suspect there are growth-retardant features of this living soup. They're still kickin though!
I suspect I've built and maintained at least 10 pico systems over the years, SW. With freshwater in the mix maybe 25. Here's a few more:
