30+ months in the micro reef, invertebrate care ideas

[brandon429]

This video shows how invertebrates condition to high feeding/high water change scenarios and will adapt to nearly any sized container as long as its a complete ecosystem that meets all needs...though not much is scalable between the pico reef and the full size tank even the larger tanks can benefit from consistent water changes, high oxygenation, high feeding input and careful stocking.

while its rather shocking to consider at least 20 asterina stars, 15 micro ophiuroid stars, 15 genera of coral, 1000+ pods at the visible scale with a coral banded shrimp and a mature boxer crab in one gallon for years, nothing seems to be dying and alot of the models regarding allelopathy don't really add up.

the point of this system is to test how much you can adapt to a microhabitat, and how long that will live. So far, that timespan is a mighty long time for this one vase
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuIIPFeUd2Q

and to me that speaks wonders for the animal interactions within I hope the video shows
B

 

[Faciosity]

Holly crap are you kidding me? What exactly is the coral livestock? I see zoanthids, blastos, dendros, duncans, and either alveopora or something similar.

 

[iroll253]

AWESOME!!!

 

[Faciosity]

Does anything in there kill each other? I wanna try it! What kinda light, and what's it hooked up to? Just air pump and heater? Would love more information and helpful tips on how to recreate your success.

 

[brandon429]

this is nearly five years old and was slowly added during the first two years, it doesn't sound as stable to pile it all in at once although with 100% water changes it doesn't surprise me in the least if it works.

montiporas
hydnophoras
acansXlordhowe and echinata
lobophyllia
xenia but was removed off the glass last month, through with it after as many years it shades others too much
galaxea fascicularis
ric florida
caulastrea
plus what you wrote
red goniopora, removed after one months as truly the only risky allelopathic stony coral kept. No other genera outwardly affected the other frags, they started to recede from the entry of one tiny frag I made of it. pic shown

all other species have been in there long enough to show their true ability to adapt, the only recession Im getting is the blastomussas stinging the echinata red variant and also I don't target feed as much as I used to because of RC FPV remote control airplanes=new addiction. the goal is not to prune a lot unless something will wreck the tank, its to see what adaptability really means.

youtube comments is where I can always be found if you want pico reef talk and I miss it here, but i will mark this thread and hang out. someone go to wal mart and get the two gallon vase (down to 1 after sand and rock displacement) four pounds of live rock (yes) and some caribsea live sand that is wet packaged. rather than debate specifics, I always say if you want what I have do what I did. don't use live sand from an established tank, its a pre-nutrient store. its one way that's possible, just not the best idea for vases that will try to prevent oversaturation of the bed by the coupled feeding/water change technique critical to success. You have the option of changing water out in small amounts regularly, or all of it on sundays, both work. once a week is easiest, and for most waste export.

This tank will be dosed with C balance, micronutrients are never an issue. The reason pico reefs don't have coralline problems like mine is because water changes only support so much coralline, to get it to look like jim morrison's beard you have to dose for it.

the total weekly routine is:
sunday change water with reef crystals
monday dose ~1/4 capfull of c balance yellow bottle in the morning into the vase before lights on, never after lights off on either doser. ten minutes later dose the 1/4 capfull of blue bottle C balance. a firm rule is morning dosing, death will follow if you add in the afternoon. The reason these dosing don't have to be exact is because even up to a half cap is below the precipitation and pH thresholds within a gallon tank. use only c-balance, if you do other dosers its your own experiment...
tuesday do nothing watch tank
wed same dosing scheme, maybe topoff a bit if the water line dropped a sixteenth of an inch.
thurs do nothing, maybe play around with the aquascaping till you like it
friday dosing day
sat topoff
sun repeat!

I personally guarantee you the repeatability will exceed any other reef system (lol guy with a gallon says that). We can document it here or on the tube, Id say there are about 10 out there now running based on pm's and emails. KevinStan on nanoreef, Mark (Warlion) on youtube are two tops.

Check out Warlion's thread on here and on youtube, pico reef vase. a reefbowl recreation done via youtube comments along with the master fab skills of someone who is naturally gifted at tank design, he figured out how to drill the vase which is far better than my method. My topoff requirement at this gallon tank is one ounce every 2-3 days, Mark gets 5 freakin days on topoff, via partial sealing, not hamster bottling lol

http://www.flickr.com/photos/27804644@N03/4333633404/in/photostream/

what you are seeing is the vette of pico reefs, you start with a yugo and work up in the same container.

google "the history of pico reef biology" for specifics on this vase

the same design first guessed at was totally lucky, and did not have to be adjusted. Because of evaporation restriction, it makes up for the fact the footprint is the size of a coffee cup and you could elbow it over any second lol

just took some snaps of live rock growth, filter feeder stands numbering in the hundreds too Id assume, the live rock growth is not slick coralline, its stubbly coralline and worms and sponges because constant water changes with high feeding just before keep suspended nutrients high and dissolved nutrients (the algae food) low. this is just one way that works, others choose to do daily small changes and that's ok too. my way is just the least possible work with the highest possible return after nine years of keeping them. here's a vid of my scraping dubious coralline growth with a coat hanger rod. how many other gallon pico reefs do you know have to do this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3onG2SvzKc

and here's a long video (like my long posts lol) to show nearly every tank Ive done
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XOsitYhihc

B

 

[brandon429]

lol one update, this should be the only known example in reefkeeping of alveopora grown up and onto the side of glass like xenia... come on guys, who out there with the 300 gallon reefs have alveopora on anything but a live rock surface speak up lol

usually there's a tiny eyepatch of black tape on this alveopora growth because its impossible to scrape for micro algae up under calcium carbonate skelelton~notice the tiny polyp buds forming around the center...this is not the mass of alveopora placed on glass like the montipora was done, this was alveopora that grew off the live rock -onto- the glass in seach of stronger light over the course of roughly three years now im guessing. the original frag was towards the center of the aquascape but still on the left side. it had to grow about 1 inch before even touching the glass now there's about three linear inches of total growth and a 5x doubling of the original thumb-sized frag

notice the white skeleton in the center stetches down to a point, through the coralline, this is the trail of white calcium carbonate calcification but from the inside of the tank it looks pinkish brown because of flesh and polyps. pic on the left is from today, pic on the right is from Feb when I wrote that article.

 

[Faciosity]

It all still semms a little crazy to me (esecially housing acan echinatas, caulastreas, and galaxia so close to everything else, from what I understand they are all pretty darn aggressive). But next time I have a little cash, I'm gonna try it. Thanks for the info and help. I will either make a thread or add to this one when I have the time to set it up in a week or two. I've never used c balance, is it absolutely necessary?

 

[brandon429]

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sure its crazy but it works. without pics and vid admit you guys would be hammering me lol

If time goes by and this thead drops catch me on youtube comments to bring me back k



I started with really tiny frags per the pics, and grew them up together patiently. most people buy frags too large to sustain for their feeding methods. they underfeed and starve, or they overfeed and poison. no one thought to just make the simple timing adjustment of only feeding just before a huge water change then you can get away with consistently feeding 10x the normal amount of high quality live foods. All the reefbowl does to shock you with optical illusions is change the timing of normal reefkeeping methods. the corals do all the rest to cause us to really ask ourselves if allelopathy is as bad as its written. Its that bad for goniopora, but not any other stonies common in LFS as I have kept them all.

soft corals...that's a whole different beast lol I went for stonies because its tougher.



there is no other reference out there to know if the tank can be kept without dosing. morning dosing does a lot for the tank past stony coral support...there is specific timing with low pH trends in my dosing, Ive tried tanks this size without it and more than weekly changes were required when it aged past two years.

Currently what I do, I deem to be the least work with the most effective growth of any other technique for the gallon reef.

it is a little shocking even still. to see how corals shut down the war mechanism of allelopathy is probably among the newest discoveries in coral biology altogether in the last 50 years. if the vase accomplishes anything past novelty alone its that...100% of professional authors (I got pms from one notable one) thought it was totally impossible, imagine it being back in 2001. this is '10 and I still get accused of photoshopping lol

The first week will be putting it together and using nice bright light that won't heat the tank over 78 as a max temp. higher temps increase metabolism, I have seen what it takes to get them to really age and being 'cool' is key. Put in all the live sand, stack the rock up nice and tall, use a lot. occasionally you turkey baster it all and do a five gallon pour-through to blast clean the tank, magic detritus removal!!

you won't get an ammonia spike or a cycle if you can take home cycled live rock from the LFS and submerge it quickly with my water change and feeding system. In fact, Id expect it to only get better inside the bowl~you can put in a few mushrooms or simple corals, non crowded, when you put the tank together.

You and I are about to publicly refute 40% of the working knowledge written about reef aquariums. Yay!
Nice to meet you
Brandon M

 

[Faciosity]

Sounds amazing. After some time to play and experiment, I will try to follow your plan for success. However, for starting out the easy way, I might take some sand and rock from my display, and start out with just a few zoas, shrooms, and softys. I don't have the money or resources to risk any of my nice LPS yet. Soft corals should make things a little easier to start since I don't have any experience with dosing, I run my tanks all natural (No skimmers or reactors or fancy equipment, just lot's of flow and circulation with regular water changes and feedings and lot's of attention). I congradulate you on your success and newly found possibilities for the world of reefing. Expect to here from me more as I get started.

 

[brandon429]

that sounds like an acceptable change up. the biggest benefit you will instantly see is the evaporation restriction benefits when you top off the bowl as often, or less often than your giant reef comparatively speaking lol


if your substrates are already pretty free of detritus thats not a problem and in fact should cause you to own an instantly-aged tank with instant bioload supports for that size tank, unlike systems that build it up slowly from basically sterile, nitrifier-seeded, live sand (caribsea is what I chose).


Mark K (Warlion) totally neglects his vase and it looks great, I keep emailing him saying to stop lol he's spoiled in that first year. after year two no skipping!

he doesn't dose his vase directly like I do, he adds a little c balance both additives to the change water he keeps a few days in between water changes and his tank now has coralline too. I am certain that if you want to keep the vase without dosing, all you have to do is match your exporting water changes with pH low maximum set points (never let it register below 7.9-8 in the mornings if it is change water more often) and nitrate setpoints (nothing sustained over 5 ppm when aged, 5-10 when new)

I have never tested for phosphate, as nitrate management and known feed sources accomplish even more export for phosphate its always in a smaller presence than nitrate using cyclopeeze and mysis as the only food. dt's oyster eggs sometimes too.

your tank will work perfectly as you've written, this thread would really support my article if you would indeed update it thanks for giving it a run.

 

[Faciosity]

You think adding some mini brittle stars should help if adding sand from my display, or you still suggest starting with fresh stuff?

 

[brandon429]

I have about 15 of them I would guess, they count as bioloading and little things to watch their arms waving around the rocks but they won't do much to change measurable water parameters. in a bowl this size, they contribute to nitrate measures by adding ammonia as a respirative waste to the water. they are eating detritus, but so are bacteria and there's way more monerans hanging around than little echinoderms lol

the ideal sand addition is sand free of organics but set with nitrifiers to handle a beginning bioload, since organics will accumulate in time even more concentrated in the vase its nice to stave that off when possible.

whether or not you add them is a non issue to the life of the bowl, but I like them just to say its one more population thriving among all this packed in junk.

using the existing sand for immediacy is not a bad idea. You just get the nutrient loading of a two year old tank right off the bat, if you skimp on water changes green hair algae will let you know. rather than being sneak attacked by it, I learned to just do the max export as often as you will allow yourself to do and still justify keeping corals in a vase. for me, that's weekly. conversely, you will be able to sustain nicer live rock right off the bat using aged sand from a reef. its less dieoff because the live sand produces lots of planktors heavy live rock fauna eat

 

[Faciosity]

So, next week after I have some money, I will need:
2 gallon vase
air pump
light
some kind of make shift lid
live rock and sand
livestock

Just need to figure out where to get the light. I use screw in 10 watt 50/50 bulbs on my 10 gallon. One of those in a simple clip on fixture would be perfect, but I don't know where to get them locally, I order them from drs. Foster Smith and they take a while to get here.

 

[brandon429]

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heater is a tetra preset 50w. you couldn't have a house cold enough to make this pico register less than 78. 78 is the best temperature for all reefs in the home, not just picos. its the beauty metabolic ideal in between anabolism and catabolism in a reef considering the waste we tend to store...


if LFS doesn't sell the coralife screw-in, self ballasted type of lights then ordering is it. you can get the bases on a cord extension from home depot, wal mart.


The LID****only one thing works as well man, its the tiny plastic dishes you get from any garden center used to set potted plants in, about 6 or 8 inches around. you invert it, and cut a slit into it (or drill the bowl if you are bad like Mark Im not) for the incoming air line and heater line.

Thanks for actually repeating this in a vase, when people do it with square tanks that 50 times harder.

You can get away with weak initial lighting by only putting a couple corals on the top of the rock wall, moving down as needed. I use coralife mini aqualight on the top, and a 13 watt 5050 pc hitting from the side to train up that alveopora.

 

[Faciosity]

Oh yea can't forget the heater. Maybe I can find a good small led fixture. As a matter of fact, they have some really cool flexible ones on e bay that could just wrap around the thin part of the vase! Gotta go to work now, but ideas are gonna be on my head all day. Thanks for all your tips and info! This will be fun and a great learning experience. My 2 year old daughter can help me. She's so into fish stuff it's crazy. She's gonna be a marine biologist!

 

[brandon429]

brother you and I have a lot in common.

My child used to take montipora tips in a baggie to show and tell in kindergarten, here's the harvest lol.


I noticed the things small daughters will do with you for fun at age 2 become less diverse when you buy them a blackberry at age 12 if this is helpful knowledge.

see ya later man
B

 

[brandon429]

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meaning she doesn't care about reefs, rc airplanes, drums anymore etc but scuba diving re-hooked her to something aquatic lol. when I ask if its time to go diving at the ywca the answer yes can't come fast enough