A Hungry Reef 180G NPS / Algae

[Exclusive Corals]

Hi guys! So I've decided to take my tank into a more NPS focused direction and want to share it with you all!

This tank was started back in November/December of 2018 and was mainly an Algae tank with a few Sea Fan. It has gone through some radical changes through the last 14 months and I've decided to make it into an all NPS because of Indo coming back again.

The original tank is a Waterbox 130.4 that was set up at first to only grow Algae so there wasn't even a skimmer in the tank at one point! A few months ago I decided to hook up a Elos 70 with this system in order to add more water volume to the system and to grow algae in the Elos while keeping the Waterbox for only NPS.

This was from about 6 months ago before I added the new tank. Please check out my old thread for more details about this tank!

Build Thread - Waterbox 130.4 Macroalgae Display

So after a 3 year hiatus from owning a saltwater tank.... I'm finally back with a Waterbox 130.4 Tank! This tank will be mainly macroalgae similar to a tank I did back in 2011! Link for those that'd like to check the old tank out...

www.reef2reef.com

This was from a month ago

The engine room include a GFO Reactor / Skimmer / Biopellet Reactor. I'm actually contemplating of adding a Chaeto Reactor to help reduce nutrient further due to the increased in feeding to accommodate all the new sea fans.

Some of the new Sea Fans

The Elos 70 with all the Algae now

A short video of the sea fan feeding!




The NPS are fed a mixture of Reef Nutrition Phytofeast / Roti Feast / Oyster Feast / ROE / Trigger Feast stirred with some BeneReef / Reef Roids / Golden Pearl along with some Baby Brine Shrimps hatched daily. I've received some very positive response from all the NPS so far from this diet and have noticed growth on a few of them!

I'm hoping to get some more colorful sea fans in along with some really unique stuff like tunicates / sponges once Indo start coming in a little bit more.

Hope you guys enjoy the read and follow me on this journey into a reef that we don't see too often in this hobby.

 

[Exclusive Corals]

I was able to scored some really interesting Seafan / gorgonian this past week, here's hoping I can meet their needs!

FTS

I currently have 2 BBS Hatchery running so that I am able to get 2 batch to feed the tank everyday. I'm also experimenting with growing out Tigger Pods in a 30G vat outside, I'm hoping to get enough to feed live Tigger Pods to the tank 2-3 times a week. Hopefully some live food will help keep the NPS alive!

First up is a favorite Gorgonian of mine

Paramuricea Clavata

Menella Sp. (Yellow Polyp)

Unknown (ID?)

Menella SP? (Magenta Polyp)

Another Menella I believe (Deep Purple Polyp)

Unknown

Another Unknown

 

[HNR]

WOW. That is stunning. I honestly haven't seen an NPS tank run so well with everything looking healthy! The color scheme is cool too, wayyy different from the oversaturated blues we're so used to here. I'd have to say it looks so pretty it almost looks artificial.

 

[crusso1993]

Made the jump over from your other thread. Looking forward to following along on this one!

 

[Mr_Knightley]

Hey man, on Live aquaria right now there is a Blueberry sea fan for 70$! I thought I might tell you because you seem to be collecting awesome Gorgs for you tank!

 

[Mr_Knightley]

 

[AC1211]

Man you are at a place in this hobby that few have a chance to work on due to time and effort constraints make good use of it.

 

[sp1187]

inspiring.

 

[Exclusive Corals]

Glad you guys are enjoying the tank =)

Hey man, on Live aquaria right now there is a Blueberry sea fan for 70$! I thought I might tell you because you seem to be collecting awesome Gorgs for you tank!

Thanks for the heads up!! I have actually been stalking their page everyday for new Sea fan lol. I actually have 2 colonies of Blueberry right now and an orange one with the same polyp type.

Orange version

So I was able to get a few new seafan this weekend and filled out the tank a bit more. One of the interesting one is a white Harp Gorgonian that came in, it is snow white with little white polyps!

Another amazing seafan that came in is this orange one with very bright white polyps. I'm a little worry about this one since the polyps are so small, I hope that it will be able to catch enough to sustain itself.

Side View

FTS

The next thing I am adding to this system is a Chaeto Reactor help keep the nutrient down further and act as a live food source for my tank.

 

[dbraun15]

Glad I found this from your previous thread...following along! Beautiful Gorgs...I've had good experiences with some photosynthetic ones, but they aren't anywhere near as colorful!

 

[AC1211]

When were you at the level I am at?

 

[TheShrimpNibbler]

This tank is just as fascinating and beautiful as your last rendition of it! If you wouldn’t mind, can you please tell me where you are getting all of this stuff? I would love to get some of the amazing inverts that you have.

 

[najer]

Looking great.

 

[kala jätkä]

Very nice. I think your Youtube vids are great but they need more full tank views. What are some of the best articles or websites, books, about MACRO or NPS?

 

[Exclusive Corals]

Glad I found this from your previous thread...following along! Beautiful Gorgs...I've had good experiences with some photosynthetic ones, but they aren't anywhere near as colorful!

I agree! the NPS one boast some ridiculous color that rival the glowing corals we all love =)

The Purple Sea fan I have in this tank are actually photosynthetic and the color isn't too shabby either!

This tank is just as fascinating and beautiful as your last rendition of it! If you wouldn’t mind, can you please tell me where you are getting all of this stuff? I would love to get some of the amazing inverts that you have.

Thank you! I get most of the NPS from Liveaquaria or various wholesalers. The inverts I actually import most of them in from a specialized supplier that hunt for them!

Looking great.

Thank you very much ! I'm glad you're enjoying the blog =)

Very nice. I think your Youtube vids are great but they need more full tank views. What are some of the best articles or websites, books, about MACRO or NPS?

I agree! I will need to work on getting better video of the entire tank. One day I will do a small tour of the system and how it all work =)

Unfortunately I haven't found much info from books on NPS, but I have found several publication / blog that talk about the feeding requirement and flow of Sea Fan. Advance Aquatic is a pretty decent place to find write up on NPS, the other treasure trove of information is from site like Reefcentral with thread of people who tried them a decade ago!

 

[AcroNem]

I've worked with a lot of NPS and filter feeding invertebrates, and this system Is absolutely gorgeous. It looks amazing. How often are you feeding currently?

 

[Exclusive Corals]

A small update for you guys !

My Feather Starfish that turned 1 this month! I have 2 more that wander around the tank and gets into all the nooks & crevices

This is one of the new Sea Fan I got in and the color is absolutely bonkers!

So this guy was actually a hitchhiker on another Sea Fan, but as you can see it is very damaged. Hopefully I can get it to recover!

Part of my Sea Fan Wall

A new resident - A Lollipop Tunicate!

And finally my favorite Sea fan of them all! A bicolor paramuricea clavata. This guy has been closed up for 2 weeks up until I decided to take a toothbrush and clean every single branch, the next day it shed and the polyps open up bigger than before!

One new change for this tank is I've added a Pax Bellum to the system in order to help the nutrient down further as I ramp up feeding to accommodate all the hungry mouth in there.

I will try to get a video of the new stuff sometime in the next few weeks (whenever work allow it!)

 

[AcroNem]

Simply stunning.

 

[najer]

Just wow!

 

[Exclusive Corals]

I've worked with a lot of NPS and filter feeding invertebrates, and this system Is absolutely gorgeous. It looks amazing. How often are you feeding currently?

Oh that's awesome! What NPS have you had experience with? I'd love to pick your brain and see if we can discover a new method to keeping these beauties.

I'm doing 3 feeding per day, each feeding will last for 90-120 minutes with the tank being cloudy the majority of the time. I do this versus continuous feeding because I feel like all the polyps will have a better chance of catching something if the water is heavy with food.

My food Mixture is as follow

- Heavy Phytofeast Live (maybe 20-30ml per feeding, more if I feel like everything is feeding). I don't know if the sea fan actually eat this or not, but my filter feeder definitely love it. This also have the added benefit of feeding all the inverts in the tank, which in turn allow them to breed often and thus feeding the Sea fans!

- Oyster Feast (20ml or so per feeding) - This product is very versatile since it seem all the polyps of all size grab it from the water column.

- Roti Feast (10-20ml per feeding) - Another incredible product from Reef Nutrition. I have took a sample and looked under a microscope and all the Rotifer were still intact and majority of them did have egg still attached. This is another item that feed most if not all the Sea fan in the system since the size is small enough to catch even for the finest polyps.

- Live Baby Brine Shrimp - I have 2 Hatchery set up that I harvest everyday from, I might even up it to 3 Hatchery depending on how the Nutrient level look. Live food tend to elicit a fantastic feeding response from all the Sea fan, I always see polyps greedily grab them when the Brine Shrimp get close. I do try to feed as soon as most of the shrimp hatch as that's when they're the most nutritious. If I forgot or I'm busy on a certain day, then I will collect the shrimps into a clean cup with some Phytoplankton to enrich them before feeding.

- Golden Pearls / Reef Chili / Reef Roid - I'm not a big fan of dry food but I do add them into the food mixture just to get more varities and more particle in the water for the sea fan to catch whatever they want.

- Biopellets Bacteria - Now this is only my speculation but it's possible the bacteria generate from me running the Biopellet Reactor help keep a healthy bacteria population in the tank that help feed the sea fan throughout the day.

- Trigger Feast / P.E Calanus (frozen) / Arctic Pods - I also add these larger zooplankton into the mixture to feed the bigger NPS like Dendros and certain Sea Fan with larger polyps.

- R.O.E - This was primarily used to feed my Cardinal fish (they have since passed due to a ich or some kind of disease in the tank). I have discovered that quite a bit of my Sea fan prefer these eggs too! But I only put a few drop at a time when I feed since there's not too many big polyp Sea Fan. My Swiftia Exserta is definitely the #1 fan of R.o.E

Another food item I'm trying to cultivate is Live Tigger Pods, this would be an amazing addition to the food chain. Of course I'm always on the look out for new food item to add to the mixture.