Swedish fish - behind the scenes rebuilding a public aquarium

[Sallstrom]

So lobster eggs seems to work for sun corals

 

[Sallstrom]

Project “breeding urchins” is also ongoing. This is 44 days old Diadema setosum larvae. They probably should have settled already if we had fed more. We’ve had problems with some of the phytoplankton cultures. But the larvae still look well, so hopefully we can feed them more further on and get them ready to settle. Would be our first settled sea urchins if we succeed!

 

[dragon99]

Not sure if that's a bad drawing of sputnik, or alien hieroglyphics.

 

[Sallstrom]

I know. Looks even more crazy when they start to move. They uses their long “arms” to paddle.
And this is only sort of the urchins caterpillar, the urchin will develop a couple of tube feet and leave this space ship looking thing when they settle. So it’s not spines those long arm you see now. They will develop after metamorphosis.

Anyway, we hope to breed urchins. Some other aquariums do it and it’s not that hard(they say..). So we put our long term substitute to figure out how to do it at our place
Diadema setosum might be a challenge though, I think tuxedo and collector urchins are easier. But we’ll see. Would be cool to succeed!

 

[Sallstrom]

Finally we got our new filtration! Who needs skimmers when you have a container with hay..

Here are some of the coral colonies in the sexual reproduction tank. A bunch of Acropora aculues (or close..) and a bunch of Acropora hyacinthus(I hope..).

We're keep adding more and more coral (well, I hope they eat it) food. Here's todays recipe. We feed twice a day now.
2 cubes of copepods
2 cubes of invertebrate food
1 cube lobster eggs
1 cube cyclops
1/4 teaspoon Reefroids (mostly as a phosphate addetive.. )
10ml Acropower
8ml EasyBooster

Still waiting for EasySPS food. Will be interesting to test!

NO3 was 3 ppm and PO4 zero (hanna LR) this morning. We add some KNO3 too keep nitrate from decreasing.

 

[ksed]

Finally we got our new filtration! Who needs skimmers when you have a container with hay..

Here are some of the coral colonies in the sexual reproduction tank. A bunch of Acropora aculues (or close..) and a bunch of Acropora hyacinthus(I hope..).

We're keep adding more and more coral (well, I hope they eat it) food. Here's todays recipe. We feed twice a day now.
2 cubes of copepods
2 cubes of invertebrate food
1 cube lobster eggs
1 cube cyclops
1/4 teaspoon Reefroids (mostly as a phosphate addetive.. )
10ml Acropower
8ml EasyBooster

Still waiting for EasySPS food. Will be interesting to test!

NO3 was 3 ppm and PO4 zero (hanna LR) this morning. We add some KNO3 too keep nitrate from decreasing.

How is EasySPS food different than Reefroids?

 

[Sallstrom]

How is EasySPS food different than Reefroids?

EasySPS is a solution in a type of bag-in-box and Reefroids is a powder. EasyReef is also open with what type of algae and plankton their products contain, which I appreciate.
Reefroids seems to be good too. So nothing against the product at all. The corals respond well when using it IMO.

I like to be able to attach the EasySPS to a dosing pump. That saves time for us. So that’s an important thing for us when choosing.

 

[Brew12]

I like to be able to attach the EasySPS to a dosing pump. That saves time for us. So that’s an important thing for us when choosing.

Being paid to be lazy is important to me, too. Wise choice!

 

[Sallstrom]

Being paid to be lazy is important to me, too. Wise choice!

I like to be home in quarantine/the sofa/the boat changing feedings and additives in the app, after my colleagues send me the daily test results
Will get good web cameras soon too!!

 

[Sallstrom]

Feeding response

And the experiment tank without curtains

Very happy with the nutrient export. Lots of feeding but still decreasing numbers for nitrate and phosphate. Our daily routine include cleaning the skimmer, harvesting 1 litre macro algae from the refugium and stir the macro algae bed to avoid Cyanobacteria etc on the surface off the refugium.

 

[Sallstrom]

ID please! I want to find a partner for this Acropora coral for our sexual reproduction experiment.

Edit. These are just kids. Too young for romance. We have large colonies too

 

[Brew12]

ID please! I want to find a partner for this Acropora coral for our sexual reproduction experiment.

Edit. These are just kids. Too young for romance. We have large colonies too

They look like Purplehulk ultraberry pinktipped monsterpolyp acro's to me. ;Troll

 

[Sallstrom]

They look like Purplehulk ultraberry pinktipped monsterpolyp acro's to me. ;Troll

Great! Now I know what to look for on the list at the wholesale!

 

[Laith]

I have been reading this fascinating thread for the past week and am now on page 48.

This is one of the most informative threads I have read with the mixture of marine biology, reef tank husbandry and many (and varied) practical issues. Plus the humor... Brilliant!

I can't wait to get through the next 60+ pages! ;Wideyed

 

[Sallstrom]

I have been reading this fascinating thread for the past week and am now on page 48.

This is one of the most informative threads I have read with the mixture of marine biology, reef tank husbandry and many (and varied) practical issues. Plus the humor... Brilliant!

I can't wait to get through the next 60+ pages! ;Wideyed

Thank you so much for the kind words!! That mean a lot

It feel sometimes that the rebuiling takes forever and that the "setting up new cool exhibit tanks" is so far away. So I will keep on posting about a bit of everything, new and old, to make the time go by faster!

I hope you will follow us all the way into the new Aquarium! Just be patience..

 

[Sallstrom]

Wait! What is this? Is the inventor of Alkatronic installing an Alkatronic on the experiment tank?

Yes! Jonas is an old friend and a regular speaker at our old Coral symposiums. He offered us to borrow an Alkatronic to test it for some time. The machine looks great so far!

Do not pay attention to the Cyanobacteria. They are a part of the experiment... The ugly part..

 

[Laith]

Thank you so much for the kind words!! That mean a lot

It feel sometimes that the rebuiling takes forever and that the "setting up new cool exhibit tanks" is so far away. So I will keep on posting about a bit of everything, new and old, to make the time go by faster!

I hope you will follow us all the way into the new Aquarium! Just be patience..

Believe me, I will be following you through to the opening (and beyond) ;Happy.

I'm now on page 64... getting there!

I have a question: I think it was on the 10,000 liter tank thread that I saw that you dose EasyReef Booster phyto and I was surprised about the amount you dosed. I think the recommendation is 8ml per 1000 liters but you were dosing more? How much are you dosing?

I ask because I'm dosing 12ml in a 1,900 liter tank and wondering whether I should dose more...

 

[Sallstrom]

Believe me, I will be following you through to the opening (and beyond) ;Happy.

I'm now on page 64... getting there!

I have a question: I think it was on the 10,000 liter tank thread that I saw that you dose EasyReef Booster phyto and I was surprised about the amount you dosed. I think the recommendation is 8ml per 1000 liters but you were dosing more? How much are you dosing?

I ask because I'm dosing 12ml in a 1,900 liter tank and wondering whether I should dose more...

Great job getting through all the pages!

I think that was in a tank connected to the 10 000L system, where we tried some non photosynthetic corals. It was a 800 litre something tank which was next to the sump. Therefor we could feed crazy doses for a 800L tank, because we had a full grown 10000L reef that ate all the left overs. For the 10000L tank we didn’t dose that much I think. Something like 30ml a day or so.
And that large tank also had a sand pressure filter which probably filtered out some of it.

For me, I often read the recommendation one time and then adjust depending on what tank it is and what the nutrient levels are. After a while I don’t remember the recommended dosage But most of the time our tanks are nutrient sinks(if you can put it that way). So we need to add nutrients in one way or the other.

We’re trying out a lot of, for us, new coral food at the moment. We got a delivery today with EasySPS, which will be interesting to test. Too bad it’s so hard to know what difference the coral foods do

 

[Laith]

Yes, I want to replace my amino dosing with the EasySPS product as well, though I'm having a problem finding the 1500ml bags.

And I will replace the Reef Chili I'm using with Fauna Marin's Coral Sprint when the Reef Chili runs out, mainly because the Coral Sprint is easier to find in Europe.

The reason I started adding nutrients is the same as yours: I'm at NO3 and PO4 levels that are too low for my liking and colours on SPS were fading. So now the combination of the added nutrients and the dosing of NO3 and PO4 has changed that and the colours are now deep and rich.

The frustrating part of this is that I started dosing amino acids, the EasyBooser, NO3 and PO4 around the same time. So I don't know if it is a combination of all of them or only one of them that has improved things! But there are only positive effects so far so I'll stick with it. ;Joyful

 

[Sallstrom]

Yes, I want to replace my amino dosing with the EasySPS product as well, though I'm having a problem finding the 1500ml bags.

And I will replace the Reef Chili I'm using with Fauna Marin's Coral Sprint when the Reef Chili runs out, mainly because the Coral Sprint is easier to find in Europe.

The reason I started adding nutrients is the same as yours: I'm at NO3 and PO4 levels that are too low for my liking and colours on SPS were fading. So now the combination of the added nutrients and the dosing of NO3 and PO4 has changed that and the colours are now deep and rich.

The frustrating part of this is that I started dosing amino acids, the EasyBooser, NO3 and PO4 around the same time. So I don't know if it is a combination of all of them or only one of them that has improved things! But there are only positive effects so far so I'll stick with it. ;Joyful

We just bought EasyBooster and EasySPS in 1500ml bags from De Jong. So you local store can order for you from there I think.

It's more fun and exciting adding food than adding just nutrients (But we're also adding KNO3 and KH2PO4 a lot)

We got some Coral Spring yesterday. It came up when we tried non-photosyntetic corals and looked around for bacterioplankton. I need to do some more research on that.