Why its easier to grow sps in a fishbowl than in a normal reef tank

brandon429

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http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/369846-pongpits-2gal-pico-its-a-13-months-vase(update2016108)/

these threads show some real changes in the hobby. literally reefs in goldfish bowls and the like.


http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/3704...and-usps-is-great-except-when-its-not/page-16

pico reef bowls simply compete with full size sps reefs in coloration, mass addition, disease resistance, simplicity, cost and longevity, but not fish. so many more links are avail, but those two show large tanks aren't exclusively the best place to watch a gem sps plate onto a rock.

The title here was a fun implied challenge to give the method a try and post back

an abi tuna 12 w light off amazon for pico reef will grow the most wonderful color and types of sps for twenty bucks or so, amazing we have access to lights like that now. in 2001 that would have sped up the evolution of pico reefing to light speed. it would have changed access to cool running/coral specific lights for everybody. This is maritza, the most eye catching pico on the earth



its easier to grow sps in a fishbowl because you can change out all the water at once and not have to adjust individual params.

A secret we use in pico reefing is I don't care what brand of salt your salt is, weekly work works for all salts. Low mg there, high alk here, doesn't matter. My reef grows due to feeding and export balance and due to lighting being reef-specific. All else does not hold it back. There's confidence in controlling the entire water column all at once; its more confident than large reefing where multi fail points make vacation excursions a concern for the majority of large reefers.

bowl reefers can get nine days in between topoffs, we beat any other tank design for salinity control and we do not require auto top offs. a one gallon tank with air pumped in, and a lid that fits and only vents positive pressure in limited places, will beat any size reef for salinity control and have less fail points. these coral and invert-specific systems do not have to be continually fed either, vacations away can be ran by a very clean system and all the animals are just fine with no care for quite some time. theres a biological benefit in not using fish in a reef system, ironically, and gallonage does matter in that assessment in my opinion.





There is no parameter detailing if you change half or all the water once a week, your choice.


There is no feed limitation, just yesterday I accidentally dropped an entire cube of cyclopeeze into my 1 gallon reef.

It opaques the bowl red, and corals were fed heartily. I just had to do three flushing water changes thereafter to get it off the rocks, system is reset and corals are now plumper, not weaker.

Imagine trying to correct that event in a 100 gallon tank with feed upscaled. The equivalent of ten bars of cyclopeeze put in, all at once.

SPS were put into a unique realm at the start of reefing with claimed inflexibilities on so many params nobody really ever attempted to just glue one in a fish bowl of saltwater and see what happens. when you do that, amazing stuff happens and its not very hard for anyone to replicate, just simply break the rules and do it.
 
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brandon429

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summaries of the threads

-be creative with evap control/the lid. use an inner diameter pressing lid, not a top rester. the strongest designs don't use ato, they beat any other tank in salinity stability

5 day topoffs, no ato, every other sps reef eats gallons a day of freshwater. ours is an ounce a week depending, its literally more stable in a bowl save for elbow incidents to the container.

-get a good qual but affordable sps par light, like the one Maritza the vase reef uses
https://www.amazon.com/ABI-Aquarium...7024069&sr=1-1-fkmr0&keywords=12+w+abi+par+38

Expensive lights not required


-the systems want heavy feeding before a large flushing water change, some stress in that way, if at least occasionally and any can handle weekly. they aren't hands off, ultra calm setups, they're toughened compared to how we'd think a tiny pico would require

-use vol% water change in place of dosing and tedious testing.. accomplishes flushing, oxygenation, nutrient upwelling, current, slime removal, redox balancing including removal of acid-generating compounds pre-microbial breakdown, all things sps like. you can pack in hq feeding to every polyp before these storm changes


-no matter what you read about algae in the reef tank ignore it and do this:
When you see it, take the tank apart and kill it in overly done ways. Never hesitate nor take an impartial action. Change nothing about your feed, nutrients, lighting, just kill it and it will eventually stop if you aren't importing it on frags still. We burn the algae with fire from wind proof lighters, or 35% peroxide, nothing is allowed to take over. How many of these pico reefs we are seeing have a single strand of invaded algae?


-we don't care what the brand name of the salt is, you're free. Sandbed brand, grain size, doesn't matter. they all work in this type of high turnover setup... imagine all the threads on dosing, salt brand and type, testing kit brand and type, we're free of them all and that sps is as orange as one could want, plating extra mass beside itself for fragging.

an airstone is good enough to grow any sps you want, they already do supporting work for this in Cruz's microbubble threads.

we have first time reefers in the pico club, documented

its not exclusive to cost and practice, theres a repeating formula that works, always.

whether his fish is controversial or not doesn't apply, im talking about the ecosystem as a whole. I know some ten gallon setups that cardinal wouldn't be happier in...I personally recommend pico works wo the fish but reefers will always add their own touches.

when this all started, keeping the sps in the bowl was way more offensive... guaranteed via allelopathy not to work. currently a redacted claim
 
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brandon429

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breeef.jpg
This one is ten yrs old but it gets cleaned regularly to avoid crowding

note the brain coral rock/not frag... That and all the blastomussa is produced from another pico reef and those tiny frags grown in here
Video of system Dec 2019

 
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brandon429

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MVR: Jedi pico reefer

 
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Sm51498

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I don't think it makes a difference the size of a system, the goal is the same. stable water conditions with the correct concentrations of what the animals need. on small tanks this can be affordably accomplished 100% with water changes. on large systems this is really not feasible and so all sorts of other methods are used instead.

I think the seeming ease of a small system hides the fact that they are in fact very fragile. miss a couple water changes and the downward slope is pretty steep.

So I think you are right. small tanks are easier in that all you have to worry about are water changes. also harder because the slack isn't there. Better growth? I don't know about that, just as good as much more complicated and expensive systems definitely.
 

Sm51498

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I would be concerned about the growth forms on sps corals. that is highly dependent on proper flow. you could end up with some super odd growth forms on corals.
 
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brandon429

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Agreed it's a test of their adaptation, like when they fragment in less desirable places barely workable but still hang on

What survives that life is Darwin gtg

This little tabletop system from another thread was made back in 05ish mass color wasnt happening back then, just growth was the goal
measurelong.jpg


The awesome colors is the 2010+ work from the groups of keepers
Tabular1.jpg
 

Neon Jungle

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This one is ten yrs old but it gets cleaned regularly to avoid crowding

note the brain coral rock/not frag... That and all the blastomussa is produced from another pico reef and those tiny frags grown in here

Used the flash on phone to show colors, without it the kessil makes the bowl all blue

A160E over one gallon mixed lps sps brittle star minis and pods

It's my opinion pico reefs demonstrated coral allelopathic habitation first in the hobby, across genera. Nobody bothered setting up one of these in 1992 because it simply wasnt allowed, not that it wouldn't have worked fine for a decade and well beyond

Algae free forever

Every two weeks work
WOW
 
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brandon429

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thanks for stopping in Sm51498 and Neon Jungle today's lighting quality spoils us

I'm not sure power compacts of the day could have kept those sharps like the first two links and MRV's sps quality

miniaturized hq led lights are the best curr pico reef advancement in my opinion and the external controlled heater setups too.

Here's the reef untouched at nine years
it was burned clean with vinegar all the sps off the inside...fragged and traded out. Changed to open aquascape kept only a few old colonies and started cleaner with a skip cycle cleaning, reused rocks and corals just new sand to continue on. The point isn't that it's crowded and nonscaped lol it's that coral warfare can be muted and growth become like clowns in a Volkswagen...this is one way to observe the on/off switch for coral vital space warfare/aesthetics not original goal

image.jpeg


image.jpeg
 
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sil40sx

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Forget about growth,. How does an SPS even survive with no water flow? Not even a filter to circulate/filer water.

...and here I am cant even keep a digitata alive with stable water parameters. Ugh!
 

justingraham

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Why do they grow so well with no flow? The usual flow flow flow for SPS does not apply?
I was thinking the same thing.
I get the light aspect and the dosing thru weekly water changes but where is the filtration? Both mechanical and biological?
 
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brandon429

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In every single one of the tanks and links it's sand and rock surface area doing the filtration. It's often an air stone or a tiny power head moving the water and massive flow just isn't required.

SM5 was spot on, the growth forms can go atypical in lower flow areas but for the most part Maritzas reef and others are showing correct forms

Reefjar.com is pro

For the most part, these are high coral low bioload systems and the week or two we go in between water changes corresponds with ion balancing such that the assertive water change resets everything

These sps get tuned to a parameter range, not a set of pinpoint controlled params. They can be fed like pigs -because- we can do massive cheat water changes to offset...it's not that we feed sparingly because the tank is small to avoid nutrient issues. We do the opposite of what the rules said to do but the trick is we're following the right rules and the bare minimum

Is correct to call that we time water changes and volume changed to glass and film/growth cleaning all reefs require, calcium and alk refresh needs etc. it's less work than large tanks, not more. Cheaper by far.

A cool part is hardly any of these sps reefs are testing for any params beyond temp and salinity.
 
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justingraham

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And I'm guessing with that small amount of water the temp is what the temp is in the house? I honestly wanna try this.
 
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brandon429

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its precise temps so far. Mines a big ugly 50 watt neotherm stuck in a gallon vase my home never allowed over 79 degrees the goal is to keep the room cool and make the vase run at 78 with heater on as needed

The ones that follow room temp tend to keep less diverse coral

The nr.com examples above are using tiny remote thermostat controlled setups for better temps than mine and we cant see any equipment in their tanks it's minimized. These are precise temped
 
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justingraham

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So which one is urs Brandon? I started reading the first two threads u posted but one had three different test with moss shrimp and then corals and I lost interest and the second one it was hard to understand the guys english
 

justingraham

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So about to move and I honestly am thinking about just doing this. Any recommendations? For a newb like me? I'm guessing a kessil would be the best light?
 
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brandon429

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Mine is that ten year one it's less awesome looking due to using old school corals

also the other one in the pic of the two inch reef. That one is sealed, it didn't evaporate at all, it required zero topoff but had tabletop acro

I believe it was the first non evaporating reef tank documented in science and would PayPal anyone a reward for alt proof otherwise.

Today's rare and sharp color range corals are the new standard of art in the vase though, all the links to nr.com make me jealz


Look how MRV worked in collab to bring an sps light to jar reefers this cheap

https://www.amazon.com/ABI-Aquarium...7024069&sr=1-1-fkmr0&keywords=12+w+abi+par+38


Enjoy all the jars coming

I'd recommend also doing planted tank versions as well in jars. Do walstad dirted types and need no co2

I guarantee 100% these cheap Amazon strip lights that you hack into any 12v robbed wall wart power supply are freshwater planted tank spectrum. Tuck them into any pico hood, rob any 12 power supply charger/toy power etc and cut the ends, align the polarity correctly and solder them to the LEDs cut into lengths you want, milliamperes doesn't matter just get 12v dc power

I grow baby tears under these and all var of plants even reds
https://www.amazon.com/LEDMO-16-4Ft-Bright-Waterproof-Flexible/dp/B01FHLPT52/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1477024475&sr=8-2-spons&keywords=waterproof+led+strip+lights&psc=1
 
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