World's Smallest Acropora tank? 5 Gallon Nano

[East1]

very nice. What do you dose, and how much/how often?

I posted a pic above of all that I dose, but I'll break it down roughly, all of this is dosed daily, where I alternate I've delineated.

KZ B-Balance - 3-5ml/day (depends on polyp extension)

KZ Pohls Xtra - 1-2ml/day (depends on algae on glass)

KZ Sponge Power - 1 drop

KZ Potassium Iodide Flouride 1 drop / Red Sea Reef Colours A, halogens 0.75ml

KZ Iron 1 drop / Red Sea Reef Colours C 0.75ml

Seachem Strontium (Strontium Glutonate) 3ml/day

Brightwell Neophos 0.5-1ml / day (depends on polyp extension and the 'thickness' or vibrance of coenosarc) [Note: Dosing phosphate and iron cause precipitation so I dose iron in the evening, as that precipitation within the coral coenosarc seems t ocontribute to non flouro colours)

Aquavitro Synthesis 1ml / day (dosed against colour of coral and algae)

KZ Flatworm Stop mixed with KZ Coral Booster - 1ml each daily. If I'm targeting specific elements I'll combine them with this, often I do that with KZ PIF. CAUTION DOING THIS, as mixing them together almost forces coral uptake, which can easily kill a coral or cause bleaching, I experienced this when dosing in low flow, areas that had thos mixture resting on them whilst dosing certain elements would bleach an hour later.

I also dose sporadically:


KZ Zeospur Macroelements 2ml/week
Red Sea Reef Colours D 1ml/week

I also feed some cheap artemia (literally cheapest freeze dried I could find, mixed with amino acids, EasySPS and Easyreef Booster together) Chances I'll start dosing automatically with the EasyBooster.

It's gotten to t he point that all of the above are based on just observation from my coral, and I go by behaviour of the polyps. Despite this I still get sporadic STN especially when switching corals from dormant to growth mode - increasing nutrients and light - or most recently when some caulerpa was growing and I removed it, seemingly letting out the caulerpa juices caused a few pieces to STN especially tiny frags.

 

[LRT]

Thank you!

I didn't test before I started dosing, I just dosed in small amounts regularly and started to observe how the corals react, after a while I got test kits just to confirm I don't have any excesses but in most cases I'm below natural on:

Strontium
Boron
Iodine
Iron (but this shouldn't be detectable for more than an hour anyway)
Phosphate
Nitrate
Magnesium
Calcium

using salifert test kits. I have tested all those parameters perhaps 6 times in the past month, and never before. I onyl used to record kH and occasionaly Ca prior. Tank has been established since Feb, but I lost some colonies because of an AEFW outbreak at one point.

Because I dose lots of Phosphate salts, I think I have excess of potassium phosphate addition as my potassium is a little high (like 440)

My Ro unit isn't good, I get about 30tds or so, but occasionally I'll top off with a bottle of spring water.

The elements are available in all of the above bottles, amongst others.

As a rule, It's okay if the elements are low in concentration in the water what is important is that the corals can access enough, for use every day, in that period. If they can't then they will decline as per the below graph - the graph is actually for low waterflow vs high irradiance causing stress, but the stress factors of too much light in a low flow environment are the same once a coral has been in an environment when it depletes it's own phosphate stores, once those have been consumed then the coral will decline as per this graph.

Source:

You can use that knowledge and observation to keep the corals, then

Just WoW man. As Rogan would say "There's levels to this game son" haha.
Super interesting to see your using 30tds source water. Goes to show how all our systems are different and require different needs. My source water starts at 500ppm and whatever I let through last time actually stained my discs I couldn't get the stains off with 12% h2o2 soak and tooth brush.
Whats super awesome is your approach can be applied to any reef.
What I really wish is this was a softy tank so I could pick your brain about what nutrients your softies use the most so I knew what to look for especially concerning shrooms lol
Anyhow definetely learning for my next adventure getting into sticks and torches soon

 

[revhtree]

Such a super cool little reef!

 

[East1]

Just WoW man. As Rogan would say "There's levels to this game son" haha.
Super interesting to see your using 30tds source water. Goes to show how all our systems are different and require different needs. My source water starts at 500ppm and whatever I let through last time actually stained my discs I couldn't get the stains off with 12% h2o2 soak and tooth brush.
Whats super awesome is your approach can be applied to any reef.
What I really wish is this was a softy tank so I could pick your brain about what nutrients your softies use the most so I knew what to look for especially concerning shrooms lol
Anyhow definetely learning for my next adventure getting into sticks and torches soon

Ah, sorry that was a typo then - it's 30tds after my RO unit, it's something like 400ppm TDS at the tap. I don't believe ultra-pure water is a requirement at least in instances like this, where the main bottleneck is how quickly the corals can deplete elements.

I have a tiny 2.5 gallon tank with an RBTA and a clownfish, too, I've taken the same approach of dosing and not changing water at all (this has been like this for about 5 months now).

What I can say is that soft coral will really benefit from the following, and from my experiments above these are likely to become limited quickly:

Iodine
Bromine
Boron
Strontium
Manganese (I use a flake food that has decent volume of Zn, Mn for this)

Also, for things like zoas and shrooms, Vitamin C might go down well. Dosing silicates would be useful too, as well as keeping Po4 from bottoming out. As they are fleshy ,they do benefit a little more from nitrogen.

It's been a while since I kept soft coral, but it's only space limitations, for larger reefs I prefer soft coral. Here's a photo of one of my old tanks:

Such a super cool little reef!

Thank you!

 

[Spare time]

someone asked me to post my tank from another thread, so here it is:

Here it is,

The tank volume is about 5 gallons, likely closer to 4.5 because of displacement. The display is 55x20x20cm and has a smaller sump.

I dose Tropic Marin AFR daily on a dosing pump, and I dose these all manually

I write extensively about the tank on another forum, but I will start to migrate the posts here as well with new photos

This is the most impressive tank I have ever seen.

 

[East1]

This is the most impressive tank I have ever seen.

That means a lot! It's felt like a very long and challenging upward battle.

Most of the difficulty is seeing corals stress out and not immediately trying to change everything, but having the presence of mind to figure out a steady day-by-day revival process. This tank was basically possible by figuring out all of the ways acros die and then setting up processes to avoid that.

 

[LRT]

Ah, sorry that was a typo then - it's 30tds after my RO unit, it's something like 400ppm TDS at the tap. I don't believe ultra-pure water is a requirement at least in instances like this, where the main bottleneck is how quickly the corals can deplete elements.

I have a tiny 2.5 gallon tank with an RBTA and a clownfish, too, I've taken the same approach of dosing and not changing water at all (this has been like this for about 5 months now).

What I can say is that soft coral will really benefit from the following, and from my experiments above these are likely to become limited quickly:

Iodine
Bromine
Boron
Strontium
Manganese (I use a flake food that has decent volume of Zn, Mn for this)

Also, for things like zoas and shrooms, Vitamin C might go down well. Dosing silicates would be useful too, as well as keeping Po4 from bottoming out. As they are fleshy ,they do benefit a little more from nitrogen.

It's been a while since I kept soft coral, but it's only space limitations, for larger reefs I prefer soft coral. Here's a photo of one of my old tanks:

Thank you!

Thank you for this. I'm just getting through full system swap, building a shroom lagoon and trying to get it dialed. Its about time I start sending in samples to track trace elements. Its been up about a month now but craziest thing is it used 80pts of mag and 50pts of cal in first 10 days of operation. I am feeding heavy but still dosing Nitrates and Phosphates to keep levels stable.
If its ok ill probably end up tagging you in my build to pick your brain a little from time to time? So i don't end up jacking your thread any further lol

Just super impressive on so many levels man! Awesome

 

[VR28man]

I posted a pic above of all that I dose, but I'll break it down roughly, all of this is dosed daily, where I alternate I've delineated.

[snip for length]

It's gotten to t he point that all of the above are based on just observation from my coral, and I go by behaviour of the polyps. Despite this I still get sporadic STN especially when switching corals from dormant to growth mode - increasing nutrients and light - or most recently when some caulerpa was growing and I removed it, seemingly letting out the caulerpa juices caused a few pieces to STN especially tiny frags.

Thanks! I used AFR before and got decent results with various acros, but you go, as some folks say in the US, hog-wild with trace elements.

I am considering a nano (all I can do now) to get back into the hobby, and I might copy some of this. That said, I might get everything from one manufacturer (or as few as possible) because I'm worried about potential imbalances among these products causing problems. (I will have to use at least two because especially for a nano I like AFR, but the availability of Tropic Marin's other products in the US is....spotty at best....)

But it doesn't seem to cause you problems.

Most of the difficulty is seeing corals stress out and not immediately trying to change everything, but having the presence of mind to figure out a steady day-by-day revival process. This tank was basically possible by figuring out all of the ways acros die and then setting up processes to avoid that.

Would be interested to read more about your methods of acro growth (getting them to and from "growth mode" and "dormant mode" for instance).

 

[East1]

[snip for length]


Thanks! I used AFR before and got decent results with various acros, but you go, as some folks say in the US, hog-wild with trace elements.

I am considering a nano (all I can do now) to get back into the hobby, and I might copy some of this. That said, I might get everything from one manufacturer (or as few as possible) because I'm worried about potential imbalances among these products causing problems. (I will have to use at least two because especially for a nano I like AFR, but the availability of Tropic Marin's other products in the US is....spotty at best....)

But it doesn't seem to cause you problems.



Would be interested to read more about your methods of acro growth (getting them to and from "growth mode" and "dormant mode" for instance).

hah, yeah I do go 'hog wild' with trace elements - that's purely because I wanted to figure out what _needs_ to be replenished in a closed system with rampant acro growth so a low volume of water and high coral volume was the perfect test bed, in reality nobody would need to dose as much as I do to maintain a system unless they also had this huge volume of coral and didn't do water changes.

with regard to growth mode and dormancy I actually reference Minimini or Junichi Yamasaki as below, may be worth reading his posts but it's difficult to translate.

What I can do is break down my findings about acro growth and describe what growth and dormancy look like, as well as conjecture - this will likely take a few days as I have built this theory up referencing a few research journals, as well as posting on this forum and posts by Hans Werner Balling amongst others, it's quite in dedpth but I'll summarise:

The most important thing about acropora is that the tip polyp is the main polyp, everything that is axial to the tip feeds energy toward the growth tip - that's why they can be white or a different colour.

It appears that the ratio of N P affects coral porosity in acropora, so for a 'unit' of acropora in high P, there will be more brittle skeleton but more flesh per unit of animal. The inverse is true for high N. These ratios also affect slime production, ie in high N, the coral produces more mucous and again, the inverse is true. It would appear that corals associate high N with blooms and the need to remove sediment, and high P with clear water and this stronger colouration, as well as the secondary effects of coral fragility due to flesh volume ratio.

In addition, one can see that an acropora added to a tank with low nutrient will start off colourful, quickly lose it's flourescence and slowly lose it's colour till it turns grey. The coral will not die immediately, but it is a slow burn.

My theory is that the coral acts as a kind of energy-intermediary between light, and the elemental quantum energy of seawater and specific concentrations of elements. This means that when there is excess light that stimulates biologcal pathways, the coral can use this energy to produce flourescent proteins, and colour proteins (there is a difference, flouro is based on UV and colour is based on high PAR - this is specualtion I don't have a source)

Thus, I speculate that coral colouration can come from the deposition of phosphate with iron or other trace elements giving good colour and teh resistance to bleaching - which is consistent with some of the papers available online indicating that low P results in temperature bleaching. In addition, I sourced another paper that provides an empiric relationship between low flow and light, indicating that under low flow, high light is equivalent in terms of sterss to high temperature with a ratio of light to temperature.

This further confirmed the theory that corals essentially exist in a state of quantum-scale balance between elements avaiable for assimilation and energy input that they cannot escape (ie they cannot move to high flow and shade from high light, these are fixed variables in their relative lifespans)
I say quantum scale because the energy from light and the energy from thermodynamics have the same net effect on metabolic pathways.

So given this, in a scenario where a colourful coral is added to a tank with low trace elements, it's energetic vector is to consume it's own colour proteins to make up for a deficit, once this is done the coral will STN. This process I believe is hindered by adapting to changing NP ratios, in the ocean these ratios shift slowly and allow the animal to adapt, unlike going from tank to tank, so it takes some time before the coral is in 'starvation mode'. The coral death will be from any point that the coral can shed of excess polyp and tissue toward supporting the main polyp.

And then the inverse is true, when there is adequte nutrients and the NP ratio is correct, the coral can immediately commence growth and the energetic vector is reversed.

I guess I did describe the whole theory but it gets a little more convoluted when you look at, for example, strontium and the effect on shape that this elements has, indicating that while energy is important, the shape of the corals are all defined by their ability to support the main polyp in that specific environment. This is why I theorise that old tank syndrome tanks always have realyl strange shaped acropora.

 

[LRT]

 

[Chrisfish]

Welcome to R2R!! What a beautiful pico tank!!

 

[East1]

Firstly, I made my text blue to differentiate between the authors and my musing.

In essence, the researchers selected areas of reef to act as nitrogen- and phosphate- boosted tests against a control, and a null variable where both nitrogen and phosphate are elevated relative to their startpoints.

It starts by defining coral stress response, similar to that 'dry' look I've seen described before.

and then, the general structure of the coral:

but interestingly, defines the entire colony in relation to the axial polyp, as this extends all the way down the coral, and seems to be fed from the excess of the radial, or hetereotropic, tissues. This explains a lot about the growth of corals when they arrive, particularly frags - they base out and produce polyps and then start growing from the tip.

Elevated nitrogen results in Phosphate Starvation? I'd seen this alludeed to before, by Hans Werner Balling on r2r, he goes in depth about using Urea to feed his tank nitrogen instead of KNO3, and how indirectly that staved off cyano. (this is the same guy that made the Balling method of supplementation, this whole thread is worth a read.

This basically shows that the amount of skeleton, relative to that of polyp can vary, as per this diagram.

and that the growth of coral tissue is a function of it's limiting nutrient - we know this as Liebig's law of minimums. This coincides with a similar post I found on reef2reef:

this indicates that this dude's coral was limited by strontium, and increasing that limiting factor with all other stability factors equal, he saw a change in the _type_ of growth - something that always interested me when looking at 'old tank syndrome' tanks.

What was interesting to me was to confirm another observatiion, that in some conditions a coral will not produce slime:

But, to refer to another longstanding forum myth, the _redfield ratio_, we see that the actual ratio of these nutrients is far more important.

​

Anyway I've kinda rambled, the gist of it is that it seems the major elements: Nitrogen, Phosphour, and their ratio in the water can affect the tissue to skeletal density of acropora, and further this implies that it's whole trophic strategy is then reliant on the ratio provided, ie. If we have high phosphate in the water, the coral isn't adapted to slough off sediment, and perhaps it implies the trophic direction of the coral is geared toward taking in ambient nutrients from the water and light, vs when nitrogen dominates, the coral expects murky, food-rich waters and diverts resources accordingly.

 

[East1]

This changed my husbandry and understanding of coral growth to be one where, it's not what you add to the tank that will make coral grow, rather, it's what is not present that they desperately need. Finding these limiting elemental groups is the most important, and then it's removing excess inhibitors like nitrate.

Unlike Nitrate, where high concentration slows grwoth, phosphate i believe is maintained at the intersection between the coenosarc and skeleton, as it forms a salt with calcium. To this 'sheet' can other elements attach, and form colour proteins. (I have no source for this)

Anyway that theory explains why animals in different PO4 concentrations, while all else is level, show different colour. the problem is the metabolism of the animal seems to calibrate to ambient PO4 concentration. So this means the higher energy the environment ie clear water, present microelements and trace elements with 0 limitation and bright light with strong flow, the more PO4 the animal would require. As a further point, I feel the other end of this spectrum is kH, as kH is the source of CO2, so it is important to balance this to PO4 and thus, nitrate (because this is the detectable form, not because it is required but because it is the value to balance the remainder of your parameters around)

 

[East1]

Welcome to R2R!! What a beautiful pico tank!!

Thank you! It seems I've not posted a pic for a while, so here's a new photo:

this shows the colour development since I started dosing phosphate, prior to this the corals were very 'grey/beige'

 

[East1]

My Eviota Nigriventris

a bit of a top-down

I moved some of the colonies around

The sump sits open underneath, it's lit up with an LED strip​

 

[VR28man]

Thanks for all the info; it's a lot to go through but I will slowly try to take it in (over multiple reads )

I guess I'll ask what do you do for your basics for these acros? that is:

- what model of light? what wattage and (if you know) PAR?

ETA NVM:

run a AI Hydra 52, with the lenses removed, over the tank about 7in' off the surface.

One other person I know did something like this - heavily acro nano tank (though his was like 22 gallon in one of the aquatop long tanks - like 36x10x10 or something) and he also ran LEDs, with a likewise pretty high wattage to tank ratio (and PAR to match)

- what's your target alkalinity? how stable do you keep it? It seems you do not add extra calcium or magnesium?

- what are your N and P targets, if you keep them?

ETA NVM: you dose Brightwell Neophos and about 1-2x that amount of Aquavitro Synthesis (nitrogen), depending on coral conditions not a measured chemistry target?

- how much/what kind of flow with what pumps do you keep?


Anyway, this has definitely inspired me to get back into reef keeping soon (though admittedly I've said that a lot in my post history over the past year) with a nano. I'm thinking an aquatop 3 gallon (18x6x6 inches). Still thinking of what (if any) external filtration I use (DIY sumpfuge or an aquaclear 20/30) and lighting.

My key is if I want to get back into acros (did fairly well with some species, to include a tenuis color, and want to redo not only that but maybe the Red Planet hyacinthus too. (I think I have space for one, maybe two more colonies in a tank of that size because I'd rather have a few larger colonies than many small).

The alternative would be a soft coral or even anemone tank. This would be dirt simple because I wouldn't need to dose anything, just keep up with evaporation and water changes.

In contrast, if I keep hard corals (Especially in a case like this where the hard corals take a large amount of the overall tank volume) even if I restrict myself to only dosing AFR, I'll have to dose it every day. And IME alkalinity consumption is not always linear; it'll go up and down sometimes even when you think it's settled, so one ought to check alk at least weekly.

I have some T5s sitting around, but they're 36" so it would look awkward on my tank. (unfortunately right now something much bigger than 3 gallons is out of the question).

 

[East1]

Thanks for all the info; it's a lot to go through but I will slowly try to take it in (over multiple reads )

I guess I'll ask what do you do for your basics for these acros? that is:

I'll elaborate on each of those questions when I breakdown the next journal article, this research is still ongoing so I haven't fully concluded the application of the hypothesis in that paper yet.

In essence, the only thing that is basically require for acropora is balance - you can use any light (originally the 1gallon acro tank just used a ceiling MR 16 LED downlight and had good colour) and you can have any alk, with corresponding nutrient and flow, the only importance is balance between these. Here is the ratios:

You must have

Low alk : Low nutrients
More N : P
Regularly available I and Fe
Replenished trace elements - stuff like B, Sr, K and micro elements
Stable alk (hourly addition via dosing)
Food (fish poop, phyto and zooplankton, amino acids, nitrogen in urea form)
High flow : High light

You target coral health via

Polyp extension - always the most important. This is a structural parameter in coral, the larger the polyp, the more endoplasmic reticulum etc
Basal encrustation - they won't encrust in dormancy, indicating something is missing
Thickness of the coenosarc - the thickness of the coral skin is very variable if they're unhealthy, it's easy to observe
Deformation - Hyperplasia can ocurr when there's an imbalance of structural elements to alkalinity ie. calcium, strontium, barium, magnesium etc. it looks like tumours or cancerous growth.
bleaching and colour loss - other than from light or heat, this ocurrs when trace elements are limited, things like potassium, boron/bromine iron, and also when phosphate is low. When coral metabloism is higher through external means like temperature they need more phosphate. Often a heat wave will stress my coral unless I give them extra phosphate to compensate.

Another thing I think is important for acropora is intermittent flow. I have one pump creating a strong gyre effect every 30 seconds, and another on a timer to create a high flow standing wave. I think standing waves are the most important in terms of all coral health due to the way it makes the entire water volume 'bounce'

The standing wave runs when the lights are above 50% intensity this was configured manually. The reason is that high light and low flow has the same effect as high temperature.

 

[East1]

I really like keeping dead coral both for the philosoiphical reminder, but it also binds phosphate and turns to live rock really quickly in a healthy tank. There's some you can see just above the porities, under the acro (no idea on sp. of this)

The burette I use to slow drip phyto over the day is also seen dripping in the top left

 

[VR28man]

Thanks, looking forward to the full readout when ready.

Stable alk (hourly addition via dosing)

Aha this is one thing I could have done better. I added it just daily by hand. With a doser you can get things more stable. (in a tank that size you might even be dosing around 0.1ml/hour

Food (fish poop, phyto and zooplankton, amino acids, nitrogen in urea form)

Yeah - it looks like you have one azure damsel? My planned tank probably won't have fish, but I'm going to add some crusteceans (some kind of shrimp, then an acro crab)

Another thing I think is important for acropora is intermittent flow. I have one pump creating a strong gyre effect every 30 seconds, and another on a timer to create a high flow standing wave. I think standing waves are the most important in terms of all coral health due to the way it makes the entire water volume 'bounce'

The standing wave runs when the lights are above 50% intensity this was configured manually. The reason is that high light and low flow has the same effect as high temperature.

Agreed. This is the thing in the ocean that we haven't really gotten in our tanks outside of things like the carlson surge device.

Would be interested in what pumps and accessories you use, and even a video (maybe sometime later) showing it in action. This looks very interesting to me.

 

[East1]

Thanks, looking forward to the full readout when ready.



Aha this is one thing I could have done better. I added it just daily by hand. With a doser you can get things more stable. (in a tank that size you might even be dosing around 0.1ml/hour



Yeah - it looks like you have one azure damsel? My planned tank probably won't have fish, but I'm going to add some crusteceans (some kind of shrimp, then an acro crab)



Agreed. This is the thing in the ocean that we haven't really gotten in our tanks outside of things like the carlson surge device.

Would be interested in what pumps and accessories you use, and even a video (maybe sometime later) showing it in action. This looks very interesting to me.

Honestly that's something I want to improve on too - my kH stability.

I'm still seeing spots of tissue loss on the corals. it's not like the dry regression with low PO4 but flaking of tissue, so I suspect I overdosed something or my dosages are too high. This would also have been noticeed in an increase of kH as consumption was down, but my manual testing is every 2-3 days now and I didn't notice.

I'll do a further write up on the water flow as I believe this is really important, and perhaps include some videos.

Regarding fish - I have the azure damsel and 3 nano gobies. At one point I had way more fish, and the coral seemed to benefit from the huge feedings and such, but the agression between them all was difficult to manage.