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Wiil's 5 gallon hex


Wiilio

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Yes I read that they had to be fed since they weren't photosynthetic. As long as they can be fed brine shrimp like the YCG I don't think that'll be much of a problem. How much do they have to be fed, and how often?

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Idk, maybe once per day? you can look that info up on a profile page of that coral, do a search.

 

BTW when I said "Tachy" as my suggestion, I meant Pachy coral. thats what nork has.

oh, hello nork :P

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Didn't see that you had posted just before I had, nork. Thanks for checking things out :)

 

Newman, the article nork posted says twice a week. That sounds doable.

And "pachy" turned up better results :P

 

nork, do you know of any other NPS corals besides sun polyps?

It's a shame that keeping photosynthetic polyps thriving will be such a challenge :/ I hope I can manage it.

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There's quite a lot of them. You're best off focusing on the Dendrophylliidae family if you're interested in doing NPS in a pico - other azoox corals like Gorgonians and Dendronephthya you should definitely avoid because you'll struggle to maintain sufficient nutrient export to keep up with the necessary import. Definitely start keeping things like Tubastrea and once you're more confident/competent at keeping them going perhaps branch out. Won't be easy though, by any yardstick.

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So it's pretty much like this:

 

Photosynthetics: Have proper lighting and maintain nutrient levels, while having very good water quality

Non-photosynthetics: Feed regularly and maintain nutrient levels

 

Either way, I'd have to maintain those levels.

 

Right?

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all corals will appreciate good water quality, its that way in the ocean. nutrient levels and water quality might not mean the same exact thing..

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Well then it looks like either way it's going to be challenging to keep corals... so if I'm going to keep any at all I might as well keep the easiest ones.

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So it's pretty much like this:

 

Photosynthetics: Have proper lighting and maintain nutrient levels, while having very good water quality

Non-photosynthetics: Feed regularly and maintain nutrient levels

 

Either way, I'd have to maintain those levels.

 

Right?

 

Sort of. All corals will appreciate planktonic food source, but in maintaining sufficient planktonic levels to satiate the corals you also need to be able to keep your dissolved organics minimal (Nitrate not so much, Phosphate definitely keep as close to NSW as possible as it inhibits calcification) as these can negatively affect the corals. You'll notice a lot of NPS displays run overrated skimmers and ozone to handle this as continuous feeding will invariably impact water quality negatively.

 

 

all corals will appreciate good water quality, its that way in the ocean. nutrient levels and water quality might not mean the same exact thing..

 

Not necessarily... things like Catalaphyllia actually starve in pristine waters, some as a lot of Goniopora. As a general rule, if it's from lagoonal waters or mudflats, it will do poorly in a "reef" environment like we percieve it as hobbyists.

 

Water quality = NO2, NO3, NH3 ?

Nutrients = Mg, PO4, Ca, I ?

 

Water quality is technically the ion availability which encompasses nutrients (NH4, NO2, NO3, PO4, et al), and beneficial ions (Calcium, Bicarbonates, Magnesium, Potassium, Iodine compounds, Strontium...). Try and match NSW as closely as possible, with slight elevation of Calcium and Bicarbonates in this sort of tank.

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NSW is natural saltwater? NPS?... so many abbreviations :wacko:

 

So how would I go about maintaining the water quality? Just keep doing regular water changes?

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NSW = Natural Sea Water, NPS = Non Photosynthetic. To maintain it you're gonna need to be doing very regular partial (think in the order of 25-30% at least) pretty regularly, if you're not changing out around 75-80% weekly once you've got a reasonable number of corals I can see it'd be a major problem.

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Then I guess the next question is what are the parameters of NSW?

 

And maybe 10% water changes every day? That's 70% weekly.

 

And I suppose I should be testing my water that I will put in the tank too, for the nutrients. Obviously the ammonia/nitrite/nitrate levels will be 0, but the other levels have to be correct.

 

And I'm really sorry for all of the questions and lack of interesting updates or pictures... I just want to get it right before I start getting really into it instead of messing it all up and wasting a lot of money and killing a lot of animals :(

 

 

EDIT: And another question; how can people manage to go a month or longer without water changes but everything's still running fine?

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10% daily might do it, yeah. Even 15%, every little bit helps. Twice daily is even better... less time between addition and extraction means less left behind to dissolve and ruin the watershed :) NSW parameters are typically around 380ppm, 7dKH, 1300ppm, 0ppm, 0ppm, <5ppm, and 0.03ppm for Calcium, Alk, Magnesium, Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate, and Phosphate respectively... if you gun for those with the first two a bit higher you're usually safe.

 

The way I can get away with it is having a massive DSB relative to the body of water it's filtering. My DSB (there's actually 2 of them) take up literally 1/3 of the size of the tank, which equates to a little over half the volume of water it's filtering. Might seem simple but it does incredibly well to keep nutrients under check. I wouldn't recommend this method for a high nutrient import situation though, water changes and a highly productive macroalgae refugium (or small ATS) will still be your best and safest bet.

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Alright. I think that's about it for the questions I have.

 

The next time I post will probably be a good while from now (unless someone else brings up some useful information or a good discussion topic :P ) but will hopefully have a big update :)

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Well I don't have anything new (still waiting on Markushka to send the polyps), but I have noticed advantages of the new rock work.

 

More algae (regular ol' green, not hair) has grown on the rocks that were placed higher, especially on the top one. It's now a favorite hang-out spot for the hermit crabs.

 

And some mysterious, small, auburn-colored polyps have popped out... not sure what they are. They look like very small aiptasia (maybe half an inch in length) but they grow in very small colonies (maybe 8-10 in a bunch). I highly doubt they're actually aiptasia, but that's the only thing I could think of when talking about what they look like.

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those are either some sort of tube worm ( yes people, a chance of something other than hydroids lol) or hydroids (what 100% of you are going to say xD)

 

dont mind em. some crabs might even eat them. dont place any corals near them and youll be fine. (some hydroids can sting powefully)

 

I've had those before. I have similar ones now except they arent brownish, theyre neon turquoise lol.

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Well I don't have anything new (still waiting on Markushka to send the polyps), but I have noticed advantages of the new rock work.

 

More algae (regular ol' green, not hair) has grown on the rocks that were placed higher, especially on the top one. It's now a favorite hang-out spot for the hermit crabs.

 

And some mysterious, small, auburn-colored polyps have popped out... not sure what they are. They look like very small aiptasia (maybe half an inch in length) but they grow in very small colonies (maybe 8-10 in a bunch). I highly doubt they're actually aiptasia, but that's the only thing I could think of when talking about what they look like.

 

I'm working on it! damn classes.

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Well I wish they looked pretty :( Some are almost bright red and look kind of nice, but most of them are closer to brown...

 

What kind of crab will eat them? I wanted to add a porcelain crab, but if something else will eat them I'd be more than happy to throw it in there instead.

 

This tank just really really really wants polyps. It's been cycled for ages now :(

 

EDIT: Markushka, you totally ninja'd me :o You're good. Waiting is just hard! Even my parents are like "Okay you need something in that tank now."

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Well I wish they looked pretty :( Some are almost bright red and look kind of nice, but most of them are closer to brown...

 

What kind of crab will eat them? I wanted to add a porcelain crab, but if something else will eat them I'd be more than happy to throw it in there instead.

 

This tank just really really really wants polyps. It's been cycled for ages now :(

ok lol monday. anyway all my apps are due the 1st

and midterms just finished.

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Ahhh okay. Well the hermits are actually about to be ditched (since I think if I ever set up the 2.5 gal it'll be after I move into my dorm/apartment for college) for snails, but I do love my zebra hermit... so I might keep it.

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