THE OFFICIAL ASK ALBERT THIEL THREAD

[gena]

 

Since I do not have much info about your tank it is hard to decide what the reason is but I suspect that if they are at the bottom of the tank that it is not receiving enough light ...

 

Albert

They get plenty of light in the refugium and lower light in the pico. In the pico they are forming the grapes. I'm leaning towards lack of nutrients. Thanks, Albert!!!!

 

I sent subsea a PM asking him. I know he has a lot of experience with macroalgaes. I'll let you know what I find out.

[albertthiel]

They get plenty of light in the refugium and lower light in the pico. In the pico they are forming the grapes. I'm leaning towards lack of nutrients. Thanks, Albert!!!!

 

I sent subsea a PM asking him. I know he has a lot of experience with macroalgaes. I'll let you know what I find out.

 

Well in that case I agree that it might be nutrient levels but let's see what Subsea has to say ...

 

Albert

[Subsea]

I've searched the internet and couldn't find my answer so I thought I'd come to where the experts hang out . My red grape macro algae in my 45g tank's refugium does not have any of the bubbles. It's just red stems. I placed some into my 3g pico and now it's forming the bubbles. Does this mean my nutrients are too low in the refugium? The lighting is T5 in the fuge and LED on the pico but it's in a low light area in the pico. I'm leaning toward it being a lack of nutrients in my bigger tank. Do any of you know what the lack of bubbles could be from?

 

Red Grapes and Dragons Breath are both deep water red marcos collected in nutrient rich waters of the GOM. The depth collected is between 30'-130'. I have attempted mass cultivation for both of these macros. When I pushed these macros with intense MH lamps at 6500 kelvin they bleached and died. I am currently testing both using LED with varying spectrum as proposed by LED manufacturer. While the test is in early stages I can this with some authority and documentation, Red Grapes do not want bright lights. I have had good success using T5 at 2.5W to the gallons with 1:1 ratio of actinics to 6500 kelvin day light lamps, 55 PAR. For most red macro, as they receive more light then they require, the growth color takes on an orange tint.

Without knowing more, I lean toward lack of nutrients.

Patrick

[atoll]

Have you tried adding some red LEDs with the actinics Patrick? Might be worth a try.

[Subsea]

Have you tried adding some red LEDs with the actinics Patrick? Might be worth a try.

 

At present, the manufacture is producing the different spectrum lamps and I am testing them to manufactures specifications. When I complete the testing of his proprietary spectrum, I will focus on these two deep water macros with what I think is appropriate to maximize growth. I will use the spectrum elimination of seawater with respect to depth at 80'. Light spectrum is grouped by frequency. The lower energy spectrum are filtered out with increasing depth. Reds, yellows and orange are all filtered out at 30'. Everything that remains is green, blue and violet. To maximize growth in Red Grapes, I would use these spectrum. To view red macro, I would include red and white LED.

Patrick

[gena]

Red Grapes and Dragons Breath are both deep water red marcos collected in nutrient rich waters of the GOM. The depth collected is between 30'-130'. I have attempted mass cultivation for both of these macros. When I pushed these macros with intense MH lamps at 6500 kelvin they bleached and died. I am currently testing both using LED with varying spectrum as proposed by LED manufacturer. While the test is in early stages I can this with some authority and documentation, Red Grapes do not want bright lights. I have had good success using T5 at 2.5W to the gallons with 1:1 ratio of actinics to 6500 kelvin day light lamps, 55 PAR. For most red macro, as they receive more light then they require, the growth color takes on an orange tint. Without knowing more, I lean toward lack of nutrients. Patrick

My red grape in the refugium is lit with T5's a 50/50 combination. I'm going to pick up an LED bulb from Coral Compulsion with red in it to see if that makes a difference. I will let you know. I don't think it's a nutrient issue now, I think it's just too bright of light.

 

Thank you Patrick!

[atoll]

Well the dirty deed is done. I have been in my attic/roof space/loft or whatever you wish to call it but don't call it the basement. What a dirty chore now the sifting begins. I have brought down 4 carrier bags of magazines and all manner of paraphernalia. I will update you as to what I have later in the meantime left the sifting begin.

[albertthiel]

My red grape in the refugium is lit with T5's a 50/50 combination. I'm going to pick up an LED bulb from Coral Compulsion with red in it to see if that makes a difference. I will let you know. I don't think it's a nutrient issue now, I think it's just too bright of light.

 

Thank you Patrick!

 

Use a "Grow type" bulb for lighting and your algae should grow ... whether it is a T-5 or an LED meant for Fuges and for Algae growth Gena. I have one from the UK

 

 

 

Albert

[albertthiel]

Well the dirty deed is done. I have been in my attic/roof space/loft or whatever you wish to call it but don't call it the basement. What a dirty chore now the sifting begins. I have brought down 4 carrier bags of magazines and all manner of paraphernalia. I will update you as to what I have later in the meantime left the sifting begin.

 

Good for you Les .... the deed is done ! Now you can rummage through it all I guess and see what you can find ... Good luck

 

Albert

[atoll]

Not so old only dating back to 1972 lol. 7 TFHs one with a picture of a Blue Ring Octopus on it dated Januray 1973. There are some good adverts in them for sure not so much in the way of marine related articles however.

 

 

Going through this lot could take me sometime.

[albertthiel]

Not so old only dating back to 1972 lol. 7 TFHs one with a picture of a Blue Ring Octopus on it dated Januray 1973. There are some good adverts in them for sure not so much in the way of marine related articles however. Going through this lot could take me sometime.

 

Very nice Les ... I am sure you are glad you finally go around to emptying that attic and finding all those mags ...

 

Don't get a shock though when you read some of the articles and see what is suggested

 

Albert

[atoll]

Albert, I even found two invoices along with an inventory of slides returned to me which were on loan from me to you.\On the invoice it says "to be used for Advanced Reefkeeping 2" Along with the invoices there is a list of 44 slides I sent you and its dated dated 07/06/1992. How’s that? Believe it or not one of the slides apparently showed my Oxydator with a fire fish amongst many others. Another on the list is a slide of my Heteractis magnifica which you wrongly describe as a H. Malu. I guess you can be forgiven for that one. This is the slide that appeared on the front cover of your book "ten Easy Steps" that I have, mid you I did have to buy it myself to get it lol.

[albertthiel]

Albert, I even found two invoices along with an inventory of slides returned to me which were on loan from me to you.\On the invoice it says "to be used for Advanced Reefkeeping 2" Along with the invoices there is a list of 44 slides I sent you and its dated dated 07/06/1992. How’s that? Believe it or not one of the slides apparently showed my Oxydator with a fire fish amongst many others. Another on the list is a slide of my Heteractis magnifica which you wrongly describe as a H. Malu. I guess you can be forgiven for that one. This is the slide that appeared on the front cover of your book "ten Easy Steps" that I have, mid you I did have to buy it myself to get it lol.

 

Wow ... so did you get all your slides back except for that 1 with the Anemone .. ? I probably still have it but the problem is of course : "where" .... I promise that if I ever come across it I will send it back to you ...

 

And sorry you had to buy the book ... I would have thought I would have given you one my bad ...

 

Albert

[albertthiel]

An incredible Video by Sheila Patek on Mantis Shrimp with lots of information you may never have heard about ... like "Bluffing" ...

 

http://www.ted.com/talks/sheila_patek_clocks_the_fastest_animals.html

 

 

Albert

[gena]

 

Use a "Grow type" bulb for lighting and your algae should grow ... whether it is a T-5 or an LED meant for Fuges and for Algae growth Gena. I have one from the UK

 

 

Albert

Yep, the bulb I'm going to get is specifically for growing macroalgae in a refugium. Thanks, Albert .

[atoll]

Yeah got them all back bar the one. I wonder if you use any of the slides for Advanced Reefkeeping 2? In fact did you ever do an Advanced Reefkeeping 2?

Wow ... so did you get all your slides back except for that 1 with the Anemone .. ? I probably still have it but the problem is of course : "where" .... I promise that if I ever come across it I will send it back to you ...

 

And sorry you had to buy the book ... I would have thought I would have given you one my bad ...

 

Albert

[albertthiel]

Yeah got them all back bar the one. I wonder if you use any of the slides for Advanced Reefkeeping 2? In fact did you ever do an Advanced Reefkeeping 2?

 

Yes I sure did write ARK II but is online only and one needs a login and password at www.nmfira.com, and it was renamed as you can see if you go to that web site

 

Albert

[atoll]

Just dug out an article I wrote on my very first sump centralized filtration system I wrote back in 1987. The system was made and installed at the end of 1986 if my memory serves me right. My scanner does not work so I took a couple of pic's of the pages of the magazine it appeared in Marinews which was then the British Marine Aquarists Association's bi-monthly magazine. I later went on to become the discussion page editor, NW rep and the book club secretary. I also wrote many articles for the journal and had a number published in Practical Fishkeeping Magazine here in the UK. You probably won’t be able to read so much of the article for which I apologies but it may give you some idea of what I was running all thoughts years ago. Albert in one of the magazines there is an article by you on Redox, just what it is and how to increase and use it. I found lots of other interesting stuff including a review of the London Seminar we both attended and that you spoke at. Happy days.

 

 

A plan I drew of my sump tank all those years ago.I was one of the first to have a sump filtration system in the UK that was a DIY job. There is more info on another page to this article overleaf in the mag.

 

[Chew_Magna]

Just dug out an article I wrote on my very first sump centralized filtration system I wrote back in 1987. The system was made and installed at the end of 1986 if my memory serves me right. My scanner does not work so I took a couple of pic's of the pages of the magazine it appeared in Marinews which was then the British Marine Aquarists Association's bi-monthly magazine. I later went on to become the discussion page editor, NW rep and the book club secretary. I also wrote many articles for the journal and had a number published in Practical Fishkeeping Magazine here in the UK. You probably won’t be able to read so much of the article for which I apologies but it may give you some idea of what I was running all thoughts years ago. Albert in one of the magazines there is an article by you on Redox, just what it is and how to increase and use it. I found lots of other interesting stuff including a review of the London Seminar we both attended and that you spoke at. Happy days.

 

 

A plan I drew of my sump tank all those years ago.I was one of the first to have a sump filtration system in the UK that was a DIY job. There is more info on another page to this article overleaf in the mag.

 

Kinda hard to read some of that but I think I get the jist of it. It's crazy how over complicated that looks now compared to what we know works these days.

[atoll]

Yea true. We used to be told that filters had to have a very high turnover rate and lots of filtration not so much live rock as filtration. Filters had to run at least 3 times the turnover of the tank an hour and many suggested much more. However my filter worked well on a turnover rate of just once every 3 hours. I used lots of different filter media's and a converted Sander air driven skimmer (I turned it into a ventury skimmer using a powerhead) later moving on to a Tunze 4002 skimmer which was a beast at that time. I have also come across a few Tunze catalogues in my horde but alas they are post the skimmer I had from them. Most people were running under gravel filters at the time with just a few running Tunze filtration or Minireef filters later.

Kinda hard to read some of that but I think I get the jist of it. It's crazy how over complicated that looks now compared to what we know works these days.

[albertthiel]

Just dug out an article I wrote on my very first sump centralized filtration system I wrote back in 1987. The system was made and installed at the end of 1986 if my memory serves me right. My scanner does not work so I took a couple of pic's of the pages of the magazine it appeared in Marinews which was then the British Marine Aquarists Association's bi-monthly magazine. I later went on to become the discussion page editor, NW rep and the book club secretary. I also wrote many articles for the journal and had a number published in Practical Fishkeeping Magazine here in the UK. You probably won’t be able to read so much of the article for which I apologies but it may give you some idea of what I was running all thoughts years ago.

 

Albert in one of the magazines there is an article by you on Redox, just what it is and how to increase and use it. I found lots of other interesting stuff including a review of the London Seminar we both attended and that you spoke at. Happy days.

 

A plan I drew of my sump tank all those years ago.I was one of the first to have a sump filtration system in the UK that was a DIY job. There is more info on another page to this article overleaf in the mag.

 

Thanks Les, and yes it is hard to read of course ... but I do get the general idea, and for those days when you started using that set up your sure were a very early adopter .... Looks really intricate and seems to include a lot of areas for extra filtration.

 

Where did the idea come from if I may ask ?

 

Thanks for reminding me of the London Conference .. that brings back some real good memories ...

 

And on redox, interesting that one reads less and less about it nowadays ...

 

Albert

[albertthiel]

Peacock Mantis kills Blue Ringed Octopus and is not affected by its Toxins

 

Link :

 

 

 

Albert

[atoll]

The idea was a combination of others ideas plus my own Albert. A kind a marriage of all I had learnt not all good of course. I used Tunze bio-graduals like they used in their bio-pots but used them in a trough arrangement with a spray bar (I later improved that before ditching it altogether) as can be seen in the plans. I used up and over wet filtration which help denitrifaction as well as nitrification so some was in reverse flow not unlike the Hockney system we had here at the time that used reverse flow UG filtration with a skimmer and bye pass filter.

 

Another B.M.A.A. Member had built his own sump and published his ideas which gave me the courage to build my own. I remember being very nervous at the time as I had little to go on but I adopted, improved, improvised and invented to the best of my ability. People from all over the UK came to see it including professional aquarists from zoos etc. None had seen anything like it with thriving corals and fish that all spawned for me. The corals were mostly soft ones but I did keep some hardy hard corals. We/I also employed Caulerpa in our tanks then of course which I later went on to grow in the sump.

 

This filtration system was under constant evaluation and improvements were made as and when. I guess the biggest improvement came when I got the big Tunze 4002 skimmer in there. I did only small water changes and the nitrate level never went above 10ppm and I had no problems with undesirable algae at all.

[atoll]

I just found an article I wrote for the magazine Marinews way back in October 1986 on how to breed white worms and feeding them to your marine fish. I completely forgot about that one. This is like reading your life history in marines

[albertthiel]

The idea was a combination of others ideas plus my own Albert. A kind a marriage of all I had learnt not all good of course. I used Tunze bio-graduals like they used in their bio-pots but used them in a trough arrangement with a spray bar (I later improved that before ditching it altogether) as can be seen in the plans. I used up and over wet filtration which help denitrifaction as well as nitrification so some was in reverse flow not unlike the Hockney system we had here at the time that used reverse flow UG filtration with a skimmer and bye pass filter.

 

Another B.M.A.A. Member had built his own sump and published his ideas which gave me the courage to build my own. I remember being very nervous at the time as I had little to go on but I adopted, improved, improvised and invented to the best of my ability. People from all over the UK came to see it including professional aquarists from zoos etc. None had seen anything like it with thriving corals and fish that all spawned for me. The corals were mostly soft ones but I did keep some hardy hard corals. We/I also employed Caulerpa in our tanks then of course which I later went on to grow in the sump.

 

This filtration system was under constant evaluation and improvements were made as and when. I guess the biggest improvement came when I got the big Tunze 4002 skimmer in there. I did only small water changes and the nitrate level never went above 10ppm and I had no problems with undesirable algae at all.

 

I kind of figured that it was a combination of some ideas that had seen but then improved by your own imagination and experimenting.

 

And yes in those days we did try a lot of things and modified them as was needed or we thought would improve the system and kept tweaking it till we were content that it did what we wanted it to do.

 

Good for you ...

 

you may want to try and take a picture of the filter part itself and post that one so we can maybe see a little more detail .. just a though.

 

Albert