The #1 trick for the pico reef is the blast feeding weekend.

[brandon429]

 

a little over two weeks later:

 

most of that is bringing out the current corallites, but the countable brand new ones are at the tips.

 

SPS grow much faster when basal material has set in...that's my distress point to try and regain. by getting this much top growth, the rest follows by the end of this month and that frag will be worth $$ upon regeneration.

 

I bought a distressed sps frag, STN from base up, for 12 bucks from lfs.

 

take home, - do not dip - we don't want extra stress.

 

 

put in my pico, and do the ultimate:

 

instead of weekly work and feedings, I do six complete water changes over one weekend. injecting roti feast into my reef at the rate that would feed a 20 gallon tank (im one gallon)

 

or cyclopeeze

 

or blenderized Mysis, doesn't matter. its all protein. your corals would love to eat this way all the time, as they do in nature, but we tend to withhold to avoid pollution. well, occasionally don't withhold, work.

 

CPR reefing is blast feed water change, blast feed water change, as many times as you are willing to do over a weekend then be normal all week and repeat once more. by end of month on these little runs, you'll be able to count new corallites, I popped up a few above. that frag will be regenerated, and fragable again, before summer time only because the pico reef has a *distinct* advantage over any other size reef and we can utilize full water table access, to actually beat or tie the rate the best $3000 sps systems will produce in two weeks with all the delicate param tweaking etc.

 

Heterotrophic feeding is all that's lacking for us, don't need the ion tweaking until we want to work less.

 

the corals sit in this overfed mess for a few hours, but not until rot, just before, then its all ripped out. they're pooping for days after, more water changes and feeding on top of that. its hard for large reefs to do this, you'll catch the waste in all the tiny corners and recesses. but a pico? nope, if you are under 4 gallons get to CPR'ing and drive your coral mass easily with hardly any added cost, just work.

 

is an exhausting pace, but you only have to do it occasionally as a surprise, and sustain it a few days, to make your corals have a growth spurt you will not get through param tweaking like CA MG and alk components.

 

Heterotrophic feed boosting is the #1 thing holding back your coral growth, so wow them at times.

[Hexadron]

That's really neat. I would try that out minus the "do not dip" part. I made that mistake with a previous build and now never add any corals without dipping in Bayer 1st - stressed or otherwise.

[natalia_la_loca]

I sold my tanks like five minutes ago and I already want to set up a reef bowl. It's all your fault Brandon.

[brandon429]

JDH I don't blame you for not excluding that part, my tune might change if that happens to me lol

 

but it is unique to consider adding frags during the time of blast changing, high water in/out vs the typical system, that may factor. understandable though if someone has a good working preemptive system.

 

Natalia your planted bowls are enviable! Just last night it dawned on my I wouldn't have my current moss bowls if I hadn't lost a drone at 800 feet tip top of a small mountain, and had to climb to try and retrieve.

 

it was too steep to retrieve and even though that's admitted loss, I stumble upon this compact low lying carpet moss that is *rare* for arid Texas climates, actually about 20 miles outside of Abilene tx on a single shady part of this drone intercepting mountain. I cut into my Gatorade and fill it up, plus some in all my pockets like an eight year old.

 

like you collect, I just went back this year and got three more bags for give away bowls. kindred spirit plant bowler.

 

http://www.coralgazers.com/product/reef-nutrition-roti-feast/

 

Roti feast is awesome

[natalia_la_loca]

What an awesome story about your moss

 

My moss acquisition adventure was the tiniest bit more mundane. Walk outside, pick up a rock with moss on it, stick it in a bowl with some more rocks, add light and RODI, pull a few weeds and done. I've had it for 3 or 4 years.

 

Someday I will set up a reefbowl along the lines of yours. I just love the beauty and simplicity of it.

[brandon429]

Natalia it appears you make good on forecasts

 

bump because I still use this same feeding means into year 17 on the reefbowl. I keep getting lucky no poweroutages have destroyed it, in my opinion that's the #1 risk in longevity challenges as the biological side is charted out simply: feed, change water--feed, change water. sometimes do it in double and triple day runs if you want to fatten corals

 

like how a movie star gets ready for a film role, they sustain some things for 2 mos that they otherwise might not sustain, blast feeding runs sustained for two months make your corals fill up fast. in two months a change will be seen, someone here run a 2 mos spaced out blast feeding and post your before and after pics, in two mos you'll get new growths we can see if you do it weekly, a two day run at it then for the rest of the week just chill on feed. 

 

 

 

the flushing water change is ideal/removes waste proteins before degradation

 

and when matching only temp and salinity, everything cruises well. that one sps frag above from 2016 didn't make it/ apologies to reefing in general for not being able to keep every species of acropora known to mankind alive heh but other than just that one, all is well. 

 

although in spaces this confined any feeding into the bowl will be picked up by a coral, nothing beats getting up at 4 am and putting one drop of feed in when feeder polyps are already out, to really bring them out. corals will fold inside out after the taste

 

then blast feed with mixed best reef food you have for direct input into polyps 

 

then full water change after lights out that day, let it stew all day and don't opaque the water with food but just feed better than you ever did in some generous amount. it would be fun if someone would do sustained feeding above norm and post their growth pics. I have some for red war coral let me find it one sec

 

 

 

 

 

pic one is restricted feeding for one straight year, lazy mode. Bare feed attempts, mainly travel and the bowl ran itself at home but atrophied. Lower right side war coral has receded, all that gray material is former war coral mass, now skeleton but turned into live rock as well. Built at home live rock, not bought live rock, due to blast feed intervals that add positive mass like a workout routine for humans. 
 

pic two is about six mos of straight powerlift feeding. Hypertrophy lower right war coral plated over former skeletal area

 

the rock weighs a bit more now 

 

the growth on top of 1/4 inch former growth builds the rock to the degree that one day, I won’t be able to remove it from the vase for cleaning lol. By year 30, bet.

 

 

[brandon429]

Evidence of green fluorescing virus has shown up now in new tissue growth. Which is fine by me, it’s a neat color variant imo

 

 

its tempting to lift out the brain coral colony and excise that all green area as an individual frag, with borders red and red mouths. That would leave a huge insult divot on the originating colony but it would self heal in 24 months and leave a neat / different fragment.

 

 

this is a largely all red colony, that color variant only developed on new tissue.

this was how the bowl looked in 2016

 

the red monti colonies above have produced roughly 30 same-sized frags, most I just toss away as nobody really wants unmounted red monti mass around here.

 

One can use hyperfeeding events and the inherent easy water quality control options for pico reefs to maximize coral growth while preserving perfect water clarity. It’s a form of reef tank cpr by action, not by keeping a steady state. It’s briefly exceeding the steady state sustained for 2 months - we are pressing protein into the cells with the feed/ water change stroke.

 

fungia is 3x larger nowadays off mass gain

 

here is update as of today

 

[brandon429]

Here's today. The #1 food in my opinion to blast feed then do a 100% water change a while later is refrigerated roti feast.

 

It has the cleanest degradation trending during eaten + uneaten waste phases... not all food given gets into a coral/ vast majority hangs around to adhere to rock surfaces, be picked up by other animals, and quickly ran through the tanks digestion cycle. 

 

The glass hazes up green for many folks when dosing items like seachem phytoplankton or reef roids for example

 

After being ran through the tank's protein digestion cycle, more fertilizer is left over. That + bright light and you get glass haze green and yellow shades. 

 

But with roti feast I can cheat a little and feed and not change the water for two or more days

 

That's additional uptake time and no hazy growth, the feed mass is uptaken and retained better in corals and tank animals I'm judging off the rates of glass hazing between various feeds in unskimmed pico reefs. 

Notice feeder tentacles

 

Roti feast burns the cleanest with most mass per month is what I've seen. Once this heavy feeding is cleaned out, that's reversing the eaten+wasted feed issue, we remove littered waste from around the tank via hose as the water is draining

 

Here's 24 hours later in totally clean water. My brain coral boulder receded these last couple years because I was lazy on feeding, lesser frequency etc

So I bought some roti feast and we can chart the holes filing back in this year. 

 

 

 

 

 

Replace your pico reefs water with matching temp and salinity to the prior, no other params need adjustment, and continue on. The tank will not age as the years go by and coral mass will take over

 

 

Hazy water, not glass, in the top pic is due to large feeding of roti feast. That was changed out 100% leaving sagging corals full of food. Fill back up with clean water= the secret trick. I just changed the sandbed out in a rip clean is why it's so white even at 17 years old

 

It simply gets a new sandbed annually and it's blast fed this way, over and over for seventeen years

 

Roti feast is not seventeen years old

 

cyclopeeze got us to 2014 lol

 

pico reef workout biology:

 

one blast feed a week= maintenance calories and slow but consistent growth, equivalent to brisk walking for exercise 

 

two blast feeds a week, starts positive nitrogen balance metabolism in the pico reef equivalent to light weightlifting plus walking plus diet improvement 

 

 

three blast feeds per week, sustained at least two straight months, that’s three heavy feed doses + three full water changes per week: bodybuilding a pico, like someone getting ready for a physique show with 5x15 max sets consistently all body areas and full diet modification sustained. Pick your end goal and secure it 

 

 

[brandon429]

5-25-22

 

 

Look at size difference in the fungia at the bottom with consistent roti feast feed. The corals grow from it, for sure. 

 

 

 

 

 

Mix up a good dose of the roti feast in other water to break it up

 

Bring out feeders in main tank with one drop roti, wait 30 minutes and add the big dose. 

 

Let run directly when feeders are out like above and then change all the water two hours later. You're set for a while. All the coral gets is one gallon of water. The coral mass is supported by consistent feed/ change intervals. Pico reef exercise vs stagnant mode reefing. 

[Reefkid88]

If people knew how much I fed my last pico,people would absolutely lose their minds and be disgusted lol. 

[aclman88]

9 hours ago, Reefkid88 said:

If people knew how much I fed my last pico,people would absolutely lose their minds and be disgusted lol.

Reef roids out the wazoo!  My first pico must have been a phosphate bomb with the amount of feeding I did,

[Reefkid88]

1 hour ago, aclman88 said:

Reef roids out the wazoo!  My first pico must have been a phosphate bomb with the amount of feeding I did,

 

 Crazy thing was,I had to dose Phosphate and Nitrates just to keep my levels above 0ppm and that was feeding 3-4 times a week HEAVY. But I was doing small half gallon to 1g water changes 2 times a week. 

[brandon429]

I've been on artic pods a while. Latest brain coral growth due to timed blast feedings plus water changes: