Jump to content
Pod Your Reef

Upside Down Pico Reef - A very Pico Christmas!


TFish77

Recommended Posts

FTS 11/1/17

 

cT12NYK.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figured I would try and take a stab at this contest. I really wanted to try something different that I hadn't necessarily seen before. This may fail horribly but it should be fun trying. 

 

I still haven't found the exact jar I want to use but will most likely go with one of the par lights, a small heater, and a little powerhead to keep the bottom clean. The only other thing I am worried about with this design is the lack of biological filtration due to the lack of sand and rock. Again this is more of a fun experiment though so we will see. 

 

The idea is to glue a single piece of tonga to the jars lid and attach the corals to that. Maintenance will consist of lifting the lid with the rock/corals on it, dumping out the old water, and adding clean water. The light will sit inside a small cabinet and shine from the bottom up. I think it should create an interesting little desk lamp as well. 

 

I plan on going out this weekend to find a jar and a cabinet for it to sit on :-) . Just wanted a bit of feedback on the design. 

 

The plan:

 

xg5TMjm.jpg

 

Sorta what I have in mind:

 

b1LqyEk.jpg

 

 

The tank!

 

UkAEPRc.jpg

 

The tanks view :-p

 

s25TnTq.jpg

  • Like 14
Link to comment

That is a fascinating idea TFish77.  Very unique and innovative.  I think it should work.  You just need the right container and the right piece of tonga.  I am sorry that I did not think of it myself.  Good luck to you!

Link to comment
2 minutes ago, vlangel said:

That is a fascinating idea TFish77.  Very unique and innovative.  I think it should work.  You just need the right container and the right piece of tonga.  I am sorry that I did not think of it myself.  Good luck to you!

I really appreciate it :-)

 

I'm thinking just a standard cylinder with a flat lid will work. I am hoping to be able to set the lid upright with the rock on it while I clean the tank. 

 

I also have a few smaller pieces of tonga sitting in my frag tank sump I was looking to use. I will most likely have to glue a couple pieces together to get the look I want though. 

 

UhH4Aic.jpg

  • Like 3
Link to comment

This actually does sound awesome. My only concern is if you are using a LED instead of PC light, that you may have the light super close (based off your current drawing at least) and cook the coral. You may want to find a way to keep the light adjustable, even under the desk, to make sure you have control over that.

 

Good luck, can't wait to see this one!!!

Link to comment

Wow. If this works, I am predicting you as the winner. Following along to see how this works. 

Only thing I would worry about is how some corals will take to being upside down. Softer corals and LPS may have issues. Excited to see this play out!

Link to comment
26 minutes ago, schgr.cube said:

This actually does sound awesome. My only concern is if you are using a LED instead of PC light, that you may have the light super close (based off your current drawing at least) and cook the coral. You may want to find a way to keep the light adjustable, even under the desk, to make sure you have control over that.

 

Good luck, can't wait to see this one!!!

 

From what I can tell the PAR bulbs are dimmable with a specific fixture which I will absolutely have to buy. I think we have all bleached out corals with leds at some point so yeah I am gonna try and avoid that :lol:

 

Only other potential issue I see is heat transfer from the light to the jar but if it becomes too much of an issue I am going to throw a small desk fan in the cabinet and hopefully that will disperse the heat enough. This is all just supposed to be a fun experiment so I'm sure I will consistently change things though. 

 

20 minutes ago, SaltyBuddha said:

Wow. If this works, I am predicting you as the winner. Following along to see how this works. 

Only thing I would worry about is how some corals will take to being upside down. Softer corals and LPS may have issues. Excited to see this play out!

 

Haha thank you. Famous last words though: "If it works". 

 

I am also curious to see how buoyancy will affect the growth of different corals. I may try a different type of coral on each extending branch to see how each one does. Maybe a monti, a zoa, a mushroom, a lps, and a simple sps. The biggest thing I am concerned about is the lps which I may have to end up sticking out sideways. 

Link to comment
47 minutes ago, TFish77 said:

I am also curious to see how buoyancy will affect the growth of different corals. I may try a different type of coral on each extending branch to see how each one does. Maybe a monti, a zoa, a mushroom, a lps, and a simple sps. The biggest thing I am concerned about is the lps which I may have to end up sticking out sideways. 

Also you can learn whether light source direction or gravity have more effect on coral growth, aka do corals inherently want to grow upward?  what will happen to the "colorful" side, etc?

 

Fascinating!

  • Like 2
Link to comment
MainelyReefer

Check out Gravitropism vs. Phototropism, I remember it from college and if you google it there is lots of experiments done on plants where light sources were placed below the plants and while leaves oriented themselves towards lights the body of the plant still grew upwards in response to gravity.  Following for sure

  • Like 1
Link to comment
GunslingerGirl
4 minutes ago, GraniteReefer said:

Check out Gravitropism vs. Phototropism, I remember it from college and if you google it there is lots of experiments done on plants where light sources were placed below the plants and while leaves oriented themselves towards lights the body of the plant still grew upwards in response to gravity.  Following for sure

Can confirm gravitropism will win out in plants. Not sure if it will win out when there is water current involved. But super interesting idea!

  • Like 1
Link to comment

Scuba diving I've seen low light corals growing toward the sand under an overhang because of light reflecting of it.  

 

My guess is you'll have no issue with direction of growth. Plants do gravitropism via 2 main methods. Sensing where little starch balls are in the cell (grow/ bend opposite where they are located) and by a concentration gradient from the hormone auxin.

 

Animals typically don't contain starch balls and I've never heard of hormones for this purpose. If you put a terrestrial vertebrate in deep water with their eyes shut, they cannot tell which way is up or down. The only reason why fish can is because they have air bladders.  But coral are not complex organisms so I really don't know.  They could have some weird gravitropism with calcium carbonate crystals... Also the weight of the polyps themselves will probably make them saggy and less open- nonphotosynthetic feeding will be a pain.

 

I'm super interested to see what happens. You should definitely try each main type of coral.  For sure following

 

I'm predicting stunted growth of the coral with some substantial changes in morphology but no massive effects overall.  Also predicting that you'll have a bitch and a half time of dealing with gravity- keeping corals attached and that kind of stuff...

 

Best of luck!!!

  • Like 3
Link to comment
7 hours ago, micoastreefing said:

Also you can learn whether light source direction or gravity have more effect on coral growth, aka do corals inherently want to grow upward?  what will happen to the "colorful" side, etc?

 

Fascinating!

 

41 minutes ago, GraniteReefer said:

Check out Gravitropism vs. Phototropism, I remember it from college and if you google it there is lots of experiments done on plants where light sources were placed below the plants and while leaves oriented themselves towards lights the body of the plant still grew upwards in response to gravity.  Following for sure

 

35 minutes ago, GunslingerGirl said:

Can confirm gravitropism will win out in plants. Not sure if it will win out when there is water current involved. But super interesting idea!

 

 

Yeah this is really turning into more of an interesting experiment than anything. I am definitely going to have different branches with as many individual types of coral as possible to see how each grows under essentially the same conditions but upside down. 

 

This is getting really out there but I am curious if I can almost "train" certain corals to grow downward by having the light come from the bottom and all the flow come from the top forcing the coral to grow downward. If I can essentially counteract the effects of buoyancy with a constant and even flow downwards with the only source of light coming from the bottom can I essentially trick the coral into growing down?

 

I am heading to a few stores now to look for jars. I found a few articles on Gravitropism vs. Phototropism that I am for sure going to check out so thank you. So far nothing when it comes to corals or invertebrates. 

  • Like 2
Link to comment
2 minutes ago, Hobbs said:

Scuba diving I've seen low light corals growing toward the sand under an overhang because of light reflecting of it.  

 

My guess is you'll have no issue with direction of growth. Plants do gravitropism via 2 main methods. Sensing where little starch balls are in the cell (grow/ bend opposite where they are located) and by a concentration gradient from the hormone auxin.

 

Animals typically don't contain starch balls and I've never heard of hormones for this purpose. If you put a terrestrial vertebrate in deep water with their eyes shut, they cannot tell which way is up or down. The only reason why fish can is because they have air bladders.  But coral are not complex organisms so I really don't know.  They could have some weird gravitropism with calcium carbonate crystals... Also the weight of the polyps themselves will probably make them saggy and less open- nonphotosynthetic feeding will be a pain.

 

I'm super interested to see what happens. You should definitely try each main type of coral.  For sure following

 

I'm predicting stunted growth of the coral with some substantial changes in morphology but no massive effects overall.  Also predicting that you'll have a bitch and a half time of dealing with gravity- keeping corals attached and that kind of stuff...

 

Best of luck!!!

 

 

Thank you for your input! Yeah I am not a marine biologist by any stretch but I am very curious to see how this works out especially in regards to different types of coral. I am planning to also try a few non photosynthetic corals just to see the difference. I know I have seen things like wild gorgonians and dendros growing upside down on rock overhangs. For sure a softie, a lps, and a sps just to see how each does. Real hardy stuff like mushrooms, acans or hammers, and some birdsnest. 

  • Like 3
Link to comment
33 minutes ago, metrokat said:

Unique idea

Thank you!

 

I just really wanted to try something fun and different regardless of whether or not it actually works. The first drawing may or may not have been a crazy late night idea after a few adult beverages :lol:. I am however now very committed to seeing it through whether or not it actually works out! At worst it will be a unique experiment at what not to do. 

 

At best I will get me one of those new Seneye Monitors B)

  • Like 1
Link to comment

Ok so after an hour or so of skimming through Gravitropism vs. Phototropism I am going to go ahead and predict that the hard corals are going to do much better than the soft corals due to the fact that most softies are filled with water which will cause them to want to "float" towards the surface. 

Link to comment

The interactions of phototropism and gravitropism were investigated in order to ascertain which of the two tropisms would exhibit a more dominate effect on plants. Phototropism was set against the effect of gravitropism by placing 4 seedlings sideways in a closed box with an LED light bulb set up at the bottom of the box in the center below the seedlings. 5 holes were cut to allow the insertion of the 4 seedlings into the box as well as a camera with just the lens jutting into the box itself. Precautions were made to ensure that no additional sources of light besides that of the light bulb were influencing the seedlings by fully enclosing the box and all insertions. Also, black construction paper lined the inside of the box to mitigate any reflection to keep the light unilateral. A time lapse video was constructed by setting the camera to take a picture once every 10 seconds for a period of 15 hours. We hypothesized that the effects of phototropism would outweigh the effects of gravitropism so that we would observe the plant to grow down towards the light rather than up away from gravity. What we found was that the shoots themselves, the main central stems, grew upward with no apparent hindrances, but the leaves of the seedlings began to orient themselves toward the light source. Also, we observed the process of circumnutation, most notably in the top left plant, as they moved in a circular, almost helical pattern over time. After analyzing these results, it made sense that only the leaves showed a phototropic response as the leaves are the main source of photosynthesis. So, it seems that neither mutually excludes each other but remain independent responses exhibited in different parts of the plant.

 

Ok now I'm really interested to see how this is gonna work out. I would consider a "polyp" the main source of phototropic response in a coral but I'm curious to see how different polyp sizes among different coral types respond to light vs gravity. 

  • Like 2
Link to comment
1 hour ago, TFish77 said:

Thank you!

 

I just really wanted to try something fun and different regardless of whether or not it actually works. The first drawing may or may not have been a crazy late night idea after a few adult beverages :lol:. I am however now very committed to seeing it through whether or not it actually works out! At worst it will be a unique experiment at what not to do. 

 

At best I will get me one of those new Seneye Monitors B)

So when you pull up the lid, the tonga branch and corals will be out of the water?

Link to comment
On 10/12/2017 at 10:38 PM, metrokat said:

So when you pull up the lid, the tonga branch and corals will be out of the water?

 

That is the idea yes.  I have never had an issue with corals being out of water and I figured this would be the most efficient way to change the water. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment

I still haven't quite found the perfect jar yet but it's most likely going to be something like this. The lid is important and needs to be flat. Unfortunately most of the other lids are either made of metal or some oddly shaped glass. I figured going with a flat plastic lid would be the best way to handle this. 

 

O2HSrYE.jpg

  • Like 2
Link to comment

You are going to need to make sure you can arrange for a really secure attachment of your liverock to the lid. If you can do that, there are a number of species of coral that will grow on vertical walls in the wild and this isn't much different, so you could make a really interesting display!

Link to comment

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recommended Discussions

×
×
  • Create New...