Wonderboy's UGFuge 2.5G Pico

[billygoat]

9 hours ago, Wonderboy said:

To answer your question in short (or address your concern): I don't think you need to dose iodine.

 

My reason for using it has to do with aquarium volume and a couple other system characterics; I'll explain those reasons when I have extra time. In the meantime, I use Brightwell Iodion, their bottle explains one major reason I dose iodine in my systems: "Presence of iodine is vital to hermatypic invertebrates (i.e., corals, clams, and their allies that harbor zooxanthellae) because it is used to detoxify excess oxygen produced by zooxanthellae. This oxygen irritates sensitive tissue. Corals and clams that appear to shrivel or close under intense lighting are attempting to shade their zooxanthellae crop to reduce the rate of oxygen production. Iodine (as the iodide ion) essentially bonds with oxygen to form non-toxic iodate, relieving the need to shield zooxanthellae and enabling the host organism to open fully. The predominant form of iodine in seawater is iodide. The natural seawater concentration of all iodine species combined is approximately 0.06 ppm, classifying it as a minor element. Even in this small concentration, iodine is required for survival of fishes, crustaceans, macroalgae and kelp, and hermatypic invertebrates alike."

It's interesting that you mention this! I had read about oxygen toxicity in zooxanthellate invertebrates and wondered if it might be the reason that some of my Ricordea seem to consistently shrivel up towards the end of each day. During the daytime they are generally fully expanded and look quite healthy, but come late afternoon they shrink way down. By the evening they usually look something like this:

 

I have never been sure if this is just normal or if it is the result of excess photosynthesis. I'm fairly sure I have spied these animals expelling brown globs of zooxanthellae while shriveled up like this as well, so it's got me wondering.

 

At any rate, thank you for the information! I did not know that iodide could help to palliate the effects of oxygen toxicity. I will have to do some more reading on that subject!

[A.m.P]

Corals poop mate, all of them, whether you feed them or not lol... Expelling waste and excess/dead photosythetic organisms is normal and easily-observable behavior for softies, clams, and lps especially.

[billygoat]

8 minutes ago, Amphrites said:

Corals poop mate, all of them, whether you feed them or not lol... Expelling waste and excess/dead photosythetic organisms is normal and easily-observable behavior for softies, clams, and lps especially.

You speak the truth! At any rate it's not too much of a concern, and I probably won't be dosing iodide anytime soon since... it sounds like it's kind of a chore. 😅 I'm just grateful to have somebody like @Wonderboy around to teach me about this stuff!

[Wonderboy]

7 hours ago, Amphrites said:

Don't most tanks get enough iodine through waterchanges and through trace amounts found in essentially all foods to maintain elevated levels compared to natural seawater? Swear I read an article where they tested that before....

Yes, I think most can keep sufficient levels; though, I wouldn't say elevated. I've read several sources that say feeding is enough to maintain levels, too. I believe that is only possible with a large enough system (150G+) with both biological and aggressive mechanical filtration; if you have something similar to this, you can probably feed enough to keep iodine levels stable or even elevated; it's just that's not nearly most setups - especially with the nano rage nowadays. I've been watching my iodine levels in my systems for a while. Noteable observations have been:

 

-Iodine levels are depleted faster in smaller volumes of water.

-The more surface area attributed to algaes and corals, the faster iodine is depleted.

-Iodine in aprox. 12G (heavily stocked with coral, moderate macro algae mass) or less will reach 0 in 8-10 days regardless quite heavy feeding.

-This 2.5G removes all iodine from the system in 36 - 72 hrs. I can triple, quadruple the sensitivity of the test; trust me it hits 0.

-The stacking pico will consume all iodine from a WC or a 1/2 drop dose of Iodion in 12 - 18 hrs lol (volume = .3G)

-My 68G consumes and maintains iodine to around .02 ppm in aprox. 7 days without dosing and the tang in there eats more than my 12" oscar (+ coral feeding, refugium feeding).

-Certain softer corals begin to shrivel towards the end of the day when iodine has been near 0 for multiple days; noteably euphilia, goniopora, ricordea, acan, blasto

-I have seen positive polyp/flesh responses after both WCs and rejuvenating iodine in small and medium sized systems.

-Don't mind if I add more observations here shortly if I think it should be noted.

 

1 hour ago, billygoat said:

I did not know that iodide could help to palliate the effects of oxygen toxicity.

I was having the same problem with my blasto and the ricordea in the stacking pico. When I was trying to figure out why - I came across a lot of potentials, but figured my main concern should be oxygen toxicity because of the amount of macro/volume of water in there. When I read that iodine can help keep oxygen from making water acidic, I figured I should check for it since pH fluctuations due to rapid oxygen increases was one of my original concerns when starting the stacking pico up. I tested; when I saw it was 0, I was feeling confident that was the problem. I have been keeping iodine in that thing around .03 - .06 ppm first by dosing 1/2 drob twice a day and then unltimately dosing the RODI res (I also found out that iodine can keep stagnant volumes of water sterile - ironically useful for clear resevoirs). The blasto is doing much better at the end of photosynthetic shifts to this day. The ricordea almost died in there (combination already pissed + heatwave); the 10G recovered it, and now its in here  :]

[A.m.P]

Huh, them's some impressive consumption rates... Really interesting, come to think of it my Ricordea hasn't stopped throwing intermittent tantrums since I got it, might have to try a low-dose iodine suppliment and see if I can get it to behave. I'm fairly certain you're correct in the volume of the tanks which were monitored as well, I guess it makes sense that shallower, smaller-volume tanks with higher relative surface area might struggle to keep up with demand. That said, WV reefers 12 gallon bookshelf has a bunch of softies... Another case where everyones mileage probably varies lol...  (She also calls it dirty for a reason, maybe that helps lol?)

 

Seachem's is only $7, well I needed to order a dropper for feeding the corals anyway, worth a shot.

 

I have to wonder if feeding the corals directly circumvents the issue entirely though? After all, giving the corals actual iodine-containing food should bypass the need to have it dissolved in the water column.

[Wonderboy]

On 7/8/2019 at 9:59 AM, Wonderboy said:

I'll explain those reasons -for dosing iodine- when I have extra time.

I am dosing iodine in this system for multiple reasons. 

 

1. Ultimately, I always attempt to minimize the amount of water I must change out in all my systems. I have a lot going on around me, and if there is way I can figure to reduce the amount/duration of materials/chores necessary to maintain all of those things, I likely end up testing its effectiveness. This usually ends up pertaining to nutrient provisions. I think that iodine dosing is necessary for very small volume systems that are going to go over a week (or 3) between water changes and are constantly consuming and producing a lot of photosynthetic exhaust from "inevitably overstocked" macro algaes and corals.

 

2. Oxygen acidification. Seen it happen after chaeto (or other algae) is allowed to threshold to a certain mass/volume of water in a given system; this is probably the main contributing factor to a “crash” when phyto cultures get too dense. I always let my chaeto colonies threshold their mass in the areas they're given, and I especially have to do so with the UGFuge in this thing; I am expecting an over-production of oxygen because of the double 'fuge + want more coral lol + and extended durations between WCs. I like to see the corals happy whenever I walk by, so I try to implement practices that keep the chemistry balanced for longer durations each time.

 

3. Iodine's levels are relatively consistent in all surface marine environments. I also believe all elements** are utilized in multiple ways by every form of aqueous life.  Many algae (bacteria, zooxanthellae, same things) have the mechanisms to consume/repurpose almost any vicinity element (even crustaceans' exoskeletons absorb iodine). Combining this awareness with witnessing smaller aquariums deplete iodine to nothing in days, lazy-me was concerned that I wouldn't be able to stretch out the amount of time between WCs without causing any stunting. Related, I want to be able to support and sustain a threshold microfauna population (copepods!)

 

4. Reservoir sanitization - this is more ironic than purposeful, but still, the RODI res for this pico is located in a pretty bright SE facing room. Theoretically, unless the pH fluctuates like crazy in the res (it won't because that's also where the system's necessary alk will be also), the amount of iodine added should be plenty to thwart biological growth. Since I will be providing iodine through the RODI res, this made me feel okay with just upcycling a clear dinky container for this regardless of it being in bright ambient light. We will have to see what happens over time.

 

**All elements are consistently utilized in nature, so I made sure to include a variety of veggies in the pod fodder that are high in particular elements I want to keep from depleting too fast in my systems - this includes an abundance of trace minerals (minimal copper, sulfur etc). Pectin keeps these frozen rations intact while submerged in 'fuges for about a week; providing demand nutrients to grow things in and out of water has been important for previous successes.

 

After all that, if you have a little free time, it would be easier to just perform a WC to nano/pico aquariums whenever you felt like refreshing the available chemistry. This system has farfetched goals; it's longest duration between changes recently has been 8 days - opting for 28.

[A.m.P]

Lol, now you're speaking my language haha, just started dialing water changes on my 12g atoll back to once every other week myself, hoping for month-long stints if I can get that lucky. Gotta' let the denitrification and other various bio-goodies adapt/catch-up. Was wondering if my cutting-back might have been why my ric started pouting on occasion, seachem iodide in the mail, I'll let you know if the animal perks up.
Love all the info and reasoning btw, thanks for taking the time to write that all out. Still gotta wonder if just feeding the pouting buggers would keep them stocked up, but I can't see the harm in small amounts of supplementation.

[billygoat]

Hmm, very interesting! I definitely appreciate you taking the time to explain your reasoning; it's really got me thinking about my own system now. I certainly have a lot of algae, both macro and micro, so this has given me a lot to consider. I do weekly water changes religiously, but they're only about 15% or so, and without any testing for things like iodine it's difficult to determine what impact those water changes really have.

 

I think I will purchase a test kit and start tracking my levels. Even if they turn out to be totally fine, it would certainly be interesting data to have.

[Wonderboy]

Update on the melting hair algae - it's almost gone entirely:

 

It seems the, let's just call it "other stuff", will out-compete it at this point without a problem. Everything that's going on in here is making me pretty curious about what's going on under DT in the UGFuge. I'll be taking a look asap; I recently lost a chalice sliver to the calcite, so I'll be pulling the display rock out again soon...

 

Also, sorry that I haven't shared the feeding video yet - been having issues with moving things from the "smart" phone  :[

 

 

[Wonderboy]

Sometimes variety isn't awesome - I'm slightly impressed that this thing made it over here, not slightly pleased though:

 

 

 

But at least it was in a position where I didn't have to pull the rubble out to hunt it; weapon of choice:

 

 

 

Hopefully that was the only one, but we all know how persistent these guys can be...

 

[Wonderboy]

Sorry if this post takes up a little much room for mushrooms  :]

 

 

 

Here's that little, half hairy mushroom that I had mentioned was in here:

Pretty pissed off still...

 

I really like the edge of this guy:

 

Looks like this hairy mushroom is splitting using the weight of some "not-glued" rubble:

 

 

This is common when I try to take a photo of something - it's either perch where I'm aiming, or perch on the glass in front of the lens:

 

Anyways, not a mushroom - favites:

 

 

While playing with the camera, I decided to play with the pinktinics. I discovered that simply adjusting the exposure on my phone would bring out more blue with less exposure or more pink with more exposure in the photo; this allowed me to find kind of an "inbetween" to very-slightly-better represent what pink and blue LEDs do in here (I'm really not sure that any external filter would help either lol):

 

 

Disco duncan:

 

[Wonderboy]

[Wingy]

Looking good.

[A.m.P]

You know, a green or even teal filter might actually work for filtering pink light. Love that little goby and amazed at the temperament of your damsel lol.

[Wonderboy]

I think I have to try - never thought I would care, but it would be inexpressibly relieving to get a near-representative shot of the whole thing. Yet, at the same time, I've been thinking of upgrading the light so I get less stretching in the xenia...

[Wonderboy]

Here's the hairy mushroom earlier, just before completely splitting - everyone had to check it out:

 

Overflow maintenance team:

 

 

On 7/11/2019 at 5:21 AM, Amphrites said:

amazed at the temperament of your damsel lol

I think that I happened upon quite a unique combination of cohabitants; Twitch does on occasion show territorial gestures by swimming backwards and batting his tail in the goby's face, however Jaws Jr will then try to jump all over the damsel trying to clean him, and Twitch hates it still - squirms away, picks at pods, and tries batting at the goby again some time later after he forgets what happened earlier. I have seen Twitch charge at Jaws Jr about 3 times now, but even this behaviour hasn't seemed to bother the goby; Jaws Jr's response to this has been to hold post, move slightly, and try to clean Twitch - which causes the damsel to run, again. The goby may be dominate over the damsel, I really don't know lol. If the charging becomes a thing, I will have to split them up.

 

-----------------

 

Since the mushroom split and fell into the calcite with the chalice today (all livestock still in DT), I pulled the rock out, removed both of the frags from of the calcite, and I am preparing to get to the botttom of this UGFuge in the morning to see what's going on with the chaeto - I am also going to add a couple things to the rock while it's like this, again:

 

 

Pics and update in the morning!

[Wonderboy]

Ok, well it's not the morning anymore; long day... I decided to glue some extra frags into the stacking pico as well and also perform WCs on several systems/cultures. I did get to the bottom of the UGFuge - it was easy to see in person that the chaeto has been growing well, but you can't see much more than the bottom layer of detritus in photos. I relocated a couple amphipods from the stacking pico into the rearfuge so that when that population becomes prominent, detritus build-ups can hopefully be better sifted in the UGFuge. Also, I found a tiny spaghetti worm that I can't photograph right next to the favites, so that's +2 additional species to the CUC  👍

 

DT clear of quipment:

These two are always investigating 😄

 

Here's a photo summary of this pico's situation today:

 

Here's the best shot showing the state of things underneath DT:

😷  <HAZMAT emoji   ...interestingly, there isn't any other kind of algae growing like last time, I think that soon the chaeto will fill the entire area. 

 

I added a few corals in here; I'll get some photos of those when there's more time - hope everyone's weekend has been nice!   :]

[Wonderboy]

[billygoat]

The more pictures I see, the more I'm lovin' this crazy pico. I think it's absolutely insane how you can take it apart so frequently and still have it looking so good. That's evidence of some real reefing mastery right there! 🙏

[Wonderboy]

I really appreciate the kind words - I don't think I do too much different or more than anyone else - we all just respond to observation the best we can per circumstance; there's sooo many unique systems on here, and each one of them has contributing aspects of motivation and future plans for a lot of my projects - yours is definitely one of them @billygoat   

[Wonderboy]

I have been trying to get that feeding video of this pico up for how long now? I'm working on it again - in the meantime, a distraction for that duration; I want to share one of my desert orchids lol:

 

 

It's a type of mini phalaenopsis mounted on some local oak - here's its crazy roots:

 

 

It's been producing its little blooms for over half a year now  :]

 

 

I have a UV proof bottle hanging on the back with a nylon wick passing through the wood into peat moss - I dip the orchid into goldfish water and refill the bottle when I notice that the peat moss is dry (about once a week):

 

[A.m.P]

Fun plants, got to cheat a bit on the big island, half would just grow wherever you put them because of the humidity lol. Love the setup you have with the whick though, really good idea.

My current garden distractions are: moonflowers for my wife, a jackfruit, some pawpaw, a binquinho pepper, a trio of durian chempadek, a pintomba, jaboticaba, and a black Surinam cherry... Plus a bunch of succulents I keep in the house haha.

[Wonderboy]

Thank you - it would be nice if there was just a little more moisture in the air here - I think it averages maybe 14%... But you have to work with what you got, right? 

 

That's a lot of unique plants! I had to search a bunch of those up just to get an idea of what you got yourself into - all of them sound so tastey. Lots of big fruits! There are moonflowers all over out here - definitely my favorite local bloomer; I prune and fertilize the ones in the yard lol. I really want to try out those binquinho peppers. I've only staples out there now; jalepeno, poblano, sweet... Last year I tried one habenero. No one needs that many habeneros.

[A.m.P]

2 hours ago, Wonderboy said:

Thank you - it would be nice if there was just a little more moisture in the air here - I think it averages maybe 14%... But you have to work with what you got, right? 

 

That's a lot of unique plants! I had to search a bunch of those up just to get an idea of what you got yourself into - all of them sound so tastey. Lots of big fruits! There are moonflowers all over out here - definitely my favorite local bloomer; I prune and fertilize the ones in the yard lol. I really want to try out those binquinho peppers. I've only staples out there now; jalepeno, poblano, sweet... Last year I tried one habenero. No one needs that many habeneros.

I have a bunch of seeds, if you want a pack just throw post and a few quarters at me and you can have a bundle.
I keep peppers as bushes, not annuals, so I have one big tree I overwinter pretending to be a christmas ornament.
Hot peppers are insane producers, I had a cayenne which produced so many fruit we had to hang them from every window on fishing line to dry, no clue why we bothered as it was impossible to even give away all the darn things lol... Delicious though, I went with a specific variety of cap chinese for its' resemblance to the flavor of a habenero actually, this particular shrub has a remarkably smokey-sweet flavor without ANY of the heat haha, an odd tomato taste is really the only thing which otherwise sets it apart from the smokey, off-fruity cherry-taste of a proper habenero.

Two-year old parent bush. I sold the excess seeds from fruit I couldn't get around to eating on ebay last year, not a huge fan as I've no way to follow-up and ensure they sprouted and did well... Think I might sprout a few dozen and sell those this year if I get lucky enough.

[Wingy]

4 hours ago, Wonderboy said:

Thank you - it would be nice if there was just a little more moisture in the air here - I think it averages maybe 14%... But you have to work with what you got, right? 

 

That's a lot of unique plants! I had to search a bunch of those up just to get an idea of what you got yourself into - all of them sound so tastey. Lots of big fruits! There are moonflowers all over out here - definitely my favorite local bloomer; I prune and fertilize the ones in the yard lol. I really want to try out those binquinho peppers. I've only staples out there now; jalepeno, poblano, sweet... Last year I tried one habenero. No one needs that many habeneros.

You could add a cool mist humidifier.  I have to run one most of the winter