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5-Gallon Acropora System


East1

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Micro-Reefs Aquariums
5 hours ago, East1 said:

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Okay, I found the drain or I see the fitting.  Tanks a lot 🙂  Love your setup and all the data you supply. 🙂

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Yeah, see nothing fancy is going on, it's really simple. Here's the sump - it doesn't have a door or anything it's exposed on both sides, makes it easier to maintain. 

 

 

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Micro-Reefs Aquariums
41 minutes ago, East1 said:

Yeah, see nothing fancy is going on, it's really simple. Here's the sump - it doesn't have a door or anything it's exposed on both sides, makes it easier to maintain. 

 

 

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Okay, this all makes sense now!  I see this massive protein skimmer working with all the pipe fittings, cheato light, bio-media, and dosing.  Looks like you can support what you have upstairs because of what is below.  Just one comment, GENIUS!

 

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2 hours ago, Micro-Reefs Aquariums said:

Okay, this all makes sense now!  I see this massive protein skimmer working with all the pipe fittings, cheato light, bio-media, and dosing.  Looks like you can support what you have upstairs because of what is below.  Just one comment, GENIUS!

 

ha, just lazy! 

 

No cheato - the light is just so I can see t he skimmer and the levels of everything. It grows some cyano in the bottom occasionally and some sponges on the dead coral skeletons I leave there. it's got very low flow. 

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On 7/7/2021 at 2:45 PM, Ratvan said:

I thought the Tunze powerheads were DC? Or am i missing something (likely)

Oh! they might be, do they have a powerblock that plugs between the tunze powerhead and the wall? 

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I modified my Hydra52 by taking out the lenses and adding a diffusing plastic instead, it gives a far more T5 effect. They're also on a VESA mount arm, so I can sway them left and right over the course of a day for better coverage 

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2 hours ago, East1 said:

image.png.9ef833b9db3dce5a5ea8efbe841ba900.png

 

I modified my Hydra52 by taking out the lenses and adding a diffusing plastic instead, it gives a far more T5 effect. They're also on a VESA mount arm, so I can sway them left and right over the course of a day for better coverage 

 

Looks good east! I bought a 3D Diffuser for the same effect on my light. Made a huge improvement on the disco ball effect. 

 

 

Whats the details on your spectrum and schedule?

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M. Tournesol
8 hours ago, East1 said:

They're also on a VESA mount arm, so I can sway them left and right over the course of a day for better coverage 

Would you think a motorized Hydra52 mounting arm would be a good solution to light shadowed area (by simulating the motion of the sun)?

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12 hours ago, Rehype said:

 

Looks good east! I bought a 3D Diffuser for the same effect on my light. Made a huge improvement on the disco ball effect. 

 

 

Whats the details on your spectrum and schedule?

right? Though, I am trying it now with no lens or diffuser and a far lower intensity, so we'll see how that works out.

 

Currently the spectrum has just been all channels approximately equal, lights on at 7:30am hitting peak at about 11 and turning down at 21:30 to darkness at midnight - quite a long photoperiod. I rarely run the hydra above 45w at the moment. 

 

I've only just started experimenting with wavelength, after being boron and bromine deficient my corals haven't had consistent colours I suspect in part to phosphate - I think phosphate precipitates in coral flesh with Iron and various other elements assisting in colouration because dosing iron in the evenings I dose phosphate has resulted in marked colouration, but we'll see. Currently I'm targeting flourescent proteins as those are easier to manipulate via UV light vs colour proteins which seem to be a function of elemental balance. 

 

Given the tank has gone some months without water change I'm fairly confident my dosing schedule now matches the coral needs, so I'll likely do a series of water changes to reset the balance using TM pro reef to assist my colouration efforts

 

7 hours ago, M. Tournesol said:

Would you think a motorized Hydra52 mounting arm would be a good solution to light shadowed area (by simulating the motion of the sun)?

Definitely! Though I'm lazy to build one and the tank is next to my bed / desk, so I just swivel it in the morning and evening, it makes for some nice dramatic lighting - I'll get some pics when it's dark 

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So I changed about 1/3 of the tank volume (about 5 litres) and the corals don't really look all that different, I expected a little more polyp extension as that used to happen before I started dosing to try and compensate for consumption,

 

indicates I may have found the bare minimum dosing protocol to guarantee the corals won't die without changes, now I can tweak it 

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I dose varying amounts of all of these on a daily basis, with the exception of the Red Sea elements, twice a week I'll rotate the Zeo equivalent with the Red Sea

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As a rule, It's okay if the elements are low in concentration in the water what is important is that the corals can access enough, for use every day, in that period. If they can't then they will decline as per the below graph - the graph is actually for low waterflow vs high irradiance causing stress, but the stress factors of too much light in a low flow environment are the same once a coral has been in an environment when it depletes it's own phosphate stores, once those have been consumed then the coral will decline as per this graph. 

 

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Source:

 

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You can use that knowledge and observation to keep the corals, then

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6 hours ago, Ratvan said:

Love the DIY scraper coverings

lol it's a piece of old cloth, wrapped with a section of netting from Sainsbury's fruit stands, they have reusable fruit bags, works really well for scraping acrylic 

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2 hours ago, East1 said:

lol it's a piece of old cloth, wrapped with a section of netting from Sainsbury's fruit stands, they have reusable fruit bags, works really well for scraping acrylic 

This is what i love about this forum, get to see peoples tank equipment. 

 

A favourite of mine is literally a piece of dowel with a razorblade stuffed into it and a surgical steel skewer 

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just crossposting:

 

this will be a break down of my findings about acro growth and describe what growth and dormancy look like, as well as conjecture - this will likely take a few days as I have built this theory up referencing a few research journals, as well as posting on this forum and posts by Hans Werner Balling amongst others, it's quite in dedpth but I'll summarise:

The most important thing about acropora is that the tip polyp is the main polyp, everything that is axial to the tip feeds energy toward the growth tip - that's why they can be white or a different colour.

It appears that the ratio of N P affects coral porosity in acropora, so for a 'unit' of acropora in high P, there will be more brittle skeleton but more flesh per unit of animal. The inverse is true for high N. These ratios also affect slime production, ie in high N, the coral produces more mucous and again, the inverse is true. It would appear that corals associate high N with blooms and the need to remove sediment, and high P with clear water and this stronger colouration, as well as the secondary effects of coral fragility due to flesh volume ratio.

In addition, one can see that an acropora added to a tank with low nutrient will start off colourful, quickly lose it's flourescence and slowly lose it's colour till it turns grey. The coral will not die immediately, but it is a slow burn.

My theory is that the coral acts as a kind of energy-intermediary between light, and the elemental quantum energy of seawater and specific concentrations of elements. This means that when there is excess light that stimulates biologcal pathways, the coral can use this energy to produce flourescent proteins, and colour proteins (there is a difference, flouro is based on UV and colour is based on high PAR - this is specualtion I don't have a source)

Thus, I speculate that coral colouration can come from the deposition of phosphate with iron or other trace elements giving good colour and teh resistance to bleaching - which is consistent with some of the papers available online indicating that low P results in temperature bleaching. In addition, I sourced another paper that provides an empiric relationship between low flow and light, indicating that under low flow, high light is equivalent in terms of sterss to high temperature with a ratio of light to temperature.

This further confirmed the theory that corals essentially exist in a state of quantum-scale balance between elements avaiable for assimilation and energy input that they cannot escape (ie they cannot move to high flow and shade from high light, these are fixed variables in their relative lifespans)
I say quantum scale because the energy from light and the energy from thermodynamics have the same net effect on metabolic pathways.

So given this, in a scenario where a colourful coral is added to a tank with low trace elements, it's energetic vector is to consume it's own colour proteins to make up for a deficit, once this is done the coral will STN. This process I believe is hindered by adapting to changing NP ratios, in the ocean these ratios shift slowly and allow the animal to adapt, unlike going from tank to tank, so it takes some time before the coral is in 'starvation mode'. The coral death will be from any point that the coral can shed of excess polyp and tissue toward supporting the main polyp.

And then the inverse is true, when there is adequte nutrients and the NP ratio is correct, the coral can immediately commence growth and the energetic vector is reversed.

I guess I did describe the whole theory but it gets a little more convoluted when you look at, for example, strontium and the effect on shape that this elements has, indicating that while energy is important, the shape of the corals are all defined by their ability to support the main polyp in that specific environment. This is why I theorise that old tank syndrome tanks always have realyl strange shaped acropora.

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17 minutes ago, East1 said:


I guess I did describe the whole theory but it gets a little more convoluted when you look at, for example, strontium and the effect on shape that this elements has, indicating that while energy is important, the shape of the corals are all defined by their ability to support the main polyp in that specific environment. This is why I theorise that old tank syndrome tanks always have realyl strange shaped acropora.

 

This is really interesting to me, do you think something like an ICP test to identify deficiencies would help "fix" the old tank syndrome?

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46 minutes ago, Jaren45 said:

 

This is really interesting to me, do you think something like an ICP test to identify deficiencies would help "fix" the old tank syndrome?

Yeah, I do think so, this is why when K balance first came out from Zeovit, Thomas Pohl commented on it being a rectifier to Old Tank Syndrome. 

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Love the wave, it's why I keep the top few inches of my systems empty of water as well, every once in a while the pumps sync up and I'll walk out to a 2 or 3" swell. Not great for the glass, but I love the way it looks, and I guess the corals might like it too XD (It's also funny to hear the acrylic breeder box clanking against the glass)

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14 hours ago, A.m.P said:

Love the wave, it's why I keep the top few inches of my systems empty of water as well, every once in a while the pumps sync up and I'll walk out to a 2 or 3" swell. Not great for the glass, but I love the way it looks, and I guess the corals might like it too XD (It's also funny to hear the acrylic breeder box clanking against the glass)

it's honestly my favourite part! If I wasn't holding onto this 'tiniest acro tank ever' I'd probably look to make a bigger tank, probably cube, to generate an even larger wave. I really like watching it, and sitting real close to the tank, it feels like I've taken a slice of a shallow reef with the low-tide water bobbing up and down. I think standing waves are my favourite (and also, probably the most important part of a healthy tank)

the view through the narrow front panel at this angle, and the infinite reflection of coral

 

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