8 year old 1 gallon reef, 12 yr old planted sphere (19")

[brandonm]

Hi SGRC just stopping in for my 2014 soon-to-be updates for these ultra long term ecosystems:

and

gonna have to trim those bamboo one day before they press a hole in my 13ft ceiling

[Admiraltian]

Nice reef tank in a vase.

[AquaReefer]

Wow!

[hammy]

OMG.... 8 years in a vase. they are self sufficient? The corals certainly look healthy !

[brandonm]

Hi! I'd like to clarify the keeping so it doesn't look like hocus pocus lol

This is a simple pico reef method to run any small reef under 3 gallons regardless of the shape of the container

We know coral has to feed, the key is I only feed high quality reef food weekly, before a large water change.

I dose two part into the lid so it gets in the tank to keep calcium and alk up.

Now where this vase smashes any other tank, including 200 gallon ones, is freshwater evaporation loss. My tank does not need auto topoff. You can add one ounce of distilled water a week as topoff, this is dedicated evaporation restriction science

I restrict eevapration, so there is less freshwater loss and better salinity control than really any tank out there which relies on surface area exposure and mass evaporation for cooling. This is opposite, and more stable. This gallon reef is an indefinite lifespan ecosystem and is a test run in longevity.

The addition of 35% peroxide in a very careful method is critical to making it run this long.

If you have an hour to kill, this article details the history of small reef biology.

I believe the reefbowl and online documentation of it to be the first video posted on the Internet of a one gallon reef with grown in stony corals. Use the entire Internet to find a picture of a one gallon reef before 2001 and post back if you can find one, that would be a necessary mention in the history of pico reef biology

I have seen some online using tidal rocks placed in a jar from the 70s... But I mean a captive ecosystem raised and grown/cemented in place years established using stony corals and synthetic salt water, I'm looking for any documentation we can find to include.

Here is an article on introduction to non evaporating, and partially evaporating reef aquaria. I am certain that the sealed micro reef is the first of its kind across marine science. ..thanks for stopping by!

[brandonm]

http://www.nanoreefblog.com/features/pico-reefs/the-history-of-pico-reef-biology

[brandonm]

Just to toss in another vid, this is every pico reef I've built and aged with online friends and local friends

[kohanson]

wow, the vase is very nice!

[brandonm]

in this picture, you can see extreme sps and lps growth approaching a battle, the blue sps can beat the red brain, I would have thought the brain would win. 6 month update from my last post, the vase is going strong

The reefbowl is the longest running pico reef on the planet, none have been running longer. if you can find one, please post the vid or the pics we need their data to reference in longevity studies for small reef aquaria for a new article Im doing

[brandonm]

The pic above is February

this is just now

blue sps grows unchecked at a rate of 3/4 inch every 3 mos, real estate is limited in the ten pound reef

I'm concerned though, it's obstructing my glass I'll have to laser kill portions of it soon

Also see the red brain growth here vs above, its taken over that bottom lip on the lower rock now. Its the fastest growing LPS Ive ever seen in my bowl

Here is before the spread of the blue sps

The lights are cheaper power compacts from twelve yrs ago but bulbs are kept up

Ran by airstone only, dosed with two part c balance but it grows coral well because of the feeding technique that allows so much feed input. The age of the system plays an additional role in self support, as gametes and various organisms populate the water and comprise mini food webs corals can utilize.

Old reefs have specific details that younger reef tanks do not have, its evident in areas of calcification and details on the live rock that reflect a sustained ideal feeding and light intensity environment.

[brandonm]

some pics of the sandbed as it reduces nitrate:

[Sonicsound]

cool

[moi_dar]

Can you share how to go about setting up one?

[solasido]

Bro,

Have you ever experienced old tank syndrome due to the sand bed?

If not, this is something worth further research.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[brandonm]

Hello friends thanks for stopping in

Very happy to field that question, about the old tank syndrome. That is such a crucial matter to all sand bedded reef tanks, and you already know it is amplified orders over in a one gallon reef that is close to ten years running without being ever taken apart. I have some time at work so I like to expound a little to get us to thinking about alt applications of this kind of reefkeeping method, see what you think of this.

There are some rules that can be broken in reefkeeping and some that can't. one that cannot be broken is something called eutrophication which is a tipping point we've all seen in older tanks that makes stored up nutrients outpace grazing activities and algae mass is often the first sign. typically the OTS involves gas issues when factoring in 90's style deep sand beds (what I use here, a reef child of the 90s lol) with the potential deadly gasses being hydrogen sulfides and massive sinking of phoshpate within the latticework of any calcium carbonate structure in the tank... everything basically.

we are working in some creative manner against that condition always in reefing, and in overdrive for tiny tanks

So, one unbroken rule is detritus can't break down fully in a tank, it stores up and we'll pay a price for that in time. we outpace mineralization far too fast for what we stock. Keeping one coral frag in a thousand gallon tank as the only source of waste for the tank might be a better approximation of the dilution rates that make detritus breakdown something viable for a no export tank, but for how we reef, we must remove detritus. out of sight is not out of mind just because a sandbed looks clean, its storage mess

so, this rule seems daunting. its wrecked many a tank, matter of fact the strongest reefers you know (Randy Holmes Farley for ex) and the top posters in forums who have time under their belts will tell you that a sinked up sandbed is a tank killer

and thats why they went and are going out of style, for good reason.

-but-

they will not say its impossible to keep a sandbed going, forever, its just usually too much work for the large tanks everyone keeps (we are all advised to avoid small tanks)

thats where rule bending comes into play.

My sandbed is as clean now as it was the first year lets say for comparisons sake. how did I age a sandbed up to one years worth of random detritus deposits, then freeze that condition never to increase again for the life of the tank?

before reading on, rack your brains to try and figure it out, its so simple.

what makes my sandbed stop storing all waste, even though Ive fed this tank no less than five pounds worth of frozen cyclopeeze?

This is a practice in rule bending by creativity because it makes you a STRONG reefer who commands how long your tank lasts, its not some random figure where OTS pops up in year three and your whole tank crashes. there is -some- simple inversion of care you do that changes -everything- about the rules, and its only handy because these tanks are small. if they were large, it'd be too much work.

what is it

its water changes, but not how you are thinking.

its like this:

my water changes are 100%

like a real fringing reef. you all know the reef is divided into zones, and you dont have to constantly mimic the calm underwater one to keep corals./

thats the zone that stores up detritus, in the ocean sand sink, so dont model that

and thats the key.

model the fringing reef!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! <----MAKES OTS IMPOSSIBLE, FOREVER NOT GOING TO HAPPEN IN MY TANK

I use caps only for emphasis and fun lol.

so, I model the portion of reef that gets waves slammed against it and is often out of water for extended periods. I drain my bowl empty for 10 mins once a week, that many mixed corals and shrimp, in the air for ten minutes.

no minicycling, everything adapted to fringing reef models because thats what an animal gets when it gets put into my bowl. adapt or die. they adapt.

the friginging reef is a flushing reef, it doesnt store up suspended waste it carries them out as floc and foam on the beach for deposition, or it redistributes with great energy those waste particles out to other calmer settling areas (the kind of tank we all mimic because we were told untruths such as air kills live rock or coral, or mini cycles occur because of air on and on)

its not just big water changes, its the feed timing.

how were we all told to feed a small reef?

a tiny pinch a day to not poison it. <----following that model, searching the entire world online and in print, guess how long you can find a reef below 3 gallons staying alive where you can prove it with pics and vid? 3 years. Mines almost 9, and its 1/3 of the size and has pumped out more coral frags than any nano you know. Why are we told to do it that way? because we take rules from people who do not invent pico reefs, they take examples from large tanks and try to downsize it.

Which means you leave the 3 gallon nano slowly storing up waste every day until it crashes.

I think opposites to solve problems.

I never, never, feed mid week. I feed once a week a huge amount of mixed frozen reef food that is enough for a 20 gallon tank, into a one gallon pico.

(but that will store up your sandbed fast!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

nope, I dont leave the waste in the tank

I grossly overfeed weekly, grossly, and the corals eat like pigs. the rocks are covered in unused food (getting eaten by pods too) and unused food is strewn among the rocks and sandbed.

but then comes the tide

a huge ripping water change takes it all back out, leaving only fat corals

and thats how you smash, break, destroy pico reef rules to get what you want. mimic a different oceanic zone and everyones happy lol

but earlier I said I grew out the sandbed for one year and then paused it, here's why.

thats a six inch sandbed in a tiny vase, things poop, some food gets left in the cracks, so following the undeniable rule of waste sinking -some- waste gets down into my bed.

some...a tiny, tiny bit.

and you can see in the detailed pics where some areas are more golden than others, indicating some light algal films that feed on this localized detritus penetration. but its not out of balance because of the final unspoken secret to controlling any tiny reef, its another rule break.

Fringing reefs dont change water like wimps. 20% every other week is guaranteed to kill your pico reef, so dont do it. I do opposite, again

once a year I set my tiny reef in the sink, and from one foot above the tank I pour in 10 gallons, thats 10x 100% water change all in two minutes, and the outflow is violently shaking up the -top layers- of that sandbed where detritus will collect, even in spite of my weekly feedings and its overflowing into the sink.

imagine that, instead of fearing the reef animals being wimpy, and following 1990's care standards that made all reefs die quick, we simply do opposite of everything they said and change reef keeping permanently

moi_dar

this is a fine tutorial w pics lemme know what you think!

http://www.nanoreefblog.com/features/pico-reefs/the-history-of-pico-reef-biology

I didnt type all this to give you all a headache

it is such a long response because thats how much thought goes into these reefs, I did the first micro reefs sustained you can locate anywhere and I had to lose a lot of them to eutrophication and algae years into their growth in order to learn from the mistakes of reefing past, and make some new rules.

I have killed, eliminated OTS even if my sandbed takes up 90% of the mass of the bowl, so there you go.

Lastly, this is a big deal. im out of time typing now but we need to factor this, this technique is why my bowl is alive its not just the water changes.

read this entire thread if you never want to lose a reef tank to algae again,any size reef tank

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2082359

***Algae grows in spite of your care methods. I can show you GFO 0/0/0 tanks that have it, the oceans have algae problems when the grazers die off even though they have low phosphate waters, so you must have a plan for algae removal/ Not algae prevention, removal.

No matter what you do in pico reefing, at a certain age the algae will begin even if you cared for your setup well (100% weekly water changes for example) -because- of the firm unbreakable rule of eutrophication.

as a rule, introducing feed into your tank in any manner is leaking some phosphate into the tank, and thats being bound up by the various substrates, coral skeletons, anything with a CaC03 matrix, phosphate wants in that (then bacteria release the phophate slowly into the tank below testing levels, so you get algae)

knowing that algae is a likely factor in spite of my care, I developed a kill system to simply cheat burn it out of my tank and now I dont test nor care for phosphate

its a long read, but if you read those links your reefing will change forever.

B

[brandonm]

http://imageshack.com/a/img537/5871/y36Yfd.jpg

Updates

[flankell]

8 years old.....cool!

[Ng Sze Kiat]

wow nice one. too bad climate here not feasible to do this!