reefbowl 1 gal sps reef going on 10th yr

[brandon429]

this old rascal is growing whiskers now coated in coralline

the benthic growth on the live rock is dense, fully functioning community now. this vid is a little old ill update soon w some macro pics too. there are old threads about it on this forum. surely its wrecked with red mushroom corals, i still have my 14 yr old blastos and brain corals tho

everybody has stocking regrets at times, but ill just kill them off with a majano wand and let things proceed. this is a miniature version of a scleractinian attack like the crown of thorns may cause. we all opt for the perfect look, perfect coral scape. but after a decade its kinda fun in a twisted way to know a rebound is coming as soon as I feel like dropping a hundred bucks on a cattle prod for reef tanks, which does work by the way. the red mushroom are like the crown of thorns in my reef, stinging my sps etc.

I was mid cycle killing them all before my first majano wand broke, haven't bought a new one yet. been using funds elsewhere and frankly dominance of any kind of coral doesn't really reflect bad on the overall biology its just a sad loss of good coral. the deep sand bed is a decade old and exported regularly but never removed, same for the rocks. Im not having phosphate leaking issues at all. sps has taken over the glass to the point it will blight out the bowl in about 5 more yrs, bet Ill post the updates. the mushrooms slow that, they sting and repel which is interesting side balance to watch unfold.

thanks for stopping in!
part of the stability of the bowl is salinity control. this one gallon reef beats any tank other than totally sealed ones on stability control if you remove the ato. the bowl can be set (by airline input pressure variance) to run up to 12 days .023-.024 (a tolerable range of slow shift for our typical corals) with no ato, it has a precise fitting lid which vents incoming positive pressure while retaining much of the moisture as downflow back into the bowl. the lid sits on the inner diameter of the vase, not on a square lip to cast salt creep everywhere. the fact that splatter is contained and directed back down simply cuts evaporation while preserving gas exchange.

There is a poster on youtube (tyler johnson reefbowl) who travels for a living and has made a reefbowl go 19 days without topoff ranging .023-.026 which is again maximum tilt, but a very slow creep and still quite tolerable to most but the finickiest fish or linkia which are not kept in here anyway. sps and lps will tolerate it.

you dont have to do this to a bowl...its the fact that salinity is controlled and you are allowed errors or negligence at times as well. helps for longevity. watching them get tested to the extreme by other keepers is fun now. the first pico reef shown online with sps and lps coated onto the rocks is still going~

some pics and vid for updates on the super old reefbowl:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8zMWHAkJtM

[Jim28fl]

Wow i wonder what bits of wisdom come from these projects that related to large systems and there abilities if properly managed as these pico reefs are. there is a balance that most people never find and the larger more complicated the system the more elusive that balance can become. More water might just mean more room for coral and larger water changes and nothing more to some degree.

[brandon429]

thanks for stopping in Jim ill be a little embarrased when I post the vid because the red mushrooms got me. i can see in hindsight not everything is easily predictable. id much rather have this problem than invasive dinos or bryopsis thats for sure... the majano wand will wipe out most of them but the ones tucked down low will always be there and reproduce, but Ill be able to zap them when they start to come out. they can be contained as soon as I want to drop 120xx bucks on amazon lol. letting that sps get on the glass was a bad idea too lol

those little blue legs above are now saucer sized blots on the glass blocking out 1/3 of the light. it w be neat in another 5-10 when the whole thing is a vase shaped sps vase with some other corals in the middle. someone should stick the whole thing in their large tank sideways like a wierd decoration lol and ill start another one letting no sps on glass and no corallimorphs

highly interesting side note

peroxide use causes pedal laceration reproduction in corallimorph corals. here is a water change on the vase using undiluted 35% food grade. put right on a red mushroom and frothed out of water for 5 mins straight, this would cause a burn in the palm of your hand probably second or third degree.

and the mushroom turned into five in a week



these rascals are fire proof too. so wet, slimy that a bic grill lighter shot right onto them for 1 mins boils half, then three split off.

let not the red mushrooms spread in anyones reef, be ware lol.

this vase is acclimated to 35% peroxide use I do not even waste time with 3%. all the motion we get out of the peroxide threads from other forums is on 3%, the stuff is that handy. i had some brush algae that was immune to 3% so now its not immune and was gone two years ago.

i also wipe the inside of the glass w 35% to burn off coralline and green microalgae that old unskimmed reefs like to display. i run this tank independent of all tests, the only tests are a swingarm hydrometer and a temp gauge for water changes. it is dosed every day with two part in guess amounts as a regiment and gets large water changes weekly. annual blast cleanings which are 20x water changes in one setting. simulates tropical nutrient upwelling storms and serves as the primary export for that years detritus. thanks for checking it out!
B

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Fk8R3clElQ

[brandon429]

my closely held opinion on the exact mechanism of induced reproduction is simple fragmentation. we know you can blender a mushroom and get many, this is chemically lysing cells I believe, but not enough to kill the parent organism, and the offshoots are the new invaders like aliens from mars.

notice the froth, this animal is clearly catalase positive as even 3% will froth on them but do nothing. this much froth indicates peroxide as a natural byproduct in its metabolism therefore it may have the complements to degrade much of it on contact. after 5 mins emersed treatment in raw 35% peroxide, a red mushroom looks normal next day