From: steve@celia.UUCP (Steve Tyree)
Newsgroups: rec.aquaria
Subject: Re: Dynamic Aquaria by W.H. Adey
Date: 6 Oct 92 20:09:21 GMT
Reply-To: celia!steve@usc.edu (Steve Tyree)
Organization: Rhythm & Hues, Inc., Hollywood

In article <3853@ra.nrl.navy.mil> tse@ra.nrl.navy.mil (Anthony Tse) writes:
>	There were a lot of hair algea, lots of dead corals, lots of half
>dead corals, and not a single healthy or even half healthy coral.  As
>a matter fact, the tank look more like a rock tank then anything else.
>What I really don't understand is, what in the world did he do to the
>water to promote such algea growth?  I don't think I'll have that much
>algea (not counting the algea in his scrubber) even if I remove all my
>turbo snails.  Maintenacne in the tank is next to impossible, you'll
>have to take a dip in the tank to get to anything and it looks to me
>like they haven't taken a dip in a long time.  Oh, no coralline algea
>anywhere.  The tank really look more like a fish tank with piles of
>rock then anything else.
>	There's a 55g tank there also, I have no idea what kind of
>filtration it uses, it looked much better, although the only corals
>in there are mushrooms, a leather coral, and 3 clams (I hope those clams
>survive) which all are pretty hard to kill.  It's has entire too much
>macro-algea in it for my taste (I am with Steve on the coralline rock,
>macro-algea is a pain, they kill corals if you don't keep them in
>check).

 This might be a good time to update the status of my new reef conversion.
The tank is now 80 percent Marshall Island Coralline rock and 100 percent
pvc elevated. PVC water flow is provided by 2x 2000 l/hr and 1x 1200 l/hr
submersable pumps. I now consider this tank in a "coralline" state. The 
few rocks with some microalgae on them are from the old reef setup and 
algae is subsiding. Micro algae is no longer a problem. The overflow fil-
ter sponges need cleaning every day or two. This is due to increased cir-
culation which skims off a lot of floating detritus. I need to use the
turkey baster treatment every day but the amount of detritus which collects
on surfaces of rocks is subsiding. 
 How are the inhabitants doing. The few receded areas that were on 5 percent
of the coral are subsiding rather fast. The acropora has even accelerated
its growth by another factor. A recent gorgonian is growing at the rate of
1/2 inch every two weeks. I am now experimenting with fragmentation on the 
Gorgogonian due to its accelerated growth. So far the cuttings are doing 
fine. The fish show more vibrant colors and are extremelly active now. The
flame angel trio love chasing each other under the PVC. The tank is very 
bright due to the colorful corallines. This enhances the amount of ambient
light that exists in the tank. This reef looks fantastic under a incandes-
cent moon light. This has confirmed my feelings that not only can we poten-
tially provide an adequate captive ecosystem for these reef species but we
can one provide one that in many ways is better than the actual reef.
 I have discovered one problem with the pvc elevated turbid coralline reef,
the reef water takes on a biological 'slime' like smell after a natural
sexual spawn occurs. The way to remedy this is to change about 5 percent
of the water after a spawn occurs. The fish egg spawns dont contribute to
this slime. The gorgonian slime ropes were the cause of the last bio-slime
water change.

 Steve Tyree - Reef Breeder
Newsgroups: rec.aquaria