Video: palmtop SPS reef, no evaporation

[mason]

hey thanks for stopping back in. the square tank is dedicated, and I mean dedicated, to it's large desktop fan shown behind it in the vid
if that fan goes out its reef soup, but desk fans are fairly reliable units so far...with a home ac that never lets the house get above 77, the reef will run at 79 or 80 as its upper max. The house can never be cold enough in the winter, the 50 watt heater can handle anything thrown at it in 1/2 g of water. The temps are stable at 78-80 degrees.
The vase reef is far easier, not fanned. the air going through it constantly keeps it fresh and cool. These tanks are no more work than a large tank, in fact less due to the evaporation restriction...its just that ambient temp thing, anyone who likes a warm house in the upper 70s better watch out!

 

[mastertech]

that is ammmmmaaazzzzziiiinnnnggggg!! many props to you!

 

[eric b 125]

those are some bad tanks dude. lemme go pick up my jaw off of the floor....

 

[mason]

thanks for stopping in guys I wanted to post up some new (but older) pics I found of the vase system from several years ago. The sign is what describes some basic parameters to people when the systems are on public display.
Approximately 100 times I've been asked what kind of flowers are on display and where the goldfish are, so I had to stop that business lol
A reeftank talker does not want to spend too much time explaining why goldfish are not in a reefbowl

 

[mason]

master tech did you know I am going to san antonio this weekend to play scuba diving in the aquatics pools either at the natatorium or the dive world shop>? man we dive with spare air tanks so we don't have to use full scuba. In lake medina I got down very deep with multiple spare air bottles, one strapped to each limb, this summer very fun stuff/ we do bare bones scuba just like bare bones reefs its very fun! my friends and I are padi certified we just found this to be a much more fun way of diving, gearless. no lead, just a mask and a handheld tank.

 

[crazyreefnut]

Simply incredible

 

[mason]

thank you for checking out the vid feel free to link up your nano reef stuff if you'd like!
i originally posted these on aqadvice.com and they will also show good detail on this forum, the pic size you display is probably the best on any board I've seen and the fact it's directly in the post.
these are the first updates to the vase reef in years but they are from a cell phone because I still don't have an hd cam yet. The pics on the thread above are 5+ years old and are a different reef bowl, so even though these pics are blurry they show the aging of the reefbowl 2006, snaps just taken last nite and the original corals are in here from the first build thread but with many more added in 2007 such as the blastomussas and the zoanthids. the alveopora was put in just before 2008 i think
Notice the alveopora growth, it's my fav. A pencil eraser frag has grown towards the back of the tank, plating over rock, and the ongoing groth is evident by the small alveopora polyps you can see pushing up against the glass. This year it will fuse to the glass fully and provide more strange growth forms to study in '10.
Notice the portion of the neck of the vase, something I have named exoscaping just to be a nerd...
its my idea of affixing taxonomically correct skeletons of corals to glass, and their live counterparts on the other side, so it looks like the coral is growing through the glass. It will take this year for my monti table top to form in this 4 year old vase, but you can see the jut sticking out of the glass and I have one to smooth out and affix to the alveopora as well. in the end, the vase will be twisted with skeleton outside and life inside for the ultimate tactile-visual trip. thanks for stopping by~

 

[nissan577]

love it love it love it!!!!!!!!!

 

[mason]

just making some rounds of updates, this shot will chart out the tabular growth of the montipora plug started on the glass. this shot also shows the coral grown together and not warring, nissan i checked your thread can see things are still rockin for you too

B

 

[nissan577]

hey mason! thanks for stopping by my thread

but this is amazing!!!!

i want my pico to come out like this!!!! i love it!

 

[nissan577]

I have to bump this for an amazing pico Mason has made.
as you can see a reef can be done at any size

 

[mason]

its still growing strong, I pry SPS out of it regularly, pics tonite. ive been stopping by old threads to update!

 

[mason]

you would be very suprised to know how hydrogen peroxide and fire are critical to this reef and its longevity without any pests or bad algae. Its a massively helpful system!

 

[mason]

Here's the fire:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hojuv2u5oS4
Peroxide is used the same way.
I found after a decade of reefkeeping in gallon reefs that one does not have to chase perfect water params. Another alternative that works actually better is to change large amounts of water consistently, and when the tank is drained for the change you do work by eliminating the algae of your choice. Its so simple to kill pests right before they take over your tank, then you don't add a bunch of useless snails and crabs that promise to do the job but still leave the web littered with lost tanks. (I don't believe in CUC's=letdown in the making)
of course this is an opposite system to the current method, but then again so is a 70 month old 1 gallon sps vase...
The number of tanks we've corrected using only peroxide is staggering, Im up to about 100 now across forums that won years-long algae battles in two days because of it, after all the CUC's/GFO's etc had let them down.
Peroxide used in a specific manner is the single best algae prevention I have ever seen for a reef tank, it beats any method Ive ever seen.
if anyone has algae problems you can lick, lets do this way itll work

 

[cryptics]

Simply Amazing!

 

[mason]

Hi all
Just stopping in to update on the vase, many do not know its still going. it is many times over the longest lived pico reef you can find anywhere, only now its so packed with SPS they are about to block out the whole view lol. I bet you have never heard of someone losing a system to SPS over plating, but somehow blue acro got onto the glass a couple years ago and I never bothered to take it off. Now its plated all over the front face and is about to be a light block
so what I will do is start planting the rear of the vase with corals fragged from the front zone, and simply turn the vase around.
Im up to 16 genera of coral thats been in here the whole time getting fragged as needed...wish I would have never put in the blue tort!
also, I don't know if we are allowed to link to other sites or not. If not, its ok to erase my link, I didn't see it as unallowed in the UA so here goes. Im posting a link to how I use peroxide in this reef tank and in about a thousand others online to cure algae invasions of various types
its a helpful tie between the physics of pico reefs and that of larger tanks...ie how to use tricks we've devised for these small tanks to cure many big headaches of the larger reef. Peruse the thread if Im allowed to post it, you'll like the results.
If not, we can just focus on this old vase anyway
see you again in another few years when its a decade old lol
in case anyone wonders how I keep the 6" deep sand bed from wrecking the tank all these years, its simple. Annually I take the vase and set it in the sink and pour 20 gallons of sw through it really hard, hard enough to stir up the bed and eject all the waste on the overflow out into the sink.
This mimics the fringing reef, high energy zone and certainly takes care of any detritus or OTS factors that may be promoted in such a densely stocked reef.
This vase is stable, incredibly stable with the dosing and feeding system I use. Its older than 90% of any large tanks you see online, knock on wood about poweroutages. Hey 7 yrs without one I can't complain!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5wGDrWIbM4
the peroxide thread:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2082359&page=41

 

[mason]

Here is a picture up close. notice the huge blue splatter of SPS taking up the top portion lol
on the inside its all purple and twisted, but on this angle all you can see is the flat base...

 

[mason]

None of the corals you see here are the original plugs/frags. This is 100% pico reef grown sps and lps, so we can truly aquaculture from a fishbowl nowadays most common species, no fancy bells and whistles needed. I just thought it would be fun to update this old thread, I found while searching online again...

 

[spanko]

Would have thought after all these years the coralline would have grown over all or most of the glass in the vase blocking the view.
Great that you have taken the time to explore methods other than the "normal" to propagate coral in such a small system.

 

[sweatervest13]

Nice to see an update!!
Cool video. I have a little algae battle going on and tried some peroxide, so far so good. Thanks for the links.