Explain why Roberto can break the SPS rules and succeed?

[Roberto Denadai]

He clearly made a deal with the devil and sold his soul for perpetual SPS success.

There are a lot of things in life more important than SPS

About coralline algae, in the last 1-2 months, I had a lot of them on my rocks.

I don´t have all the answers guys, I just do the same thing over and over again in the last 22 years in this hobby

Cheers

 

[gbroadbridge]

Someone explain this wild phenomenon to me.

This is @Roberto Denadai ‘s tank: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/my-new-sps-tank.674002/

He started his tank with dry rocks and added SPS corals (acropora) to his tank within that month.

He runs LED’s and T5’s. High flow. Alk 7-8dkh phosphates 0.01ppm Nitrates 0ppm.

My questions:

Why didn’t his tank get the ugly stage?

How was he able to keep the acros alive in a new tank?

Why doesn’t get dinos in his tank with low nutrients?

I think he runs a skimmer and refugium as well. Mainly feeds corals by feeding the fish. It’s not his first tank either! He has repeatable success.

Probably just leaves the tank alone and doesn't fiddle all the time.

 

[Roberto Denadai]

Someone explain this wild phenomenon to me.

This is @Roberto Denadai ‘s tank: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/my-new-sps-tank.674002/

He started his tank with dry rocks and added SPS corals (acropora) to his tank within that month.

He runs LED’s and T5’s. High flow. Alk 7-8dkh phosphates 0.01ppm Nitrates 0ppm.

My questions:

Why didn’t his tank get the ugly stage?

How was he able to keep the acros alive in a new tank?

Why doesn’t get dinos in his tank with low nutrients?

I think he runs a skimmer and refugium as well. Mainly feeds corals by feeding the fish. It’s not his first tank either! He has repeatable success.

Why didn’t his tank get the ugly stage? I don´t know, maybe because I don´t give a chance to no3 and po4 to reach high levels, no3 always zero here and po4 0.00 -0.03


How was he able to keep the acros alive in a new tank? Why not ? They have everything they need since the start

Why doesn’t get dinos in his tank with low nutrients? I have no idea about this one

 

[ariellemermaid]

My favorite part of the thread is the beginning, when folks start trying to give him advice about how he’s doing it wrong until someone recognizes him as a master tank builder. Then the tank itself proves them wrong .

I personally think that thread is one of the most important I’ve ever run across in this hobby. It’s amazing how much of what we think we know is really just recycled opinions passed from one Reefer to the next and repeated over and over again. There are so many ways to be successful in this hobby and finding a tank that goes against a lot of the dogma is great proof of that.

I don’t have any insights but the concept of high input high output makes a lot of sense to me. Measured nitrates for instance are just nitrates floating around the tank that aren’t being consumed. If we did that when feeding fish we’d say we’re over feeding. The flip side is if you can’t measure nitrate then corals could also be starving and a less experienced reefer wouldn’t immediately recognize it. I think that’s where his extensive experience comes in; providing enough input/output to keep his corals happy without “over feeding.” And thus minimal problems with algae and other nuisances that go along with free floating nutrients.

And to the person that said “oh but I think his colors aren’t the best”….COME ON! His colors are gorgeous and growth is completely insane! Don’t be jealous.

 

[Miami Reef]

My favorite part of the thread is the beginning, when folks start trying to give him advice about how he’s doing it wrong until someone recognizes him as a master tank builder. Then the tank itself proves them wrong .

I personally think that thread is one of the most important I’ve ever run across in this hobby. It’s amazing how much of what we think we know is really just recycled opinions passed from one Reefer to the next and repeated over and over again. There are so many ways to be successful in this hobby and finding a tank that goes against a lot of the dogma is great proof of that.

I don’t have any insights but the concept of high input high output makes a lot of sense to me. Measured nitrates for instance are just nitrates floating around the tank that aren’t being consumed. If we did that when feeding fish we’d say we’re over feeding. The flip side is if you can’t measure nitrate then corals could also be starving and a less experienced reefer wouldn’t immediately recognize it. I think that’s where his extensive experience comes in; providing enough input/output to keep his corals happy without “over feeding.” And thus minimal problems with algae and other nuisances that go along with free floating nutrients.

And to the person that said “oh but I think his colors aren’t the best”….COME ON! His colors are gorgeous and growth is completely insane! Don’t be jealous.

Agreed! I love his coral’s coloration!

 

[brahm]

It's pretty stunning when you first see it, but maybe since I'm accustomed to tanks with similar coloration (was around during the zeo fad). It's not my favorite. It also is how my corals look when I don't feed them enough so it does stress me out a little

Don't get me wrong it's beautiful, but if I could have a tank look like anything that wouldn't be my first choice. Also what he's doing isn't insane and there is a bit he's leaving out either to be cheeky or simply because not all folks are great at explaining things (good teachers) and there are things he may do that he doesn't think about or assumes are common knowledge so doesn't bother to explain. A ULNS tank was a standard practice for quite some time it worked well, as was systems that focused on bac/carbon dosing (Zeo).

If you love tanks that look like this one if I remember was one of the big ones back in the days that really kicked off the craze.

 

[rhostam]

Planning had to count for part of it. The gal that hosts a few of the BRS videos that build tanks for rich people asa living. These people want “pretty” now and not a year later. Her company spend weeks or months planning and then execute the build inside of a week. Build and filling with coral and live stock. They actually had one of her videos explaining that process.

I didn’t search hard and so didn’t find that video, but here is the one where they review one of the “built in a weekend” tanks a month later and discuss the build.

 

[polyppal]

There are a lot of things in life more important than SPS

 

[polyppal]

There are a lot of things in life more important than SPS

About coralline algae, in the last 1-2 months, I had a lot of them on my rocks.

I don´t have all the answers guys, I just do the same thing over and over again in the last 22 years in this hobby

Cheers

Once one makes it to a mature tank with lots of CCA, it should hold its own against many of the ugly nuisance algaes that plague new tanks.

Congrats on your success! Beautiful tank!

 

[PBar]

@brahm,
fair enough! Not clear indeed
My answer regarding nutrients was linked to the initial question in the topic (I mixed a bit).
jda has a nice summary (link on his signature) regarding his thoughts about N & P. It is really interesting.

From my side:
Initial with Zeovit - no big secrets, I believe everybody knows the idea behind.
Currently, I’m feeding on average 3 to 4 cubes of frozen food (artemia, mysis, cyclops) plus flakes (hard to quantify) per day. Seaweed 3x week.

The advantage now is that the coral mass in my tank can be considered rather big… so even after stopping with Zeovit dosing… I had no changes in phosphates and nitrates yet.
Actually, I’m not much worried if they start to increase… actually I’m a bit curious.

As info, Denadai started recently testing carbon dosing and coral supplements on his tank.
(he has a YouTube channel… but in Portuguese


Cheers!

 

[Reef and Dive]

He clearly made a deal with the devil and sold his soul for perpetual SPS success.

He’s a friend of mine.

My 2 cents on this topic:

His reef is amazingly wonderful? Yeah.

He does very little things with the reef? Yeah.

Roberto Denadai is actually super duper extra experienced with reef tanks. The true fact is that he just does very proven things he knows to work pretty well (like his T5 combo), and just keeps it straight, no changes, super consistent.

His SPS love it and grow crazy Sanjay-like. They grow much much faster than mine. (Buuuut: I have to say that, for LPS, I prefer the “look” that I have in a more nutrient rich tank - no big deal, since his SPS are breathtaking).

But I know there are many things that he does nearly intuitively that he considers doing “nothing” that would translate to most of us like doing a lot of tests and interpretation.

That’s it. Simple as that. He just knows too well what he is doing.

 

[Reef and Dive]

BRS showed u can use vibrant to skip the ugly phase.
Some people manage to use vibrant every 2 wks while running a refugium.

Would be good to know what bacterial additive he used to cycle the tank or how many corals he introduced.
Id assume that the more corals u introduce the more likely you are to achieve some bacterial diversity.

Denadai’s rocks were cured. He did not have a sandbed.
No reason at all to have a diatom bloom.
That part is pretty simple to me. No silicate load, no ugly phase.

 

[PBar]

@Reef and Dive,
I have to admit that your first picture is amazing in so many aspects
well done!

 

[Cell]

Planning had to count for part of it. The gal that hosts a few of the BRS videos that build tanks for rich people asa living. These people want “pretty” now and not a year later. Her company spend weeks or months planning and then execute the build inside of a week. Build and filling with coral and live stock. They actually had one of her videos explaining that process.

I didn’t search hard and so didn’t find that video, but here is the one where they review one of the “built in a weekend” tanks a month later and discuss the build.

If you are wondering, that girl is named Jen and she owns arguably the best reef LFS in MN, New Wave Aquaria.

 

[mattdg]

Keeping SPS is part skill, part faith, hopefully some past reefing experience and a whole lot of hard work. Roberto is a skilled reefer, with a methodology that works for him and good follow through. There is most definitely plenty going on behind the scenes that we don't see, but so true with all of our reef systems. Every system and reef keeper is truly different, which is why it tends to be difficult to exactly duplicate another reefers method. I can guarantee that Roberto experienced some hurdles, even repeating his own setup.

 

[LRT]

My favorite part of the thread is the beginning, when folks start trying to give him advice about how he’s doing it wrong until someone recognizes him as a master tank builder. Then the tank itself proves them wrong .

I personally think that thread is one of the most important I’ve ever run across in this hobby. It’s amazing how much of what we think we know is really just recycled opinions passed from one Reefer to the next and repeated over and over again. There are so many ways to be successful in this hobby and finding a tank that goes against a lot of the dogma is great proof of that.

I don’t have any insights but the concept of high input high output makes a lot of sense to me. Measured nitrates for instance are just nitrates floating around the tank that aren’t being consumed. If we did that when feeding fish we’d say we’re over feeding. The flip side is if you can’t measure nitrate then corals could also be starving and a less experienced reefer wouldn’t immediately recognize it. I think that’s where his extensive experience comes in; providing enough input/output to keep his corals happy without “over feeding.” And thus minimal problems with algae and other nuisances that go along with free floating nutrients.

And to the person that said “oh but I think his colors aren’t the best”….COME ON! His colors are gorgeous and growth is completely insane! Don’t be jealous.

Well said

 

[ajm83]

The lack of dinoflagellate problems is puzzling me. Are dinos ubiquitous, or could it be that Roberto has simply not introduced them into the tank?

I started a recent tank of mine in a similar way with dryrock and SPS frags and got amphidinium almost immediately.

 

[Roberto Denadai]

I can guarantee that Roberto experienced some hurdles, even repeating his own setup.

Yes, you are right. Nothing is perfect. In some tanks, I had aiptasia, bubble algae, AEFW, red bugs etc

 

[rtparty]

It is impossible to not introduce dinoflagellates. They are everywhere. Even in the corals we keep. It's a matter of conditions being right for them to take over. What those exact conditions are, we still don't actually know

 

[adittam]

My favorite part of the thread is the beginning, when folks start trying to give him advice about how he’s doing it wrong until someone recognizes him as a master tank builder. Then the tank itself proves them wrong .

I personally think that thread is one of the most important I’ve ever run across in this hobby. It’s amazing how much of what we think we know is really just recycled opinions passed from one Reefer to the next and repeated over and over again. There are so many ways to be successful in this hobby and finding a tank that goes against a lot of the dogma is great proof of that.

I don’t have any insights but the concept of high input high output makes a lot of sense to me. Measured nitrates for instance are just nitrates floating around the tank that aren’t being consumed. If we did that when feeding fish we’d say we’re over feeding. The flip side is if you can’t measure nitrate then corals could also be starving and a less experienced reefer wouldn’t immediately recognize it. I think that’s where his extensive experience comes in; providing enough input/output to keep his corals happy without “over feeding.” And thus minimal problems with algae and other nuisances that go along with free floating nutrients.

And to the person that said “oh but I think his colors aren’t the best”….COME ON! His colors are gorgeous and growth is completely insane! Don’t be jeal

100%. All of it.