What I learned 750 miles from home

[ZoWhat]

On vacation I visited a huge Coral Farm in Pensacola FL.

Spoke at length with a highly educated Marine Biologist who cared from a warehouse of corals worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Biggest thing I learner from her?

Everything I should be doing in my reef tank should match as close as possible to what happens in nature!

Quit overdoing #s in certain areas and underdoing in others.
> Quit making your own rules!
> Quit following popular trends and research studies to try this and that
> Follow Nature's rules! If it's not a rule of Nature, throw it out.

If nature was a center-point as a reference, quit getting far left or far right in a particular area of the hobby.

Everything you do with your tank should point back to Nature's center-point

Know your corals and what depth they thrive at and emulate you close as you can to nature:

* water temp 78 +/- 0.5°

* emulate the Sun thru your lighting
(bluer lights = deeper depths)
(Increased white = shallower depths)

* emulate the Earth's lighting cycle of 6hr ramp up and 6hr ramp down to emulate 12hrs of light and 12hrs of darkness

* water flow
(deeper depths=low)
(shallower depths = higher flow)

* water quality = match NSW,
CALC (420)
ALK (8)
MAG (1200-1300)
NO3 (moderate at 5)
PO4 (nearly non existence at .05 to .1)

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[BeltedCoyote]

Good stuff! Thanks for sharing!

 

[Pierre]

Interesting the ramp of light for 6 up 6 down. And my water parameters are slightly higher. Thanks for the info.

 

[Ef4life]

I’ve always like the ramp up/down and even when I had just halides I had some led moon lights that turned on ahead of the halides to sort of wake up the tank gently. Besides being more natural, I guess it’s a painful memory of my childhood - mom coming into my room to wake me up, bam 240w of light instantly in my face. I pleaded for a dimmer but dad laughed and said no.

 

[blaxsun]

With all respect, when you're a stone's throw away from and can obtain your saltwater directly from the ocean - it's an entirely different game. It's also a lot easier to emulate nature when your setup is in a greenhouse and exposed to natural sunlight as opposed to the basement where most of us have our tanks. So while I agree with all the points in theory - the size and location of your setup really determines how much you deviate.

I think the vast majority of aquarists do try to replicate nature as much as humanely possible - it's just not always achievable.

 

[ZoWhat]

It's also a lot easier to emulate nature when your setup is in a greenhouse and exposed to natural sunlight as opposed to the basement where most of us have our tanks.

So if my coral(s) thrive in nature at 33ft of depth of the ocean..... how do I emulate 33ft at a tank depth of 24-30" ???

That's where 400nm to 520nm blue light comes into play over the whole spectrum of white light in a greenhouse.


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[blaxsun]

So if my coral(s) thrive in nature at 33ft of depth of the ocean..... how do I emulate 33ft at a tank depth of 24-30" ??? That's where 400nm to 520nm blue light comes into play over the whole spectrum of white light in a greenhouse.

I'm sure you have a point, but it escapes me... There's a big difference between a coral farm adjacent to the ocean in a predominantly sunny environment and a significantly smaller reef tank in one's basement. So many of "nature's rules" get thrown out the window because of certain inherent restrictions.

You don't need protein skimmers, reactors or any kind of media to remove harmful elements in your tank - because in nature you have... "the ocean". Similarly, you don't need to replenish salt or mineral levels with supplements because... "the ocean". The same could be said for UV filters or other things many of use to augment our systems.

 

[dmy535]

I'm sure you have a point, but it escapes me... There's a big difference between a coral farm adjacent to the ocean in a predominantly sunny environment and a significantly smaller reef tank in one's basement. So many of "nature's rules" get thrown out the window because of certain inherent restrictions.

You don't need protein skimmers, reactors or any kind of media to remove harmful elements in your tank - because in nature you have... "the ocean". Similarly, you don't need to replenish salt or mineral levels with supplements because... "the ocean". The same could be said for UV filters or other things many of use to augment our systems.

This makes 0 sense

 

[fish farmer]

I tend to think NSW conditions are the best to emulate BUT considering I manipulate nature with raising trout why not try and tweek things with a reef?

If you want to push certain parameters which may increase growth why not?

 

[Paul B]

I feel the OP is correct, simulate the sea as much as we can and I think I do, or try very hard. I never use any chemicals, carbon, Roaphas, or anything else with initials that I can't pronounce. Never add any drugs, supplements, bacteria in a bottle etc. I am lucky now that I can collect NSW but for 45 years I couldn't.

I can't simulate the depth or the way the sun shines so theres that.
I also only feed either live food or frozen sea foods. No problems yet.

 

[Nano sapiens]

While striving to emulate the natural environment is obviously a worthy endeavor, we can't make a blanket statement that all our corals come from a particular reef environment with specific environmental conditions. The reality is that corals exist in a variety of natural environments and not all of them are what we'd call 'reef' (some occur in mangrove forests, some in seagrass beds, etc.). There are also different types of reef classes (oceanic-offshore, shelf-near shore) with widely different nutrient densities and differing environments within these different types of reefs (reef front, upper reef slope, deep forereef, reef flat, back reef, lagoon, etc.)

On top of that, our lighting technologies do not provide the same light spectrum as the sun shining in the tropics. Nor do we typically provide the same light duration found throughout a typical tropical day (the day length above water is considered 12 hours, but due to light reflection in the early morning and late evening (aka: the angle of incidence) light underwater for the day is around 10-1/2 hrs. with full light intensities for only a few hours or so. And this is for an open reef area, but areas influenced by nearby islands (ex: Palau) might only get 4-5 hours of 'reef typical light' centered around midday due to shading by the surrounding hillocks with the rest of the underwater day in 'twilight' conditions.

The point is that what we do as reef keepers is attempt an approximation of a theoretical 'optimal reef' in the hopes of providing acceptable conditions for the majority of corals that we want to keep. The real magic comes from the corals themselves as most are remarkably adaptive to our artificially created captive conditions.

 

[Ruben Sacramento]

Looks like I've been doing it right all along.
Problem is that current led lights are far from what they should if you take real reef spectrum into consideration.
Good thing is the information is out there and you can make your own to mimic the real spectrum

 

[Hot2na]

I second NSW and algae scrubber- NO additives whatsoever...