You guys ever seen these before? They make for unique decor in a room that's for sure, I can only imagine what a professional home fabricator could do with the lighting and cable running of a micro coral system such as mounted in-wall in a kitchen or something.
These are called pico reefs and the point of doing them is that you can set up a vase on your kitchen cabinet, install some basic reef lighting and raise 20 genera of live coral with little to no effort and no filters or water pumps if that sort of thing is interesting to you. the point is reef aquariums are no longer exclusive and cost prohibitive, anyone can raise maricultured corals and not strip the environment with such simple setups. this is how i blend heavy metal and biology for a media interactive house decor
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thats beautiful. my way is for if you don't have a spare 10g that's cash not gallons lol
nice tank! you like my micro table top acropora? if I could keep fish I would, systems are too small
I would estimate that sarcophyton in your tank to be at least 4 years old very nice im suprised clowns haven't taken it
the focus on these systems below is elimination of mechanical devices. the design uses photosynthetic binding of nitrogen instead of export and it does not require topoff, it's sealed from evaporation that's new to the reefing world. it can also be plugged into a car and transported
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Last edited by brandon 4; 01-11-2010 at 12:18 AM.
The Following User Says Thank You to brandon 4 For This Useful Post:
I've been running a 10g micro-reef for 13 years. In fact, the smaller the reef the HARDER it is to maintain. Larger volumes of water allow some forgiveness for water quality. Tiny tanks must be scrupulously kept and even with the highest degree of care can fail.
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If I could only remember to THINK about what I was doing before I did it.
The Following User Says Thank You to Leah Frances For This Useful Post:
Leah we must chat about that reef, if you are saying you have a 10g that has been set up that long with the same substrate/rock base that's really incredibly serious, it would be the oldest running nano reef I know of and it would win contests and stuff. Im talking contests for free reef lighting/pumps etc that you could sell on ebay for$$ the popular aquarium forums!
if I had to put money on it Id say the oldest 10g ive ever heard of was about 7 yrs, if yours if 13 it might just become a 10,000 view insta hit on the forums and people will want to know about your care regimen. do you post on the forums for tanks? I figured these diy builders and interior decorators would have great ideas for blending tanks and design flow glad to meet you here.
also I would add that the vases don't die of mysterious causes...the water changes and the topoff reduction are the extending elements. Eliminating contamination or hardware failure im betting they'll live as long as dave's reef>ie the big ones. four years into it they only get more stable because I don't change up the variables like feeding or water change timing set to the consumption levels right for the tank. plus you can set one up for $150 which is all I've ever wanted to give up! Another reason the vases are stable beyond larger tanks is because all variables are accounted for, particularly in chemical dosing, and large tanks have trouble accounting for dead organisms and decaying matter unlike a micro reef where all surfaces are visible at all times. If you dose c balance 3x weekly and change water weekly (1 gallon) you can have a reef and not own any test kits whatsoever and never have to tweak skimmers, clean filters, or keep an unpredictable tank. the vase solves all the problems of why reef tanks aren't more common...I keep on hand a three page writeup that has started them with novices that only kept one single coral for practice and some of these are 8 mos now...
Notice no fish are used. that way no one can say they are unethical, as 98% of fish you see anywhere are taken from the wild it's nice not to hack on nature too harshly, this also validates experimentation in design.
not all my stuff is maricultured but it easily could be. The vases themselves produce harvestable coral, i've made about $300 in $10 xenia trades with it over the years. i bought some wild type blastomussas, 4 lbs of cultured base rock and the lobo is from australia but pretty much everything else came from reef plugs traded among tankers. xenia frags are made by gluing a live rock chip on all four sides of a xenia's base rock. it will grab onto one and you can shave off that flesh and it will grow a new colony, sometimes on 2 or 3 of the rock barriers. 10 bucks apiece when about 1/2 inch tall which for my tank is monthly. mostly I just cut out the xenia and flush it, too much to deal with and it smells like a skunk, really it is stinky you know...
one of the brainstorms I had for this forum was to envision a fabrication method to connect my formica bar with the ceiling via a glass tubular one of these about 4 ft tall. Glass, not acrylic I don't even know if that material is available or not. acrylic scratches terribly in marine tanks...
sure man glad its interesting to you Ive added lots more coral since this footage was taken 5 mos ago.
couldn't find your email address, if you would just respond on the comments for the youtube video the dialog piles up and becomes a reference for others regarding this type of biology
hello sir! i am into research and your topic interest me a lot. can you please give me some guidelines/steps how to set up live coral vases? If not too much to you sir, may I also know the procedure of collecting and the proper selection of types of coral nubbins. Thank you and more power!
Hey all, just checking in. Sorry I missed those posts asking for setup
help or I would have got right on it. If you ever want to find me for setup work, just google this article "the history of pico reef biology" and post comments there I check that one more often.
This vase is still alive, year after year, If anyone is still seeking out setup options lets chat about it. So far several people have set up the vases, in flower shops/hospitals/classrooms etc Ive made lots of friends online. Right now there's a particularly nice one at nano-reefs.com
Even if you don't want to use a small vase, we can set up micro reefs in other containers Ive done just about all possible installations of pico reefs so holler if you have any build pics to add to this thread or questions about the biology.
nah thats a totally acceptable jack those implements are an inextricable part of my living room lol.
the drums have increased to a 14 piece kit+ double bass its the most wicked mp3 play through you could possibly imagine. Picture turning on kickstart my heart from motley crue through four 15" pa's and overlaying the drums on top of the song. Its better than being there in person and loud enough to have the cops rap on your door rather quickly. Once (of the many times) I had a police officer who asked to come inside to see my gear. He proceeded to sit and and play after asking me to turn it down half way
There was a .45 glock on his hip bouncing up and down beside the kit I kept staring at it thinking how much of a trip that was.
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