New Deodronephthya sp. study group?

[charles matthews]

I am interested in forming a study group for Dendronepnthya sp. husbandry. Are there others that share this interest? Should it be a thread- or, as I would prefer, a new forum?

[graveyardworm]

I think I would be interested. What are your plans? What kind of equipment would be required? I'm in the process of setting up new system to accommodate various things perhaps there will be room for a dendro in its own tank connected to common sump, or seperate. I still have one I purchased almost a year ago wasted away almost to nothing but I still see polyp extension on whats left.

[mcox33]

I have 2 bought as one divided by the next morning, I glued the unattached piece to a rock so far they are fine. They dropped pieces constantly until I started target
feeding them, Now they are growing and doing fine. I've traded several frags at our reef meetings however I am not sure if any have survived. These are frags that
were attached on their own not glued to large pieces of rubble then left to grow 2 to 6 months in the bottom of my 90 gallon tank, rubble sitting on the sand.

They are beautiful. But I have a tank full of frags as well as what is basically 2 mother colonies.

They are under 8X 55 watt pc lights
2 - actinic blue - and
6 - 10K - as well as
1- 40 watt X 48 inch 100% true actinic 03 blue 03 fluorescent T-12

they are close to a powerhead that pumps about 500 gph and on the same side as the return that returns water accross the top of the rocks towards the powerhead.
The powerhead outlet is about 4 inches down from top of the tanks waterline and 3-5 inches above the dendro and 2-3 inches from back corner seam of the tank, with
the outlet being pointed toward the side glass of the tank. I can post a picture if you like but I'll have to take one first. as I always try to advoid getting the pump in my
tank pics. Dendro about 9 - 12 iches from side glass.

http://webpages.charter.net/mcox33/part%20of%201%20Mystery%20Coral~1.JPG

This is a bad pic but all that was readily available

[mcox33]

sorry about the size I'm not sure how to get it to post smaller sometimes they do other times they are huge. Feel free to photshop it if you want.

[M.Maddox]

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=512753

Not even public aquariums can keep them alive with success (e.g. +50% success rate).

[charles matthews]

I appreciate your replies and information. When sharing information about dendro husbandry, I like to get the following information.1) What species- or if not known, (which is usual), did it come attached to rubble or to rock?-what size of polyps or describe them?- 2) Water flow information. 3) Feeding information. 5) Behavioral observations of interest. 6) How long has the specimen been kept under captive care? ) Filtration/skimmer/refugia information. I would be grateful for your assistance in collecting this kind of information.

One other thing. I am lobbying for our own forum. Any interest?

[mcox33]

By the way I watched mine spawn one night a couple of months after I got it and when I moved rock around a few weeks ago I found little specks of them actually growing with 3 or 4 polyps each that actually were open. Don't ask me what I'm doing right or wrong I don't know lfs and the guy who runs out local club says as far as he knows mine is the only healthy one in the valley. But knock on wood cause I don't know why. And not to brag or anything but the things that do the best in my tanks seem to be what shouldn't be in my tank. I actually have an encrusting hard coral that came into lfs on live rock growing and spreading under my pc lighting. If something is different I usually get then go home and get on the computer to research it, but for this one I found no real info so it was guess work so far it is working out fine.

Yes interested in a dendro forum

[mcox33]

Originally posted by charles matthews
I appreciate your replies and information. When sharing information about dendro husbandry, I like to get the following information.1) What species- or if not known, (which is usual), did it come attached to rubble or to rock?-what size of polyps or describe them?- 2) Water flow information. 3) Feeding information. 5) Behavioral observations of interest. 6) How long has the specimen been kept under captive care? ) Filtration/skimmer/refugia information. I would be grateful for your assistance in collecting this kind of information.

One other thing. I am lobbying for our own forum. Any interest?

Mine was on a rock a little larger than my hand but didn't weigh very much for it's size. When it spit of I got another rock (reef bones type) about the same size and glued the loose piece to it they are both doing fine but the frags do best if left in the bottom of the tank with rubble to attach themselves to if they are glued they will come back off the rock everytime.

[graveyardworm]

This is a brief description of how I tried to keep mine alive taken from another recent thread.

I had mine in a dedicated tank 50 gals with a plenum/DSB set up to GARF specifications, a 35 gal refuge which drained into the display, about 500 GPH tghrough the fuge. The fuge was full of life pods, worms, cheato, caulerpa, LR, (no skimmer). Tank had about 100 lbs LR, 5 lbs grunge and was full of life, 2 rio 600 for circulation. I tried various circulation schemes, fed DT,s, marine snow, and cyclopeeze. Still my dendro slowly withered away. Oh yeah I also tried the bubble thing, and stirring up detrius in tank and fuge.

Hi mcox33, a more complete description of your tank would be awsome, tank size, skimmer, feeding, fuge or not, sump etc...

I also believe that there are other corals which appear very similar to Dendro, but are relatively easier to keep, have you done anything to verify that you have a Dendro, I think it has something to do with magnification of sclerites, or structure. I do not currently have the technology to verify mine. Thanks

[spawner]

Charles

Is Erik sending you those papers on the feeding biology?

[craab]

I have had success with mine. I watched it in the LFS for close to 5 weeks and saw growth over that time. Since I've had it, it has grown more branches off the base and stays inflated close to 90% of the time. I have it in a high flow area hanging from an overhang. I feed it 3 times a week, 2 nights it gets cycopleeze and the 3rd night it gets mysis shrimp/cycopleeze mixture. The base has begun to grow out as well. Not sure which genius species I have, but it resembles this one from the garf site.

http://www.garf.org/36/dendro/sclerites410289.jpg

[graveyardworm]

Even as mine was perishing it continued to split off babies.

craab, how long have you had it?

Mine looked great for probably 4 months maybe a little longer.

[charles matthews]

Spawner- I've talked to Erik twice now by phone. A great guy, phycologist and microecologist, doing interesting work on pelagic bacterial culture. I have not received those papers yet- would GREATLY appreciate your forwarading them if possible!

Mary- polyp bailout has been described many times. It's likely that you are seeing a strategy to preserve polyps under adverse conditions rather than growth. It would be interesting to know how old your primary colony is.

[charles matthews]

Hi Craab

The dendro from Garf was called D. mirabilis by Wilkins- of course the classification sysstem is a mess. To me, the most important thing about this species is the fact that it comes in on rock rather than gravel- and possibly would be happier hanging down. Also, the polyps are extremely small even for a dendro. Wilkins feeds some form of liquid supplement and reports keeping them for four years- he also stirs the substrate superficially. How long have you had yours? What is the tank setup and any refugia? Do you use a skimmer? How long have you had it?

[mcox33]

I got it last april for my bithday.
I've had it almost a year now and it doesn't really drop babies anymore unless I move it around ( it dropped 2 after a total tank redo last month- you know take
all the rock out of tank and rebuild the wall I haven't taken any pictures since but here is a picture of the tank before the rebuild)
http://webpages.charter.net/mcox33/PIC00185FULL%20TANK.jpg

It is in my 90 gallon tank

Wet/dry sump filter with cap 2200 pump recently upgraded to
tidepool II with a mag 7 I think Possible just mag 5

each back corner has a 320 gph circulation pump

running a 9 Watt UV 24/7
and the
Jebo Quad protien skimmer with the pump supplied with the skimmer

just this week added the ozonator 10 to the air inlet of the protien skimmer
I have approximately 300 - 400 hundred pounds of live rock (160 reef bones, the rest came from a S. Carolina beach low tide inside water line)
no fuge at least not yet

Lighting is 8 X 55 watts each PC's and 2 are actinic the rest 10K
and
1 X T-12 100% True Actinic 40 watt 48 inch bulb


feeding

I feed a mix our lfs's coral guru devised made from crushed marine flakes soaked in water let settle skim the liquid add reef plus and invert food (seachem I think)
and sometimes frozen brine shrimp

I feed this about 3 times per week sometimes more often sometimes less often


Actually our club and LFS called it the mystery coral until the LFS guru figured it out and he had a frag of it that he used to make this determination.
He seems real sure that it is dendro

As for spawning yes I'm sure that is what it was. The two of them wrapped their tentacles together and then from those wrapped tentencles the cloud
of smokey looking stuff started raising up through the water a few weeks later I started finding small ones that were to far away and to small to have dropped off
the original colony there is no other explanation. to bad I was to afraid of missing the event to get the digital video camera
It was just a cheapo and probably wouldn't have caught the cloud anyway

[spawner]

Charles,

Here are a few close-ups from Erik's tank.

Most are nearly 3 months. Lots of growing babies.

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/2521corals-3-036.jpg

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/2521corals-3-034.jpg

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/2521corals-3-002.jpg

Email me your address and I'll get you the papers.

andy

[mcox33]

is that the yellow one? mine is pinkish purple

[mcox33]

Did someone get the forum started or what happened???

[DonJasper]

One other thing. I am lobbying for our own forum. Any interest?

I think that an arguement could be made that a non-photosynthetic forum would be appropriate given the SPS (aka reef back zone) forum. The LPS (aka lagoon zone) forum. This could cover the deep fore reef zone.

[charles matthews]

I started this idea hoping to attract enough interest for our own forum. I think a more organized forum would be very interesting. I have a long standing interest in Dendronephthya species particularly, and non photosynthetic ecology in general. Very little is known aboout so much of this.

I do feel that posting observations could be helpful in learning about Dendronephthya husbandry. I hope you all will encourage development of a nonphotosynthetic forum!

Does anyone have information about the physiology/anatomy of the gastrovascular channels?

Another question- anyone have some good experience with fragging?

Chip

[graveyardworm]

I think a forum to cover non photosynthetic coral would be great, but I would hate to see alot of aquarists suddenly get the confidence to go out and start purchasing dendros and the like where most tend to perish. I think a better plce to start maybe to put together a small group with the ability to conduct proper research and experiments, and start a permanent sticky thread to report to. I can say that I really woudnt know where to start. Perhaps with guidance of someone such as Eric Borneman or another. From everything I've read corals such as dendros can be a touchy subject for some. Without the proper controls it may be hard to get expert help here. Plus I'm sure that people such as Eric are extremely busy and may feel that they just dont have the time to do this right.

I myself would love to be able to keep varios non photo corals because they are some of the most beautiful coral, but with my first Dendro attempt ending in failure and with knowledge I have now I just cant bring myself to purchase another one unless its going to be with specific purpose and with the possibility of having it survive. So if we can put together a plan I'm in, but if its going to be every man for himself I just cant do it.

[mcox33]

Originally posted by charles matthews


Another question- anyone have some good experience with fragging?

Chip


I tried cutting a piece that appeared to be dropping off anyway, when I first got mine didn't work. It didn't do anything just slowly got smaller and smaller then disappeared altogether. After that I let them do their own thing and when the pieces came off I put them on the sand and rubble in the bottom of my tank they attached themselves within days and I could then glue the rubble to a larger piece and put it where ever I want it in the tank.

[DonJasper]

Originally posted by graveyardworm
I think a forum to cover non photosynthetic coral would be great, but I would hate to see alot of aquarists suddenly get the confidence to go out and start purchasing dendros and the like where most tend to perish.

Well any forum for non photosynthetic corals would read like an "agongy column" - to borrow and Sherlock Holmes term - and any confidence that these aquarists get will not be from reading the tales of woe from that forum. Given that humans have a remarkable ability to be both very foolish and blinding clever both at the same time - eventually there may be a glimmer of hope in the forum. But not at first.

[graveyardworm]

Thank you Don Jasper, very well said. I do believe there is a light at the end of the tunnel, hopefully closer than it seems. I think just reading this thread alone may give someone the confidence to go out and get one even though the people reporting here dont really seem to know what they're doing right. We are keeping corals now with ease which a decade ago were thought to be impossible.

By the way do know of any good P-shrimp recipes mine are ready to go.

[craab]

Originally posted by graveyardworm
Even as mine was perishing it continued to split off babies.

craab, how long have you had it?

Mine looked great for probably 4 months maybe a little longer.


Had it for two months now, and I'm not sure if any others have witnessed this, but mine has actually begun to grow out and up from under the overhang I have it hanging from. Anybody else seen this happening?

[graveyardworm]

Hi craab, you probably allready realize this but 2 months is by no means success with a dendro. Like mine and countless others thay do look good for a while, and then the shrinking begins. Dendros can contract down to a small fraction of there full size like most softies. What was percieved as growth during the weeks at the LFS was probably just recovery from shipping and acclimation.

Have you been feeding anything other than the mysis and cyclopeeze? What type of cyclopeeze frozen or dried? Most reports indicate that dendros feed on much smaller stuff.

Charles I'm still relatively new to the hobby and reef central. How do go about getting a new forum?

The more that I think about it having a forum dedicated to non photosynthetic corals would probably be the biggest step towards successfully keeping them. Trying to gather good info from a thread here and there is time consuming and none of them ever seem to lead anywhere.

[mygreengoldfish]

I am very interested in dendros because of there incredible colors and shapes, but I can't ever get one because I know it would die. I would love to see a dedicated forum on non-photosynthetic corals. But unlike many non-photosyntetic creatures dendros have a horribly small survival rate in even the most specialized systems. I think they would be in a class of there own in terms of difficulty.

As for caring for them, I think a little more research should be done in there natural enviroment. There survival might depend only on a small change in salinity or insuring they are fed both phtyo and zooplankton. There are so many things we don't know about these corals that it is hard to find a place to start.

[mcox33]

My salinity is at about 1.024 to 1.025 at any given time and mine have been doing great for about 10 months now. I did see a yellow one at a pet shop recently but it is declining and they want 50 dollars for a tiny little piece. I told the owner he should just give it to me and let me nurse it back to health, no such luck and he has two of them. both are in very bad shape.

the 2 I have are pink and purple and mounted on top of the rock the last time I rearranged the rocks in the tank I turned these 2 on their sides with the top of the dendro towards the front of the tank. They too are growing out and standing up but some of the branches hang down. They appear to be growing finally as in when they retract the branches are much thicker than they were at first.

[graveyardworm]

Hi mcox, is there any chance you could get some better close up shots.

[graveyardworm]

I've been reading through alot of archive threads and thinking of how to modify my plans for my new setup to accommodate a dendro. I'll be picking the final piece for system today. Anyway my thoughts are to give it a tank of its own with LR and no sand bed connected into everything else.

Here's a brief description of my plan: 100 gal stock tank for sump with some LR in it and other equipment (skimmer heaters etc.. ), 90 gal soft coral display with LR and DSB, 100 gal 72"x18" with DSB planted with macro ( seagrass, turtle grass, havent quite decided), 35 gal for frag grow out, maybe a 20 or so gal for other macro.

For the Dendro tank I thought small ( I have a 29 gal kicking around). Flow though this would be on the slow side to keep food in the tank longer with alot of flow within the tank. Only ? is what to feed.

I havent been able to find any descriptions of what people have tried I thought this might work, be capable of providing continuous food supply without polluting entire system. I'm sure this has been tried but I cant find where other than GARF's setup I think is similar.

[MadTownMax]

newly purchased pink w/ purple/yellow specimen - same as Garf specimen posted earlier

Tank: 24-gallon Nano cube
Filtration: Activated Charcoal, Phosban, polyfilter (chem absorbant) No Skimmer
Temp 81-82
SG - 1.026
Lighting: Stock 2X36W PC, 10K/actinic & Actinic
Circulation - 2X 290gph powerheads in top back corners of tank aimed straight forward ~30X

Feeding - target w/ DT's Phytoplankton and DT's Oyster Eggs.

-Nick

[mcox33]

Originally posted by graveyardworm
Hi mcox, is there any chance you could get some better close up shots.

I'll try in a few days right now my tank looks so bad I don't want a pic of anything everything seems okay but I got brown algea driving me crazy.

But I think it is on it's way out. That's what I get for over doing the redo my tank thing. to many changes to close together.

[graveyardworm]

Sorry to hear that, it seems as though this thread has lost its steam like most dendro threads. Havent seen any post from Charles lately I'm still wondering how to get a new forum and if help is needed in the form of support.

[mcox33]

Originally posted by graveyardworm


For the Dendro tank I thought small ( I have a 29 gal kicking around). Flow though this would be on the slow side to keep food in the tank longer with alot of flow within the tank. Only ? is what to feed.




I wouldn't even think of putting a dendro in a tank smaller than a 55 gallon

[graveyardworm]

Originally posted by mcox33
I wouldn't even think of putting a dendro in a tank smaller than a 55 gallon


Even if total sytem was almost 600 gals? 90 gal softie display with DSB, 100 gal planted DSB ( seagrass ), 35 gal fugewith DSB, 100 gal sump, 200-300 stony display with BB, lots of LR. My thought was I could create a seperate habitat with lots of food in the Dendro tank and not pollute the whole system, this food would slowly make its way out and benefit the whole system. Maybe a continuos phyto drip with live culture. Low flow through the Dendro tank but high water movement.

I think it would be easier to keep a high concentration of food in a smaller tank.

[MadTownMax]

Originally posted by mcox33
I wouldn't even think of putting a dendro in a tank smaller than a 55 gallon

If no one knows how to keep them, how can you qualify this statement - if target feeding is necessary - a smaller system that will help keep the food near the coral would seem more benificial - as graveyardworm stated



On a side note, I've noticed over the last few days that when I'm target-feeding w/ the phyto/oyster egg mix when my dendro is partially "deflated" that it "inflates" - for those few who have had "some success" is this a good sign? I know this is very short term, but it does not seem to make a difference lights/no lights - it still shows this same response.

I can grab some pictures if anyone is interested.

I also noticed that the first day it was in my tank it dropped a few of it's yellow spicules (the outermost ones on the branches), but it has not now for a few days - I'm assuming this was a stress response?

-Thanks for anyone who can lend an ear and give some help w/ constructive criticizm

-Nick

[graveyardworm]

Pictures ? awesome.

My LFS has one that came in a couple weeks ago its not looking to good, Ive tried to get them lower prices on sickly corals in the past, but I guess they'd rather have it die there. I dont know about the spicules falling off. expansion when feeding is probably a good sign atleast short term, thetrick is to get it to stay inflated most of the time. I tried the no skimmer w/fuge thing on my first and only at dendro attempt and couldnt keep water quality up. Where did you get the oyster eggs? I've been trying since i first heard about them but cant seem to locate.

[MadTownMax]

DT's is the distributor for oyster eggs - they are very new to the market, but I'm sure if you ask at a good LFS that carries DT's phyto they can get some - most all places I have talked to are going to start carrying it b/c it is 40-50 microns, perfect for sps and other corals that need extremely small food particles - and it comes frozen, so unlike phytoplankton, it does not re-agglomerate and grow drastically in particle size - I know others in the past have stated that when phytoplankton is used that optimally it should be put into a blender or other high-shear apparatus to get it back down to a palettable size for the organisms we are feeding it to....

"food" for thought :D

[graveyardworm]

None of the LFS I go to are carrying it yet.

[Fredfish]

it does not re-agglomerate and grow drastically in particle size - I know others in the past have stated that when phytoplankton is used that optimally it should be put into a blender or other high-shear apparatus to get it back down to a palettable size for the organisms we are feeding it to....

MadTownMax, you probably already know this, but its worth re-stating. This is only for the freeze-dried phyto. I have never heard of any "clumping" issues with live phyto or frozen paste.

Fred.

[reefkeeper59]

down sized

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/563/54040PIC00185FULL_TANK.jpg

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/563/54040part_of_1_Mystery_Coral_1.jpg

[graveyardworm]

Sorry cant see pics.

[mcox33]

Originally posted by MadTownMax
If no one knows how to keep them, how can you qualify this statement - if target feeding is necessary - a smaller system that will help keep the food near the coral would seem more benificial - as graveyardworm stated



On a side note, I've noticed over the last few days that when I'm target-feeding w/ the phyto/oyster egg mix when my dendro is partially "deflated" that it "inflates" - for those few who have had "some success" is this a good sign? I know this is very short term, but it does not seem to make a difference lights/no lights - it still shows this same response.

I can grab some pictures if anyone is interested.

I also noticed that the first day it was in my tank it dropped a few of it's yellow spicules (the outermost ones on the branches), but it has not now for a few days - I'm assuming this was a stress response?

-Thanks for anyone who can lend an ear and give some help w/ constructive criticizm

-Nick

Because I have tried I also have the babies in a 20 gal They have not grown at all, they haven't died but they haven't grown. At the same time I have moved some of them around to different areas of my 90 and they are growing very well.

[mcox33]

Originally posted by MadTownMax




On a side note, I've noticed over the last few days that when I'm target-feeding w/ the phyto/oyster egg mix when my dendro is partially "deflated" that it "inflates" - for those few who have had "some success" is this a good sign? I know this is very short term, but it does not seem to make a difference lights/no lights - it still shows this same response.


-Nick

Yes that is a good sign and once you find the spot in your tank that is likes the best it will stay inflated more. But do be careful because just moving it in the tank can cause enough stress to make it drop more branches. So when you do move it make sure it is not in direct line of the flow pump instead try putting it off to just the side.
Another good place for them if you have a drilled tank with the built in overflow is to put it in front of the overflow assuming you have rock stacted in front of the overflow to hid it.

[mcox33]

Originally posted by graveyardworm
Pictures ? awesome.

My LFS has one that came in a couple weeks ago its not looking to good, Ive tried to get them lower prices on sickly corals in the past, but I guess they'd rather have it die there. I dont know about the spicules falling off. expansion when feeding is probably a good sign atleast short term, thetrick is to get it to stay inflated most of the time. I tried the no skimmer w/fuge thing on my first and only at dendro attempt and couldnt keep water quality up. Where did you get the oyster eggs? I've been trying since i first heard about them but cant seem to locate.

Yeah there is a yellow one at one of our stores it is about the size of a good frag and they want 50 dollars for it. I told the owner he should let me bring it home and nurse it back to health but he just laughed. Anyway price way to high even if it were healthy So I guess I will just have to wish for it. I have tried talking the price down before when it first came in he just won't budge on the price. That shop however is known as the dead coral shop

[mcox33]

Originally posted by mcox33
I'll try in a few days right now my tank looks so bad I don't want a pic of anything everything seems okay but I got brown algea driving me crazy.

But I think it is on it's way out. That's what I get for over doing the redo my tank thing. to many changes to close together.

okay now my tank seems to have recovered from it's major redo of the rock, removal of at least half the sand and changed to the tidepool filter instead of the wet/dry so now I can get out the camera and see if I can get some better pictures

[MadTownMax]

Originally posted by mcox33
Yes that is a good sign and once you find the spot in your tank that is likes the best it will stay inflated more. But do be careful because just moving it in the tank can cause enough stress to make it drop more branches. So when you do move it make sure it is not in direct line of the flow pump instead try putting it off to just the side.
Another good place for them if you have a drilled tank with the built in overflow is to put it in front of the overflow assuming you have rock stacted in front of the overflow to hid it.

Thanks for the support Mary - I only moved them once, after really looking at the flow in my tank, I moved them to the location w/ the most flow - nothing is directly in front of a pump in my tank as I have pumps pointing from the back top corners straight ahead at the front corners - since the glass is curved, this creates a lot of eddies and swirling in the tank everywhere.

I still have to get some pictures - I think that will help explain a lot - but I've been taking up all my time setting up a new peristaltic pump - I've been talking w/ another member of my reef club about a system he is running for his dwarf seahorses - using a timer and a dosing pump hooked up to a container full of food inside of a small refrigerator he has an automated system that feeds his tank 6X a day, 7-days a week. When I get my pump hooked up I may use one channel for dosing Kalk, and the other channel for a food dosing system similar to his - this would definately help keep small amounts of food in the tank at all times :).

-Nick

[mcox33]

Originally posted by MadTownMax
Thanks for the support Mary - I only moved them once, after really looking at the flow in my tank, I moved them to the location w/ the most flow - nothing is directly in front of a pump in my tank as I have pumps pointing from the back top corners straight ahead at the front corners - since the glass is curved, this creates a lot of eddies and swirling in the tank everywhere.

I still have to get some pictures - I think that will help explain a lot - but I've been taking up all my time setting up a new peristaltic pump - I've been talking w/ another member of my reef club about a system he is running for his dwarf seahorses - using a timer and a dosing pump hooked up to a container full of food inside of a small refrigerator he has an automated system that feeds his tank 6X a day, 7-days a week. When I get my pump hooked up I may use one channel for dosing Kalk, and the other channel for a food dosing system similar to his - this would definately help keep small amounts of food in the tank at all times :).

-Nick




I agree but dendro seems to need the liquid food dispensed as close to them as possible. I usually feed mine then wait for the polps to reopen and feed again and then repeat that again. I feed about every 2-3 days in this manner. Seems to be fine however since yours has recently dropped off pieces I would suggest daily feedings for about 2 weeks then every other day for a while. When I did this mine stopped fragging itself and even when I moved it slightly in the tank did not frag. I only got one frag total after removing them to a holding container for about 16 hours while the rock was redone and then they were replaced close to where they had been but not exactly just the same zone of the tank.

[MadTownMax]

as of now, I'm feeding 3X a day.

[MadTownMax]

Here are a few photos:

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/513/21916Deodro_4.JPG

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/513/21916Deodro_3.JPG

and one to show placement in the tank:
http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/513/21916full_tank_shot4.JPG

[mcox33]

much darker in color than mine very nice

[Fredfish]

Nice pics Nick.

I just re-red your post of 2/24. This is off topic, but what food is your friend feeding his dwarf seahorses using the peristaltic pump and how successful does he feel it is?

I am surprised that more seahorse keepers havn't tried this.

Fred.

[MadTownMax]

Mary - thanks, I the pic w/ flash is probably the most representatative of color - I'm still seeing mine deflate about once a day with no respect to lighting/feeding schedule - but when it inflates, it looks huge, an no more spicule loss, so here's to hoping :).

Fred - I'm pretty sure he said cubes of formula one and mysis - but it could be his own food that he makes - you can always send him a PM - check the Delaware Reef Club forum and look for GreenEyedBlackCat :) - he has a post on there about it.

-Nick

[mcox33]

mine inflate and deflate with no rhymn or apparent reason as well. if you have more than one put them close enough to touch but not touching unless they choose. when they spawn they will wrap their branches around each other then send up a cloud of cloudy looking stuff it is way cool. some of these little minute particals settled in my tank and when I redid my rock I found some that were about the size of a pencil lead and maybe a 1/2 inch long.

[graveyardworm]

I just my first phyto culture, hopefully it works out. I have culture that I purchased from Florida Farms, but I decided to go a different route as a test. I read that DT's could be used to start a phyto culture so I thought I would try that as an experiment and to get my feet wet so to speak. Once I have the phyto figured out I'm going to try some other cultures I've read about ( rotifiers, copepods, ciliates ). I've been raising brine shrimp nauplii as food for some time now so I may also try to feed them for a little more nutrition for corals and fish.

Currently my slowly dieing dendro is in my 35 gal FOWLR so I'm feeding once per day 2 capfuls of DT's. This tank is not heavily skimmed (seaclone 100 ), seems to have a healthy sand bed, and plenty of LR. The only fish are yellow tail blue damsel, decorated foxface, and snowflake eel. Normally I feed fish every other day with dried nori on off days for foxface. Circulation - seaclone return, power sweep power head, and large skilter/w fiter pads, and skimmer set removed.

This is only a temp home for Dendro until new system is up and running.

I just started back using DT's on saturday so far I havent seen any improvement with dendro.

[MadTownMax]

I'm pretty sure DT's changed their phyto so that people could not use it to start their own cultures - has something to do w/ using three different types of phyto so that they out-compete eachother and cause cultures to crash. I know I was never successfull in getting anything started using DT's - and my system is so small it does not make it economical to make my own - I only use about a tablespoon a day....

[craab]

Originally posted by graveyardworm
Hi craab, you probably allready realize this but 2 months is by no means success with a dendro. Like mine and countless others thay do look good for a while, and then the shrinking begins. Dendros can contract down to a small fraction of there full size like most softies. What was percieved as growth during the weeks at the LFS was probably just recovery from shipping and acclimation.

Have you been feeding anything other than the mysis and cyclopeeze? What type of cyclopeeze frozen or dried? Most reports indicate that dendros feed on much smaller stuff.

Charles I'm still relatively new to the hobby and reef central. How do go about getting a new forum?

The more that I think about it having a forum dedicated to non photosynthetic corals would probably be the biggest step towards successfully keeping them. Trying to gather good info from a thread here and there is time consuming and none of them ever seem to lead anywhere.

Just relating my experiences with them. When I feed mine with cyclopleeze, the frozen variety, I can see the polyps grab on to bits of the cyclopeeze and begin to take them in if that is of any relevance.

http://www.tankblog.com/temp/IMG_0191.JPG

[graveyardworm]

Originally posted by MadTownMax
I'm pretty sure DT's changed their phyto so that people could not use it to start their own cultures - has something to do w/ using three different types of phyto so that they out-compete eachother and cause cultures to crash. I know I was never successfull in getting anything started using DT's - and my system is so small it does not make it economical to make my own - I only use about a tablespoon a day....

You could be right, so far the threads I searched which indicated it could be done were fairly recent I believe. I started the culture 2-2 liter bottles on 2-27 at 3:00 pm. I've never done this before so I dont know how they should look at this point, they dont appear to be much greener, but it is a little bit. I know it takes about a week for it to run out of food and become really green. I'll be sure to let you know how it goes. :)

[graveyardworm]

Craab that certainly does look healthy, I guess I'm a little surprised to hear that its eating cyclopeeze, from everything I've read the eat very small particles, but to date I dont think anyone has determined the full extent of there diet. I have tried and continue to feed dried cyclopeeze to my fish and I have yet to see my Dendro consume or even hold onto any, maybe a difference between frozen and freeze dried.

I'm starting to believe that Dendros coming from different locations may be adapted to eat different things so its really hit or miss as to what they will eat which only adds to the difficulty in finding proper food. Hope for some but not for all. Any thoughts?

Mine has definitely been eating something to have lasted a year, but certainly not enough.

On a different note, how do you post a reply use different quotes from different threads in your reply post? Still not really computer literate yet

[MadTownMax]

Originally posted by graveyardworm
On a different note, how do you post a reply use different quotes from different threads in your reply post? Still not really computer literate yet

the little quote button at the upper-right hand corner of each post :D

after that you have to use ["quote"] and [/"quote"]

without the " 's

[graveyardworm]

Thats kinda what I thought but I was afraid to try. I didnt want to tread on someone's thread with experiments.

[mcox33]

mine will occassionally catch and hold a mysis or brine shrimp I don't know that they actually consumn them but sometimes they catch them. Liquid invert food or the recipe our local guy came up with seems to work real well.

[graveyardworm]

Does anyone Know if any of the liquid life products have been tested for feeding response. I wanted to try them myself but they're a little bit pricey ( shipping moreso than product ), and I have other expenses on my mind at the moment. RC member JENnKerry is having great results feeding goniopora where previously most died in captivity.

[craab]

I'm gonna try this stuff, already have it ordered.

http://ashbyaquatics.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=13

[charles matthews]

I'm glad to see the responses and interest we are getting. There is some very interesting information in the comments coming through. I am particularly fascinated by the observation that keeping them in some density may stimulate spawning. This would, of course, increase metabollic demand.

I have very carefully reviewed the available literature from Fabricius and Widdig regarding what's known about feeding. What I take away from these papers is that 1) I like the method of Fabricius using flourescence to quantify uptake. I think she has demonstrated that phytoplankton is utilized. 2) The uptake seems to be a linear response to concentration and to flow- thus, essentially related to contact numbers. 3) The data on zooplankton is interpreted poorly. It appears that the experiemnts were done on wild, motile plankton larger than a 100 micron mesh- note, oyster eggs are not motile and are about 50 microns. Increased concentration will increase uptake of zooplankton by three or four orders of magnitude- and this is for the 100 micron and larger organisms! So, feeding oyster eggs is an interesting idea. These may be better than golden pearls because of the clumping problem.

Since contact number is so important, I am moving my specimens to a 29 gallon plumbed to a 450 gallon system which essentially functions as a refugium and has a large skimmer. I don't think anymore that organisms from the refugia will feed these animals, but I use them as nutrient export, along with a large skimmer. With several animals in a 29 gallon, I will be able to target feed heavily on a closed system, and then open it up to water exchange once a day. I am going to target density of about 6 million cells/ml of mixed live phytoplankton cultures, and additional oyster eggs to tolerance of the system. Water movement is 20-30 tank volumes/hr, but I may replace the powerheads with a wave2K as my experience with this surge device on a control dendro looks promising.

Any comments?

I

[DonJasper]

Originally posted by charles matthews
Any comments?

Don't rule out skimmate as a target food source.

Some thought was given to using that for infamous Goniopora sp. corals.
- - - - - -
Water flow seems rather on the low side.
Gulf Stream tops out a one meter per second. http://www.deos.tudelft.nl/altim/gulfstream/
as do others:
http://www.dlwc.nsw.gov.au/care/water/estuaries/factsheets/physical/movement.html

The ebb and flow of the tides maxs out at something like half a meter per second:
http://co-ops.nos.noaa.gov/currents05/
Drill down and look at the data for an indivisual stations - the summary data is all about height. Data is in knots so you'll have to convert. Knot ~ 0.518 m / s

Even tidal creeks in Charleston have a max flow of 1 ft/sec, and an average of say 3 inches/second!
http://www.charlestonempact.net/learning/whatwemeasure.aspx

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=233487

You did ask. ;)

[DonJasper]

PS - For those curious how their own systems stack up.

Take the length of your aquarium devided by the gallons (allowing for rocks and sand). That gives you the number of gallons per inch across your tank. Ok so multiply that number by say 3 - this gives the numbers of gallons of water you'll have to shift (left to right) to move the entire water column 3 inches. Moving that much water every second will cause a flow of 3 inches/second in your tank.

Now calculate it in gallons per hour - and you'll find a huge number.

"Ten times turnover rate my *ss"

[MadTownMax]

Oh well......who needs sand anyway ;)

[graveyardworm]

OK let me see if I have this right, 90 gal tank - LR and sand guesstimate leaves me with 75 gal.
48 inches divided by 75 gal = .64 gals per in.
.64 gals per inch x 3 = 1.92
move 1.92 gals per sec = 3 in. per sec total movement
1.92 gals per sec x 60 = 115.2 gals per minute
115.2 gals per minute x 60 = 6912 gals per hour

That's a total turnover of 76.8 times per hour?

Did I do this right?

[nickb]

Actually, the first step should be to divide the volume by the length (not the length by the volume as given in Don's initial posting). That tells you how much volume is contained in a 3" length of the aquarium and which must be replaced every second to get 3"/sec flow rate.

In graveyardworm's example, it works out to 16,875 GPH or nearly 200 times turnover per hour. Wow!

[graveyardworm]

Thats one huge overflow.

RC overflow calc @ 16,000 GPH

Drain pipe diameter 5.22 in. sounds do-able, now all I need is a pump.
:)

[nickb]

And 242 linear inches of overflow :-)

[salty joe]

Is this a typical scenario in the ocean?

A surge of water, a brief lull, a surge of water, a brief lull, and so on.

If it is typical, what kind of timeframe would be reasonable between a surge and a lull?

[MadTownMax]

Salty - more of a sweep back and forth, more or less - over say 30-seconds for a complete cycle

[graveyardworm]

Back to Dendros for a minute, I think that at the depths most of them are found at they are subject to a more linear flow rather than a sweeping back and forth motion. There may be some pulsing to the flow but I believe it would be a more or less a constant flow. So I guess the question is how much flow is typical at these depths?

[reefclown]

Hi Folks,
nice to find a denro thread :) I've been looking nepths since reading up on the GARF site.

The problem I anticipated was that they would be unsuited to a bare bottom system, after some tips from bomber I'm now more confident that a BB system offers a decent environment.

I run a softies/lps system with a fairly heavy fish load so feed a wide variety of foods. Unlike with an SPS system, I do not syphon the base, I simply allow for some low flow spots and have 2 pumps on a timer that blast the settled detritus back into the water column, this causes a detrius storm that lasts about 45 min before the water is clear again. Flow is high for a softies system, with 2 6100 tunze streams, a tunze 4002 powerhead and an ehiem 1060 pump.

The storm IMO provides an excellent array of particle sizes and food varieties and also ensures the skimmer is kept busy.

The system is heavily wet skimmed. Water changes are essentially from replacement of skimmed water and ro/di topup.

I picked up the following specimens in Nov 2004, this is how they currently look.


Id's would be appreciated



http://www.ultimatereef.net/uploads/ndend2.jpg http://www.ultimatereef.net/uploads/ndend4.jpg http://www.ultimatereef.net/uploads/ndendr3.jpg http://www.ultimatereef.net/uploads/ndendro1.jpg http://www.ultimatereef.net/uploads/ndendro5.jpg


Can't say that I've seen any growth as yet, 4 months is no time at all, a year I guess will give some kind of indication.

The one thing I don't feed is live phyto, in your experience does it make a noticeabe difference and does it require changes to the system to be utlised effectively.

200x turnover is absolute madness, it would strip the specimens from the rock IMO, a lower volume more linear flow as per graveyardworm would be more feasible.

I like Charles concept of a species tank plumbed into a core system, that can be fed heavily and flushed into the core system for feeding the other inhabitants, anyone else using something similar to increase contact number?

[mcox33]

beautiful can I get a frag of the stravberry or real red, the yellow and the orange.

[mcox33]

I've had the pink and purple for almost a year now.

[craab]

beautiful carnations reefclown

[craab]

I have an off topic question concerning DT's that maybe somebody can answer. I accidently froze it by putting into the freezer instead of the fridge after I used it the first time. It was in there long enough to turn to a solid before I realized it. Think it is ruined?

[MadTownMax]

any comments about the use of phosphate removers - I started using some phosban (aluminum-based) mixed w/ my carbon and noticed that my dendro was "deflated" more often.

I have now removed the carbon/phosban mixture, using a carbon filter pad in it's place; and am closely watching my dendro for better inflation.

I've read similar reports of those w/ softies retracting their polyps when using phos-ban, and was just wondering if anyone was using phos-ban (or other aluminum based phosphate removers - the white kind), or rowaphos (Iron-hydroxide based - black) and noticed similar effects.

I also have some SPS corals in the tank - hence the want for a phosphate remover - in addition to trying to eradicate the grape caulerpa I have growing like a weed :rolleyes:.


If some of you are using rowaphos with success, I'd gladly switch.

-Nick

[graveyardworm]

I am currently using phosguard and I use it regularly, small amounts dont seem to create any distress in corals 1 - 1 1/2 cups in my 90 seems okay. I recently put alot in (about 3 cups) to kick a dino outbreak, and I started to notice the pulsing xenia didnt pulse quite as much and they just didnt look right, there were no other immediate effects, after about two weeks with it in it came time to change my MH, I properly acclimated everything but I noticed some LPS, and softies starting to turn brown, I dont think its the lights. After reading an article in Coral magazine I belive whats happening is phosphate limitation so yesterday I cut back on the phosgaurd. We'll see what happens.

Excellent pics reefclown.

[DonJasper]

Originally posted by nickb
nearly 200 times turnover per hour. Wow!

(Thanks for the error catch!)

Yea kinda caught me off-guard to.

Feather dusts are prodigious feeders of phytoplankton. So if we apply the same idea to Deodronephthya sp. and speculate that they are heavy feeders. (Why wouldn't they be?) With our new found realization about just how much food a 12"/second current flow could bring in (and waste removed). And what it takes to achieve 12"/sec. We can perhaps realize that we ain’t in Kansas no more.

So if the 'secret' to keeping Deodronephthya sp. isn't some potion added to near stagnant water (stagnant from the Deodronephthya sp. point of view) - are we still serious about Deodronephthya sp.?

[DonJasper]

Originally posted by reefclown
200x turnover is absolute madness, it would strip the specimens from the rock IMO, a lower volume more linear flow as per graveyardworm would be more feasible.

Get real! 200x is about 3"/second (which is what I've got).

The sand at the botton of my tank can been seen shifting around a very little. I mean very little. So given that 3"/sec barely registers on real life current velocities - how much is the sand shifting around in real life?

If you stick your hand in the water - you can tell which way the flow is only if you concentrate. Hardly enough to start blowing life off rock.

The trick, of course, is to convert the "super sonic water jets" put out by powerheads and pumps into a laminar-like flow. Manifolds are one way, but there are others.

[MadTownMax]

in real life, tidal and seasonal changes can move a sand bar from one part of the reef to a completely different part - but I don't think that dendro's are in that type of biotope.....

With this kind of flow expected I think I may try getting more flow to mine - I'll see what I can do, we'll give those SPS reefers a run for their money if we're aiming for 200X :D.

[rcmike]

I am interested in all this as well. I got a frag at the Cincinnati Ohio frag swap from mcox33 I think. At first I was skeptical about getting it but after she told me of the success she was having I figured I would give it a shot. I am sure it is possible to have success with them. Possibly some factor we haven't even thought of yet.

[graveyardworm]

I'd just like to point out an observation. If you look at the pics posted by reefclown, all of the corals except one appear to have feather-like polyps. In this pic http://www.ultimatereef.net/uploads/ndendro1.jpg
there is an orange one in the front a little out of focus, but it's polyps appear to be more like little hairs. This one looks identical to mine and I believe it to be suited to a different type of prey which I have yet to identify.

A couple questions for reef clown. Would it be possible to get a better pic of this one? If not am I correct about the polyps?

It appears to be deflated, how has it been doing compared to the other ones, and how long have you had it?

[craab]

i think it might be part camera/part deflated to give that hair like appearance, imo

[DonJasper]

Originally posted by MadTownMax
but I don't think that dendro's are in that type of biotope.....

I didn't mean to distract the thread, but wanted an example to highlight just how pathetic the water flow is we have to work with.

And it follows that maybe Deodronephthya sp. is more sensitive about water flow than the corals we can keep in our tanks. Perhaps if we could provide it a moderate amount of water flow - maybe a foot or two per second - it might do better.

Could it be that the water flow that Deodronephthya sp. needs is more than our glass boxes can stand (before the force of the water breaks them apart)??
:lol:

Consider keeping a high-light coral alive using NO fluorescent bulbs - not gunna work out too good. So maybe instead of high-light Deodronephthya sp. is a high-flow coral.

[graveyardworm]

Originally posted by MadTownMax
I'm pretty sure DT's changed their phyto so that people could not use it to start their own cultures - has something to do w/ using three different types of phyto so that they out-compete eachother and cause cultures to crash. I know I was never successfull in getting anything started using DT's - and my system is so small it does not make it economical to make my own - I only use about a tablespoon a day.... Originally posted by graveyardworm
You could be right, so far the threads I searched which indicated it could be done were fairly recent I believe. I started the culture 2-2 liter bottles on 2-27 at 3:00 pm. I've never done this before so I dont know how they should look at this point, they dont appear to be much greener, but it is a little bit. I know it takes about a week for it to run out of food and become really green. I'll be sure to let you know how it goes. :)

It has now been 9 days since I started my first phyto culture with Dt's and FAF micro algae grow. The bottles are much greener, but not quite as green as the mature bottles pictured on Flame Angels site. I can also see some spots where particles have begun to settle. I am going to attempt to split one bottle in half to start two new cultures and see if it gets greener this time. :)

[graveyardworm]

Chek out the pic that was just posted in the newbie forum.http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~krayzie/tank2.jpg
To bad its not their own tank, something just doesnt look right about it though.
I'd like to know what their secret is.

[mcox33]

I want orange and yellow and why not the red, I just have pink and purple.

[craab]

Where are your dendro's placed in reference to light recieved? Are they in the shade? in light?

I have mine hanging from an overhang but it has begun to crest straight out and into light. I recently added a 70 watt halide to my nano tank, went from 56 watts to 126watts and now my carnation is starting to not look as healthy. Do you think the light that it is getting is too much now?

I know they are non-photosynthetic, but maybe they have a preference for the light they do recieve as in they prefer shade, or just have no general preference at all.

[TaterInTheSouth]

I have mine just inside a cave, They get about 50/50 light. I have
been feeding DTs, Marine Snow and PhytoPlex as well the Fallout from
feeding fish and LPSs. I have all of my rockwork supported by a
manifold with a moderate flow underneath.

<img src="http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y23/TaterInTheSouth/Shadows.jpg" alt="Image hosted by Photobucket.com">

[TaterInTheSouth]

Hey!!! It WORKED!!

[graveyardworm]

I think as far as lights concerned you wouldnt necessarily be talking about shade from the light, but more in terms of light spectrum. The deeper you get the more violet the light becomes, so while shade from the light might be important I would think shade from actinic bulbs, or just some low watt actinic bulbs.

[MadTownMax]

Originally posted by graveyardworm
Chek out the pic that was just posted in the newbie forumTo bad its not their own tank, something just doesnt look right about it though.
I'd like to know what their secret is.

That's from an old "Japonese Tank" thread, looks strange b/c they use an array of lighting to accent each coral's specific color - I think there are about 12 Halide lights on that tank - if you search for it there is a diagram showing how the lights are arranged, and what the relative wattages are (70-250W)

I'm not totally sure, but I think that specific tank was put togather by a store for advertisement purposes - probably just pulled corals from their separate tanks and arranged them like flowers in a boquet - it's a beautyful tank though.

[reefclown]

Love to send you folks some frags, but don't think they like travelling cross continent much.

I need to get hold of a better macro to get some closer shots, as most of the specimens are mid tank.


AFAIAA, some species of dendro grow in full light whilst the majority thrive in subdued overhangs. There is probably a wealth of literature posted during the 80's/90's but for some reason this seems to drop off in the new millenium :rolleyes:

FWIW, I use 70W halides primarily, but attempt to employ shading wherever possible, 140w of philips 03 actinics are on 14hr daily though (primarily aesthetic).

Would be great if all could share some of the more usefull references that they have uncovered as well as maybe produce a species reference somewhat more expansive than the wetmedia one which reefers could add their comments to. A forum would probably best suit this purpose.

here's a few oldies to get the ball rolling , some interesting observations re phyto feeding and flow.

some earlier thoughts from EricB

http://www.reefs.org/library/aquarium_net/1296/1296_4.html

more recent from from charlesB

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/jan2002/feature.htm

wetmedia ref

http://www.wetwebmedia.com/nephtheids.htm

It's at times like these that I wish I had more time and money and extensive diving experience.:mixed: :rollface:

[craab]

good reading

[craab]

anybody elses cresting like mine? I glued it under the overhang when I first got it, and about a month later it grew out under the overhang.

http://www.tankblog.com/temp/crested.jpg

[kenny77]

i have mine on a cave and so far it is spreaind on the rock. when i got it it was as small as the piece on the right and now it has double it size and reproduce a couple of time. im thinking on getting a few more Scleronephthya and Dendronephthya since i still have about 5 cave left. so far i feed the tank live phyto every other day

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y35/KennyReef/Kennys%20Reef%20Tank/PinkCarnation1.jpg
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y35/KennyReef/Kennys%20Reef%20Tank/PinkCarnation2.jpg

[graveyardworm]

Hi Kenn, looks great. Do you have any more recent photos to compare?

Could you give us a better tank description ( livestock, equipment, params )?

[DonJasper]

I'd add: How long have you had it? (if less than a year then keep at it and let us know when it's been a year) And what do you think that you're doing different than a conventional reek tank?

[Stbringer]

I have used the Phyto Feast, and love it for a lot of things.
I only have pink and orange scleros.
The real key for mine seems to be location (flow).
They like it dirty, and stirring the bottom makes them the happiest.

[graveyardworm]

Well I've moved my Dendro specs out of the tank they were in and into a well established 10 gal that I've had running with only a brittle star, peppermint shrimp, and a pile of LR rubble. So far the only filtration has been LR with an Emperor bio wheel set up for circulation.

Last night I fed the tank with a few drops of selcon and noticed a feeding response from the dendro. I'm sure other people have tried this stuff, but I cant find much about it. Anyone with experience let me know what your results were please.

[graveyardworm]

Has any progress been made with getting a predatory coral forum up?

[charles matthews]

From what I understand, the organizers are going to determine how much use we get as a thread before turning to a column.

Regarding Selco, Peter Wilkins talked about using some product that sounds similar, about two or three times a week. He also stirred gravel frequently- the exact frequency isn't disclosed. He is reputed to have kept them for 8 years running (per Anthony Calfo).

I am presently feeding live phytoplankton, which everyone has tried, but also squeezing a sponge into the tank. I keep three larage sponges suspended in the 120 gallon, and squeeze all of them twice daily or sometimes every eight hours. A milky fliud drains out, presumably bacteria and cell fragments. I am also feeding the chromis (9 of them) heavily on granular yeast and other things. I get the strongest feeding response I have observed from the sponge technique.

I moved the several dendros I had in a 29, and one I had in a 120 cryptic in front of a wave 2K, to the 120 where they are three feet away from a Tunze 2002 Stream. They like it here better than the other places. I am thinking that they need very good oxygenation and need the circulation.

I also think the temps need to stay at 78 max. Peter Wilkins has made the same observation, and actually writes that for all the anthozoans but especially for those of deep water, they actually do better at 20-22 degrees C! I find this plausible. I may end up buying a chiller.

Charles

[DonJasper]

Something to consider: another way to simulate zooplankton.
A powerhead blowing through egg crate.

What I've noticed is that 'stuff' eventually grows on the egg crate, and then gets worked free by the water flow. The result is that I've got scads of particulate matter 24x7. Even occasional full grown 'pods, hairworms, all kinds of stuff. Must be lots of algae pieces as there’s algal growth on the egg crate. I keep meaning to look at a sample of the water column under magnification – but just haven’t got around to it.

While I don't have specifically have a powerhead and egg crate - you get the idea. High water flow through a mesh of some sort.

[Gargausius]

I don't know about suggesting this. But I just came to a realization one day recently. Do most of these Dendronephthya come from the Red Sea? If so, wouldn't it make a lot more sense to make the water hyper-saline like it is in the Red Sea? So, instead of 1.025-1.027 which is fine for Indo-Pacific corals, shouldn't it be more like 1.027-1.030?

I've also kind of wondered about the current regimen. I've noticed Dendronephthya sp. corals don't like currents that blow perpendicular to it, but rather it seems to prefer currents that move against the direction of which the coral is growing. In other words, if the coral is growing upwards, it seems to like currents that are coming downwards.

I've also observed how this coral doesn't like to be exposed to the air. They more often than not, for me at least, tend to deflate badly if that was done to them.

Now, I don't know what they're eating, but these corals can be observed feeding in the aquarium. I'm uncertain of whether there is a viable amount of suitable food particles, but the polyps do react violently to something that comes onto it. Although nobody has been able to disclose the exact species of phytoplankton these corals feed on in nature, they are for certain feeders of phytoplankton. Zooplankton the size of baby brine shrimp is rejected because they're too big for the polyps to consume.

I've also noticed that they get monstrously large if the temperatures are a little closer to 72 degrees F.

Let me know what you guys think.

[Gargausius]

You know what's funny. I also had good results from keeping this coral near a skimmer. It obviously still died, but they didn't deflate like the ones I've put in the actual aquarium. Maybe it has something to do with the direction of the current since in many skimmer designs the output water flow is downwards.

A Dendronephthya coral I kept back in the day was kept under the flow of a hang on the back filter. The thing lasted 3 months total. It started to melt away after 2 months, and had deflated badly, but after a large partial water change with water that wasn't heated, it perked right back up and lived on for another month.

Apparently this coral is also very resilient.

Lighting never seemed to be an issue.

[graveyardworm]

It's way to soon for me to make any determinations, but it seems that there has been growth with the feeding of selcon. I've only been doing it for a week, but where the size of my polyps are so small even a small amount of growth should be noticeable.

I'd also like that on the rock with my dendro I'm beginning to see what appears to be tunicates where there were none before. I'll be posting some pics.

[charles matthews]

I am very interested in the observations about temperature. How long did you keep them at 72 degrees? This is really interesting. Peter Wilkins agrees. I think I am seeing a negative effect around 80 degrees and aim for 78, but I haven't gone lower.

It does make sense that lowering their metabolic needs would be helpful, as long as they feed as regularly.

I agree, bu the way, that gravel stirring produces a strong response. The sponge squeezing also produces a great response. I stir gravel, squeeze sponges, feed cyclopeez to the fish, feed omega 3 fatty acid and vitamin soaked small shrimp to the Tubastrea sitting on top of a powerhead close to the surface,
add a small pinch of golden pearls, and when everything is inflated, I add live phytoplankton until the water is slightly green. Unfortunately, all of this clears within 30 minutes or so. Mine are about six months old- most seem to be stable or growing, and frags are all slowly adding polyps and size.

Watch for Aiptasia with all the feeding!!

More information about temperature please!

[charles matthews]

a few other observations. I have investigated flow extensively. I agre with Mary that they need a four foot tank- and the reason is the flow. They like laminar flow, about 6 inches/second. Surge doesn't work, I've looked at this carefully; also, the polyps adapt to flow, and reversing flow doesn't work. Just steady current at 6 inches per second, far away from a power head or use a Turbelle stream.

Also, eggcrate and detritus doesn't work. There are a number of ways to do this sort of thing- but basically, this floc doesn't seem to work. Much better to lightly stir the top of the gravel. Also, squeeze a sponge twice daily (not one from a filter, but one passively hung in the aquarium). Too much turbidity is not appreciated, and large particles can be irritating.

They are indifferent to light- both in my experiments and in the wild. They have been observed growing on fish cages in bright sunlight, where heavy food is given to the fish.

Live phyto should be fed (see the scientific literature, Fabricius et al) but will not be sufficient. In my experiemnts, live stays suspended better, and for some reason (I'm not sure it makes sense) the water quality is better. I recommend trying to feed at least twice daily, after obtaining a feeding response with gravel stirring and sponge squeezing, and Selco or similar soaked material fed to fish or Tubastrea.

I recommend fragging new arrivals, place the frag on coarse gravel- don't worry about flow until they attach in 5-10 days. They can even be placed in a pvc tube leaned against where you want them to attach. Save the pvc! any attached holdfasts sprout babies.

Temperature is probably important! I'm going to go down lower than 78 and see- 76 degrees first- there are reports from Wilkins that all anthozoans do better down to 20-22 degrees C (I think this works out to 68-70 degrees in real measurements!).

Charles

[DonJasper]

I'll ponder ways to simulate / produce zooplankton. If I can come up with something that's not already well known - I'll post it here. The sponge idea is a good one, and might be a (the?) solution. I've sorta figured if there's anything lacking in their captive diet - it's going to be zooplankton.

Feel free to ignore my (future) ramblings if they don't seem to apply :-) I'll be lurking with interest.

[Gargausius]

Kept it in a sump without a heater for three months. Temperatures were obviously much cooler down there than in my sps tank. Got really f-in' huge! It was about 8-10 inches tall or taller! Stayed fully inflated most of the time. Yes, the sump water was hyper-saline at times as well.

[Gargausius]

I want to try for a species Dendronephthya tank with nothing but these corals in the distant future as well. I've always tinkered with the idea that they're not very strong producers of powerful toxins in chemical warfare with other corals. It makes sense since they don't smell as bad as many of the more toxic soft corals available in the market. They obviously don't have powerful nematocysts and don't handle large zooplankton well either, making them easy targets for many soft corals, sps and lps corals.

[charles matthews]

Gargausius- any estimate of the tamp of that sump? And what finally happened to the dendro? And what did it look like? What were you feding?

Tonight in my 120 gallon dendro tank I found about a 2 inch area of destruction on a sclero that was doing beautifully. There was a snail on the area- not the "ice snail" described by Wilkins, and it didn't blend in- I thought it was the snail. I just went back in to check, and there was a small crab there, eating tissue. Thinking about it, I am pretty sure it was the crab.

I think the whites, and definitely the parts of the slero that were not damaged- are expanding better at 76 than at 80. I am going to stay at the 74-76 range, strictly below 77F. I lost one red rather soon after importation, too fast for starvation alone- ?a little starvatoin and a lot of metabolism?

I have noticed that they atach beautifully to artificila surfaces, as described by Fabricius in the literature- they grow well on oil derricks and shipwrecks, sticking out into the current. One thing that may be happening is irritation of the polyps by night crawling critters. I have seen ostracods interfering with polyp expansion at night. I am getting a new shipment in on Tuesday of three more color morphs, and will frag them immediately. I am going to zip-tie some curved 1.5 inch clear hose onto the tank divider so that it curves onto the wall of the tank, and place the frag in there and let it attack to the wall. I have about four frags placed on the bottom next to the wall that have visible attached to the glass and are spreading. It's very intresting to watch and they seem to do well there. I suspect the elvation wil do them good.

If you look in Paletta's book on reef examples, there is one guy thre who has kept a "long lived red dendro". I called him- he kept it well over a year. He has a mud sump and fed everything. I noted later that his temps were on the cool side for a reef (I think the book said 75-78F). He said that they "prefer the upper tird of a tank"- and he had worked with them a lot. That fits with the idea of keeping them cool and attached to the side walls.

Another way to elevate them is to wedge the frag into the top of a rigid PVC pipe and stand it up against the glass. The frag would attach to both, I think, and the pipe could be cut away later. When I did this with a short pipe on sand with the white dendros that come with gravel on the bottom, there was extensive growth of holdfasts onto the pipe. I removed it from the pipe later, but kept the pipe. I now have at least five "babies" growing out of some residual holdfast material, and they are very healthy appearing. So, elevating them in a PVC pipe might be a very good way to propagate them. In fact, the PVC pipe could just be separated after a month or so, and moved to another spot on the wall.

I am currently re-doing my cryptic 120- nothing grew well in it. It had a wave2K and a large algae scruber- the algae scrubber didn't keep up with the Chaetomorpha refugiums, and the dendros don't like the Wave2k. I am going to turn the 120 into another photosynthetic refugium.

Some observations watch for Aiptasia! In a heavily fed tank, they will rapidly get out of control. It's possible that they don't bother dendros though- I have seen no ill effects (has anyone else?). Also, heavy feeding tends to bind up coarse gravel, and it will have to be stirred. I haven't had that problem with the fine Southdown sand refugium. However, I suspect that stirring detritus from coarse sand is more nutritious- some of the fine sand particles will get suspended and possibly are irritating. I get a better feeding response from coarse gravel stirring. However, I am happy with the sponge technique now.

My present regimen- fed the chromis yeast granules; then some cyclopeez; and feed the Tubastrea some selco-soaked small shrimp; pull a sponge or two out of the water, gibvint a little wave and some cloudy material; then the dendros come out and begin feeding; I will do some other chores (I dose trace elements into the refugia and add pickling lime as a slurry two teaspoons to a pickling lime jar with five drops of silica and a teaspoon of vinegar, to tapwater, shake and pour into sump twice daily). when that's done I feed the Tubastrea some more, and then add DT's phytopoankton until I get a green color. I do this twice daily.

By the way, possibly important observation- has anyone noticed that live phytoplankton does not visibly get into the skimmer, whereas paste does? Dennis Tagrin has reported no skimmer uptake using a downdraft of live phyto but didn't compare to paste. When I switched from paste to live, I got a dramatic change in the sk9immate, which no longer looks like phytoplankton- and in fact, there is very little skimmate at all now. Very different. Any comments? I've emailed Eric Borneman and Dennis Tagrin about this- any of you seeing this?

[aguabeast]

Ive been doing quite a bit of research on Nepthea-type coral care, and have decided to give it an earnest go. Much of the information Ive come across has been traced back to the same- Few- original sources, so I was quite happy to find this thread providing new, current, and constantly changing info from tanks-in-progress. Kudos to yall for that.

I thought I would add my own thoughts and experiences with this project/experiment as the tank develops, hopeing that I can help out members in this group, and that yall can give me some feedback as you feel like it.

The aquarium Im using is actually one of several well established reef displays that have been around for years in the LFS I work at; Ive just been overhauling and modifying the tank to better suit the corals I want to house now, so the tank is biologically very stable. I am using a 75 gallon w/ corner box containing approx 60lbs Fiji and Tonga live rock and a +/- 3" super fine grain sand bed. The rock is arranged with a large open space in the front, smaller open spaces to each side, and a rock wall that curves up and in from the bottom sides capped with a hanging cave of liverock (supported by PVC running across 2 crossbeams) that spans the middle 2/3 of the tank. There are 4 powerheads of various size scattered around the tank, hooked up to a Red Sea wavemaker, which provides good circulation with a decent surge (for the other corals in the tank). There is also a 12" spraybar running along the top back of the cavetop that runs almost constantly. I will be adding another large circulation pump, T'd off 2 or 3 times sitting in the bottom of the cave with the returns all aimed at the back wall of the tank with an upward angle- the aim here is to create heavy flow curling through the back of the cave out towards the front and across hanging dendros in a way that will provide an even, constant, heavy flow- without the problems of individual powerhead streams hitting the coral directly (think of it as a crude form of upwelling).

The tank is actually rather bright- it sits facing a 40' long glass wall that faces the South- its blinding up there in summer lol. The tank is lit more directly by 2-65wt actinic PCs and 2-65wt 50/50 PCs (and a single moonlight LED for fun). Ive been asked several times if the corals will react poorly to such lighting, but in my experience, and with the research Ive found, they shouldnt care that much about intense lighting, as long as there is sufficient food, and algae is not allowed to grow on the coral itself. As I mentioned, there is a cornerbox- the tank runs through a sump (no bioballs) that I pretty much just use to hide equipment. Im currently running a ProClear 75 skimmer in there. Im leary to use a larger skimmer because of the posibility of some dendros being pure chemotropes, so I dont want to remove a Ton of organic matter. Water quality is coming out perfectly clean regardless, despite very heavy feeding. A 10-15% weekly waterchange is done to make sure levels dont get too out of whack.

Current tank residents: Potters Angel, Rainfordi Goby, Male Watanabei Angel (looking for a mate), and a single Blueeye Glass Cardinal (with about 10 in quarentine to join him soon). It will be a fairly heavy bioload, but again, my thought is potentially free food in the form of detritus and bacteria (again- weekly water changes).

There are a number of palythoa and protopalythoa in the tank that I couldnt bring myself to take out- weve had them forever. There are also: 1 Deresa Clam, 1 Koko Worm, 2 black-1 pure yellow- 3 orange Tubastrea colonies, 1-small patch Anthelia, 3 Dendronephthya, and 3 unidentified Nephthea types (I think sclero, but who knows), and 3 deepwater Acropora sp. All are currently in great shape- inflated well and all respond to food when it is offered.

I may try the sponge method for collecting some food- good idea. Currently, I feed heavily with a slury of DTs live phyto, frozen Cyclopeeze that I grind into a liquid (more size appropriate for the dendros), and... the juice of several handfulls of squeezed macroalgae (I have tons of sawtooth- it harbors a lot of detritus, bacteria, algae, asst microfauna- it gives a great brown runoff that I blend with the other food- same Idea as the sponge method I suppose). As I said, all colonies give a feeding response, but who knows if the dendro/scleros are actually consuming it.

YOURE STILL READING THIS LONG POST- GOOD FOR YOU, YOURE PATIENT! LOL

I believe my feeding method may work for a few reasons, please tell me if this logic is really flawed. Each of the Dendronephthyas has a number of brittle starfish that are colored to match their host perfectly living among the corals branches. This leads me to believe that these particular individual corals came from an area with a significant amount of largeish particles suspended in the water, which the stars were able to feed on. This may point to the idea that these corals also fed on relativly larger particles rather than feeding on bacteria or straight chemicals since they were available. The Unidentified coral colonies each have small living barnacles buried into their tissue, which leads me to think they may have come from areas rich in phyto or other small, but still not necessarily nano-sized food particles. Do these guesses seem reasonable?

OK, I dont think Ill ramble on more right now. The newest corals have been in the tank nearly a week at this point, so it is really WAY too early to tell if there will be any success with this endevour. I will post some pics later on when I can get them if anyone is interested in seeing the tank as it is now. ~Aaron

[nickb]

Very interesting thread.

Charles, have you posted a detailed description of your 120G dendro tank set-up? Skimmer type, lighting, tank inhabitants, substrate used, etc.? Any photos we could see?

[Fredfish]

Charles. How long have you been doing the sponge squeezing? Have you noticed the appearance of any unusual sponges in your tank since you began?

I wonder if this feeding method would be suitable for other hard to keep animals like sponges or tunicates?

aguabeast. I may be wrong on this, but I believe that when you see two organisms occupying the same niche it is because they are taking advantage of different foods available. If they were competing for food, one or the other would dominate. This opinion is partly based on an article by Dr. Ron on Species diversity where he talked about specializing on a food source as a way for an organizm to get away from direct competition for food.

Fred.

[aguabeast]

I believe that when you see two organisms occupying the same niche it is because they are taking advantage of different foods available. If they were competing for food, one or the other would dominate.

Yeah, I had thought about that aspect too. I know there are instances where 2 organisms may be located in the same area and feed on completely different food sources, so they dont compete with eachother. At the same time, I know of situations where there is simply such an abundance of a particular type of food that several species that feed on the same prey items are able to coexist. I mostly just HOPE that this case will be the second situation- lol.

[DonJasper]

Originally posted by aguabeast
Ive been asked several times if the corals will react poorly to such lighting, but in my experience, and with the research Ive found, they shouldnt care that much about intense lighting,

That's your opinion - the corals themselves might disagree with you. After all - why should corals care about temperature?

Maybe light is like temperature. Too much temperature - and they die. So too much light - and they die. Maybe they need to be kept in utter black to survive.

Originally posted by aguabeast
Do these guesses seem reasonable?

Nothing that hasn't been tried before, by many other people. Over and over again. Too much "in the box" to have much hope.

Ask yourself: What is keeping <i>Deodronephthya sp.</i> from taking over the entire ocean? And maybe it's not something that we're lacking, but something we have that is giving us such an exceptionally consistant success rate with them. I mean even with Goniapora (sp) there are isolated pockets of success.

[aguabeast]

Nothing that hasn't been tried before, by many other people. Over and over again. Too much "in the box" to have much hope.

Cant try what nobody knows to do- any positive suggestions?

[Gargausius]

Dendronephthya in my sump died. But it took an awfully long time, around 3 months solid. That sucker was, like I said, nearly a foot tall! Stayed inflated most of the times. Spicules still fell off, but it didn't deflate completely. Thing sways a lot, but not directly because of the current, it just likes to sway. The expansion was so great, I could see the tissues in between the spicules on the branches look translucent.

[Gargausius]

There was also a new baby colony at the base. This one also had a drastically fast rate of growth and expansion. Within that time frame, it went from 1/4" to almost 3/4" tall.

[DonJasper]

Originally posted by aguabeast
Cant try what nobody knows to do- any positive suggestions?

Total blackout conditions.
Water temps in the low 70's.
Water movement in excess of 12" / second
Overfeed a lit tank causing permanent 24x7 algae / cyanobateria bloom conditions. ** See below.

Or for a more useful approach:
Split a tank in two so you have a test area and control. See which causes them to die faster:
-- Add fertilizer to one side. High N / P conditions? ** Tie in to above
-- Connect up one side so water from a normal reef tank flows through it versus isolated.
-- Well lighted and blackout
-- Warm and cool temps
-- Water exposed to air, water covered.

The issue is not imagination, but will and perseverance. Like Edison and his light bulb - with years of trail and error – I think that the path to success will be finding out what kills them and not doing it anymore. I'm morally bankrupt enough to know what the road to hell is paved with, and know that all I'll ever contribute is good intentions. But if one was looking for a useful role: replicating the observations already made for confirmation would be useful. Like Dr.(?) Matthews, if you post your observations / results here I'll be lurking with interest.

[charles matthews]

Aaron- I am sure they don't mind light. They have been observed growing in full sunlight in Philippine aquaculture fish cages, where the fish are heavily fed. I don't see a difference in my tanks. Watch the algae, though- practically, you havae to be able to turn off the lights to control algae, I think.

I think some of the benthic creatures slightly irritate some polyps, so I was considering a Rainfordi myself. Any polyp piocking activity noted?

I have been squeezing a sponge on and off for over a year. I have been working with various materials. The coarser materials such as DLS produce larger floc. I like the large sponges that go on the aquaclear filters- I am now using five in a 120, lifted out of the water twice daily. I have very vigorous sponge growth, but I'm feedling lots of other things too, including dosing silica.

I wonder about liquifying macroalgae- you know about caulerpacin? they do contain chloroplasts, etc. I think the dendros like the epiphytic matter better- at least they respond to it. there are diatoms and others there-

Regarding species sorting, theysort to food as well as space. The dendros project out, the sponges don't. But I don think that allows the dendros to get first shot at larger particles.

Nick- I have a seven tank setup interconnected, all for dendros and related organisms. Currently one is a sump, and five are experimental refugia. I keep all animals in the same tank (expect for the sea apple and cucumber). I ahve a large skimmer Beckett injected, but as I feed oils (fish oil on the freeze dried food for the Tubastrea) the skimmer produces very little. I havae one 29 gallon Chaetomorpha and sine sand refugium under intense PC lighting 24 hours/day; one 75 with 8 Southdown sand under 4 t5 tubes right over the surface and I have torn out the Caulerpa and replaced it with Chaetomorpha; one 120 cryptic which I think has been useless and I have taken out the algae scrubber and will light with 4 PC tubes and will probably add Chaetomorpha too; and a 120 gallon with MH lights (250 and 400 very blue) that are kept off recently to suppress algae. I have about a dozed dendros in there.

Nick- Keep that residual baby dendro! Exactly how did that dendro die?

Charles

[Herpervet]

Nice to see progress with these creatures. It has always bugged me to hear folks make statments that they "should be left in the ocean"

Certainly no one should try them without properly researching and being prepared to experiment.

On the otherhand people pretty much said we would never keep Acropora sp. in tanks 25 years ago.

So much for the soap box.

Mainly I wanted to ask if anyone has considered Prochlorococcus sp. as potential food sources for these and other aposymbiotic corals?

It appears they are a hot topic in marine ecology (and ecology across the board)

http://biology.kenyon.edu/Microbial_Biorealm/bacteria/prochlorococcus/prochlorococcus.htm

[aguabeast]

I think some of the benthic creatures slightly irritate some polyps, so I was considering a Rainfordi myself. Any polyp piocking activity noted?

Charles~

Ive not had any issues with any of the fish bothering the corals. All of the dendros are suspended in an open cave- the Rainfordi rarely, if ever, ventures that high up in the tank unless its feeding time. I was a little concerned with the angels- the Potters moreso than the Watanabei, but they seem to be leaving everything alone just fine, as are the cardinals and pipefish.

Another basic question- general consensus is that these corals tend to do best hanging. 2 of the pieces I received were not attached to a rock/base. Ive had some issues with them falling, as its difficult to secure them since they inflate and deflate so often. Im leary to attach them as I would any other soft coral (toothpicks through the base, thread, etc) because Im unsure of how they will react (and I know that with several octocorals, punctures or cuts in the wrong spot may disrupt the vascular system and destroy the corals ability to inflate itself- not sure if this is the case with Dendros). Anyone have suggestions, or am I worrying about it more than need be?

[mcox33]

put in the bottom of the tank on course sand for a few days it will attach itself to the substrate even a small rock will work just lay it against it and it will attach itself then glue the sand to a small rock and attach the small rock where you want it.

[charles matthews]

I am very happy with all of the participants in this thread, and grateful for your interest. As you know, I am attempting to get this thread moved to our own forum, if enough interest can be generated. I expect that consistsent effort by us over the next five years will generate a significant advancement in reef keeping, as well as understanding of marine ecology. I expect we will all be very happy with what we have accomplished as we look back from the year 2010.

Regarding the astute comment on Prochlorocosus/synechococcus, indeed they are very interesting creatures. I think the reasons they were misssed were significant in terms of assessing what we know- it is very easy to miss little bugs, and in general I can find little information on nonmotile eukaryotes below 50U. Energy budget estimations would suggest that the eggs and reproductive forms should outnumber the adult forms over 100u, which are typically counted in plankton net trawls. Assessments of "zooplankton uptake" for dendros in the literature used 100U mesh. I just don't know enough about these creatures. Although I doubt lack of Synechococcus is the problem, I don't know. Synechococcus can be cultured. Time will tell.

Regarding "hanging" dendros, it depends on the type. At least two types reported by Wilkins arrive on import with their holdfasts fixed in gravel. They obviously root in gravel in the upright position, and the book by Fabricius shows them growing in this position in the wild. Others, particularly the fine polyped colored varieties, come in on rocks and appear to be oriented on a vertical surface. Benayahu and Fabricius report that these forms grow best on artificial vertical surfaces, projecting out into the current- such as on oil derricks in the Red Sea or on shipwrecks. Growth here can average greater than one polyp/day on a 5-25 polyp frag!

Mary's comments and experience are invaluable. I agree that many will attach in gravel. I also have mine attach in coarse gravel, and then transfer. Affixing a larger one is a problem! I had great success putting the base down a PVC pipe. Within a few weeks I pulled them out, and the tiny holdfast fragments on the PVC pipe were saved. They are now sprouting new polyps. Interestingly, the snow white one I had left behind red new polyps. Be patient- if there is any dendro tissue on a surface, that may be your very best grower- so good that I am considering fragging some new imports down to the holdfasts and regrowing them.

I have found they do not mind rubber bands. You don't even have to try to affix the base- just rubber band the middle. It looks funny byut will rearrange after awhile. I suspect this may be a better long term method. You can rubber band to a PVC pipe and then lean it up against the glass in the upper 1/3 of the tank. When it attaches to the glass you might be able to detach the supporting PVC and "plant" other areas by moving the PVC. I am working on this now, suspect but don't know that it will work. I can get atachment of small fragments to glass, don't know how well they will stick as they grow.

I was contemplating how voarcious my Tubastrea are. I literally feed each polyp two or three times daily. Given how quickly phyto cleaars, we may just be short on food.

Two recent observations- I am almost sure that live phyto acts very differently around a skimmer, and very little is taken up. anyone else notice this difference from paste? I asked Eric borneman about it, and he thinks this may be right. We need to test this more carefully.

Another thought about skimmers. As I feed oily foods to the Tubastrea so frequiently, my skimmer doesn't skim. It may be that the skimmer issue becomes moot. As we feed sufficiently, the skimmer stops working anyway. I am using extermely intensely lit refugia with Chaetomorpha and iron supplementation and geting excellent nutrient removal. That method may be necessary for filter feeders, since the refugia deals better with iol than a skimmer. Interesting thought.

Charles

[mcox33]

I had a rock that had 2 large dendros on it. one fell off during the night right after I got it. I super glued it to a large rock (about fist size) and it has never detached.
but I only glued the very bottom surface and was careful not to let the glue touch the sides of the dendro.

[pch90265]

Charles,

My hat's off to you for setting the tone of this thread in a productive and conscientious way.

While I can't contribute significantly to the husbandry of Dendros from a practical application perspective, I have to agree that an "aposymbiotic species forum" would be awesome! I've had great success in the past with Black and "Sunny" (orange, pink, red) Tubastrea sp. and am as eager to share information on them as any of the SPS I have kept...

Reading this thread got a few neurons reignited that hadn't fired in a while, and I am curious to hear feedback on them:

1) Flow isn't a matter of moving the entire volume of your tank... for a novel way to measure flow, feed zooplankton by dropping a baster-full into your sump at the intake end of your main circulation pump. Notice that on the display side you will have exit velocities from your return plumbing that will be quite impressive in the vicinity of the outlet, but that will diminish rapidly over the length of your tank. Forcing the same GPM through a smaller pipe will increase the pressure, and also the exit velocity of the flow up to the appreciable limit of the pipe you're using. So, moving the entire volume of a 100G tank at 3" per second may be 200X turnover, moving the volume that is exiting from a .5-1.5" PVC pipe 12"/s isn't unrealistic with a high-end pressure rated pump (think about the jets in a Jacuzzi if you need a better visual.)

2) As an avid diver, you had better believe that the temps at 30-40m (where many unbelievably large Dendros are photographed)are going to be significantly lower than the 80+ deg F at which most captive reefs are maintained. In most bodies of water there is an appreciable thermocline shallower than that... so, it would make sense that Dendros like cooler temps -- which would in turn, presumably, would also lower their metabolic rate.

3) On the subject of depth... has anyone (in the broad scientific community, as well as the RC community) done research on pressure and Dendro survivability? In other words, has anyone ever kept a Dendro tank in a hyperbaric chamber? I'm not a marine- or micro-biologist, but I would have to belive that the increased pressure exerted at even 20m could have an effect on biology of an organism that is adapted to thrive at 2, 3, or even 4 atmospheres of pressure. So removing that pressure to might be a bad thing, no?

4) On that note, could dissolved nitrogen (or other gases) be one of the elements lacking for Dendro survival? The human body's ability to deal with dissolved gas uptake at depth is one of the limiting factors to surviving deep dives... Or, on the flip side, could dissolved Nitrogen/Oxygen levels be significantly different (toxic?) at surface pressures?

Again, thank you for a wonderful read on this thread. I hope to be able to contribute anecdotes on this subject from my own tanks in the not too distant future.

--Sean--

PS -- Charles, can we see pics of your seven tank system?

[charles matthews]

Sean

Thanks for your support for a possible forum dendro study group!

Regarding pressure, I don't know of any studies. Many are found close to the surface and don't particularly seem to require depth. There are a few really deepwater nephtheids which are detailed in the book by Fabricius and appear to be distinct species of many types.

Your comments on flow are certainly correct. I have done flow experiments in aquariums for years. It's a real problem both for measuring flow and creating it. Dendros like laminar current. It's almost impossible to get this from a traditional powerhead. If you put your hand in front of a powerhead you will notice the extremely constricted flow directly in front, and then "dead" spots immediately outside the stream. You can put a regular powerhead aimed at a dendro three feet away, and perhaps that will do for that spot. Dendros do not like surge or alternating flow; they orient their polyps efficiently, and then once adapted like to be left to feed.

By far the best solution for me has been the Turbelle Strean pumps. I use a 5000 gal/hour pump aimed down the middle, and toward the bottom of the tank; I also have 2000 gallons/hour of additional circulation pumps (Tunze Classic and Aquaclear 1000 gal/hr) plus about 5oo gal/hour circulation back to the refugias, all in a 120 gallon. I aim for 6 inches/second measured by particle movement at the dendro surface. I use a magnifying glass for counting particle movement.

Could you tell us about your experiences- tank setup, feeding, flow, how long they lived and how they died, frag experience, etc?

[charles matthews]

Sean-

Regarding photos, I now have a digital camera and am about to start trying photography. I have the computer skills of a chimpanzee. I plan to start keeping photographic records of observations for a book on dendro husbandry. Any help would be appreciated! I plan to take my first photos this weekend

Charles

[pch90265]

Charles,

As I mentioned, I have kept Tubastrea with great success. I'd be happy to post a few photos. All of them perished in a tank crash caused by a power outage/tank controller malfunction after 18 months in my tank. It was heart breaking.

I'd be happy to detail my husbandry of them, and show some growth photos if that is of interest.

If you want some help with photos, please let me know. I like working on Photos in Photoshop almost as much as I like browsing reefcentral for intellectually stimulating threads, so I'd be happy to help. PM me if you would like some assistance, and I can help you through cropping/resizing/posting/etc.

--SM--

[charles matthews]

Thanks, SM! I will be contacting you shortly as I expect to quickly become hopeless regarding photos.

Regarding Tubastrea- I am feeding mine by hand once or twice daily (actually tweezers). I keep mine on top of the Aquaclear powerhead (the big one ?960 GPH) so it is accessible to the open top aquarium. I feed it krill soaked in Omega-3 oil and a vitamin pill. The oil and fragments are blown downstream and across the dendros, which respond well as part of the daily or twice daily feeding regimen. Of course, the nutrient problem is significant- the skimmer collapses, and basically the refugia are carrying the load (adequately, presently). I imnitially had some tissue recession until starting hand feeding. I also feed golden pearls 5-50 microns (although the particles clump and are pratically bigger). I am getting very good return of tissue- they are getting fat as pigs.

I suspect that the dendro aquarium of the future will contain a basket for frags, including Tubastrea, which will be accessible to target feeding and will flow out to the main tank. I hope they wil spawn. My substrate is macromedia (1 inch rubble four inches deep) and crawling with isopods, so small ones may make it.

I went back and confirmed my purhcase time- most of my dendros are now 7 months old. I am keeping a careful journal. There are two types of dendros- the good ones and the bad ones- the bad ones come in on rock and have small polyps, the good ones on gravel and have larger polyps. Scleros and Neospongodes are also easy in my aquarium. All specimens are growing as evidenced by inflated size, and polyp count of frags. I guess I have about fifteen individuals, several larger sponges of various colors growing spontaneously (many more small ones), several frags. The bright purple on rock is failing, although two frags appear healthy at seven months without significant growth. A new mized color is feeding well; a new red polyp on white is more tentative. I really think this aquarium will be filled with white dendros and scleros over the next year- they seem very healthy and adding tissue and bulk- but we will see. They've been moved a number of times to optimize their feeding response, and I think they are very happy now.

[Jens Kallmeyer]

Originally posted by pch90265



2) As an avid diver, you had better believe that the temps at 30-40m (where many unbelievably large Dendros are photographed)are going to be significantly lower than the 80+ deg F at which most captive reefs are maintained. In most bodies of water there is an appreciable thermocline shallower than that... so, it would make sense that Dendros like cooler temps -- which would in turn, presumably, would also lower their metabolic rate.




HI

I am a diver myself and a marine scientist. The general experience with barophiles (pressure-dependent organisms) is, that pressure only matters if organisms come from deeper than a few thousand meters, so nothing to worry about for Dendros.
I saw a barophilic response from organisms in a sediment sample from Guaymas Basin, about 2000 m deep. The metabolic rate measured after pressurization to in situ pressure was significantly higher than at atmospheric pressure.
There is one observation that may have to do with a barophilic response, that is in a tank a friend of mine is taking care of. It is a large showtank in a bank in Germany, which is 6.3 m (ca. 19 ft) high. Some plate forming hard corals like Montipora or Echinopora make plates that are much thicker than in normal tanks. This may also have to do with the lighting, the tank hasa 18kW Metal Halides.

Cheers


Jens

[graveyardworm]

So far this thread is great, some of the things people have come up with to present food various foods blows my mind, like using a sponge and squeezing to introduce food to the system. To date my imagination is limited by my experince in the hobby.

I'd like to report back on my use of DT's to start a phyto culture. It didnt work. It never really got much greener than how it started. I will add that it didnt crash either. I've now started a new culture using Florida Farms culture disk, what a difference, the culture started off greener than my experiment with DT's ever got.

[charles matthews]

Reporting something interesting- I have tried target feeding my 7 month old white dendros with the smallest golden pearls and oyster eggs. I shake them up in a jar and administer with a syringe and air line.

I see polyp feeding, and the pharyngeal area looks full. They sure look stuffed.

However, they are not expanding 36 hours after this. They puff up a little, but the polyps stay tight.

I am thinking about the Widdig paper on pharyngeal block. Perhaps they are still digesting. I hope so, anyway.

By the way, the technique seems much better for Tubastrea. I had been hand feeding them, which of course of laborious. But simply squirting a cloud of golden pearls onto Tubastrea results in the polyps puffing up as if they were stuffed. It looks to me like the way to do it for Tubastrea. And of course it works in inaccessible places when you use a long rigid airline tube on a syringe.

[shaded]

Ok been toying with this in my head. A friend told me once that he used to add small amounts of banana milk shake (real home made) into his reef tank and the fish and corals would go crazy over it. He seemed to think bananas where high in something corals needed. So it got me thinking if we an find out what dendros require from their food (not type but the break down of vitamins fats proteins etc..) we could find possible solutions. I read something about vodka being used to reduce nitrate so could the answer for dedros be in something silly like adding sugar to our reefs :D

just a wacky idea lol input would be gd

[reefclown]

I've been toying with a way to rapidly remove the p and n added from large scale feeding. Theory has it that bacteria are carbon limited, so adding a carbon source (like vodka) creates an increase in bacterial population (decrease in oxygen, p and n), but the question still remains of the most efficient means of exporting the bacteria. If nothing else if keeps them jolly:D

Would be great if a 3 hour bacterial bloom could be efficiently exported from a system and oxygen levels not serverly depleted.:bum:

been a long night, had a few glasses, starting to sound too close to zeo, but right now still think the generic theory holds true:cool:

[MCsaxmaster]

I don't believe there is any evidence that bacteria are generally carbon limited either in our tanks, or especially in nature. This idea keeps popping up every few years, and folks think it is new everytime, but it has yet to show any merit that I've seen. Sure, folks claim that dosing vodka and such have positive effects, but folks claim all sorts of things. This doesn't mean they have a clue what is going on in their tanks. The data we have from real reefs suggests that bacteria generally are not carbon limited.

Best,

Chris

[Jens Kallmeyer]

Originally posted by MCsaxmaster
I don't believe there is any evidence that bacteria are generally carbon limited either in our tanks, or especially in nature.


Hi Chris

I think you are comparing apples (aquarium) with oranges (natural reefs). How many tanks are there, that have N and P concentrations which are as low as those found in nature? Very few I would say. Next question: How much C is bioavailable in natural Seawater, compared to aquaria? How do you measure this, either in Nature or in you tank?

Regarding nutrient limitation in the Ocean, if you go into your local University library and look for references about this subject you will find hundreds of papers dealing with this issue. Most natural systems are either P limited or Fe limited.
Just by looking at the postings in various boards here in RC or somewhere else, I think it is reasonable to assume that there are more tanks that have too high N and P levels (compared to Nature) than there are tanks with too little.

Best wishes

Jens

[graveyardworm]

I am curious if anyone has done any experimenting or feeding with any of the Liquid Life products. Over this past weekend I purchased a bottle of Liquid Life Coral Plankton, and I've been feeding at the recommended dose in my 10 gal unskimmed dendro tank, as with the selcon which I had previously tried feeding, my dendro polyps seem to be feeding I cant verify that they are getting what they need. Given some time perhaps there will be growth.

[graveyardworm]

Eric Borneman's latest article in RK mag here http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-06/eb/index.htm has me thinking alittle bit about nonphotosynthetic and their relationship to oxygen levels present in NSW and in our tanks. Since they dont contains zoo for photosynthesis or respiration then perhaps they are more dependent on O2 levels in their surrounding environment than most other corals. Maybe this could help to explain why some people are successful while others are not. Just a thought:)

Does anyone know if any studies have been done in this area to determine how dependent nonphotosynthetic corals are on proper O2 levels.

[charles matthews]

Graveyardworm- I have begun to suspect nocturnal o2 levels may be a problem for the dendros, especially as they are more heavily fed. I also note the paper by Widdig found 2.5X uptake of phyto by dendros when the water movement was driven by a (turbulent) airstone rather than a stirrer- unusual since dendros naturally tend to flourish best in laminar flow. I am about to add airstones near my colonies to test this.

Bacterial uptake of nutrients is a fascinating idea. One was is to recycle this in a sponge, then squeezed to be exported to the filter feeders or to the skimmer; another is good old sand stirring, as reported by Peter Wilkins. Note the history of RTN ascribed to sand stirring. I think sand stirring is a great idea- IF done thoughtfully. Regular sand stirring (I do it twice daily in the remote refugium) appears to be safe. Disturbing very anoxic beds does not seem safe in confined spaces of our aquaria. As an aside, I suspect the quality of the detritus from the sponges is better than that from the sand, as more refractory organics will havae no place to settle but in/on the substrate, whereas what's coming out of the passive sponge is due to bacterial growth alone.

Any suggestions for automating the sponge or sand stirring process would be appreciated. I have tried lots of ways, unsuccessfully. I am considering setting up an experimental tank (yet another one!), in which air is released under sand periodically. This may also work for so-called luxury uptake of phhosphorus, in which facultative anaerobes store phosphorus when they are reperfused.

Also- my sudden recent colony loss of 12 7 month old dendros in this system, along with sponges, was traced to my excessive dosing of Kent chelated iron. I have stopped all trace element additions except silicate.

One last thought- if your Tubastrea are not growing and spawning on what you are feeding the tank or spot feeding the dendros, it is unlikely that the dendros are getting enough food. It's amazing how much these Tubastrea eat like pigs.

[Herpervet]

I drew this up awhile back. Sorry if I already posted it to this thread. Just a brain storm on the automated sand stirring idea and certainly would need lots of tweaking to make it work.

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/21836dendro_3.JPG

[Herpervet]

One other random thought: Have you heard about the dialyseas system? Its a dialysis membrane technology made for aquarium use.

In dialyzes the water and the end result can be viewed as simply an automated water change but done on a continual basis.

The claim is that the system allows a drastic increase in bioload while maintaining pristine water quality all things being equal. The claim seems plausable if you understand what dialysis does.

How does this apply to dendro husbandry? I don't know but anything that will drastically increase the ability to add foods without leading to major water quality issues seems like it would have some potential.

Phytoplankton could be added more agressively without without phosphate problems perhaps?

Here is a link:

http://www.seavisions.com/prod02.htm

[craab]

Originally posted by Herpervet
I drew this up awhile back. Sorry if I already posted it to this thread. Just a brain storm on the automated sand stirring idea and certainly would need lots of tweaking to make it work.

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/21836dendro_3.JPG


pretty interesting idea, couple of questions/thoughts.

How often would you move the gravel cleaner between chambers?

Any idea on types of substrate you would use, I am thinking a large diameter coral rubble substrate would be fine, as well as a medium sized agronite substrate, but would fine sugar sized might be too small to use.

[Herpervet]

My thought was that you would different grades of rubble in each compartment but who knows. One would simply try different things and see what types of stuff worked best.

Same goes for how often you would move the modified siphon kleen.

If I was going to actually do this I would use some sort of grid over the top of the tank so that the apparatus could be moved systematically around each compartment probably every day.

I would probably sink the tube to the bottom of the sand to maximize the mixing also.

The key would be finding grades of sand/gravel that will churn and not form a mass that simply climbs up the tube. If you have ever used a siphon kleen you know what I am talking about.

Anyway this sort of thing would take alot of tweeking to make work if it would work at all.

[Herpervet]

You could also design a "bank" of large fluidized bed filters that would be turned on in a sequential fashion. i.e. one would turn on for 1 hour a day then the next one and so on and so forth.

Lets say you had 12 of them so each bed got a 11 day rest between stirring. (if done as illustrated it would be REALLY EXPENSIVE because the ball valves are pricey)

Obviously the water would have to flow across the beds without fluidizing them in between stirring.

Here is a DIY plan for one:

http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/diy_fbf.php

Here is a thought on modification:

When the actuated ball valve is in this mode the sand is stirred:

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/21836fluidized_bed_mode.JPG

and when it is in the other mode it is not:

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/21836non_fluidized_mode.JPG

[Jens Kallmeyer]

HI

The automated sand stirring idea is neat, but a bit complicated. Perhaps some engineers can find a simple (and cheap) solution.
I observed something else: When I grab into my refugium and shake and wiggle the Caulerpa, quite a bit of fine stuff comes loose from the leaves, and my non-photosynthetic gorgonia just go mad about that stuff. Usually they are open all day, but a few minutes after stirring the Caulerpa the polyps extend much further.

Just my little observation, perhaps somebody can try this with Dendros and post his comments on it.

Cheers
Jens

[craab]

I think it will work and it wont take too much work, just need to find a way to stabilize the siphon tube in the gravel.

[charles matthews]

Appreciate the thoughts on automation. I do have two large refugia and stir the sand and shake the Chaetomorpha frequently. I find two probable shortcomings with this. First, is that no matter how "milky" the water becomes, it usually clears within minutes to a few hours.

The second problem is that I suspect the particles generated by a macroalgae refugium are not small enough, and possibly also not of the right nurtitional quality. I think there are bacteriofilms all ober the tank surfaces, that quickly "stick" small particles and grow over them. I suspect there is very little under 100 microns that survives after an hour or so.

My idea is to put a vibrating pad (the sore muscles kind) under the sand bed, cover it in plastic screen to keep it from working out of the sand, and place about two inches of mixed Southdown and rubble on the surface, and use an appliance timer to vibrate the sand bed for fifteen minutes every hour or so. I would also either dose silicate with measurements, or perhaps add silica sand, to allow diatom growth (which may very well have the right pigments, being brown). This would be very effective recycling of biofilms and bacteria and phytoplankton.

The alternating aerobic/anoxic sequence is used in water processing to promote luxury uptake of phosphorus- apparently, stressed cells more actively take up this nutrient.

One possible problem would be sudden changes in redox or liberation of sand bed toxins. But, I suspect, if done regularly/hourly, it might be beneficial.

I am setting up a tank with the pad, substrate, a Turbelle stream, and a holding platform for a dendro, and see how we do. I'll keep the tank at 76 degrees, and close enough to a window to grow diatoms. It wil be interesting to see how alkainity does in this tank as well.

Tank wall biofilms can be kept to a minimum with a breeding small snail population- when I dose silica, I always get vigorous snail breeding. Snail waste will recycle.

what do you think?

[MitchMC]

Originally posted by charles matthews
They have been observed growing in full sunlight in Philippine aquaculture fish cages, where the fish are heavily fed......
Charles

I find this to be very interesting
I think the key is probably food (plus flow) not light, temp ect.
Do you have any more details on this observed growth ?
What were they feeding the fish, perhaps the dendros like “crap” there is lots of that in the water they do well in, would also correspond to antidotal reports of them doing well in sump and when sandbeds are stired up

Delbeek writes in this article (http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/jan2002/feature.htm)

These studies showed that octocorals tend to be highly selective for non-evasive forms such as mollusc larvae; indicating poor capture ability of more elusive prey such as large adult copepods. This poor capture ability is most likely due to the lack of effective nematocysts, resulting in the selection of less motile prey (Fabricius et al., 1995a).



Aside (I really need to get Fabricius’s article )

I came across this sourse of acquaculture food

http://www.innovativeaqua.com/

The produce in question is TrochoFeed


TrochoFeed is a cryopreserved starter feed for larval marine fish. TrochoFeed is the first and only "instant live feed" for marine larval rearing. It is a suspension of living trochophore-stage Pacific oyster larvae in seawater, cryopreserved in liquid nitrogen until the moment they're needed to feed your fish. Trochophores are an ideal first feed for larval marine fish because they are 50µ, free-swimming ciliated organisms that are extremely high in nutritional value. ........IN AN ARTICLE ON THE SAME WEB PAGE CALLED "The storage and use of cryopreserved oyster trochophores as food for larvae" THE FOLLOWING COMMENTS ARE MADE ............ Oyster trochophores are extremely small in size, have an ideal nutritional composition, and are slow swimming. Oyster trochophores, at about 50 microns diameter, are about one quarter the size of rotifers and one tenth the size of brine shrimp nauplii. Trochophores have only the marine fatty acids typical of crustacean zooplankton, including 15% 20:5n3 (EPA) and 15% 22:6n3 (DHA), so they are better nutritionally than rotifers or brine shrimp for marine fish larvae. Trochophores are even nutritionally superior to rotifers or brine shrimp with fatty acid supplements, since there are no low-n fatty acids in trochophores. The low-n fatty acids have to be metabolized by the fish larvae but are not normally found in wild larvae.



I hate the cost and the hassle of nitrogen refridegerator you need but I am close to thier location and I am going to drop by and see if they have some "old stock" or reject material that is not up to snuff for this application but could be feed "dead' to tanks.

Bigger than phylo smaller than rotifers, slow moving mullusc larva might do the trick

Has anybody read Coral Farming: Past, Present and Future Trends
J. Charles Delbeek ?

[MitchMC]

Originally posted by charles matthews
I am interested in forming a study group for Dendronepnthya sp. husbandry. Are there others that share this interest? Should it be a thread- or, as I would prefer, a new forum?

time for a new forum :lol: :lol: :lol:

[d34532]

Hi all,

Its great to see that you guys are working on the study on these wonderful coral. I have read all that you guys have wrote and was wondering how is the progress. I would also like to help as much as I can. Here is some eye candy for right now found a health one at an online store open house(pic is the coral in my tank). Im sorry for the size of

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a36/d34532/Orange-Scleronephthya-net3.jpg

Current tank spec.
120g mix reef tank
water flow about 3100 or about 25x
fish: blue tang and regel
invert: snails and 4 cleaner shrimps
Coral: arco, hammer coral, xenia, montipora
lighting: 2 x 175w 10k mh
placement bottom of tank on the sand rightside up. Reason is the LR that came with it had solid Coralline algea on it.
I'll hopefully have more information as to where it was collected from loc and maybe date also.
Food wise: selcon, cyclop-eeze FS soak in selcon, food from fish (if it gets any)

Any recommendation?

[d34532]

Hey all,

An Idea just come to me but wasn't sure if any of you have though about it an automate sand stirer. I was thinking that if we use a horseshoe crab to stir the sand. I know that they can move stuff that we don't want and damge stuff also but if we use a box that have grid on all side and flop it upside down and trap that crab to only live in that area and it can move and turn over the sand all it wants? has one done this or think it will work?

[MadTownMax]

interesting idea - automated sand stirring has come up multiple times, with a very wide variety of ideas - does this have any effect on the health of these corals is still debatable though.

The only problem you might have w/ your idea is that horseshoe crabs get to be about 20" long (without the tail about 12" ) so your box will have to be pretty big to give it enough to eat - :( - sorry, not wanting to be a downer....

nassarius (sp?) snails burrow in and out of the sand a lot though, you might want to give them a try...

[Jens Kallmeyer]

How 'bout some sand sifter gobies? They really work through a lot of sediment during the day.

Best wishes

Jens

[MadTownMax]

Also an option, as would be sand-stirring starfish - but both need quite large sandbeds (starting at about 2X4' ) to be able to sustain enough microfauna in the sand to keep the animals healthy.


MichMC - as far as your oyster larvae are concerned, I use DT's oyster eggs - they're almost identicle (go figure, egg-larvae :rolleyes: ) only difference is that they're non=motile - I spot-fed my dendro oyster eggs and noticed good results, although I just don't think I had the flow required for these guys.

A few other thoughts:

I have to admit I find the Dendro growth on fish cages the most encouraging - an evaluation of these conditions compared with those of more typical dendro-growing locations should lead us to at least a few new ideas on husbandry.

Has anyone tried these w/ the ZEO-Vit method? supposedly the zeolites grow a bacterial film that feeds corals and shaking 1X a day is part of the method - if the dendros eat bacteria, it seems like a good match.

[d34532]

MadTownMax and Jens Kallmeyer

Good idea on the goby and the sand star only problem with those 2 that I though was they probably eat the small stuff also? I know that the horseshoe crab with get large too but I was thinking about them because they move the hell of a lot of sand when I had them in my early years when the LFS told me they stayed small. I wouldn't really get a crab and get rid of it without knowing someone that wanted one when it gets big. mine is not a dendro but its very close to care level.

[Eve]

This is a HUGE, wonderful thread with lots of ideas, but it is just too much to read from beginning to end. How can we get the best out of it?

Is there any way to organize the info coming from those with what seems like long-term success (maybe a year or more)? Something like a poll maybe (what you have, what you feed, how often you feed, target or not, lighting, current, size /type tank -softies/mixed, etc.) Even that list is getting big :-)

[Cody Ray]

Would be great if a 3 hour bacterial bloom could be efficiently exported from a system and oxygen levels not serverly depleted.

A refugium full of calurpa under 24/7 lighting might help keep the oxygen levels up.

I may be way off base here, but wouldn't it be easy to keep nutrient levels stable if live phytoplankton was being added? It is an algae, so it is using nutrients and producing oxygen, and if a stable quantity of living phyto could be kept in the system, they should use about as much energy as what is being created. From what I have read, you need roughly 1 soda can worth of pure phyto to create adequate levels in every 30 gallons of water. It is much like feeding baby clowns, the saturation of baby brine shrimp needs to be high enough so that the clowns can find enough food with out exerting too much energy. If the amount of phyto needs to be high enough so that the coral isn't expending more energy than it is revieving. This is why I believe water temperature is important. The cooler the water, the less energy the coral is using, the lower the phyto saturation needs to be. If you were to just sit around all day, you wouldn't need as much food as someone who was running or working out all day.

In fact, if you could saturate the water beyond what the coral needed, it might start to grow faster and bud more often. Instead of trying to keep nutrient levels down, it might be easier to do large water changes everyday that are supersaturated with phyto. The water you remove will have uneaten and dead phyto along with nitrates, and the water you are adding will be full of phyto, just like the ocean. Just my .02 cents though :D

[charles matthews]

I am currently constructing another system to try dendros again. This one will be a 55 over a 55 sump. The sump has a manifold with a 1200 gal/hr pump into a manifold under the sand bed, which will turn over for 1 hour every twelve hours. The sump will be lit 24 hrs. The upper tank will be on a slow flow return, will use a Turbelle 6200, a PVC platform for the dendros, and no substrate. I will be adding silica sand and aragonite "reef grade" and training the bed to grow a diatom film that will be resuspended every twelve hours. I'll add nutrients and silica (wataer glass or silica sand) until I have a stable population growth on the sand surface.

There are a number of interesting aspects to such a system. It should mimic the diurnal turnover of sand in the ocean. It would resuspend phytoplankton in high densities; and bacterial levels and celular debris/phospholipids will remain in suspension. It's even possible that the calcium and alkalinity needs will be met as the aragonite crystal surfaces will stay clean.

As I've noted before, this system uses the "luxury perfusion" technique of wastewater engineering. It should process nutrients extremely well, and lock them up in cells (both phyto and bacterial) which will be suspended, along with biofilm gums.

If the dendros die, I will back up and try adding a Deltec HOB skimmer and feeding golden pearls and live phyto.

Will keep temp at 76.

It should be an interesting experiment.

By the way, I find that target feeding oyster eggs causes the dendros to stay closed for longer. Heavy target phyto feeding may also make them stay closed longe. I suspect that they don't digest either well. They seem to respond best to golden pearls and some phyto to a light green tinge added to the water rather than spot feeding them (by which I mean that I can see aggressive feeding with a magnifying glass). It reminds me of the cough reflex with clams- they don't like excessive turbidity.

I also wonder about oxygen supersaturation and hypoxia- and other toxic stuff in the aquarium- keeping bacterial films from overgrowing, and entering toxic warfare, may be important; and overfeeding may lead to hypoxia and night; or they may be exquisitely sensitive to nitrates or to chloramine. It's hard to be convinced it's just the lack of food, when my Tubastrea is going great guns without target feeding. Of course, particle type is important- I've noticed that the dendros don't recognize detritus from the sponge or sand bed as much as they react to golden pearls. It's a clear difference. This also happens with the larged polyped Nephthygorgia- it loves golden pearls, but not detritus from the sponge or sand.

Will look up Zeo-vit and Delbeek's book.

Charles

[Cody Ray]

There are a number of interesting aspects to such a system. It should mimic the diurnal turnover of sand in the ocean. It would resuspend phytoplankton in high densities; and bacterial levels and celular debris/phospholipids will remain in suspension. It's even possible that the calcium and alkalinity needs will be met as the aragonite crystal surfaces will stay clean.


Would love if you would provide some diagrams and more information on this, seems very interesting to me. My only question is on the phytoplankton and them using nutrients. If they are in the sand bed and forced out into the water, to me this would signal that they were dead, and that they wouldn't be absorbing nutrients. Correct me if I am wrong, but phyto is a free swimming organism, and if it were in some sort of non-suspended state I would think it was dead.

[charles matthews]

The comments on this thread continue to add important information- I hope we will be moved to a forum at some point!

Some UNCONTROLLED guesses and observations:

1) When I kept multiple colonies for many months at a time, they seemed to do well, and then a wave of deaths would occur. One set of losses occurred when I added iron to the refugium. Now, I suspect that the problem may have been a negative reaction to benthic bacterial growth with all the feeding.

The aquaculture literature for shrimp growout may be relevant here. Shrimp larvae do better with a probiotic approach to their ponds. The difference seems dramatic- good enough for comercial shrimp farmers to buy the microbes. Is Vibrio poisoning our Dendros? I suspect so. This would also explain the preference for low temps. I think regular deep automated deep sand stirring, or the Zeovit method, with a probiotic additive, would be helpful to try. I am working with Epicore, a commercial shrimp grow supplier, using their probiotics and a liquid zoeal feed that can be metered. In shrimp culture, Vibrio is a major problem- and feeding zoeal shrimp is a very similar problem to keeping dendros.

2) I think dendros do MUCH better with a slow flow refugium attached, where you can see the oxygen bubbles. I suspect it's the oxygen, not the food.

3) Flow- they don't like turbulence. So putting them close to the OVERFLOW makes great sense. When I havae waves of deaths, the ones near overflows did the best. Water pushed out of a pump is impelled over the surface area of the blades; however, draining water is PUSHED over the entire surface of the aquarium. The water drawing toward the overflow is very free of turbulence. I think six inches/second is fine, some will take more.

Is anyone able to take videos of feeding behavior of dendros?

[graveyardworm]

Still here listening patiently, wondering how everyones dendros are doing that posted in the beginning of the thread. I have some ideas that I may try. Still working on setting up my new multitank system, my equipment/tank room is complete. 100 gal sump in place, just got my skimmer today lifereef 72" VS3 its huge. I should have everything set up and running in another month or so. I havent quite figured total system gals yet still toying with ideas, min 500 gal anyway.
I was thinking for dendro tank I would use something like a 20 long or custom tank (long and narrow) drilled on both ends for closed loop with large bulkheads so flow would be high with low velocity, connected into the larger system as follows: drain from 35 gal refugium ( SSB stirred daily, tumbling cheato ball, 24/7 lighting, drip fed from fresh phyto possibly up to 1 liter per day) in. Flow out would go to 100 gal 6' tank with DSB planted with seagrass. To get the cheato ball I'll be installing a ramp type set up I saw in Anthony Calfos forum I think this will also help to get more O2 into water column.

Just my initial thoughts, alot taken from posts here.

[charles matthews]

I was particularly interested in mcox33 and what her recent experiences have been?

[Jens Kallmeyer]

Originally posted by d34532
MadTownMax and Jens Kallmeyer

Good idea on the goby and the sand star only problem with those 2 that I though was they probably eat the small stuff also? I know that the horseshoe crab with get large too but I was thinking about them because they move the hell of a lot of sand when I had them in my early years when the LFS told me they stayed small. I wouldn't really get a crab and get rid of it without knowing someone that wanted one when it gets big. mine is not a dendro but its very close to care level.

HI Lam

I see the Horseshoe crabs out here in the water at every dive, they are mostly in the range of 1 ft in length. Strangely I rarely see small ones.
I would not want to add anything in my tank that can grow to 1 ft, despite, Horseshoes are not considered reefsafe.
What do you mean by "Gobies eating the small stuff also"? Do you think that they would compete for the same food with the Dendros? I would doubt that, because the stuff at the bottom is not accessible for the Dendros anyways, only through the resuspension by the Gobies it will eventually reach the corals.

Best wishes

Jens

[GreshamH]

Originally posted by charles matthews
The comments on this thread continue to add important information- I hope we will be moved to a forum at some point!

Some UNCONTROLLED guesses and observations:

The aquaculture literature for shrimp growout may be relevant here. Shrimp larvae do better with a probiotic approach to their ponds. The difference seems dramatic- good enough for comercial shrimp farmers to buy the microbes. Is Vibrio poisoning our Dendros? I suspect so. This would also explain the preference for low temps. I think regular deep automated deep sand stirring, or the Zeovit method, with a probiotic additive, would be helpful to try. I am working with Epicore, a commercial shrimp grow supplier, using their probiotics and a liquid zoeal feed that can be metered. In shrimp culture, Vibrio is a major problem- and feeding zoeal shrimp is a very similar problem to keeping dendros.


FYI Phyto-Feast Live contains probiotics.

When you say that your skimmer pulls less phyto looking skimmate with live compared to paste, are you using the same cell count with each?

[dannyfromholland]

In germany is a company that sells a "Dendro System" Maybe its worth trying.

http://www.faunamarin.de/produkte.php

[mcox33]

mine are still doing okay. but I have been neglecting my tank lately.

[firefish2020]

Actually those are not Dendros that you have Mary;

I originally IDd the coral as a "Purple dendronephthya", which I was reluctant to do at the time due to the fact that they are notorious for dying in captivity and have an intense need to be fed on a constant basis. However this one seemed to thrive and has moved into many tanks in the area. I can now say that this is not a nephthya at all but a "Purple Lemnalia" which is much easier to care for and is the reason it is still alive. My hopes of finding a healthy dendro candidate for propagation are once more down to zero.

[graveyardworm]

I was at a local FS today and they had two of some sort of non photosynthetic coral I dont belive it was a dendro, but any way they had two and both were hosting little starfish. I've seen pictures online before but never in person.

I'd like to describe it maybe someone here has seen something similar. It was tree like with a thick white stalk about 5 inches tall only instead of small individual polyps throughout the branches it had large leaf like growths with polyps along the edges. Nothing pictured in Bornemans Corals comes close.

I've checked the photos at GARF.org and they dont have anything pictured that similar either, I would like to add here that the folks at GARF were able to keep Dendro and other non photosynthetic corals for a long period of time according to one of the GARF volunteers They lost most if not all in a system heater malfunction or something like that. They may be able to provide some insight into keeping them successfully. I think they had a tiered multitank system with lots of mud and fed there own recipe of phytoculture.

[Thurge]

I appologise if this has been covered already in this topic (I printed it out to read at home) but I am having an issue with a Dendro I picked up this weekend. I need to attach it to a frag rock. It came just bairly attached to a rock and so far i have found out how NOT to attach them.
I found out that Superglue makes the base crumble like bread crumbs.
Then I found out that a Loose rubberband is still enough to cut the two pieces in half (tried rubberbanding inbetween tow heads not I have two seperate heads).
Soo what is the proper way of attaching these georgous corals to a rock?

[graveyardworm]

Hi Thurge, I think the best suggested method so far is let it settle on the substrate in a low flow area, and if things go well it will attach itself, once it has attached to substrate you can glue the substrate to a rock. Unfortunately things arent going to well for this species in captivity hence this thread and hopefully a new forum. Could you describe your tank and equipment a little bit? Thanks :)

[Jens Kallmeyer]

HI Thurge

You could try a strip cut out of a stocking, the material stretches and does not cut trough the coral but rather wraps around, plus it allows the water to circulate through. I haven't tried this with Dendros, but with several other soft corals (Lemnalia etc) and it worked quite well.

Good luck

Jens

[Thurge]

Jens, I am not sure even that would work. Now that the rubberband cut the two heads appart the band isn't streched at all, its loosly looped around the rock.
From the reading, it does seem that just letting it lay may be the only thing to do. I will slip some larger rocks under where they are laying to make my life easier.

I didn't go into this totally blind, but I may very well have under estimated just how dificult they are. Then again Acropora's were "Expert Only" till people got them figured out...

Tank setup:
58 Oceanic display w/ roughly 25gal in the sump (with roughly 8 gallons as a fuge growing cheatomorpha; no filter sock, just a settling tank so the tank feeds the fuge)
return is a Dolphin 650 submersable, and the return is 3/4" Lockline that has two spliters giving three returns along the back with 1/2" outlets to equalize theoutflow amongst the three.
75# OF lr (Bali, Fiji, Alorha, Garf manmade)
3" sandbed in the tank of Caribsea Reef Sepecial Argonite
4" sandbed in the fuge of Ecosystem MiracleMud and Kents Oolitic sand
NO SKIMMER
3 steamer clams, 3 sponge encrusted Thorny Oystuers (Euroreef killed my first two), 2 Maxima, 1 Crocea
3 fairy wrasses, Bicolor Foxface 4", maroon clown 3", Pajama Cardinal, Watchman Gobie.
2 cleaner shrimp, fire shirmp, at least one Pistol shrimp (never see them just hear them), keyhole limpets, turbo nassarius and Astrae snails, monster yellow brittle star
grey barrel sponge, yellow Gorgonian, monster pipe organ, very happy RBTA (just wish it would split already), plus several other LPS and softie corals and feather dusters in the gravel.
20 gallon weekly WC
Tropic marin salt
80*
dose with Purple up and Argomilk every couple days.

Its a tank that would make a SPS freak have a breakdown :) but its not for SPS. Its nutrent rich but not out of hand, there isn't any visable cyano, and everything is happy and thriving. I tried a small piece of Dendro while I still had a skimmer on the tank and it just withered away. Its having the "clam filter", instead of the skimmer, that made me think that this time I may be more successful; Because of the nutrent rich water. I will also try attaching the smaller head up on the glass near the overflow lip for some more flow.

[dannyfromholland]

Mabey a small wooden stick (coctailstick?) could solve this, you just stick it into the foot off the coral and attach the stick with a rubberband
to a piece off rock.

cheers

danny

[mcox33]

been there done that doesn't work. But It will only take it a couple of days to attach to substrate and size doesn't matter. rock or frag size that is.

[Thurge]

I have been thinking about Jen's method ans I think I am going to try supergluing a strip of hosery to the side of the tank and then tucking the frag under it, with a piece of shell as a buffer to the nylon.

[Jens Kallmeyer]

HI Thurge

Please keep us informed. As I said, I have never tried with with Dendros, only with Lemnalia et al.
@ Danny: The toothpick is an almost sure death sentence for a Dendro. They will start rotting around the hole almost instantly. I lost two Dendros by this mistake.


Jens

[graveyardworm]

I was just reading alittle bit about ozone use, and a question came to mind. Is anyone attempting to keep dendros using ozone? Some of the pros and cons might be? Increased Oxygen? Lowered amounts of drifting live stuff which might be beneficial? Aids in removal of stuff which may be harmful?

[charles matthews]

I'd like to report some very interesting work that Jake Adams has undertaken and which I am supporting. Jake operates the coralite.com website, and is planning on attending graduate school in marine sciences at U.Sc.

Jake is going to be working with a dedicated tank for filming Dendronepnthya feeding behavior, using a device called a "mesoscope"- essentially a video microscope. He has already done some outstanding work on zooxanthellae.

We are going to be filming Dendro response to a variety of foods, filming polyp counts, and response to flow regimes. This work should be fascinating and we hope to present it at MACNA. In any event, watch the web site and you are welcome to continue to support our efforts at understanding husbandry of these animals.

I think Jake has very wisely chosen to work with the mesoscope; it will help close the gap between what aquarists can do and what can be learned. Consider assisting him in some way!

On a related front- it seems likely that the problems of dendro husbandry are similar to the problem of aquaculturing larvae, which need to be fed. Jake and I are going to be testing (at his site and at mine) colloidal larval shrimp feed from Epicore, as well as a probiotic product to discourage Vibrio.
This combination works well in shrimp growout ponds, apparently much better than without the probiotic.

I find that heavy feeding of dendros tends to foul the water- the skimmer collapses each time they are fed. My solution is to use a bare bottom tank for the dendros, and a rapid flow Chaeto filter which will take up ammonia without taking up particulates. That system is connected to a slow flow Chaeto sump with coral gravel. The slow flow sump is cleaned with a diatom filter and carbon once weekly to remove bacterial floc, and is then treated with a probiotic. I will add an iron/manganese supplement for the Chaeto, but will not use a skimmer.

Keep posted on the Coralite.com site to follow or participate.

Charles Matthews

[Fredfish]

coralite.com gets me to a stone products company.

Very cool to hear though. I am sure that your videos will yield some interesting results.

Fred

[graveyardworm]

I had the same problem with the link and tried some variations and found nothing.
I'm wondering if there's been any word regarding a new forum. While this thread is chugging along and gaining some interest it seems as though it would be more effective if people could post new threads and get alittle more personal attention.
Additionally it seems that this has been completely dominated by dendro which the title implies, but there are so many different nonphotosynthetic corals that deserve as much attention and study.

[Fredfish]

Hmm. A forum dedicated to encouraging people to buy and attempt to keep corals that many think should stay in the ocean. Bit of a hot potato that...

I am sure Charles will get back to us with a corrected web site.

I hope this thread keeps going. Perhaps as progress is made and opinions shift we will see a proper forum.

Fred

[Thurge]

10-15 years ago all corals were hard to keep.....


Jens Kallmeyer:
Get down with your bad self :celeb1: :celeb3: :celeb2: :bounce1: :bounce3: :bounce2: :thumbsup:
I haven't removed the piece of hosery (killing me self at WK and am scatterbrained enough as it is), but after 5 days, the piece I stuck to the side of the overflow is still pined beneth the hosery, and happily enflates with the MH comes on.
The only drawback I can see is that without a third hand i couldn't get a piece of shell between the dnedro and the hose so i will probably end up with a small piece of black nylon as part of the colony.
Note to self nest time at least try and match the colors up. :)


ps does anyone know if Jens is a guy of girl?
I was going to say "YOU GO ... " and thats about how far I got. not too sure if Jens is European or a funky girls name.

[Thurge]

I removed the piece of stocking and the frag has attached to the side. But there was tissue deterioration where it had been. It might be a case of being on too long, and if I had removed it after only two or three days, the frag may not have been stressed enough to break down.
All in all it does work.

[charles matthews]

My mistake- the link is coralite.net. Apologies!

I've ordered four dendros from Dick Perrin and had four sent to Jake Adams in South Carolina for mesoscope video. Some of my original batch survive at about ten months now- I have moved everything back into the 29 gal. tank and using the rest of the 450 gallons as a sump! I am aquiring more Tubastrea species as this does really well for me as companions to dendros and may aquaculture them through spawning; I also like chili corals and have two now that appear slightly different species or color morphs.

I'm feeding crushed Cyclop-eez, golden pearls, and granular yeast, about two to three good pinches of each three times daily and I grasp the Cyclop-eez between thumb and forefinger and rub it into a paste (three times daily). I have a Turbelle Stream 6002 on this tank (the big one, about 5000 gal/hr I think!) directed along the length of this 2-ft tank at one end, forming a circular pattern. There is a 3 inch crushed coral sand bed that manages to stay down in this current and has lots of bubbles in the substrate. I am beginning to think a coarse sand bed will take care of ammonia problems if the current is strong enougn and if may not need a rapid flow macroalgae filter. There is an overflow to the 450 gallon sump systems that is just a trickle. Temp is about 73-75F.

When I add heavy phyto, they seem to loose interest. The most vigorous feeding occurs with the zooplankton substitutes above. I no longer stir sand beds or squeeze sponges.

When the probiotics come in from Epicore, I will use it. I'm worried about Vibrio. My other system (55 gal w 55 gal sump) is being assembled but I would like some data from Jake before finalizing design.

I have been thinking about just using a Chaeto bed, Kent iron addition, no substrate, and a CO2 system to clean the water. Skimmers collapse with all this feeding. I still suspect that sand beds work for awhile but bacterial toxins get aggressive after awhile with all the nutrients.

[charles matthews]

One other thing. Regarding attachment, Dendros propagate naturally by branchlet dropping; they're really good at attaching. Just snip a small branch (the size of the last joint in a finger) off with a scizzors and put it on pebbles or shells in a bowl. Don't worry about flow, just gentle circulation until they attach in less than a week. They really like to attach to PVC, so you can drop them down a pvc ring and then turn it upside down and the piece will be inside the lip of the ring and you could conceivably glue this to the wall of the tank (haven't done it this way but plan to soon... let me know if it works- I know they like to be high in the tank, again possibly substrate toxins).

[charles matthews]

One other thing! Thurge- look at the attachment area. Dendros either look like they have been pulled from sand, or they grow out of rock or oyster shells. If there is sand stuck to the bottom, place it in a hole in a sand refugium in good current. Or, you can wedge it into a PVC pipe and fix the pipe somewhere- it if dies, save the PVC, there will be polyps on it!

If it is a rock attachment that has been ripped, I would personally cut it into branchlets and place them in a bowl with pebbles or pvc pieces (pvc might be even better).

[charles matthews]

One more thing!

if we were to get a forum, I agree with Graveyard that were we to get our own forum, we should broaden into a nonphotosynthetic forum. We are really dealing with the problem of keeping an ecosystem, and what we learn will be relevant to a number of creatures. Also, mesoscope videos of feeding behavior allow some real interaction between the academics and the rest of us- I suspect such a forum will go in the direction of husbandry methods for heterotrophs, as well as into specific techniques for species; and that the mesoscope video will be a fundamental tool of research for us.

I've sent Mary an email asking her to update us from the beginning- her comments contain a lot of experience and I was hoping to get her most recent views and observations.

[Herpervet]

I love the idea of a aposymbiotic forum. A great potential alternative to the high wattage energy hog systems in vogue today.

You mentioned the chili corals and I like them a lot too. Seem to be fairly hardy and like the cyclop-eez.

[Fredfish]

Thanks for the correction on the website charles. I would love to boy one of those oglevision things, but just don't have the cash. Seems like a very high quality instrument.

I am looking forward to the dendro feeding pics.

Herpervet, I wouldn't call the chili coral hardy, but is is less difficult than the dendroneptheas. I have had one in an unskimmed tank and it is surviving, but is by no means thriving. I am curious to hear your experience with this coral. Do you do regular target feeding with cyclopeez?

Fred

[Herpervet]

Originally posted by Fredfish
Thanks for the correction on the website charles. I would love to boy one of those oglevision things, but just don't have the cash. Seems like a very high quality instrument.

I am looking forward to the dendro feeding pics.

Herpervet, I wouldn't call the chili coral hardy, but is is less difficult than the dendroneptheas. I have had one in an unskimmed tank and it is surviving, but is by no means thriving. I am curious to hear your experience with this coral. Do you do regular target feeding with cyclopeez?

Fred

Mine is in an unskimmed tank with heavy phyto-feast feeding and target fed with cyclopeez once or twice a week but the tank gets cyclopeez daily also.

It has very nice polyp extension at night and seems to be growing although the size increase could be hydrostatic and not actual growth.

I have had it only a few months so my enthusiasm is quite premature. I do really like the look of the coral but it is bestviewed with a flashlight.

[Fredfish]

Mine seems to respond to phyto as well. My culture crashed a month ago and I have been too busy with work to get it going again. Since I stopped feeding phyto, the coral does not extend its polyps as much. I get polyp expansion starting in the early evening starting about 7:00pm.

Fred

[mcox33]

I'm fazing in 400 Watt MH lighting on my 90 gallon reef so far the MH lights are on for 4 hours a day and all seems to be well with the dendro, It is now in the bottom of the tank on a rock laying on the sand good current past it and seems to be fine. I also have small ones scattered though out my tank many of which just get fed when I target feed the other corals as they are small and not easily gotton to to target feed them.
but they seem to be doing very well as well.



I do use a protein skimmer and CO2 have been for almost a year now. This coming April mine will have been in my tank for 2 years. KOW. At this point we are at 20 months. It is smaller than it once was due to fragging itself by dropping it's branches while I was figuring out what made it happy and what made it sad.

When I first acquired it moving it even the slightest bit in the tank seemed to make it drop branches, but now it seems to be happy where ever it is. The last time it fell off it's shelf to the bottom of the tank I left it there as I knew I was getting the MH light system soon.

I seem to get better poylp extension when the MH are on than ever before. So I am beginning to think they grow in and under rocks because this protects them when they are small and then as they grow they extend out to the light, or can be moved to the light. Mine did spawn in my tank a few months after I got it and I think it will again soon as I see them tangling their branches together accassionally. I also think it is necessary to have 2 seperate colonies for them to spawn. JMO

Well that is all for now, I will try to follow this thread more closely again.


Mary

[charles matthews]

Mary-

I think you have the record here on survivability of dendros. Are you using a co2 system, and if so please tell us more about it

Charles

[mcox33]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6214955#post6214955 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by mcox33



I do use a protein skimmer and CO2 have been for almost a year now.

Mary


Actually I do NOT use CO2. I use OZONE I guess I must have posted this when I was brain dead or asleep, could have been either. Sorry guys.

[mcox33]

Now my 400 watt MH are coming on at 11:00 am and going off around 7:00pm

the 260 watts of power compac's come on at 8:00 am and go off at 10:00 pm

So far everything is fine with the dendros.

I am going to be building a diy canopy/light setup for my brother -in- law for christmas and that will keep me very busy for the next couple of weeks as I am also building the canopy. Once it is done, I will try to sit down and write a guide to keeping dendro's from my point of view and hope it helps others.

But that is something I want to put a lot of thought into, so I need to get the light project out of the way first, (as my BIL lives in another state.) I want to let him take it home with him when he comes for christmas so I do not have to ship it. Too heavy.

[Herpervet]

Waiting on pins and needles to hear all the details on Mary's methods.

Exciting to hear of your success Mary!

What color are your dendro's?

I'm sure all of us would LOVE to see pics of them.

cheers,

Pete

[mcox33]

there are already pictures in this thread. I have a lot to do over the next few days. So it will take a while to post new pictures. I hate doing that.Ffirst I have to move them to a file. Then post them on my web page, then link them. time consuming

[barryhc]

I have just been listening. It seemed like you guys wen't on vacation. Nice to see you're back at it. Back to listening. NICE thread!!

> barryhc :)

[mcox33]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6329949#post6329949 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by barryhc
I have just been listening. It seemed like you guys wen't on vacation. Nice to see you're back at it. Back to listening. NICE thread!!

> barryhc :)

Do you have Dendro's?

[barryhc]

I don't have any yet. I will have to set-up a tank for them. I have to learn a lot more first, and this thread seems like the place to do that. That is why I'm just listening so far. There is much better information on them here, than I have seen elsewhere.

Thanks for the education. > barryhc :)

[charles matthews]

Mary, good to hear of your setup and updates. What are you feeding, how often and how much, to what size tank?

As you know, I am working with Jake Adams at coralite.net, who is filming dendro feeding behavior. I hope to have some information about their feeding responses to a variety of foods on film soon.

I am impressed with the shrimp industry and the problems they have overcome. Keeping non photosynthetic poolyps fed is much like the problem of keeping shrimp larvae. One major obstacle in commercial shrimp farming is the developent of pathogenetic bacteria, which I believe I am seeing as well. What happens for me is that I get excited about growth and feed too much, stimulating bacterial growth in the tank that is probably deleterious.

I suspect that we are now able to feed dendros (with oyster eggs, phyto, golden pearls, liquid shrimp larval diets) plenty- but cannot keep "old tank syndrome" from taking over.

My new system is a 55 gallon over a 55 gallon sump. The top will be bare bottom; the sump will be chaeto only (no substrate), possibly a co2 controller if needed, addition of iron, and will use a Vortex Diatom filter with carbon once/week to remove detritus. The flow through the 55 will be very slow, to allow settling of particles.

Does anyone have diving expericnce in viewing dendros? I have a wave2k that I may try again in this tank- dendros are typically said to project out into current. However, I suspect they are found in grottos where there is a to-and-fro motion as well. My laminar flow dendros tend to grow rather lobsized, into the flow, and this doesn't look normal. 12 hour alternating current may be more natural, but the wave2k has the ability to keep particles suspended.

Charles

[charles matthews]

one other thing- dendronepnthya is misspelled in the thread title- I've asked the staff to correct- it cannot be found under search for dendronepnthya

[charles matthews]

one other thing- dendronephthya is misspelled in the thread title- I've asked the staff to correct- it cannot be found under search for dendronephthya

[mcox33]

You know I had never even noticed and I have been here almost since the beginning. Charles, What made you notice it?

[charles matthews]

I searched for the thread and it didn't come up under Dendronephthya.

Mary, you promised us some further details about your husbandry techniques!

I have some recent summary information of interest. I am working with Jake Adams (coralite.net) and he has taken some preliminary pictures ofdendros feeding. He is using Epicore brand liquid shrimp zoeal larvae feed, which is colloidal and disperses about 5-50 microns. We are going to be doing videomicroscopy of feeding behavior soon.

My 11 month old dendro had declined; I moved it back into the 29 gallon with a big Turbelle Stream and it looked even more miserable. I thought all was lost.

In desperation I took out my Eco-wheel algae scrubber, leaving a 2.5 foot cube tank with a huge air collar blowing up into the center of it (this is the airlift for the tank). I placed several harge handfuls of Chaetomorpha balls to tumble under the PC lights and placed this Dendro and a new one, as well as a Nepthyigorgia, in the bottom of the tank. the flow there is moderate, swirling, and is full of microbubbles as well as presumably algal leachates. I also put a moribund scleronepnthya rock (about five tiny colonies that had been closed for two weeks) in there).

Well- it looks like everything's expanded again!

So- what's going on?

My latest theory-corals that use zoozanthellae get a largae amount of their energy budget from the leachates of their symbionts- alcohols, sugars, various species of translocated carbon, amino acids.

OK. Now think about the Ecosystem method- is the polyp extension we see in these systems due to algal leachates? Are the polyps reaching for the same products they get from their endosymbionts?

Now, why don't Dendros make it in an Ecosystem? I think because sand and mud beds are competitive with filter feeders. Substrate greedily consumes particulates, reduces nitrates, accumulates phosphates, and produces bacterial warfare toxins.
I think dendros get "old tank sysdrome" very easily, similar to problems in raising shrimp larvae . They seem to do well, but the feeding introduces a bacterial bloom that is toxic to the dendros. Eventually, the bacteria grow more than the dendros do.

I am going to be working with a Chaeto-only sump and bare bottom. I think blowing the Chaeto around helps the polyps stayinterested in feeding. Mary, does my bacterial theory make any sense to you?

Charles

[barryhc]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6379446#post6379446 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by charles matthews
Now, why don't Dendros make it in an Ecosystem? I think because sand and mud beds are competitive with filter feeders. Substrate greedily consumes particulates, reduces nitrates, accumulates phosphates, and produces bacterial warfare toxins.
I think dendros get "old tank sysdrome" very easily, similar to problems in raising shrimp larvae . They seem to do well, but the feeding introduces a bacterial bloom that is toxic to the dendros. Eventually, the bacteria grow more than the dendros do.

Charles

I am trying to just listen and learn, but I am trying to get my brain around the idea of bacterial "warfare toxins". Could you elaborate a little bit?

> Thanks > barryhc :)

[mcox33]

actually yes it does as mine have always been interested in feeding when I use the old turkey baster on the rocks.

I also have very little sand in my tank and most of it has blown back between the rocks which are sitting on bare glass as well.

[charles matthews]

Mary, it could be very important that you have very little sand in your tank. It has been extremely well documented in the literature on prawn cultivation in commercial systems that Vibrio and other bacteria produce substances that are deleterious to larval development. They also note that ponds get old and have to be replaced, presumably because of limitations in material in the substrate.

As we know, there are a tremendous variety of creatures that live in substrates. They all grow exponentially. If they did not consume each other or otherwise limit each other's growth, the surface of the earth would soon be covered in bacteria. Bacterial growth, as far as I understand it, is limited by bacterial warfare to a great extent- overgrowth, secretion of digestive attacks, growth inhibitors, cell signalling- all kinds of chemical gunk gets put out. Most of this is presumably short range, and is metabolized quickly. However, in our small aquariums, temperature changes, salinity changes, a piece of food on the floor of the aquarium, a minor disturbance with fish digging, advective currents that change randomly- all create a riot of reshuffling of the bacterial populations.

As substrates age, they can put out nitrogen as a gas, but they can't put out phosphate and refractory ash products of metabolism. As in commercial prawn farmiing, substrates reach a limit where production starts to fall.

I believe, as we feed our tanks more, we will see these limits earlier. And I suspect what Mary is doing is going to be the answer- bare bottom tanks with algae filtration.

By the way, there is an OUTSTANDING discussion of plankton and sand bed advection in the third volume of Delbeek and Sprung- read it! My take- sand beds are competitive with filter feeders.

[graveyardworm]

There hasnt been a post here in awhile so I thought I would reserect it, and since we dont have non-photosynthetic coral forum yet this may be the best place for my question.

I just purchased a suncoral because finally I have what I think is suitable place for it and a little extra dough, and it really looked as though it needed a home. Here's a pic.

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/513/44187100_1370-med.jpg

Its still acclimating there, at the LFS there was no polyp extension even after they tried to feed it, but I bought it anyway. It appears some of the polyps have died but for the most part it looks okay. should try to feed it as soon as it gets put in the QT or should I wait? What should I try first, I have frozen mysis, frozen brine, and some homemade frozen stuff which contains just about everything from selcon to DT's, and chopped shellfish ( sortof a shotgun feed)? Should I try putting some juice in first? Any help would be appreciated. Thank You

[pch90265]

Graveyard...

I've had tons of success nursing Tubastrea sp. back to life over the years.

First thing -- they are predominantly nocturnal, so wait until the lights are out to try feeding.

2nd -- Try juice first with some selcon and DT's.

3rd -- They'll eat just about anything meaty once acclimated, and should stabilize pretty rapidly. If they are eating, but still waisting, then they are likely suffering from a pathogen attacking them internally ... not much you can do there.

Good luck, keep us posted!

--Sean--

[mcox33]

Graveyard Hobby Experience: first saltwater started 11-07-03
Current Tanks: 90 gal mixed reef (2 URI VHO super actinic,2 250 watt blueline 14k),

Assumming that the blueline is MH, and that the sun coral will be in the tank with MH,

You might notice after the MH goes off, while your other lights are still on, that the sun polyps will start to come out. Mine do and that is usually when I feed them. About an hour after the MH goes off for the day.

I have yellow / orange like the one posted and also the black sun coral. The black one is a little slower to come out so I feed the yellow/orange ones then the black ones.

Just be sure to feed each individual polyp

[graveyardworm]

Thanks for the response, I've allready been working on feeding. I started with a few drops of selcon from which I got no response. So then I went to my shotgun mix added some tank water to defrost and once it was defrosted I mixed it up and put in some of the liquid. It didnt take long for some of the polyps to start to open. After about ahalf hour 90% of the polyps were about half open that was as far they went. :( I put in some of the chopped food its only a ten gallon tank so it didnt take much to fill the water with particles. I still didnt get any better response. The lights were on (65 watt LOA PC) so maybe this had something to do with it. Not sure if I should try again once the lights are off. Now I need to siphon out what I put in. Do you think it would be alright to leave it in until morning, or should I siphon it out now?

mcox when it comes out of the QT it will go into my 100 gal seagrass tank which currently has no predation and is being overrun by pods. No seagrass in there yet just some LR and a few soft corals and DSB. Once the sand bed is mature and the seagrass is added it'll be lit with T-5.

[pch90265]

David,

With the polyps in the QT you should probably siphon out what they don't eat, otherwise you'll quickly start to foul the water with the amount of food you're going to be adding.

Defintely start feeding with the lights off... in time you should see them open all day, esp. in a refugium crawling with pods. :)

Keep at it, it may take a few days.

--SM--

[graveyardworm]

Well I checked again after lights out and ther was more polyp extension still not 100 %, so I put in some frozen brine and I could see the polyps capturing some. After 10 or 15 min I siphoned out any collecting stuff. This morning I again siphoned out any collected stuff and changed out 5 gals.

Should I be feeding it more often given its state of health, or will once per day be fine?

I'm gonna put together a 2 liter top for more concentrated feeding like I've seen some people do.

[mcox33]

If you use the pop bottle you might be able to siphon out the leftovers before removing the bottle, should make it easier and you won't have to change as much water.

[Detritivore]

hi guys, i havent been following this thread, but i found something you might be interested in:

http://www.marineaquarium.nl/februari-2006english.php

http://www.zeovit.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5026&page=1&pp=15

http://www.korallenriff.de/Sindelfingen2005/Kallmeyer_2005.pdf (a nice lecture by jens kallymer; well worth it but its in german)

there are other links withint those links. good luck. HTH!

[graveyardworm]

Nice links Detritvore, I've never heard of the ultra pac stuff. Basically the same recipe in the first two links with at least short term success. I wonder if Charles has done anything with it? Could it be the answer?


Okay just read a little further and the first two links are one in the same.

[Detritivore]

yes, i think the second one went into more detail. danny mentioned that jens kallymer used the same(or similar) formula and had success for over 2 years.

[Detritivore]

a link to the ultra products: http://www.faunamarin.de/produkte.php

[graveyardworm]

Is this stuff in english anywhere, and is it available in the US?

[threeheaddog]

these corals live at 30f depth. = less light/actinic only

cooler water too. = 77f

[shane 1111]

have you guys came up with a general outline on how to go about caring for them? i want to try them but i want to know what you guys have found out.

[graveyardworm]

Hi Charles, I've been periodically checking in on coralite.net so far nothing new. So I'm wondering how things are going there, and if the feeding you described in one of your last most recent post is still having a positive effect.


Mary, we're all still waiting for a description of your husbandry techniques as per Charles's request, Herpervet has been waitng on pins and needles since 12-21-05, which must be getting very uncomfortable. The entire world is waiting in anticipation :)

[Morgandy]

Mary, can you post pics of it and how the light is hitting it, I'd like to see the position and stuff.

I know there is a lot of debate on whether these should be kept or not, but, the same went for most corals at one point or another, and ingenuity, study and perserverence of so many made them successful on a huge scale. I think it is very very worth learning if dendro husbandry can be successful, and propogation in the long term.

I've tried a few, sadly they basically disintigrated. I have one now, a beautiful deep orange and yellow colored one, probably about 3 months. It is hanging upside down in a rock crevice in my 75gal at this point. I feed DT's, oyster egss, cyclo-peeze and some other random things. Not great extension yet, but it is holding its own.

'If' I see it taking a bad turn, I may 'donate' it to someone here who is seeing some success.

Great thread, I am so glad to see a group that wants to get a real collaborative effort to master these!

[threeheaddog]

With all fragile corals there must be hearty strains found and then clone from those.

avoid taking these from the wild.

IMO

Amazing Great Walls of Deodronephthya can be found in Somosomo Strait, Fiji

[mcox33]

Okay

Here goes, I think I will do a basic list of what I know works and does not work.

What not to do, what does not work.

1. Moving them around, decide where you want it and leave it there. Move the powerhead not the dendro.

2. Hiding them away from the light. Mine seem to love my new 400watt MH lights.

3. Don't let them get knocked around by snails and crabs. Glue the rock they are on down.

4. Don't ever think you have to much flow, you don't. Just don't point a powerhead so that the flow is forceful.

5. Don't get discouraged someday we will all figure out why they grow in some tanks and not in others.



What does seem to work.

1. Feed, Feed, Feed. Crush up every kind of flake and other dry foods, that you can think of or find. Mix them all together and then add some fresh RO or declorinated tap water. Stir it all up and let it sit in the refridgerator for a few hours so that the food and liquid seperate again. now draw off the liquid without the muck in the bottom, add invert target food (a liquid from lfs) Just a few drops will do, add frozen/thawed cyclopeeze (sp) and I like to add some zooplex as well. Now go feed all your other corals. and give some to the dendro's. Once you have done that take some of the liquid with the muck in it and gently spray some of it, muck and all, into the branches of your dendro, and sit back and watch the little poylps catch the crushed flakes, If they do not hold onto them then you did not crush them fine enough. The dry foods should like a course meal. (size)

2. Keep all of your dendro's close together so that they can reach out and touch one another. They seem to do better when they can. Mine even spawned in my tank. I have a second generation growning all down in the rocks at the bottom of my tank where they settled. (This is in areas where I have never had the mother colonies no way they could have fallen from the mother colony.

3. Try not to touch them any more than you have to.

4. Blow the muck off of and out of your rock holes and crevices. They will eat it.

5. Very little sand in the tank. I started out with two bags of the black and white. Pacific I think. (don't hold me to that it has been 2 years.) But I removed about half of it last Feb. and put it in a couple of other tanks, and gave the sand in those tanks to my Mom for her tank. So I have very little sand what is there is mostly blown back in the rocks.

6. They do get along with anything and everything. Other soft coral as well as lps and sps.

7. When I had a sand bed I use to stick the turkeybaster down in the sand and make the gunk surround the dendro. It seemed to like that.

8. I have kept them under PC lighting as well as MH lighting. PC's were 8x 55watt Jebo 4 actinic and 4 10K. With this lighting they were about mid way the tank (top to bottom) Then I switched to MH lighting, pretty much everything in the tank moved down a few inches. The dendro fell one night and I left it on the bottom of the tank. No sand close to it. I just made sure the rock was turned so that the dendro was on top. It seems happy there. It has been under MH lighting now for over 2 months and is still doing fine.

9. They do sometimes close up for several hours to a couple of days so don't panic.

10. Sometimes feed live brine shrimp, they seem to like it very well also, but that is a little harder to do as you have to get them the hang in the end of the turkey baster long enough for the polyps to grab on to them.

Okay hope that helps I will write more when I get a chance and when I think of something else that I think is important.

[shane 1111]

any pics?

[rickyfins]

Hi all,
I am doing research for an academic symposium for college. I am doing it on Dendro. Next semester I am doing the actual study part. This is just the information gathering stage. I will be willing to collaborate what I am doing with others. This is a controlled research on the species. I will be doing chemical analysis, and other controlled tests on this species as well. If you have any more information please forward it to rickyfins@verizon.net I am doing this in a college laboratory. Oh and the Dendro/non-photosynthetic forum would be a great idea. Or maybe it should be a research forum for serious debates and research findings for any species.

Thanks,

Rick

[graveyardworm]

Thanks Mary, awsome info. I'm curious about the lack of sand bed. I read Charles thoughts that he previously posted. Do you think this would apply to a remote sand bed set up as well?

[mcox33]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6643678#post6643678 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by graveyardworm
Thanks Mary, awsome info. I'm curious about the lack of sand bed. I read Charles thoughts that he previously posted. Do you think this would apply to a remote sand bed set up as well?


Not sure what you mean here, but if you are asking if a remote sand bed would feed the dendro as well as and in tank sand bed?

Then I would have to say only if it were stirred up long enough to get the cloud of stuff to get to the dendro in the main tank.

My suggestion would be stir it really well in the remote area. Then dip out the water with a good concentration of the (whatever the stuff is, I assume it is bacteria) and then let it settle to the bottom of the container. Draw off some of the water to make it as concentrated as you can get it. Then take a target doser/feeding tube and introduce it to the main tank around the dendro.

This is what I would do.

[graveyardworm]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6401978#post6401978 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by charles matthews
Mary, it could be very important that you have very little sand in your tank. It has been extremely well documented in the literature on prawn cultivation in commercial systems that Vibrio and other bacteria produce substances that are deleterious to larval development. They also note that ponds get old and have to be replaced, presumably because of limitations in material in the substrate.

As we know, there are a tremendous variety of creatures that live in substrates. They all grow exponentially. If they did not consume each other or otherwise limit each other's growth, the surface of the earth would soon be covered in bacteria. Bacterial growth, as far as I understand it, is limited by bacterial warfare to a great extent- overgrowth, secretion of digestive attacks, growth inhibitors, cell signalling- all kinds of chemical gunk gets put out. Most of this is presumably short range, and is metabolized quickly. However, in our small aquariums, temperature changes, salinity changes, a piece of food on the floor of the aquarium, a minor disturbance with fish digging, advective currents that change randomly- all create a riot of reshuffling of the bacterial populations.

As substrates age, they can put out nitrogen as a gas, but they can't put out phosphate and refractory ash products of metabolism. As in commercial prawn farmiing, substrates reach a limit where production starts to fall.

I believe, as we feed our tanks more, we will see these limits earlier. And I suspect what Mary is doing is going to be the answer- bare bottom tanks with algae filtration.

By the way, there is an OUTSTANDING discussion of plankton and sand bed advection in the third volume of Delbeek and Sprung- read it! My take- sand beds are competitive with filter feeders.


I'm not sure I agree fully here, My 90 gal mixed reef has a DSB with a plenum, and the underside of my rocks and the back glass is literally covered with filter feeding worms and sponges. More than likely you're right though as I have not read the studies and research that you have. Just speaking from my experience. I may also be comparing apples to oranges here.

[Morgandy]

Mary, amazing info on the menu for them and how to prepare it. I've been keeping lights off in that tank, just ambient light from the room and some, not direct, from the windows. I am surprised to hear about your MH's, but then, I had a swiftia, which is said to not like light, and the polyps would burst open with the MH's.

Please please try to get us some pics. The fact that they have reproduced and more are growing is just spectacular!

[Energy]

A dedicated forum to the keeping of these corals is a must. A place where others can share information of the proper husbandry techniques would further the understanding of their captive care requirements. A dedicated forum would be a "win- win " scenario. Since these corals are already being collected, imported and henceforth dying it would be in everyones best interest to understand how to stop the dying part. Avansickle linked me to this thread and it has a wealth of knowledge. I will also contribute as much as I can toward expanding our base of knowledge toward succesfully maintaining these corals.

[mcox33]

I have all the little filter feeding things as well.

When I was running the bio-ball sump I had about a zillion little calcified yellow feather dusters. I put that sump on my Mom's tank in Feb.05 and switched mine to the tidepool 2 with the bio-wheel. Now I have lots of the little calcified type featherdusters but they are red. I have lots of pink, yellow and purple sponges down in my rocks as well as some type of little round, about 1/4 inch long tube looking things attached to the glass and rocks.


And very little sand to deal with, I like that.

[Herpervet]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6639385#post6639385 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by graveyardworm
Hi Charles, I've been periodically checking in on coralite.net so far nothing new. So I'm wondering how things are going there, and if the feeding you described in one of your last most recent post is still having a positive effect.


Mary, we're all still waiting for a description of your husbandry techniques as per Charles's request, Herpervet has been waitng on pins and needles since 12-21-05, which must be getting very uncomfortable. The entire world is waiting in anticipation :)

Actually had been waiting with "baited breath" : Much more comfortable than the pins and needles but not too good for the social life.

Thank's Mary, Charles et al. for the great info. BTW Charles, I recently picked up a slick back magazine you wrote an article in. Havn't read it yet but it looked interesting. A piece about refugia I think?

[Energy]

Question and Observation: I placed a dendronepthyia in my tank which then got picked at by a wrasse and a tang. The two fish basically decimated the coral but left another one placed in the tank completely alone. Within a day and half of eating the coral the wrasse (which was extremely fat and healthy) suddenly died with no obvious cause. The Tang is fine. Could there be a correlation? I have read that dendronepthyia can be extremely toxic. If this was a case of poisoning I would think the tang would suffer as well.

[mcox33]

I don't know. None of my fish have ever bothered any of my corals.

I have a yellow tang ,blue tang, bangi cardinal, blue mandarin a pair of percula clowns and a couple of others that I have no clue what they are.

[Energy]

In a highly skimmed system with little extra free organics for the corals to take up do you think it would be benefical to take some skimmer sludge- dilute it outside of the aquarium in a cup and then use a turkey baster to gently waft some of the organic material across the dendro? Of course the standard disclaimer needs to be put in place- don't use to thick of a concentrate etc etc. By doing this would it be possible to supplement some of the organics that these corals possible need yet maintain the constant water quality that they require? With proper dosing the extra organics would be re-assimilated by the skimmer with little ill effects to the system.

[graveyardworm]

After reading this (http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2002-12/rs/feature/index.php) article and seeing analysis of some of the stuff found in skimmate I dont think it would be wise to reintroduce it to your tank.

[mcox33]

I won't do that. I really don't think the gunk the skimmer pulls would be in the right condition to reconstitute. (unless you are skimming a lot wetter than I do.

I am not even sure it would still be valuable after the skimmer has broken everything down.

Please don't try this in your main tank. If it is toxic and I believe it to be, you might not be able to skim it back out fast enough.

JMO

[mcox33]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6665460#post6665460 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by graveyardworm
After reading this (http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2002-12/rs/feature/index.php) article and seeing analysis of some of the stuff found in skimmate I dont think it would be wise to reintroduce it to your tank.

I think we must have been typing at the same time. At least we agreed. LOL

[Herpervet]

FWIW I think it would be simpler to downsize the skimmer or only run it intermittantly.

I didn't read the article but in the few samples of skimmate I have looked at microscopically, there sure are a bunch of nematodes that get skimmed out and I'm sure lots of other live potential food items.