Coral Maternity in Portugal
 

Hello!

My name is Machado de Sousa from Lisbon, Portugal and i would like to share with you my new coral propagation project.

This project has been developed one year to this part, in a garage located near Lisbon. The purpose of the project is asexual corals reproduction from fragments of reduced dimensions, from the polyp itself (not all species of corals that I intend to reproduce presents radial or axial polyps and prominent esclerites of form to allow its collect).
The implemented process of reproduction seats on the idea that is possible to create a coral colony from a very small part removed from the “mother” colony, and that this fragment does not have a minimum number of polyps so it can survive and develop.
If this theory is true, this will allow be to clone a coral colony from one polyp only, if the polyp that we intend to reproduce has the adjusted size, and if it’s possible to obtain and isolated it successfully, fix it in a steady and permanent way to a support, and created the physical, chemical and biological conditions so that the polyp survives separate from the mother colony. If the polyp survives in these conditions will be able to develop itself and also originate a new colony.

This process of reproduction is very slow, and has raised costs associates. It’s my objective to continue to work in this project and wait to see if the number of reproductions obtained justifies the investment. It cannot give me money, but it will give me a lot of spiritual joy….

The system is constituted by:

Maternity - Tank that lodges the mother colonies donors of polyps, or fragments, destined to the reproduction.


http://machadodesousa.com.sapo.pt/9.jpg




Nursery - Tank destined to the first phase of the reproduction. Here the polyps, or fragments, come from the Maternity to develop themselves, they are fixed in rubber covers of plastic pipes flowers. They will remain in this place the necessary time until they reach a certain state of development.


http://machadodesousa.com.sapo.pt/6.JPG




http://machadodesousa.com.sapo.pt/2.JPG




Day-care center - Tank destined to second phase of reproduction. They are transferred “babies already grown” from the Nursery together with the respective rubber covers.


http://machadodesousa.com.sapo.pt/3.JPG




http://machadodesousa.com.sapo.pt/1l.jpg




The three tanks meet on one common sump:


http://machadodesousa.com.sapo.pt/5.JPG




http://machadodesousa.com.sapo.pt/7.JPG




http://machadodesousa.com.sapo.pt/8.JPG




The designations given to the tanks, are just to relax…

SET UP

Maternity: 1.80x0.90x0.40m = 650 L
Nursery: 1.80x0.90x0.27m = 440 L
Day-care center: 3 tanks with 1.50 x 1,00 x 0.50m = 2.250L (Only one is functioning. The others are in assembling phase)

Total tanks: 3,300 L

SUMP (3 compart.)
1.05x0.70x0.50m (to skimmer+Eco-Cooler) - 370 L
1.16x1.45x0.50m (mangue+Live Rock+Skimmer) - 840 L
0.78x1.30x1.50m ( DSB/filter with algea+return pumps) - 507 L

Total sump: 1,700 L

Total rude volume (Tanques+sump): 5,000 L

RETURN
Maternity: Sicce multi 5800 (5,800 L/h)
Nursery: Eheim compact + 5000 (2.500-5.000L/h)
Day-care center: Eheim 1260 (5,800 L/h)

CIRCULATION
Maternity: Wavebox Tunze + Tunze stream 6100
Nursery: Wavemaker Sfiligoi
Day-care center: Wavebox Tunze + Tunze stream 6100

SWEET WATER
Inverse osmosis 6 stages (ret. of particles and activated coal)

WATER OF THE SYSTEM
Synthetic, dens. 1.024

WATER REPLACEMENT
Controller of level Tunze 5017

PURIFICATION SYSTEM
2 Deltec AP703 SKIMMERS
Reactor Rowaphos Deltec
DSB - 120 kg of Aragonite and Aragamax (in sump)
RV - 200 kg (in sump)
Bonsai Mangue with 13 years of age (now free to grow)
Taxifolia Caulerpa (in sump)
Biweekly TPA 5%

Ca/kH/Mg
Calcium R. Aquamedic KR 5000
Calcium R. DIY (by Jose Alves)
Calcium Media. - ARM with Magnesium Pro of the GroTech (10%)
R. of Kalkwasser Deltec KM500S
Alim. reactor for bombs of Iwaki bellows
Ca=400 mg/l; kH=12; Mg=1200 mg/l (val. medium)

ILLUMINATION (Gutters T5 Tiger developed by F. Ribeiro)
Maternity: 8x80w
Nursery: 6x80w
Day-care center: 10x80w
Mangal: 4x54w
Macro seaweed: 2x80w

COLLING (water 25-27º C)
Echo of the Deltec model 420/4
4 Termóstat Jager of 250 w (Tank and sump)

VENTILATION
Air room renewal 21 times for the moment (24/24h)

ADDITIVES
ABC of the GroTech (of. - TEC III NG)
Weekly addition of Combisan
Iodine

LIVINGS CREATURE
Diverse

Hope you enjoy it!

Machado de Sousa

!!!!!!Wow¡¡¡¡¡

What a piece of coral garden. Congratulatios. You are a professional coral propagator. ¿How many coral frags in your system?

Please talk more about ligthing (T5 bulbs), but, what espectrum.

Thanks for congratulations. I'm not a professional, my hobby is just reef gardening. In the Day-care center I've got +/- 800 frags. In Nursery +/- 800 babies.

Machado de Sousa

Now I see RC's point.

Hi Machado!

I'm glad to see that you finally decided to show the world your new awesome coral propagation system.

I had the opportunity to see it live and I can assure you guys that the site is breathtaking.

The majority of the frags wore made using only one polyp from the mother coral colony!!!unbelievable!!!

Regards

Vitor Pestana

not many things make me say this....but.... holy ****!!

:spin1: :spin1: :wildone: :bigeyes: :bigeyes: :bigeyes: :fish1: :fish2: :hmm4:


hubada hubada hubada......bow down.

now thats impressive to say the least.

Do ya? Care to elaborate?

Thats quite a statement with no explanition. I dont see how this man is doing something wrong, just because you cant reproduce what he has done is no need to hate. This whole business of being called commercial around here is WAY out of control. They have no public guidelines set and its pretty much just do whatever someone feels like doing. You arent helping. Maybe next time you feel you must post, make it worth your time, and make some sense.





Nice work on the project, things seem to be comming along nicely.

Hi Machado,

I cannot see this and don´t say thanks, for making me feel honored of being Portuguese!

Regards,

Miguel Gonçalves

Sure

But it seems you saw my point! Thousands of frags is not commercial?

Who says I can't? You? I have no hate of anyone.

http://reefcentral.com/agreement.php
You agreed to them when you sign up.



Make sense now?

My jaw just dropped...thats a very awesome setup you got there.. **cheers** :)

That is truly amazing setup and blows away anything i have seen on this site before. It sounds like you are a true scholar in the work of coral prop and with efforts like you have make do nothing but help keep the natural reefs where they belong.

My hat is off to you and I can only hope to follow in your example. Thank you so much for sharing this with me ad the reef cental community ! I can only idmagine the hours of pride you have put into your setup and research , just something to really strive for in this hobby !

thank you again for sharing this !

sun kid unless he is selling coral leave him alone you hater. I think it is freekin great, that many less corals that need to be ripped from our oceans

WOW. More Pics Please, especailly of your main tank.

Lots of great color. Equipment and tanks look very interesting. Would love to know more about the system.

For those of you commenting otherwise, take it elsewhere and let this thread continue. Mods, please delete the above squabble.

Please expand on your lighting system. What sort, how many, wattage, etc. of the T5s you are using.

On the commercial troll this is pretty far from that. He provides a ton of info. Including water params, brief overviews of his multi stage grow out system. and is trying to answer questions about his system and methods. What more exactly does anyone really want?

But it seems you saw my point! Thousands of frags is not commercial?
Seems you know of the recent developments... I saw what you were implying.

Who says I can't? You? I have no hate of anyone.

Why post that if not?



http://reefcentral.com/agreement.php
You agreed to them when you sign up.

Being recent developments and seeing as how i signed up over a year ago, i have to disagree.



Make sense now?

Nope.

In the immortal words of Ice Cube, and Chris Tucker from the movie "Friday" D A M N!!!!!!

I bow to you Machado. Excellent setup!!!

Wow!! Very impressive!! Beautiful setup... Congrats!

Awesome setup!! I'd like to see more pics as well..

looks awesome, I love the rows and rows of frags!!

Is there anyway i can get the full size pic of this one?

http://machadodesousa.com.sapo.pt/1l.jpg

My wife looked at these pictures and said "can you get color like that??" and followed it with "I would love for your tank to look that colorful!!"... Stupified, I said, "I'll get right on it!!"....

Re: Coral Maternity in Portugal
 

Machado, could you or someone please do me the honor of translating those amounts into gallons please?? In addition, could you please explain the differences between the "Maternity", "Nursery", and "Day Care Center", if you are referring to the tanks??

WOW !