ReefBowl

[brandon4291]

(8/01/02)Hi guys, Ive been invited here by a member of your website, and after looking around I can see I have been missing out on tons of good info.

I like to experiment with tiny ecosystems. My current project has been running for about 10 months. It has about 1 gallon of total water column after LR displacement. So far, it has trumpet coral, fox coral, assorted ricordia and rhodactis, xenia, disk anemones, GSP, two sp. leather coral, assorted button polyps and zooanthids. 5 bumblebee snails, 1 camel shrimp, and assorted lr growth found in an aged system. The system has been put together inside a large betta bowl vase from wal mart.

This system does not use nutrient export in any manner except bi-monthly water changes. It is chiefly designed around the fact that primarily photosynthetic organisms aren't a heavy tax to their environment in terms of waste.

Ill get some pics on. Where is the link on here to post a pic with my thread? I ve looked around and can't see how to upload a pic
Nice to meet you guys

b429

 

[Reef Guy11]

Hello there, i would love to see your pic's of your 1 gal ecosystem. I think that is cool that you have been able to run that 1 gal for ten months. That is good keep it up. Oh by the way, check out my reef tank. The name of the thread is My 90 gal tank.

 

[brandon4291]

comparison to a milk jug, 1 gallon. The bowl itself has roughly two gallons total empty volume, but displaces half with LR structure and sandbed mass.

The Mini75 sitting next to the reefbowl is detailed in another thread in the Nano forum called "sealed reef mini .75". It holds a little over half gallon total volume and now houses more SPS species than the reefbowl does at one gallon.

People laugh many times when I tell them Ive never owned a saltwater aquarium larger than one gallon--they think Im either lying or joking.
I've worked with many a large setup at school and with friends, but for my own I needed something affordable and small, so I made the concept work by starting out simple (bowl/water/sand/rock/light/clavularia polyps) and added slowly/tested from there. Turns out that when added slowly, an incredibly dense stocking ratio of corals to water column can be achieved in the pico aquarium.

Brandon M.

 

[brandon4291]

Nice system! I miss being able to have fish. I think I see some nice briareum sp. in there, don't remember my LFS having some like that. Are those prism lights? they have a neat dispersal pattern I could use. Great job.
b429

 

[brandon4291]

The fox coral was moved.

CloseUp



b429

 

[Reef Guy11]

Brandon, to put up a pic on here, when you are doing a thread go down to the bottom of the page. It will have a place to browes for you pic, and place it on there. It will say add Attachment.

 

[brandon4291]

lets try this one for starters.


b429

 

[brandon4291]

Sorry these pics are so HUGE, dont mean to be a bandwidth hog on your site. The file registers normal at 130KB or so on my computer and opens in a regular window. For some reason on here its giant, maybe too big, but at least it shows some detail I am not able to see on my system.

Even my photoshop program can't open it up that big. Would some digitally inclined individual tell me why some pics are normal and some are giant, all taken on the same camera under the same settings?

Thanks

b429

 

[danmhippo]

Test

 

[danmhippo]

When you open up a pic file under photoshop, it is automatically resized to fit in your photoshop windows. So the size you are seeing in the photoshop may not be the actual size of the pic.

To make things even more complicated, many browsers also resize pictures as well. In many cases, it's actually enlarged instead.

The rule of thumb for me is to resize your pic using your favorite editing programs to approximately 2" x 2". Most pic with 300dpi of that size should easily fit under 100k as well.

 

[brandon4291]

that is a nicer size. here is another angle, lets see if this one is saved correctly.
the bowl empty probably holds two gallons water/ lR and LS displacement force out half of that. for water changes I put an empty milk jug on the floor in front of it and siphon all the water out, then replace it from premade water...try to do it every two weeks but its gone as long as three which is not cool 8)
B

 

[liquid]

Brandon,

I'm going to move this topic out to the General Discussion forum so that you get more replies to your topic. The Member's Tank Specifications forum is really more for members to post their general tank setup so they can refer others to it when asked for their tank specifications. I will keep a copy of the thread to date in this forum however for reference purposes.

Shane

 

[Anonymous]

brandon429-

awesome and waaaaay cool!

but how are you going to clean off the coralline? :wink:

 

[danmhippo]

Same question.

I was thinking pretty soon, you will end up with a pink vase.

 

[brandon4291]

unscraped it would eventually look like its full of Pepto Bismol ! ( Glazer)

I haven't scraped any yet, thats one year's growth. I have learned to like it but many ask "whats that stuff all over there" and I can see its becoming distracting. I think Ill mount a slightly curved razor blade with epoxy on the end of a plastic eel feeder, try to conform it to the sides of the bowl. Scrape very very carefully.

 

[johns120]

very nice, i hope to find your tank specifications, like how is the system running-air line?

 

[jesterofbob]

...where are the pics?

 

[jamesw]

Awesome!

Julian Sprung's talk about Macna was about "nano-nano" reefs - much like your "reefbowl."

Keep us posted.

Cheers
James

 

[brandon4291]

I think you have to be logged in to see the pics. I couldnt see them either and then when I logged in they appeared. or maybe it was taking a while to load if you are on dialup


For starters, the airline is ran down the back of the reefwall and flows up from behind. its a dual-output air pump made for a 75 so after all the working around corners and crevices there is still alot of current. A custom-fitted plastic lid minimizes evaporation but there still has to be pressure vent, so there is some. I top off FW every 3 days or so.


I hated missing macna, already took vacation time and they wouldnt let me off! What did Julian have to say about nanos? Could you give me a quick summary or point me to a thread James?

THanks

B

 

[BRose]

Nice Nano's Brandon! Question: In the 1 gallon aquarium, is it sealed and/or do you add make up water more than once a day? I had a 2.5 gallon Nano Reefs awhile back but couldn't keep the salinity stable enough for it to last long term. But I'm in Colo. where humidity is usually below 5% so there's a Lot of evaporation. TIA, great job!
Cheers, BRose