Jamie @ Vertex

This is an interesting point. Skimmers are only removing about 20% of the organics, however, this is a constant harvest level and assure that this amount is being removed regularly (assuming the skimmer is of quality and properly installed/adjusted). Active carbon will remove literally all organics from a tank and, yes, more efficiently that a skimmer, if enough AC is available. The question is, do we want this!. If we were to use AC 24-7 and constantly changing out, we wiould starve the aquarium of many nutrients. In retrospect, this inate inefficiency of skimmer technology is a plus, rather than a negative. Complete removal of organics would slow the metabolism of the tank and the corals would eventually pale and may actually starve to death. A bit like new-tank syndrome, where the first creatures are simply looking for food and thus look often weak and pale, often expiring. I personally recommend using AC for about 3 day per month as a cleaning cure, to remove organics that a skimmer does not efficiently remove (yellowing agents in particular). Using it constantly removes most addatives, such as amino acids (organics!), certain trace elements, etc. The idea of using multiple filtering techniques has many advantages. As we know, putting all your eggs in one basket is asking for trouble (does one say that in Singapore?), cheers, Jamie

Being in the business, of course, we do measure PAR, but, more importantly, we measure spectrum. This is what counts with lighting. A great PAR from the wrong spectrum does nothing for the corals. PAR is a nice thing to know, but, it is certainly not necessary when using a good quality lighting, regardless of T-5, halide or LEDs. You corals will tell your eyes enough, if you just take a look and note any stress symptoms/sign of growth. Corals will do much better with less light than too much. Regardless of the lighting, water quality and movement play equally, if not more important roles in coral well being. just some thoughts, Jamie

The blue forms of M. digitata seems to prefer more light than the other colours. Also, current plays a role in the branching development. Given a chance, it will grow into dense thickets which fish, such as Anthias, love!

When changing over to LEDs, one needs to consider, other than the spectrum produced, the actual amount of light produced. There are units out there that simply do not have the strength to support marine life on their own. Others can certainly do, as customers who have been usinf the Vertex Illumina for the last years constantly report. Decide what you want to keep, know your tank dimensions (depth is still as important as by other lighting, as well as the look you want. Flat colours are best with T-5s, while shimmer and colour depth are better with LEDs, Combinations vary. Tastes vary. Although the basics of cool white and royal blue (450nm) and will support marine life, the addtion of blue (470nm) and violet (420nm), along with lower wavelengths of 395nm (UVA) and 405nm (true violet), will give you optimum spectrum for colour viewing and developement. Other colours may be added for the aesthetic side. As Vertex will now be offering their entire product line in Singapore (Aquaium Iwarna), keep you eyes open for new options. Jamie

Garlic can be very profilactic, killing many bacteria and generally supporting the immune system, although there are no lab studies that nail this down. Normally, I refrain from feeding terrestrial plant materials to my fish, such as grain. They are biologically quite different from marine alga and may be less digestable. Small amounts do no harm and may, as by humans, aid in cleaning the digestive track. I do not think this has been investigated. You may actually have a problem with freezing-thawing of krill. After all, Singapore is tropical! That said, when I have received bad frozen food, my fish refused it. Upon closer examination and putting my nose to it thawed, I realised why they refused. I forgot to mention, I do feed small amounts of chopped clams and calimari-squid critters to all my fish. Even the angels. It is more a treat than a staple. Anthias love the stuff, as long as its fine enough. cheers, Jamie

You are showing some wonderful angels on this thread. I wanted to comment on feeding, as this is a major theme with adult angels, especialy Pomocanthids, which includes Euxiphipops, Holocathus, Pomocanthus. In nature the adults live mainly from sponges, tunicates, and alga, also worms may be taken. As this is a protien.poor diet, their digestive systems are not designed to handle large amounts of protien, which krill are! Also, other shrimp based and fish based foods are not good for the adults. There are frozen sponge-based foods available, formulated for large angels. I've had excellent success with them. Although I do not have any way to prove it one way or the other, protiens are very quick to spoil and carry potentially harmfull bacteria, which may be making matters worse for an intestine that is not designed for mass protien diets.. I am currently raising a P. annularis in my reef. As he is still juvenile (5cm), he is eating more protien-rich foods to build his body. Despite this his favourite foods are algae-based flakes! Doesn't like pellets, won't touch krill, likes artemia. He does a lot of picking on the rocks, but has shown no interest in any corals or anemonies, which shouldn't be part of his diet, anyway. Normally, I would say one of the more difficult parts of feeding the angels is getting the right food into them. If they are hungry enough, they may eat anything, even food that may make them sick. I have found most of my fish simply do not eat that which they do not like, but none of them are hungry or under stress. Fresh introductions to a tank are under stress and may simply eat anything in an effort to look as though they know what they are doing. This confident behavious protects them from possible attacks and challenges from other fish. In nature, angels rarely take food direct from the water column. They are more searcher-picker feeders. This is one reason why some have trouble eating anything until it hits the bottom of the tank and can be picked at. I used to fill clam shells with an algae paste, let them dry and add them to the tank for the fish to pick at. often helps the more difficult specimens to adjust. Just some thoughts I wanted to share. Jamie

If you are running a halway decent skimmer, O2 will not be an issue. A bacterial bloom is potentially dangerous as the O2 is removed from the water literally in minutes, and one will have very milky water due to the bacteria. Under normal tank condition, O2 will be plentifull. Jamie

It sounds like you are doing everything possible. You need to get some more cross test parameters, such as Ca+, Mg+, Alk and pH to comfirm the basic water chemistry. A test kit going bad is not that unusual. I don't think the problem lies there, but one should double check what one can. Have you taken a water sample to your fish store for testing? It may be some component is giving off a toxin that specifically attacks fish. Are there any artificial decorations or new components that may be suspect? Not all plastics are water safe and you can't visually tell them apart. With your water changes, is this a typical amount and the same salt (how are you testing this without a refractometer?) or do you use NSW? You may be bringing in a pollutant, if it is collected locally. There are so many variables, your best help will be local, of course. cheers, Jamie

I doubt salinity is the problem. Corals are much more sensitive to it than fish and your corals would show signs of extreme paling and general stress, if the salinity was too low. Too high is less obvious. Still, this is a very improtant parameter that needs to be regularly checked and the tools used need to be regularly recalibrated (except a good hydrometer, which cannot change). When calibrating a refractometer DO NO use distilled water. Use a solution with the desired specific gravity. This can be either purchased, or you can use water from a tank of known salinity. The most accurate method to determine salinity is with a large well calculated hydrometer. They are expensive and very breakable! If you invest in one be prepared to store it carefully! Bio pellets are not the problem. Is the water clear? A bacterial explosion is obvious, clouding the water and this will cause fish deaths in about 15 mins! They asphyxiate due to the bacteria using up the O2 in the water. I think there must be another variable that is not being considered. Some kind of toxin? cheers, Jamie

that looks like A. cytherea or A. plana. I find them difficult to seperate. Either way, very beautiful.

Do keep in mind, most corals, especially sps such as Acroporas, do not extend their tentacles on the reef during daylight hours. There are exceptions. Presumedly, part of this is due to polyp predation and waving your tasty bits about in front of a coralivore in the middle of the day would be unwise! About a 50% extension in a tank is normal during the day. As we do not really understand all the reason for polyp extension, it is difficult to decide why many corals will do this in tanks, when they are completely closed on the reef. Is it light?. Are they hungry? Do they need more O2? All of these factors could play a role. What you are seeing is absolutely normal. I would worry more, if my corals were constanly extending their polyps fully during the day, against their nature. Jamie

I seriously doubt this is a salt problem. There are really only two items that may cause a general bleaching of all corals; lighting or lack of nutrients. If only certain corals are effected, then it may be a specific element, such as potassium with Montipora, which shows itself as paled, burnt growth points. If you calcium is actually that low with a stabile alk, I would be surprised. Is the magnesium stabile? You may well be on the right track with a bad test kit. They do not last forever and heat and light will shorten their lifetimes, as well. All three of the main 'salts' (other than sodium, which is a chloride), calcium, magnesium and potassium, are in balance with carbonate in ionic form. With an alk as high as you mention, something has to be allowing the carbonate ions to exist. Definitely get another testing opinion for comparison. Jamie

As already mentioned, your corals are essentially hungry. Aminos and letting the nutrient levels ride a bit would help. The Alk is actually too high in my book. Over 8 dKH is asking for trouble, especially in low nutrient systems. The change in pigments may be due to change in water chemistry or spectrum. The first is strongly influenced by trace elements, with iron often ruining yellows and browning blues. Remember, blue is a non-fluorescent pigment and relys on ambient light for its colour. Available nutrients play a big role in blues. Also, strong white light will tend to bleach them. Most strongly blue corals come from deeper water (under 5 meters, more often in the 10 meter area). With ULNS they always become paler. Part of their colour depth is the zooxanthellae. hope this helps, Jamie

A. rosaria has a very different coenosteum and growth form. The coral is most likely A. cerealis. Jamie

No, not with that growth form. It does have a resemblance to A. florida, but, until we see some more developement, we would be only guessing. It is a magical looking coral! Wish I had it. Jamie

The first frag is from the millepora group, but, untill it developes a bit more, the exact species will be difficult. A wild guess would be A. spathulata. The second frag looks like A. nasuta, but a bit too young to be sure. The radial corallites are not fully developed and currently do not really fit well to A. nasuta in the lip formation. It could be another A. cerealis. Jamie

Your second coral may be A. cytherea or even A. desalwii. It is not A. valida. The frist would not be A. hoeksemai, as that is not a digitate or corymbose species, rather arboreal. hard to tell from the foto. Jamie

The first may be A. cerealis. The second doesn't show enough detail to make a good guess. Jamie

What one needs to keep in mind, biological carbon-driven filtration is nitrification, that is the aerobic conversion of ammonias to nitrates via bacteria, while denitrification is the anaerobic process of further breaking down these products to nitrogen gas via bacteria. Thus a pellet filter is for ntrification and a sulphur filter is for denitrification. One may use both, but is it required. No! An excellent skimmer will harvest the growing population of nitrifiing bacteria (nitrosomonas/nitrobacter) and thus remove the nitrates at an earlier stage. They will not have a chance to be denitrifiied. Systems not using a skimmer must have some form of denitrification and, as this chain of events is not as easy to keep stabile, the method with the skimmer and pellets is preferred by most. Jamie

Cyanobacteria are common in any tank where they may find small amounts of PO4 to assimilate. They are capable of taking the nitrogen they need straight from the water column. They require light in the yellow to orange range and many T5s and halides do have a spike in this area, often making it difficult to erradicate them. One of the easiest ways to get rid of them is turn off the lights for a week. This will not harm your tanks corals, but the cyanos will quickly retreat. They are extremely dependant on light. Jamie

Forcipiger and Chelmon butterflies rarely eat corals, prefering various worms. The same can be said for Ch. lunula, Ch. rafflesii and oft Ch auriga, but these are not 100% safe. I have a Chaetodon lunula in my reef for about a year and he only eats Aiptasia, to which he is welcome, and feather dusters, which were getting to be a plague for me, despite their amazing beauty. Remember, every fish is an individual, just like people. Jamie

I find that the closer to nature lighting schedules certainly play a role in general health of the marine aquarium. of course, this makes sense in that we really can only directly monitor that which we can measure or immediately see. The long term effect is more difficult to define. With the Illumina you have incredible possibilities for programming and we are always attempting to push the envelope. Although many find items such as storm-cloud programming gimmicky, I have found quite the opposite. These pauses randomly through the day are offering the corals a short rest and seem to improve the general growth. Consider that many corals on the reef spend up to 80% of the day in photoinhibition, only photosynthesising during morning and afternoon hours, when the light levels drop. Cloud patterns, which one finds in nature, offer the corals this extra time to recover and be productive. There is so much to learn, stil. Jamie

Cedric, I'm certainly planning on showing people the pluses and minus of LED lighting. We are dealing with a very different approach to lighting with LEDs. The open a whole new group of parameters to play with. As to the colour play, I am referring to the development of pigment in the corals. Under T5s, partly due to their spectrum, but mostly due to their not being a point light source, as are halides and LEDs, you tend to get a much more homogenous pigment production with fewer dark to light shadings. This reaches its peak in ULNS system with T5s, where the reduced nutrients combined with the very even lighting produce, for my eyes, an articficial-looking colouring of the corals. Also, due to the very nature of T5s, colour rendition is different form halide or LED. Most of us see this directly. Of course, what we tend to produce in the aquarium is not really like nature, where most corals are not brightly coloured and are shaded from dark to light in mainly creams to browns with touches of colour. Still, the ability to control (partly) the pigment expression in corals has become part of the game with marines and I see no reason not to exploit these possibilities. We need to keep in mind, what is typical for a coral and understand the changes we are creating within the organism. We still do not know what effect many of these supplements have long term. Of course, my personal tastes play a role, having grown-up on the sea and spent a lot of time under it, I have a strong preference to more 'natural' light effects. The oceans are full of shadows and lights playing amongst each other. For me, this brings a great deal of life into the general picture. I feel I am moving this thread away from its origin and will be posting more in this general line on our forums. Jamie

Here is a view of my tank a few months ago, as well as a top-angle shot. This tank is about 11 years old, although I have often completely removed the corals and re-arranged a bit over this period. With LEDs I've experienced the best growth and colour I've ever had, and this consistently. As you will note, I have changed my sign on, as we are now sponsors of this great forum. Although I am new working together with Vertex, I've been keeping marines for over 40 years (I have stories!). LEDs are truly a paradigm shift in technologies. Unfortunately, as LEDs are not all the same, I feel they have suffered under poorly designed products using inappropriate emmiters, for the marine aquarist. As well as aquarists expecting them to be the same as other lighting systems. Strange, as we do not expect the same from T5s vs Halides, but somehow, LEDs are expected to be magic bullits. They are unbelievable small and bright, making them difficult for many to fathom. How can anything so discrete and unobvious have such a dramatic effect on my aquarium? Just look at the fixture, it's barely 3" high and weighs half as much as others, not to mention I can literally tuck it under my arm and not burn myself. Too good to be true! What, it uses half the energy and lasts 60,000 hours. Must be from Star Trek. With all the great things LEDs are, we are finding we do need to re-evaluate how we approach lighting for marines. We have learned a great deal about spectrum over the last decade. Stimulating pigment production is coming along well. LEDs are opening more levels of complexity and ease in modeling our aquariums, while allowing us to better simulate the actual conditions found on a reef. Those of us, who have been using LEDs over the last 2 years have noted a very synergetic change in our reefs. I, personally, have not lost a coral to STN since using them. Is it just the more comfortable lighting? Are other parts of the biosphere being supported allowing a more vibrant environment? Something has changed and it is not just low nutrient levels! We are one step closer to our goals. In any case, enjoy the fotos and do visit us on the Vertex Forum. It's nice to be here. Jamie