Corals require heterotrophic feeding beyond photosynthesis, as scientific research shows they consume bacteria and organic particles for 15-35% of their daily metabolic needs, with feeding becoming 100% essential during bleaching events; effective coral nutrition involves dosing ammonia (preferentially over nitrate) at optimal ratios (100:1 nitrate:phosphate), maintaining proper trace elements like iron and nickel, and understanding that coral reefs are momentarily nutrient-rich environments where corals actively manage their symbiotic algae populations through controlled nutrient release.
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TRN FRIDAY LIVE "FEEDING CORAL THE SCIENCE EDITION" WITH SPECIAL GUEST MIKE PALETTA !
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Here we are. It's Friday. Good evening, good afternoon wherever you have tuned in from across the world. Hello and thank you for joining us on another live episode of the Reefers Network. Uh we hope you're having an amazing week or what's left of it should I say on a Friday. I am Grace with as always reefer royalty, Mr. Dong from Acro Garders, Mr. Terrell Newell from Pang Reefs and we just got this random guy turned up with this freshwater tank in the background, Mr. Mike Fleta himself. Hail ye. Hail ye. Thank you very much Mike for tuning in and agree to join us today. Hope you're well.
>> Always always enjoy your guys company.
We always have interesting conversations.
>> Yeah, you might not say that at the end of the show, but we we we'll we'll >> after the last one. I can handle it this time.
>> Amazing. Amazing. Um, are you guys getting any World Cup fever over there at the minute? Because obviously us Brits, we love a bit of football. Are you into soccer? Are you into it over there at the minute or >> Yeah, I I actually watch three games so far and I watch tonight or actually starts in a half an hour. Uh the the States against Australia.
>> Wow. Okay. Who's that question? Who's going to win? Any predictions? No idea.
>> Oh, okay. Let us know in the comments by all means. Uh Don Terrell been busy.
Anything to report this week, gentlemen?
Anything?
>> Oh, lots to report.
>> Always busy first. Going busy busy busy.
Pop roast.
>> Busy busy busy.
>> Pop roast. More grandchild. What? More grandchildren maybe. No, on the on the right.
>> Oh, no, no, not that fast.
>> So, I actually um I saw a Volkswagen uh ID bus on the road, bright yellow.
>> I've been thinking about maybe one day I need that for grandchildren, >> but just I'm dreaming.
>> I like it. I like it.
>> Fair style.
>> Okay, fair enough. Uh Terrell, anything happening at Panang to report?
>> Dizzy as always, man.
>> Yep. Another another day in paradise.
Another week in paradise, so can't complain. Hey, the systems are good.
>> We're good.
>> Good. Good.
>> And you had you had something happen recently in one of the tanks, didn't you? Which we which going to show in a minute. A little bit little bit bogus.
Little bit bogus, which we'll talk about in a second. Something I was meant to ask you actually. I don't know whether you've got this say in the in the US, but over here. So you obviously call you've got the word pooh in your company title. You're renowned for this iconic Tash.
>> Mhm.
>> What would happen if you change the name to Pooh Pooh Tash Reefs? Would would you would that be as entertaining or do you do you understand what I mean by that phrase or do you call it a dirty Sanchez over there?
>> We call it a pach. We call it we call it we call it we call it bootach. Just saying. I mean, I could just take the logo and just put a mustache on it.
>> Yes, exactly.
>> It's an easy crossover.
>> We are going to be show some viewers this evening. A big shout out and thanks Terrell for doing that Instagram post uh yesterday to all of you at Love Tarif down at AAC at Harlow. Sorry I couldn't join you guys because I got an operation scheduled next week which some of you know about. Uh so I decided to stay up here and unfortunately I had to listen to I mean like Mike Pto. I mean like what does he know about reefing you know? It was this guy with a with a freshwater tank in the background. Um, but we're gonna be talking about feeding coins. Dong has put a little bit of effort, well, a little bit a lot of effort as always into one of one of his amazing presentations because we wanted to talk about the science behind it. You know, how does it actually work? How can you influence it? Do you need to be feeding? There's lots of questions that we're going to be answering uh tonight.
But no, thank you very much uh to those of you uh that have tuned in. Um, I mean this week feeding corals, is it something you think people should care about, know about? Anybody got a comment on that? Anybody?
>> Yeah, I I I've tank Well, part of the reason I started feeding the corals is because the work Jamie Craigs did in getting corals into spawning condition.
I mean, we were all keeping corals at that point 10 years ago. And Jamie had developed his feeding and aggressive nutrition system for his corals. And as a result, they had enough energy to produce eggs and sperm.
>> Prior to that, very few of us had corals spawning in our tanks. Now that a lot more people that I know of are aggressively providing nutrition for the corals, whether it's food, whether it's ammonia, whether it's ammonia and ura or whatever, it's no longer just light and fish poop is enough to feed the corals.
We've gone to a lot more nutrition and try to figure out the proper nutrition for the corals. So, I've been tinkering with this for the past three years. And this year, I I think I finally hit on it in that I've been feeding ammonia now for going on three years after seeing what Sanjay the growth that he was having in his tanks. And I've gone to not only ammonia feeding, but I've also gone to feeding the corals every other night with a uh mixture that uh Claude at uh Fonamarin came up with that looks very similar to papone that the Italians were using in the late 90s. It's basically a ground up shrimp, uh squid, an oyster or two, uh spirulina and phytolanton. I add zeosyme, I add miness, I add coral wow, uh, and there's a couple other of his additives if you watch the video on YouTube. I mix it up in the blender. You let it ferment for a couple hours and I put it in an ice cube tray. And every other night, I melt one cube and feed my three tanks downstairs with it. And since I've done that, uh, if I frag a coral, I'll see the coral healed up in three or four or five days where it usually takes two to three weeks. And secondarily, I have growth tips on corals that I didn't think were ever going to grow. So, having gone to this in this year, I'm I'm very happy with what I'm seeing. So, yes, we need to feed the corals and figure it out better. I'm Right now, we're still at the preliminary stages. I mean, is this enough? Should I feed more?
>> I don't know. But this is has been working for me so far this year.
>> So, you heard it from Mike. Feed corals.
That's it. End of the show, right? See you all next week.
Okay. Spoiler alert. That was quick.
Funny. Funnily enough, you talk about spawning cuz terrible, going back to what I said a second ago, you've had something a little bit You don't mind me showing this, don't you? Yeah, show it off.
>> Uh where are we? Uh Bang, here we go.
This is you, isn't it? So, talk us through this.
>> So, I was in uh Mrs. Boutice, my wife's tank the other day and was cleaning out some a cans and I shut all the flow off and I noticed it looked like a little smoke trail coming up out of this uh this gani and you know, I'm thinking it's it's like 1:00 in the afternoon. No way. This thing could be spawning, but I if that's what it is, I think we might have a may have had a spawn.
I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but I was maybe somebody knows better than I do, but I figured we uh >> take a little video, but it like I said, if you zoom in on it, um we sent you another video, too, but it was um you know, you can kind of zoom in and it looks just like, like I said, just like little dust particles, but they all kind of uh kind of get into that one little uh stream and then they all float up and then just kind of, you know, end up in the water column.
>> Wow.
>> So, what what did you feed it before it happened?
>> I mean, I I mean I feed all sorts of different stuff. I' I've fed you know uh you know purple non-sferic bacteria, reef roids, you know, Benipets, uh the whole reef nutrition line, you know, Rod's food, frozen micis. I I vary it all up. Um so, you know, it's just just a wide range of stuff. seen that before.
>> Yeah, that that's one of the things I think is key is we still don't know exactly what the best food is and there's very little scientific literature showing exactly what corals eat or are we feeding the bacteria which the corals then consume. There's a lot more literature showing corals consume bacteria rather than food. Yes, >> something happened in my display tank downstairs which I'm going I'm quite proud about and I'm going to share tonight.
>> So, my SPS tank downstairs, to those of you watching, that isn't my main display. This is literally a backdrop for the YouTube. Uh, so my SPS tank downstairs is rather full. Three years old getting on for September. And I was randomly sat on the sofa with my wife the other day and I thought my pair of my chromise that constantly lay eggs were randomly at the b at the far left on the end of the tank and they never they never normally congregate there.
And I stood up and I was on the phone to one of my pals. Um, for those of you watching, I was on the phone to Drippy and I was saying something weird is happening in the tank cuz these chromis looked like they were they were catching something. I'd never seen it before. It was really weird. Um, and this is what I witnessed in my tank.
>> So, I had this >> this stag on and it was just randomly >> laying eggs or should I say >> so cool >> spawning and the chromis were just literally lapping them up and it's this went on for 5 10 minutes. I mean, I don't know whether I missed it at the beginning or towards the end of it. This is the first time I've ever experienced anything in my in my SPS tank. Um, but yeah, the chromis, all the other fish were at the far end of the tank where they normally get fed waiting, thinking they were going to get fed. And these two guys were really smart. They were right at the other end. It's nine and a half. So, it's a it's a 400gallon tank for those US viewers watching at home.
Um, so yeah, it's fairly big tank. And yeah, these guys were just lapping them up. They weren't as many eggs as I expected as I've seen on other videos before. Um, but yeah, they were they were they were they were uh they were really uh you can see them. Again, I'm no Steven Spielberg clearly, excuse my camera skills, but um you could see them starting to come out of the coral. So, I don't know whether it but to answer what you're saying, Mike, about the feeding.
I've recently changed some of my food because I couldn't get the food I normally feed and the food I'm feeding at the minute has got a lot of smaller particles in it like um lobster eggs and stuff like that. A lot of row in it going into the system >> and it I don't know whether it's just coincidental but it seems to have made a significant difference feeding because I feed the fish with that in it on a daily basis now and I wasn't before.
>> Yeah. Now, like I said, I feed every other night, but I mean, I still have a ton of fish in here that get fed, and the ammonia is dosed every day. So, between the three, the corals are getting a lot more food than they ever used to.
>> Mhm.
>> Yeah.
>> I I I think that in order to let them let it happen, let your coral spawn, the most critical thing is randomly sit in a sofa.
>> That's the most important part.
>> Did you say randomly sit on the sofa or sofa?
>> Yes. Yeah. sofa. Okay, just checking.
>> So, yeah, in order to let let it happen, you need to randomly in a sofa. You cannot deliberately sit there. You just have to be randomly sit there.
>> Yeah.
>> Yep.
>> Cuz I was I was expecting like hundreds of them coming out, but literally the chromis were just I mean, this isn't this coral that you've got on the screen now. It's not that it's not really that that that big. I suppose I would call it a a mini colony or you know it's not a huge sort of mother colony as such but to see them come out of the actual skin is unreal you know really bizarre >> but yeah going back to what Mike's point is and ironically Mike I have also started as per your guidelines uh dosing ammonia by carb as well with a little bit ura in it >> yeah after seeing Sanj's tank like that two years ago the the difference in six months of growth was the most phenomenal growth I've ever seen in a tank.
>> It it unfortunately he lost a tank uh due to not having a generator in a bad storm. So, it'd be curious to see what it looked like now because he was literally taking out chunks with a chisel and a hammer. And when I say chunks, I'm talking like square foot square feet of corals.
>> Wow. Wow.
>> Yeah. I mean, before he did that, there was He has a ton of fish in the tank.
The corals were growing so fast. There was literally no space for the corals to grow. There was none of the caves, none of the overhangs. The corals had filled in all the spaces. I mean, it was amazing the amount of growth he was getting.
>> If you want to see a professional with spawning and and Mr. Alan Kal collector scroll sent me this. Yeah. So, yeah, he's had a bit of a spawning recently and I messaged him and he had it on the same day. So, there you go.
>> There you go.
Are your tanks getting any natural moonlight?
>> Mine? Mine? What?
>> No. No natural moonlight.
>> Okay.
>> Not really. I wouldn't say so. No.
>> Artificial moonlight.
>> Yeah. Probably artificial >> artificial moon. That's just as good.
Just as long as the lunar cycle switches. That seems to be critical for getting spawning.
>> Yeah.
Uh right, gentlemen. Before we talk about the topic of uh this evening, which is obviously the science edition of coral feeding, let me jump in and say hello to the 46 of you at some point that now have joined us. Thank you very much. John writes in the green man. Hope you're having a nice uh time at the green man the day before. Love to reef.
It will be an awesome weekend for those UK reefers that have made the effort to uh tune in and get together, should I say. Thank you very much, John. Tech's reef as always said hello as well. So, we've got some live ones here. Nazlass, hello. Thank you very much for tuning in. Hello today's reef. Hello. Hello.
Hello. Lindsay is here in the background. She's probably uh well lining lining the list of duties that Ter's got to do when it comes to live stream because I get the impression that she does all the work. You come on the live stream and then she carries on doing the work. I think she deserves a bit of a spa day. Terl spa day or beach day.
>> Spa day. Spa day coming up. Elisa is in the house as well. Good evening. Good evening. Good afternoon. So is Rocky's Reef. Hello. Hello Antony. Thanks for tuning in. Uh LT Reefer, hope up you're good. Dirt Devil's Reef, happy Friday.
Thanks for tuning in. Albert, hope you're good. 207, what's up everyone?
Thanks for tuning in. Harry, hope you're well. Nice to see you. Hope you're going to be at Love to Reef. Hope you're having an amazing weekend, my man. Uh Timothy's here as well. Hello. Hello.
Hello. Oh, Chief Reef official. There you go. Sounds very serious. Chief Reef official. Hope you're good. Uh Danny Smart 4153. Hello. Hello. Hello to Xavier 6011.
Uh hello hello hello Zane. Hope you're good. Happy Friday. Grant Godfrey. So Grant, I say this all the time. I always give him a plug and he's going to be smirking. So Grant's misses works with me in my business.
>> Has absolutely no interest in reefing at all.
>> They've just gone come back from two weeks in Indonesia in Bali.
>> Oh >> wow. And she still won't let him have a fish tank, but she let him have another tattoo incidentally. Anyway, is Dean Hello Dean. Hope you're good.
Enjoy. Love to re this weekend. Sorry I couldn't meet up with you. Hope you're good. Uh to Spillers Reef, thanks for tuning in. We've got a few more tuning in now. Jat's Reef. Hello. Hello. Hello.
Who else got here? Drippy. I'm not reading that. Oh, go on then. Good evening, Knowledgeable Reefs and Tom.
Just a quick question for Michael Plet.
So Mike Drippy was on the first time you met you came on with us and he was asking you about algae. Are you still munching algae and if so which one seems to put more lead in your pencil?
>> No, I I have no algae to munch on. It basically has stopped but fortunately the pencil's still working fine. So >> I think the question last time you came on was how pink is that tick? But anyway, we'll keep this. No, we were talking about biopsis and why nothing eats it. And I had tasted it and it is one of the nastiest, most bitter things.
>> Unfortunately, I've not had a biopsis outbreak to need to test, nor any other odd, strange algae to taste.
>> Okay. What about >> remember me?
>> He did remember. He was he was keen to say that to me earlier on the phone before we were in the green room.
Luis is here. Mr. Killer himself. Good afternoon, my man. That'll be good.
Thanks for tuning in. Uh, have I missed anybody? North Wales Reefer, thanks for tuning in. Nice to see you in the comments. Like I said, as always, get your questions in the comments. We will do our best to throw them up on screen.
For the man that is, Mr. Mike Pleta.
Alan Vo is here. Mr. TRT Reefs, hope you're good. Tony's here from Digital Corals. Thanks for tuning in. So is Peter Perry.
And Mo is here as well. Mo Reef, hope you're good down in Leicester. Just kidding. From Bristol. Uh, anyway. Uh, right. So, Don, you've put an amazing presentation together. No pressure. Mike Plet is gonna grade you. He's got pen and paper. He's gonna he's gonna grade you. He's like, >> I'm waiting for that.
>> Stop the show.
>> So, as always, as I've just said, if you if you have got any questions uh based on tonight's topic, it is a little bit geeky for some maybe. Do apologize.
Please do throw it in the comments section as always. Uh and get get involved. That's the whole point of the live show. So here we go. Yeah. Over to you. Feeding your reef.
>> Yeah. Feeding the reef. Next slice please.
Okay. So coral got a polop. Coral polip has a mouse. So basically during evolution anything has a mouse. You got to eat something, right? Otherwise that the mouse will be basically will be abandoned and evolve into nothing. No mouse. So uh since coral polip has a mouse that means that well is designed to eat something. Next please.
>> Okay.
>> Yeah. Okay. Here is the thing is that uh throughout the uh history of scientific community studying coral reef. So there is something called the Darwin's uh paradox. So what it uh what it means is that uh when people look at the pristine water on coral reef zero phosphate zero nutrient basically nothing almost nothing no organic how this coral get their nutritions. So this is the Darwin uh paradox that uh the people are talking about. Actually this idea sort of dominated the scientific community for like 50 to 70 years.
Thinking about that photosynthesis uh uh through the same bios as algae is sufficient and is the primary driving force for the coral's nutrition. So this kind of sinking has been around for like a decades. So that actually these days since there's a lot of uh coral conservation effort has been put in uh to each coral reef all uh different countries. So there's a lots of funding money available to study coral. So in the past decade there's so many literature coming out so paint a different picture of how coral actually surviving or basically living alive on coral reef. So to actually the Darwin uh paradox is no longer a paradox is no longer a mystery how it works. It turns out the coral reef is a lot more nutrientrich than just what's in the water. The water itself, yeah, it's always pristine. But nutrition are being delivered in post mode. That's what what the literature said. Pulse just boom and go clean.
Boom. Nutrition input and go clean by a lot of fish. For example, try to imagine this is that a bunch of fish fly by uh the coral reef and they just like bombarding the coral reef with all the poop and peas. So, and then they when they go away and because the you you know that on the coral reef water change water change water change happening every millisecond. It talk about 100% water change per millisecond. So then the the water become pristine again. So when a scientist get a vial going to the coral reef, scoop the water up and test it. Oh hell no, there's no nitrate, no phosphate.
But if he go there to collect the water as some of the scientific literature published, the uh phosphate can up to 0.8 ppm.
>> Wow. really >> if the correct. Yep. Yep. Yep. Nitrate can be in 20 30 when the well when the coral being bombard with the nutrient source those uh bombers fly by boom like this. And also another important aspect about coral feeding is bacterial because that uh bacterial uh try to imagine that bacterial basically encapsulated nitrate phosphate ammonia all the nutrient in them. If you do a a test on the water the inorganic nitrate and phosphate test it show up as zero.
But if you look at the seawater under microscope and some of the papers said that is the dirtiest water on the face of earth on the coral reef is teeming with life. But those life um uh basically uh they encapsulated all the nutrient in them and that is what the the mouse for the coral for by capturing the prey. Ever wonder the mucus on the coral pup what they do? Basically there's that's the attractant that he to the prey and transport the prey to their mouth just like your bubble tip anemmy where you feed him a piece of uh raw fish. So the tentacle grab onto the the the fish and trans transport them to their mouths. So more and more scientific studies shows that feeding is actually critical for uh good coral health.
So um the fundamental concept about coral reef is that coral reef is not a nutrient poor environment.
is a momentarily nutrient ultra rich and then next moment pristinely clean >> gone >> gone or what what I mean is that is testable nitrate phosphate ammonia that the inorganic one that can be test but uh they actually all encapsulated in a living bacterial living plankton does not react to the chemical reagent we use to test ammonia nitrogen phosphate There you go.
>> So, yeah, go ahead.
>> I'm just thinking for anybody watching at home, uh, just we said in the green room, Mike, you've you've got a you've got a freshwater tank behind you. Do you do you care to do you care to sort of comment on that to the viewers, salty viewers watching at home?
>> Why do I have a freshwater tank? Cuz I have five other saltwater tanks. So, >> good answer. We'll let you off. Good answer.
>> Pull out a saltwater tank here. seeing the problems I had and how much messing around I did with the saltwater reef tanks. So, this was a compromise.
>> And what's and just out of interest, what's it like in the trop what's it like in a freshwater tropical world with with nutrients like Dong's just saying there about the ocean? How's that how does it work with that sort of system?
>> Because I have so many plants in the tank. Uh, I I before I put the plants above the tank in the back that are terrestrial and just have the roots sitting in the water, I was having algae issues. I was having a lot of issues because there's obviously a lot of fish in the tank. But since I put the plants in the back, they grow faster than any plants I've ever kept before. They take all the nutrients out of the tank and the tank is much more stable and easier to maintain, but the nutrients are there and you still have to dose things like iron and potassium, but the amount of food and amount of waste that goes in fertilizes the the plants very well.
>> Mhm.
>> So, there's no CO2 system in this tank.
This this is a very I I didn't want to be mess messing around with CO2, worry about the tank uh the CO2 tanks getting them filled, worrying about the pH and everything else. This is a pretty stable system and the nutrient levels are where they're supposed to be based on how the plants are doing. Uh like there's a couple plants in there like crips and uh and Sagittarius. I literally have to take out a bucket of it every month because it grows so fast. It covers the glass and everything. It just fills the entire tank.
>> Terally, you should get a tank like that. And when it outgrows, you can when it when the plants out, you can dry them out and put them in your pipe. Smoke them. Just saying.
>> I've not tried hemp yet, but that may be typically a desert plant, >> right? Sorry, D. Back to you. Next.
>> Okay. Next one. So >> one one thing I one thing I wanted to add Dong also when the bacteria is trace elements are also picked up by the bacteria as part of the package. There's literally nothing in the literature that I have found that show corals directly uptake any of the trace elements. It's all bacterial as as the intermediary. So it's critical that you keep the bacteria healthy >> and that was one of the things we also neglected in terms of feeding the tanks.
>> Absolutely. So Yep. Yep. Uh then um so uh for this slide that uh we used to think actually uh the AI tell us coral is okay for photosynthesis they're good enough like 90% 95% and nutrition input from the symbolus algae is fine no the AI sometimes is wrong so basically heterotrophic feeding that means that the coral eat the eat bacterial plankton that actually account for about 15 to 35% of the daily metabolism need.
Well, when a coral is bleached, feeding become 100%.
So yes, the the photosynthesis for the same BS as LG can definitely satisfy some of that the nutrition requirement, but it's much less than what we thought or what we learned like 10 years ago. So the feeding actually take a larger portion of the coral uh nutrient requirement.
Next, go to the next one.
>> Okay. Uh there you go, sir. There you go.
>> Okay. So uh in many scientific study the frequently used coral food artmia the freshly hatched brine shrimp as the the uh coral food for scientific study they frequently used. So that's why I put a picture there to uh show this uh ugly little bugger but just like alien face hugger. Oh no. Okay next go ahead next one please. Okay, here is a study shows the effect of feeding for stony coral.
The coral they use in here actually is a palapora.
So uh for a reef keeper SPS keeper all we know we all know palapora has tiny tiny tiny little little mouse tiny tiny tiny polo.
So basically they when they use this stony coral as a demonstration for feeding a fat is quite convincing for SPS. So what we're looking at on on the left hand side is the fat coral growth rate zero day and 140 day. You can see the significant uh growth for the posapora fragment. HL M L means that highlight, medium light and low light on the right hand side uh is the unfat coral.
So the picture tells a thousand worlds.
Even on posora with such a tiny tiny mouse, they're feeding them baby brine shrimp which is pretty large size as food particle >> 140 days. That's the result. So you can see that the lighting actually plays a less uh impressive effect. So if you look at the fat coral, unfat coral under highlight, medium light and low light, yeah, the the lighting effect is really not that significant when you compare to the coral growth. But feeding >> definitely show you that's a huge difference in terms of feeding.
>> Just a side just on a side note to that qu that point there about feeding them uh with the brown shrimp. How much of it do you think is down to the juices though that's in that concoction? Not necessarily just the particles.
>> Um, they fed live animal as instead of frozen.
>> Oh, okay.
>> So, yeah, fair enough. Mhm. Okay.
>> Yes.
>> Yeah.
>> Do you think the juice Sorry, just do you think the juices play an important part, Mike, >> when you get frozen?
>> Yeah, Mike.
>> Yeah. I mean, literally anything you feed is better than not feeding in my opinion.
>> Yes. Uh the only problem I've had a couple of the frozen foods here in the states I found vibrio in it and as a result I pop everything in the microwave for 15 seconds to kill any bacteria in any frozen food. doesn't thaw the food, but 15 seconds should kill most bacteria because there's >> some people that have used homemade concoctions that they left uh ferment for a long period of time and they were getting really weird fish diseases as a result from feeding this.
So that's why I have gone to using a microwave for 15 seconds to to zap the frozen food before I feed the fish.
>> Makes sense. Go on. Doug, what were you going to say?
Oh, is he paused? All right, we'll move on.
>> Are you the liberty to say what frozen foods you did find with it?
>> I I don't want to get in trouble by saying which foods, but uh a couple that are are very widely used.
>> Interesting.
>> My background is in biology and chemistry, so I and have a couple microscopes and can look at a lot of different things. And that was one of the things I found like I I found vibrial vonificus in the late 1990s when we were getting in Fiji corals and having uh RTN from them and people oh no it's a coral shutdown syndrome it's just no it was a bacterial infection.
>> Wow. Okay.
>> I wonder if it would be uh sorry I wonder if it would be like you know per maybe a bad batch or if that's just you know something that they're they're sourcing you know all the time and you see it consistently in batches. I'd be curious. They only tested a couple of batches, but to find it in a couple of batches >> more than enough gives you a pretty good idea that it's going to be there.
>> Yeah. Yeah.
>> And particularly if you thaw it and let it sit for a couple of hours, uh the bacterial count was significantly higher than if you freeze it, thaw it real quick, and pop it in. So there there is there may just be a small amount, >> but if you thought and let it get to room temperature, the bacteria just literally explode in some of these formulas. That's why 15 seconds in the microwave, I don't worry about it.
>> And just while you're saying that, the first thing that pops into my head this time of year, it gets a bit warm.
Obviously, we're all feel Well, certainly us in the UK feeling the heat a little bit. I know you guys over there are probably used to it. But when it comes to most people will keep their food near their tank. They just will.
That's just habit. They're going to keep it on the top of the tank. It's going to be under lights. It's going to get a lot, you know, a lot of light, a lot of heat. Where where do we stand in terms of food going off as it were or you know becoming a little bit perhaps dangerous and should be putting it down the toilet maybe putting a fresh batch out.
>> Yeah. Like >> Okay, I'm back.
>> If you let it get to room temperature or above, you start to see the bacteria start to take off in some of these foods. uh you know if you have it sitting on the in sunlight because I have one sunlight tank. I've had food sit there and when I went to see it it on the container it was 105 degrees. So I threw out the food because I knew even if I after microwaving it I'm betting there was a ton of bacteria in it.
>> Yeah. Yeah. I didn't test it but I just my mind is >> so I know it sounds silly but if people again for the benefit of people watching at home if you were going to look at your food it's a little bit like leaving milk on the side isn't it if it goes off is it has a skin on it if it starts to smell if you wouldn't eat it or drink it then don't feed your tank is what kind of what I'm what I'm saying >> if it has a bad smell I won't add it to the tank I mean fish will eat anything >> but if I smell any kind of funkiness in the food I go nah it's Not worth it.
>> Okay, come on. Don, sorry. Back over to you. So amazing that slide then. So clearly some difference in growth then.
Really impressive slide with the growth there. Okay.
>> Yeah. So uh let's go to the next one.
Okay. So there are so many coral food on the market. The liquid one, there's a solid one. Apparently um through um throughout the history of this food available on the market, it seems like almost every one of them works. It seems like that. So I I know a guy actually here's an interesting story. I know SPS grower. So he has amazing tank. So he uh I asked him, "What's your secret?" He said, "Well, he feed his coral." I said, "What uh what do you feed your SPS?"
What he does is that he buy every freaking food available on the market.
Everything dump them together in one big pot.
>> Wow.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. I guess that works.
>> Yeah.
>> Exactly. Yeah.
>> Incidentally, I I've just put a poll on screen for those of you in the live chat. Get involved by all means. You don't have to. Uh but appreciate your input. So, first question, like those saying, do you actually feed your corals? Do you target feed them? Do you specifically feed your tank for your corals? You know, one for yes, two for no. Let us know. Leave it running for a couple more minutes. Interesting, Don.
So, yeah, you're right. There is quite a lot. And I think sometimes people can get I mean, a lot of it, you know, I always say this, you know, it's all marketing and and social media and look at my tank. Boom. and polip extension and all this sort of thing that people wish for this, you know, I suppose the tank to look like these these people on on Instagram and such, but I know we're going to get into this. How much of it do you think actually works?
>> Actually, I have a slide at about uh later on, >> okay, >> to show that why all this thing all works.
>> Can can I add one thing?
the there there's a significant amount of variability in terms of how much phosphate each one of these foods puts in your tank.
>> Yes.
>> And one of the things I did, I actually wrote an article for ultramarines over over in England uh last uh fall where I looked at 40 different foods. I took one gram of everything and measured the amount of phosphate in it. And the amount of phosphate in some of these foods was astronomical compared to other ones. So if you're if you're going to feed these foods, you might take into consideration how much phosphate. Like you said, you can have phosphate up to.3 and I have seen Sanjay's tank run at 0.9. You didn't have any algae and the corals were thriving. So you can do it if all the other parameters are good.
But in for most of us, you start to get algae issues if your phosphates get a little too high or certain corals don't really like high phosphate levels. like some of my euphilios will start dropping heads or pulling back if the phosphate gets too high.
>> So keep that in mind that some of these have very high phosphate levels.
>> But what's interesting is the highest phosphate level >> because of the amount of it in the tank was from the detritus. It was low.
>> Okay.
>> But I was pulling out 500 grams of detritis uh every week. So the amount of phosphate that it was leeching into the water was astronomical.
>> And what do you rate as high, Mike, for those again for those views at home?
What are you What do you class as high?
>> It was It was running in terms of on my tank. I try to keep it under 0.2.
>> Okay.
>> Uh I I'm not really worried. Between 0.1 and 0 2, I don't have any issues. Above 0 2 I start to get a little bit more algae and stuff on the glass. Right now with it's it's running at 0 2. I only have to clean the front glass once a week.
So I I use that as my criteria. If if I have to clean it twice a week, then my phosphate level has gotten too high.
I test with a hand tester twice a week, but the the the window test is much easier and cheaper.
>> I like that. The window test. I like >> the window test. I like that.
>> The window test. I like that.
>> Okay.
>> Okay. Uh next, please.
>> Yeah. There you go.
>> Yeah. Here we go.
>> You got the poll.
>> Yeah, we got the poll. You got the right. Okay. So, >> so apparently 60% is feeding the coral.
Okay.
>> So, I I think Mike has one good point is that uh feeding some is better than feeding none.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> And actually uh before my internet cut out uh I uh I want to point I I I have one uh thing to say about that the vibio bacterial in the frozen food. So uh there's a study done on that is that the vio bacterial if the frozen food is made out of a lot of fish guts then uh you're going to have a lot of vibio bacteria there. So that's why that uh for homemake food preferably that uh we just use the fresh of uh uh use the human grade seafood to avoid the guts for the fish. So actually that can significantly reduce the amount of vibio bacteria in your frozen food. There's already tons of viv bacterial pathogenic uh bacteria in the reef tank and they're implicated for so many disease especially SPS disease that we don't need to add any more we bacteria into our tank. So that that might you have a great point. Yeah just that's something to concern about for frozen food. After you're after you're done with your talk, we'll talk about some of the potential causes and stuff for for vibrio and other pathogenic outbreaks that I I have found I think uh the viewers will find interesting.
>> Great. Great. So, let's go to the next one. Okay. Uh milipora with the hairy polo. Actually it shows that mediaorite um is a very good catcher for uh tiny little organism like bacterial uh any partic organic a particulate uh uh flying in the water column all sort of stuff. That's why milipora actually uh exhibit this kind of uh long tentacle the long pol extension because they are very sensitive to sensing the food present in the water.
And with the long pup, they're really good at capturing prey. So for Millipora, if you're a big millipora fan, >> you should feed your tank something.
>> I've I've just put that on there, Don.
So there's another poll there just out of interest for those of you that are still with us. How how many times a week do you feed your coral? Uh one or two times a week, two to four, four to six or every day? Let us know. Now, with this subject, you know, about, you know, you're feeding coral and obviously like, you know, the subject of direct feeding versus like broadcast feeding, you know, and so we can even talk about, you know, hey, you know, do you how many times a week do you feed? Well, I mean, I I broadcast feed a whole bunch. Um, you know, is >> what's what's sufficient? I know I know, you know, each animal is going to have, you know, different pattern of feeding.
So, is broadcast feeding going to be a little bit better for SPS whereas maybe direct feeding a little bit better for LPS?
uh uh for SPS you definitely broadcast feet because that uh ability for it to capture prey uh is not very efficient you know so when you target feed it majority of the part food particle will just fly away in the column >> they can only c because they have such a small mouse and small tentacle small pup so the ability for them to capture prey is pretty poor for SPS PS and think about this way is that our rift tank actually is a closed system.
The foot just recirculating over and over again. Uh for LPS actually here's an interesting thing that uh how effective LPS capture prey maybe is less than what people think.
I used to saw a video on YouTube telling you how to properly feed your a can.
Basically, the uh the guy shows that it makes a a paste of rifoy.
>> Mhm.
>> And paste it on top of the A can.
>> Y actually I try it. I saw my A can just slash off majority of the sand immediately. they can only take a small amount at time.
>> So I think that target feeding maybe is overrated and also more time time consuming. So what I do to feed my reef tank, I always broadcast feet. I don't bother to just uh targeting each coral because that you can blast it with food but the majority of the food just go away.
A lot of species can handle it different to and to your to your point, I've seen that same thing. You know, your A cans really do, you know, they slosh off a lot of that food. They can only accept a certain amount, but I I'll watch like um well, Sony's will actually take paste in pretty well, surprisingly. I've been kind of, you know, playing around with that. But like, you know, your scaleas will really take a large amount in and like if you actually drop a nice they'll they won't really slosh anything off.
They'll pull it into their mouths, you know, your aanthos, things like that. So you can definitely see like per species how they'll how they'll feed a little bit more tolerant to like what sizes they're taking in and how much before they start just rejecting it.
>> Do you think a lot of this though is down to where they actually are found in the ocean in terms of their actual uptake in terms of how food is available to them wherever they are?
>> Well, in the ocean is always broadcast feeding. There's no fish go on your a can and poop on it sit there.
>> That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. You're finding these corals in various different, you know, different depths, different, you know, different, you know, climates, different parameters.
So, they are going to, you know, they're not going to get a, you know, a silver silver service dinner every day, are they? Some of them, they're going to wait maybe weeks before they get fed.
>> Two other quick things on feeding.
>> Sorry, two other quick things on feeding. One, when I broadcast feed, I also slow down the return from the sump and skimmer because otherwise most of the food gets washed in and just gets skimmed out.
>> So rather than having it at 1,200 liters an hour, I cut it back to like 300 liters an hour and that slows it down.
two on the milliporas up until I started feeding the tank a lot of the maracultured milliporas a lot of people have difficulty keeping them because where they're maintaining them or maraculturing them they're getting a lot of food they put them in a tank that they're not feeding these corals start starving and you see the corals waste away from the bottom to the top so that that's a fairly good indicator if you're feeding enough >> if your coral starts from the bottom to the top you're probably not feeding enough so you may need to up the food into the tank.
>> Yes.
>> Particularly with and spiladas.
>> Yeah, the spatula. Uh uh one thing uh is that in the ocean, the ocean water probably contains a lot more bacterial and also the other organic particulates than our reef tank. So that means that even though the in the ocean coral is always uh a broadcast feeding but the food is available 24/7.
So that is something that we need to sing about. So that's why that sometimes I think about that uh automatic uh frozen food dozer it actually makes some sense.
>> Yep.
>> As as well as that uh automatic uh powder food dosing. Yeah, it all makes sense. Is to basically keep the water all keep the food always available to the coral at a very low level so that you can prevent the fouling of the water but always provide a small amount of food >> to the coral.
There there was actually a paper done 25 years ago that compared different feeding schedules for reef tanks and they found that small amounts continuously the nutrient levels were a tenth of what they were when you gave two or three big feedings a day. So if you can feed small amounts constantly because I mean the thing that people don't don't really understand is how small a fish's stomach is and so it can't up I mean fish eat constantly. If you if you go diving and you see fish, they literally are eating the entire time. They either are eating or having sex. Those are the only two things that fish really do.
>> Oh, man. Man of my man words, Mike. Love it. Just Yeah. And drinking. And drinking.
>> Yes. And drinking. So, you have to you have to fe if you feed small amounts. I have automatic feeders on most of my tanks and I feed six or seven times a day in small amounts. And just by doing that, I've been able to bring the nitrates and phosphate levels down, feeding the same amount of food.
>> And incidentally, Mike has sex just as many times a day.
>> He taught me in the green room.
>> Okay. Uh, can we do the next one? Next slide, please.
>> Of course we can. Of course, we can.
>> Okay. All right. So, feeding response for the rebuilding coral. Actually this paper was uh targeting microplastic.
They try to figure out that uh how much microplastic actually the coral ingest or different kind of coral they ingest in the ocean to how harmful about microlastic is. But we are not looking at microplastic part but we're looking at the the uh the feeding part feeding the non-microlastic uh nutrition. So it turns uh uh from this graph you can see that um SPS coral that's the blue line the blue green line over there are not very discriminatory about what particle they capture.
>> Oh okay.
>> Yeah. and LPS coral the large polip uh coral actually they be they be they are able to differentiate food versus non-food much better than SPS coral.
>> So you're saying the SPS coral is is less of a picky eater with the food.
>> Exactly. They ingest >> whatever given to them. Whatever's given to them they'll eat.
>> Yeah. As long as they can fit into their mouths.
>> I can relate to that.
>> Yeah.
>> Yep.
So, and then they basically capturing prey based on size instead of taste. And LPS coral on the other hand taste become a lot more important for them. They also ingest a larger amount of food.
>> So that there's a different type of >> Sorry. Sorry. So, what you're telling me is that LPS corals are going to taste something and if they like it, they're going to ingest it more than if they don't like it.
>> Mhm.
>> If they don't like it, they spilled it out. They rejected it easily.
>> Wow. So, it's almost like it's almost like feeding the baby.
>> Oh, exactly. Yeah. The his broccoli.
Hell no. His uh A5 uh whatever wet you beef. Oh, yeah. Yeah, >> but SPS well uh but that's interesting.
Uh so uh what we can translate into uh plant language is that LPS has better taste. SPS is just >> filter feeder.
>> Wow, >> whatever fit into their mouths. So that is why that as long as the for SPS as long as the particle size can fit into their mouths. No matter if you're rieroy, rib chili, benny pad, whatever they just eat it.
>> They're not that discriminatory for that. But then >> that lead to another question is that make sure you feed your coral with a good coral food. because that that these little particle can get into the coral, right? So they are full. So if these particles tiny particles are not very nutritious, then basically you're just like feeding them junk food.
>> Well, the question I was going to ask you there, you saying about feeding a quality food. So the obvious one is how do you differentiate between a quality food and not quality food?
>> And my other question there, so it's a two-part question. Sorry Don. My other question there, my other part of that question is do these coral foods have a shelf date? Do they have a sell by date?
>> Of course they do.
>> Okay. Yeah. So that all of them has the the the solid coral food and liquid coral food they both all of them have at least in US have the expiration day on it.
Uh some of the vendor told me that yeah on the solid coral food expiration day is less important. Don't believe that the the expiration date already very generous to put on the label.
So no matter what what kind of food they have a limited shelf life.
>> Probably the best food to feed is the fresh one.
>> And what's the danger between what's what is the danger of feeding something that is out of date then? Mike, you got any experience with that? Anybody feeding anything out of date? Maybe >> I I I have used stuff that was older than it should have been and I didn't see anything delotterious, but I mix up my own food and add stuff to it. So, I mean, it's all fresh fish and fresh everything with a little bit of added commercial foods.
>> That doesn't include shampoo then clearly in the shower.
>> Yep. Because I use a lot of shampoo as you know.
>> Exactly. I I use tons of them. Yeah, it was out of date. It was out of date. It was out. It was out of date. It was all good. It's all good.
>> I literally buy the best shampoo I can because I only need to use two drops of it. So, it's like champagne.
>> Okay. Sorry. Back to you.
>> Okay. So, uh there's a Jo and Pali. Uh I read somewhere on on online saying that well people doesn't seem to think that they need feeding. But actually those and pali actually require feeding a lot. So the photo here is my photo. Okay, of course that you have the permission to use this photo wherever you want, but I just want to show you this is a photo of my combo colony. I feed the crap out of my zoensus tank.
Yeah.
And my zoensus tank become my refugeium.
They grow so much.
They grow so fast and and then during their grow they actually they take out nitrogen phosphate for the SPS.
So definitely feed the zoensis that's that's um uh yeah next >> sorry there's a question there I was going to jump from ei thanks for tuning in question what happens if we feed fish flakes or polish to LPS corals do they eat that but can it have a negative effect >> what happens eat that.
>> Yeah.
>> So the the you can buy this called LPS pallets.
>> Mhm.
>> They said they designed for LPS is not necessary to to spend money for something that LPS pallet >> surely. Surely surely food is food. It's about whether or not you can actually get it to the to >> Yes.
>> the the >> for matter of fact um remember Richard Ross? Hang on.
>> Richard Ross feed a lot of food for the coral, right?
>> This is the cool misuses flake.
>> He feed to his fish. And this thing actually coral take that. LPS coral take that.
>> So, uh I tried this.
>> Yeah. Just crush them up.
>> Yeah. Coral love it.
>> Cuz I mean corals are going to take the corals are going to take the food out the other end of the fish, aren't they?
Ultimately, or most in most cases, they're going to take the waste, aren't they, out the fish. Yeah.
>> So, you could argue >> That's a very good question.
>> Okay. Because a fish uh just like Mike said, fish has a very tiny stomach.
Uh also they have a really short intestinal tract.
>> So they eat poop, the food goes out.
But during this process, all the solid food become fine powders when they push poop them out. So the fish poop actually contain majority of nutrition still intact before they eat. Because the Because the fish can only can only retain so much because you're pushing that much through it if you Yeah.
Exactly.
>> Yeah. How many times have you fed your fish and while they're eating they're pooping? It's basically >> a constant system with them.
>> I know that feeling all too well.
>> Now, now does that make a does that make a case for like let's say you know you know obviously that that fish poop turns you know detritus. It kind of you know settles. Does that make a case for, you know, continually stirring up your detritus and and getting that into the water?
>> Oh, detritus actually is different from fish poop.
>> Okay.
>> Well, do you think like you think it all kind of like mixes in? Because I mean, I got my my my bare bottom so like all the, you know, I watch for the fish poop and it'll kind of like trail on and it all kind of, you know, congregates in that one little spot that everything gets into. Uh the funny thing is that uh the the Detroititers uh there I read somewhere I forget where it come from.
They actually analyze what's in the detritus. The Detroit is mostly a inert stuff because there's a the fish poop collected there but there's a microorganism there bacterial immediately consuming the nutritious the nutrient in those food and render them like uh basically just like ash is non-nutritious just shells or something lot of diatom shells. So so the uh for detritus yank them out if you can. So, they are not nutritious.
>> What's interesting is that the detritus will tend to hold or bind a lot of phosphate. If you want to see what your actual phosphate level is in your tank, fill up half your vial with detritus and with water, shake it up, let it sit overnight, then pour off the water and do the test. You'll be amazed at how much higher your phosphate test is.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> Wow. That's interesting.
>> Yeah. So, by removing suck up the the Detroit actually is very good technique.
So I have bare bottom tank too. I arranged the flow. Well, thank you Mark.
Bottom ocean sea wave saying that the sweeping all the dreaders to the one corner of a bare bottom tank.
>> I just use a turkey base there to suck it up. Simple and easy.
>> Yep.
>> Y just Yeah. Next one.
>> Couple of questions. Sorry, Doug. From the viewers uh watching at home. So, we've got uh what else we've got in here? We've got a question from Andrew.
Good evening, Andrew. Afternoon.
Thoughts on PNS yellow coral food? Any opinion? Any question a lot? Any anybody experienced it?
>> Uh I never tried that, so I cannot comment on that.
>> Yeah, >> I've added it, but I didn't see anything significant. But then I am already feeding. If you're if you're not feeding and you're adding it, that's the only way you're going to tell if it does anything really beneficial.
>> Cool. Cool. Yeah.
>> Uh, and Dong, people are asking if your tanks are screen savers. Uh, never seen any of Dang Dong's tanks. Where can I see them?
>> Uh, come over.
>> Okay.
>> See in person.
>> He incidentally decided to put a slice of bread over his cat just in case you didn't see that on the thumbnail. There you go. That's what he did. There you go. Thank you very much. Okay. Sorry, dog. Back to you. Next slide. There you go. LPS. Eat like a pig.
>> LPS is like a pig. Yes. feeding LPS actually is very very important. For matter of fact, LPS uh photosynthesis for LPS is kind of lacking.
So the LPS in the ocean the the uh the huge part of the nutrition intake actually from feeding instead of from photosynthesis and when we look at LPS with this brilliantly beautiful color especially in red whatever kind of thing. So for photosynthesis algae uh the brown they always brown in color.
The coral color also affecting how effectively they uh they do photosynthesis.
So LPS is not really that great in photosynthesis. They actually rely heavily on feeding. So feed your LPS.
That is an important message. So next is there no sorry is there no so is there a correlation then to the size of the mouth is due to the size of the particle that they they can they can deal with they can process >> yes >> I'm just I'm listening to this that you're talking about it's brilliant by the way thank you ever so much but I'm just thinking about an ocean you know shelf as it were let's just go 45 degree angle just for argument sake SPS at the top LPS middle towards the bottom >> they're going to deal with you know decay paying dead, you know, animals or fish, the bigger particles are going that the other corals can't deal with are going to end up going towards the bottom. So, is it a case to say there's some ecological, you know, design there that they can cope with bigger >> that's possible.
>> If you ever go diving, you won't find LP or Yeah. LPS up with the acros. They're down below. They're in the muck. They're in the murky water. They're not they're not on the reef crest, which is relatively pristine and and bright sunlight. So, there's a reason photosynthesis isn't their dominant form of nutrition.
>> Yume, but they will consume ammonia.
>> Yep. They they will they do uh with with that uh with the feeding of LPS set there's one saying is that uh don't overfeed them.
>> Mhm. M >> either sometimes if for a healthy trache for example like like in the photo of the trache especially the one they just arrive from the ocean to your tank if you feed them too much a healthy one will be able to throw up when you're not looking when you're randomly sitting in a sofa without looking and they throw up and they expel the the the undigested food.
But if they're too weak, too stressed out to do that.
>> Yeah.
>> The food rot in the in the stomach end up killing the coral.
>> That's interesting. Interesting.
>> So when you just get a LPS from your fish store and then always ask how long like six months in your in your tank or six hour in your tank. For a new LPS, uh I just just hold off the heavy feeding.
Let them adjust. Let Yeah, go ahead, Ter.
>> I was going to say to to Tom's point before about the size of mouth, um I've actually had a client show me a picture of a funia plate eat a a blue hippo tang.
>> Oh my god.
>> Oh yeah. I I wouldn't have believed it if I didn't see a picture of it. But yeah, >> you understand what you understand what I mean though. I might be talking I'm just thinking of the ocean. I know it's huge and vast and deep and whatever, but you know, there's going to be certain things that certain corals can't uptake and absorb and it's going to find its way towards the bottom, isn't it?
Eventually, and along that way or that journey, there are going to be different species that will be able to, you know, uptake or entertain these bigger sized particles. It kind of just makes sense, you know, think about it ecologically, you know, makes more makes more sense.
So, >> can you overfeed these then, Dong is what you're saying. Can you overfeed these guys? You can put too much. Yes, you can definitely overfeed them, but for a healthy specimen, they can always throw up. They can always expel >> feed too much bee too much, they throw up. Seriously, >> that's including carpet anemone.
>> Copy anemone definitely can do that.
>> So, they do it very obvious and then they look pissed off and then they just throw up the thing. And then I look, >> go ahead.
>> If you if you overfeed these corals, can they hurt themselves by having too much?
you can poison themselves maybe.
>> Um, well, here's the thing. Uh, remember 10 or 15 years ago, uh, people are talking about feeding silver, the little fish, the frozen tiny fish to anemmones.
>> It turns out some of them actually puncture the gut of anemone.
>> Interesting.
>> Yeah. Causing an in internal infection.
So, >> I remember that. I remember those. You used to I used to buy them frozen and used to throw them in.
>> Yeah. The silver side and then and feed them to target feed. Wow. Okay.
>> Yeah. So fish soft, gentle uh mushy food always better.
>> Small amounts often just like in the freshwater tank forever. Small amounts often is much better than a big buffet of food.
>> Yeah. I know this sounds silly, Mike, but all I and I am clearly not the most athletic, you know, Olympic kind of guy here, but if you were going to if you and and again, there's going to be loads of people are going to troll me in the comments for saying this, but if you were looking at a healthier diet and you were mixing with exercise, you would you would have smaller portions of food, but more of them, wouldn't you? As a human being, from what I know, >> there's there's clearly some symb There's some similarities there from what you see.
>> Yes. Yes. a small portion more frequent always better.
>> Yeah.
>> Right.
>> Okay.
>> Same thing for feeding the corals rather than the one big meal. Uh I have it now where over the course of the night it feeds four times a night. It pumps water into a overflow and pumps the the food out into the tank.
>> And I found that works better than just dumping it all in at once.
>> Yeah.
>> Less less waste. There's gonna be less waste clearly because you you're going to have more uptake, less waste. So then less other problems further down the line. I think that's the easiest way to solve probably.
>> So, uh actually a lot of reef tank home reef tank have a nutrient issue is because the overfeeding the overfeeding does not mean the total amount you feed to the the tank a day is how effectively this food actually get into the fish and coral.
>> Yeah. But we talk about this all the time with fish, don't we? the fish. You walk up to the tank, the fish go, "Oh, feeding." And most people, especially in the other days, put some food in. Put some food in. Put some food in. Small amount.
>> Small amount. You put a small amount in as often as they like it. It works out much better than you go, hey, it's Thanksgiving. Here's a big meal for you guys.
>> Snow globe. Snow globe.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. After snow grow, then you all the nutrient just spike and then uh that you have your LG pops up, whatever that kind of thing.
>> Yeah. Okay.
>> Yeah. talk about stability all the time.
It's stability in feeding and stabil stability in the nutrients. Having them spike is probably not as good as keeping them flat all the time.
>> Sounds like you nearly said stupidity there and there might be a little bit of that as well in feeding.
>> There's a lot of stupidity in the hobby, but we won't get into that.
>> Okay. Right. Going back to you.
>> Um actually I want want to mention one thing is that in the ocean uh the feeding is in pulse mode. So you just boom and clean. Boom and clean. In our tank, we do not have that luxury. A lot of food gets in. It does not get cleaned out. All the food just get rotting in your tank.
If you zap a big batch into it in the ocean, you can zap a just like a fish fly by the huge amount of nutrient zap on the coral ree on the coral and then 100% water change every millisecond.
take care of the thing that is not the same thing happening in a reef.
small portion uh >> more frequent much healthier of course NPS that is one thing that why we have uh most of us have problem keeping NPS because for NPS and non-f photosynthesis coral they do require constant feeding in tiny tiny tiny portion.
Uh should we take our coral for a walk?
Yes, if you can find a tiny leash, then you can take him for a walk and make sure to consult with your tongue to see that if there's any uh coral park that you can bring your coral there is asking, "What about meeting with nutritional needs of bacteria? Is phosphate more easily utilized as a solid food particles, i.e. refoids versus dosing P4 as a chemical compound?" That's a good question.
Thanks for the opportunity. That's a good question. But the thing is that the the coral nutrition needs are quite different if you're using uh that what they can get from bacterial vers versus versus what they can get from P4. So dosing P4 let's say uh dosing P4 is significantly less effective as food source than uh feed them.
>> Okay. So it's more like hanging a picture of a hamburger in front of your face induce your reaction versus actually feeding your hamburger. So actually I I I really think that PE phosphate may not be necessary in a reef tank.
>> Oh >> yeah. Because that phosphate only require uh pretty limited amount. Of course, no phosphate is a big problem, >> but our test kit is the biggest problem about phosphate.
If you get a Hanner egg, it says zero phosphate. Don't believe it. You probably don't have zero phosphate.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. Even you have zero phosphate, you might have a lot of phosphate. very difficult to imagine a reef tank which with all your fish well fed have zero phosphate almost impossible >> like I said take your detritus put it in the vial shake it up look the next day that'll tell you what your actual phosphate level is reading zero >> and that phosphate can be utilized the bacteria will break it down and then the corals will utilize it >> so don't start dumping phosphate in your tank >> yeah don't dump for because phosphate is only one kind of phosphor that for uh the coral eats.
There's other kind the organic form or a different form. We're only testing the ice the tip of the iceberg and somehow >> the we look at this tips of iceberg and we're being advertised to us saying that this is what you should look at. No, the force fate testing take it at a grain of salt. Seriously, when you have phosphate, you definitely have a lots of phosphor there. When you have zero phosphate, there's other forms of phosphorus there in your tank. As well as that, it just your instrument is pretty primitive to actually detecting phosphate.
>> Mike, do you think people uh jump in there knee-jerk reaction thinking I've got no phosphate, I need to pour this in, or I've got low levels, I need to do this or do that. I I get asked about that from time to time and I say before you do anything, run an ICP test.
That'll give you a much better idea of what your actual phosphate and phosphorus levels are. And I'm betting that they're not zero. And I've never had someone come back and say, "Yeah, I had zero on the ICP."
>> Exactly.
>> Yeah. I mean, there's always phosphorus in your tank. And if you really are worried that your phosphate is too low, throw in extra little pinch of mic shrimp. Your phosphate will come right up.
>> Yep. Right.
>> No, he's buying a bottle of phosphate.
That's silly.
>> Silly. Silly. Don't buy a bottle of phosphate. Oh, for a matter of fact, if you really want to increase your phosphate, get a piece of raw shrimp or raw salmon from your grocery store, do not rinse it. Chop it up and toss in your tank. Because according to at least in US the FDA requirement is that all the human grade seafood has to be treated with a little bit of phosphate to prevent bacterial growth.
>> There you go.
>> Yeah. Phosphate is a preservative for most seafoods.
>> Yes.
>> Yeah. So it's hard to imagine a reef tank has no phosphate. So this >> I've always told people uh refids just to you know bring their bring their phosphates up if they're having some trouble just a little bit of reoids extra you know it's accessible to people without getting too crazy >> or look into your freezer.
>> Yeah. So you got what do you feed I've just put a poll up there obviously again for those of you that want to participate just out of interest see how the uh viewers watching at home are divided. Um I could only get four options because that's what Streamard allows me to have. So, you've got phyto powdered aminos or liquid foods. Um, I'm sure some of you probably feed all of it or none at all, but yeah, throw throws a throw an answer in there. That'd be interesting.
>> Um, I feed I think I just go through phases of feeding. Sometimes I look in the cupboard and I go, I haven't fed that in a while. See what that does for the coals. I'll try that. No, I'm being I'm being honest. I'm being honest.
That's what I do. I just go, >> you know, >> I think partially, you know, and and I kind of fall into that same, you know, that same habit sometimes. And I think, you know, me, my shortfall is not giving nutrition the amount of importance that I think, you know, I should, whereas, you know, I kind of, you know, I I'm a habit, you know, I like doing, you know, ref little reoids here. I like doing, you know, my my regular micis, my regular rods food. But, you know, it's and then I'll get on these little trips where I'll I'll I'll buy a whole bunch of stuff. I'll use it for a while. I'm happy with it, but you know, when it comes to reinvesting in it, I kind of, you know, I I wait on it a little while.
So, I'm not consistent with it enough to, but then again, as I'm, you know, further along into this and listen, you know, talking, listening more, I do see more and more of an importance it is to, you know, again, being consistent. So, you know, partially is don't just, you know, get some food and then, you know, kind of go on a trip, you know, maybe try to stay a little bit more consistent with what we're doing, even if it's one or two things that you're adding at a time and not 20 things, but just, you know, stay with it.
>> Yeah. Since I've gone to consistently feeding the frozen coral food that I've mixed up, I I think I've had much better success than when I was doing what everybody does. Well, I think I'll add some reoids today. Oh, I think I'll add some benipets next week. That's just that doesn't work.
long term. It may work short term, but long term you you end up wasting a lot and having a lot more issues.
>> Yeah, definitely. What about what about soaking the food beforehand? I know, you know, we talked about it a little bit right at the beginning. What do you think there's any any relevance in there in soaking the food so it can be easily absorbed maybe by some corals? Two of the things I I now put in the mix is manganese and rubidium where there's a lot of debate on whether they're any good. But one of the coral groups of corals I'm feeding is ganiappora. And I'm I'm firmly convinced that if your manganesees levels are low, your ganis won't do as well. So in my frozen food, I add a little bit of manganesees to it.
So when the particles over time hopefully absorb it, if the corals eat it, they'll get the manganesees in better that way than me dumping it in to the tank.
Do you how do you maintain your u how do you maintain your manganesees levels otherwise or do you just kind of just normal water changes or >> water changes and adding reef moonshiners manganesees a couple times a week and I have a fairly good idea of what it is because now I'm doing ICP tests once a month and I've got things fairly stable as to what I need to add.
I'm not adding anything new to the tank.
Uh I changed over to Nio Salt to start the year and that has stabilized things after using Instant Ocean for 40 years.
So little things like that have made big differences.
>> Yeah. I'm curious to see because I mean we do reef Moonshiners too. I'm definitely curious to see like in the case of Gonapora how, you know, dosing, you know, having the, you know, the the correct levels in the tank, you know, have a control with that and then have a control with, you know, feeding with the supplemental manganesees in the food and see what the growth patterns would be, you know, uh, subsequent to those. Be curious.
>> Yeah, that would be that would be a good good study.
Hm.
>> Now, see, I've got out of the tinkering business because that was part of the problem I had with tanks is that I was always trying something. So, now I've gone like this. I'm very stable and calm. I'm not fluctuating things. Uh, like I said, I feed every other day. The lighting system is the same. The flow is the same. Everything is pretty much stable. And that's made a huge difference in the tank. I mean, I made four big changes this year, but they're all stability changes.
Do how do you feel about uh you know with you know on the subject of gapora um how do you feel on direct feedings and particle size to them?
>> I I feed them directly. I feed them reef nutrition. I mix up a batch of stuff uh on the days I'm not feeding the tank. I feed the ganaporas that food. So I I'm fairly convinced that I I I went two months without feeding them. I could start to see them retracting. I could see less polip extension. going to every other day feeding has made a huge difference with them.
>> You think they like the finer particles?
>> Yeah. I I don't think their mouths are very big and I know their stomachs are not very big.
>> So, I mean, I shut off the flow. I have a little tube that I go in and I I spray a small amount on them. Uh if you use the Reef Nutrition stuff properly, it just sits on them and if you sit there for 10 minutes, you can watch their polyps gradually bring it all in and it dissipates. So, I'm assuming they're eating it. Mhm.
>> I was going to say there, Mike, was to to those to those of us that are watching that maybe well watching, you've got to be a bit of a reef nerd to watch these, I suppose. But some people not maybe aren't as full on with the tank. They've got a tank, they set it up, they feed the fish, they've got their jobs, they've got their lives, got the kids, got the family, etc. So, is it is there is there a question there or an argument to say that maybe by putting a little bit of coral food in the fish food on a daily basis is beneficial?
Maybe for that reason.
>> Yeah, I would, as I said, feeding something is is much better than feeding nothing. And if you want to do small amount in the morning, a small amount at night, because you do have a life.
Fortunately, I'm retired, so I don't have a life. So, I have the time to do this stuff.
>> Believe.
>> All right. Okay. Uh, how about we go to next one?
>> There you go.
>> Okay.
Fatty acid. Polyunsaturated fatty acid.
And this has been brought up to uh to the attention in the scientific community because of dealing with uh coral nutrition especially bleached coral.
So uh coral cannot synthesize the essential poly unsaturated fatty acid.
So we call them pas.
So they rely on two primary pathway to get them feeding and also they can get them from the simbas algae actually in a pretty small quantity.
Majority of these uh fatty acids actually coming from feeding for matter of fact how many people are taking fish oil these days?
>> Cod liver oil etc. Yeah, the fish oil actually like salmon fish oil they are the this uh that omega-3 fatty acid that you can see the advertisement all over the place everywhere on your face on the internet to ask you to take this and take that coral need that too.
So okay let's go to the next one. I think there's it sounds crazy this what we about said but there is clearly some argument here to say you should I said this to you earlier in the green room about treat your tank as if you know you you're feeding yourself if it smells if it doesn't smell right if it doesn't look right if it doesn't taste right >> actually you know actually what I'm saying though you you wouldn't put it in your body then why would you put it in your tank you know >> exactly so because that we're all animals >> yeah that's kind of what I'm Okay, that's kind of what I was trying to say.
There you go. But yeah, >> okay, so uh with this pua uh uh acid, so one important thing is the omega-3 fatty acid. Not only is essentially for human, it turns out quite essential for coral health. It actually for stress tolerance. For example, we have a heat wave and then the coral is really stressed out and during this stress event, this omega-3 fatty acid and some of them omega6 fatty acid actually plays a very important role. So, how do we make sure our coral eat their uh fish oil pill?
>> By feeding them, >> matter of fact, here's a here's an interesting thing. Here's interesting story. Uh, I know people actually get the human the fish oil peel.
>> Yeah.
>> And open it up and squeeze in your in the tank.
>> I don't know how effective that is.
>> I don't know how efficient that is because >> Yeah. I don't think it's very efficient.
>> Off.
>> Yeah, exactly. It's oil.
>> Yeah, it's oil. But what happen if you feed them omega-3 fatty acid rich food like salmon that's worth for dinner?
>> Yeah, salmon actually is a really rich in omega-3 fatty acid and they all incorporate it into the fresh of the salmon. So that actually can be a very good way to feed your coral. Fish oil.
>> No, but salmon. Salmon for me. Salmon for me.
>> Yeah. Yeah, I got a cabbage.
>> Same. Same. Yeah, you got cabbage. Uh, sorry. I'm gonna I'm gonna throw this question up. No, I'm not ignoring you.
You have asked this question a couple of times. Uh, Mike, question for you. What do you feed gonies? Mike, >> I I mixed up a three-part reef nutrition. Uh, the row, the oyster eggs, and the uh uh what the heck's the third one? uh the pods. I mix up a little batch of that. Uh I add a little bit of benipets.
Stir it up. Uh let it get to room temperature and then I use a little baster and hit it on each giore head.
>> Okay. How often?
>> Uh every other day. The days I don't feed the tank, the coral food I feed the gonies.
>> Well, that's interesting. What's the reason behind that then? Just >> I'm trying not to overwhelm the tank with nutrients.
>> Yes. So, a little bit each day.
>> And I mean, I'm sure the gonies get fed whenever I feed the tank because it's it's part of the system, >> feed the corals, but I I try to feed them specifically because they seem to be a much more aggressive feeder, >> but they can only take in small amounts.
>> So, blanket feed and then target feed.
>> Yeah.
>> Okay. There you go, Nola. That'll answer your question.
>> Uh, thanks for that. Don't you? There you go.
>> Now, we go back to this. That's what we talk about salmon.
>> Salmon >> that's probably is a is a really wonderful food. Uh so uh what I do is I go to the supermarket. Uh we have a place called a market basket here. Just a supermarket. They have this thing called a salmon bits. Basically is a fatty part of the salmon after they make sashimi or sushi. Those thing that the the strips of fat that they don't want.
They sell them for dirt cheap. So I buy those, go home, use a special blender which cost 20 bucks from Amazon and blend them into paste.
>> Yes.
>> You and you and you and Amazon. Oh my god. Let me start calling you Amazon.
Amazon zoo. Amazon's out.
>> Oh yeah, sure. I buy everything for Amazon. It's so >> Amaz you've always talked about salmon though to me saying it's such a good overlooked natural food source that people should be Oh yeah, haven't you?
>> Yeah. The also the the the salmon paste.
Um so I put them in Ziploc bag for I blend them into pulp. Put them in ziploc bag. So freeze it. Every time it just break a small chunk, the toss right in the tank. The coral use it, the fish go nuts. Absolutely nuts >> and the particle size is small enough.
>> Just what you said, you throw it in the tank frozen already. Again, again for benefit people watching at home. So a lot of people might tell thaw food or throw it straight in.
>> I said throw it straight in.
>> Let the fish chase off of it.
I tend I tend to thaw it to where it literally has just melted and that's when I add it so it's still cool so it's still fresh because what I have had is if you put it in as a cube that's frozen it goes across the surface they pick at it and then half it gets sucked out of the overflow and into the sump.
Actually, what you what you could do, I used to uh break off uh little squares of it and put it on your power head.
That way, it sucks right to it and it off the water.
>> But I've done both, you know, same frozen and, you know, thawled and throw it back in the fridge and I'm guilty of that. I'll, you know, I'll I'll thaw it out, you know, and throw it back in the fridge if I have a little bit left and then use it the next day. And haven't had any issues with it thankfully. But >> no, that I don't think that's the problem. I think the problem is if you get it to room temperature above, that's when the bacteria takes off.
>> Yeah. Yeah.
>> Yeah. Yes. And uh since I'm using human grade salmon, >> just a fresh only no intestine. So there's I can minimize the chance of a viral bacteria.
>> Well, I keep I keep saying I keep using these allergies with human human food and consumption apart from boring people. But for me, it's like if you would leave a piece of red meat out on the side, you know, to defrost, you wouldn't leave it all day in the sunlight and then eat it, would you? You know, it's the same sort of concept, you know. I just think when you think about people just think, oh, it's just a fish.
You put it in there and because most people will put their feeding, you know, uh, containers on their brace bars on the top of the tank because that's Yeah, but it's just people do it. It's habit, you know. It's easy to reach. It's it's near the light and you've got the light.
You got the temperature off the tank and you got the bacteria we're talking about. So I think you know and again spouses or partners maybe not so interested in opening the fridge and there being some you know mice concoction in there. Just saying experience. That's why I've got my own fridge in the in the garage.
>> I have my own fridge in the garage as well.
>> There you go. There you go, man. Thank you.
>> Y they're cheap and it it saves grief and aggravation.
>> It does. Thank you. Thank you.
Especially when I uh when I bust out the uh PNS. My wife real loves that. She >> No, that's your That is your ass. You see it's the PNS. That is your ass.
That's your butt in America. Your butt.
Anyway, sorry.
>> Uh surprisingly, if you look at the commercial frozen food, at least in US, look at the ingredient. You hardly find salmon on it. Despite salmon actually is a really nutritious good uh good uh food for coral because of the enrich in the fatty acid especially the fatty part. Um I talked to one of the vendor I said why you don't have salmon on your ingredient such as a good ingredient they said wow yes it's the cost that's why the ocean white fish commonly show up on uh commercial frozen food. What exactly is ocean wet translation fishing dock scrap.
>> Mhm.
>> Yeah. Mhm.
>> Yeah. So, uh by feeding human grade a homemade frozen food, there's another benefit money.
It cost you a lot less and much healthier. So, I actually did a calculation about uh all these popular frozen food.
Basically, you are paying about $45 to $75 per pound of those kind of thing. The commercial frozen >> 60 to 70% of it is water.
>> Exactly.
>> Yeah. I've been I've been making my own foods for the last five years.
>> Uh you can go on eBay and buy something called a a salad uh shooter.
>> It basically you mix up the food while it's frozen. It then stirs it and it shoots it into perfect size particles for the fish. It cost 20 bucks used on on eBay and it it's one of the greatest things I've ever bought. It's like a game whenever I make the stuff.
>> Mike, just just for the benefit of people watching home, what do you put in your food? What's the ingredients? What is your makeup of food? For the corals, it's various kinds of fish, shrimp, uh shrimp, uh squid, calamari, uh a couple of oysters for phosphate, um spirulina algae, min uh Thai fish sauce, which is fermented fish.
>> Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. He's just said, "Oh, hang on. Hang on. Hang on. Rewind. Did you just say fish sauce?
>> Fish sauce.
>> Red boat.
>> Scientifically proven.
>> Scientifically proven. I know. I know.
At least >> Dog's head is like this right now.
>> It It seemingly really adds to the uh for lack of a better term, delectibility of the foods for the fish to eat.
Because even though I grind this in a in a Vitamix, it turns it into fine particles there. the fish will still find a particle or two and they go crazy as soon as the food goes in the tank.
And now I'm going to start adding salmon to the mix as well. Uh I also add cell uh vitamins, uh some frozen mices, some frozen roifers, uh what else? Uh Julian's uh nori and >> Wow, it it's it's a big mess. And my wife hates the smell whenever I do it.
So, I only make it when she's not home and then I have to open the windows and get the smell out cuz to me I don't smell it since I had CO I can't smell skimmers or fish or anything so it doesn't bother me. But so in the in the fish food, it's Julian's nori, uh white fish usually, uh mahi mahi, shrimp, squid, uh clams, oysters, um spirulina again, because I I think a lot of our fish food is too much protein, not enough vegetable matter.
And for tangs and angelf fish that are omnivores that eat a lot of vegetable matter, I don't think we provide enough for them. And there's uh selcon again, I don't add fish sauce to that one.
And there's a couple other things, but th those are the two mixes.
>> Wow.
>> I mean, when I make up a batch of food, it's uh enough for six or eight ice cube trays or for the fish, it's like two pounds of food. So it lasts me like uh six months.
>> Nice.
>> Yeah. Nice. Yeah.
>> So homemade food for Coron fish always is the Well, it's my choice.
>> It save money and it's fresh and you know what exactly is in it.
>> The only thing I will say about Omeu, I tried this a few years ago and I blended it too much. So it just was like a like dust everywhere and the fish was just like what's this? And my nutrient levels obviously over time just started to increase because there was they couldn't absorb it because the particles are so so small. So I think the only thing I will say from my own experience of making your own is you need to be well you are blending it is checking it to make sure it's a a palatable size for certain certain animals.
Well, what I do is when it's still frozen, I chop it all up into probably like uh pieces like this.
>> And then as it's frozen, I mix mix it all together with a little bit of the liquids like the silicon and the vitamins and stuff like that. Yeah.
>> And then I mix it in the salad shooter.
So the pieces are like the size of peas cut in half.
>> So there's not a lot of fine particles.
So I'm not >> getting the nutrient levels. I'm getting >> I put I put mine in a blender and added our old water to it and just blend it and blend it and blend it. It just turned into like a a slop.
>> Yeah, it turns to dust. You may as well like fish dust.
>> Like fish. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
>> So, no, that's why that's why I went to the salad shooter. So, I know there's going to be a big run on salad shooters tonight. So, I'm going to buy like >> Dom of course will have the link for is we're going to call it Amadong Amazon.
Amazon Amazon. Anyway, there's something there. There's something there. We'll play on that. play on words. Um, question here from Michael Nunley. Is it okay to reuse sand that was in a reef tank for two years then took out and allowed to dry in a bucket outside in weather for a year, then wash and put back in a bucket?
>> I won't do that.
>> I wouldn't do that.
>> No, I'd get new.
>> Sand is cheap. You can buy It's not worth the money you save for the headaches you're going to get.
>> Yes. Yep.
>> Get some new. Get some new. Back to you.
Next one. Sorry.
>> Uh, next one. Okay. Now is important thing. There are two mouths to feed for your coral. Not only feeding your coral, you also need to feed your symbis algae.
That's a I think is a very important message. When you're feeding coral, you all need to think about the nutritional requirement for the same bars as algae that living in the coral. Let's go to the next slide. So sorry Don before you do photograph on the left then >> is symbiotic.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. I'm just thinking for people watching what what the two photographs are. So photograph on the on on the left side is >> symbiotic algae inside with inside the coral.
>> Obviously the picture on the right is polyp outside the coral. You can physically see is what I'm trying to get out. Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> Okay.
>> Okay.
>> Yeah. That's where the coral that's where the fish dust is worth it for the coral feeding but not for the fish.
>> So uh the coral host does provide the majority of the feeding for the same bars as algae by feeding them carbon dioxide and ammonium.
Yeah.
>> So guess where this uh uh two important thing coming from carbon dioxide actually coming from the alkalinity in this water.
So yes in seawater due to the pH the actual carbon dioxide level is extremely extremely low. Well, even they're they're low, they still can affect your pH, but the symbols as algae actually living inside the coral.
Okay. So, what coral does is that alkalinity is the bicarbonate.
Then the coral on the coral skin surface. Then they have uh machinery to grab the bicarbonate transform them on the coral skin become carbon dioxide and the carbon dioxide will diffuse through the skin of the coral getting inside the coral and then distribute it.
Part of it uh the coral themsel use it and store it and then part of it the coral used to feed the sims as algae.
The algae inside the coral actually is using carbon dioxide for photosynthesis and the carbon dioxide is provided by the coral host and the coral host get the carbon dioxide from the alkalinity in the water.
So that's why the alkalinity is not only the building block of the uh the sk the skele uh the skeleton of your SPS coral but also plays a even more important role as the carbon source for the coral and its symbols as algae. That is why there's always more consumption of alkalinity than calcium in your reef tank. The idea of the one:1 ratio is ancient history is no longer true. Is garbage in the history. A coral tank reef tank always consume more alkalinity than calcium for SPS coral coral tanks because the photosynthesis energy the photosynthesis requirement for carbon dioxide is coming from the alkalinity in the water.
Okay. And here's an interesting thing.
These sort of uh inorganic ammonium, nitrate, and phosphate that need to be transported in by the coral.
So the same boss as LG can utilize them.
I remember one time there's uh now we're going to talk about a little bit about the importance of of ammonium. Uh Randy Home Farley uh he the chemistry god for reefing community he posted one time he said coral cannot utilize nitrate and people are shocked what the heck but actually that's true coral as a host cannot directly taking in nitrate to assimilate it as a building block. What it does you have to reduce it into ammonia first.
Wow.
>> But the same bus as LG be able to you use nitrate. So guess where the the nitrates coming from? Uh the nitrate source uh for this algae inside the coral actually coming from the host. Now here's an interesting study showing up is that coral host is able to form and regulate the same bios as LG by controlling the nitrate.
So they can control the n the symb biosis algae population by controlling by withholding or releasing nitrate to them is life farming animals.
>> Wow.
>> Yeah.
>> Just go just go careful because I don't want everybody at home to be start peeing in their sumps or tanks.
>> Don't pee your tongue yet. Don't >> pee your tongue just yet. said yet.
>> Yet yet yet Mike's going to do it live for us before he goes.
>> Yeah. Speaking of which, you have me for 18 more minutes.
>> Go for it.
>> Okay. Yeah. So, uh, with that said, I will let Mike talk about ammonia.
>> Yeah. As as Dong said, ammonia is preferentially taken up by corals relative to nitrate or other nitrogen sources. Uh, I remember when everyone was trying to have a low nutrient tank, low nitrate, no low phosphate, and the corals looked pale and grew incredibly slowly. They didn't have the rich colors that we have now. Then we went to, okay, you could have, you need to have some nutrients in the tank. You should have, you know, I'm still of the belief, my dogs, I have two puppies that are insane. Uh I'm still of the belief that there there's a a golden ratio of 100 to one or 50 to1 nitrate to phosphate. That is your nitrate if your nitrate is 10 your phosphate should be 0.1 that that's when I've had the most success in my tank having a a ratio like that. By the same token though, I have only had a positive effect of dosing ammonia when my nitrate levels were 15 or less, preferentially around 10. When they go higher than 15, any benefit I was getting from the ammonia, the growth rate slowed back down to where it was prior and my nitrate levels tended to expand exponentially if I just kept adding the ammonia. So, so I test for nitrate every other day. If my nitrate levels pop over 15, I reduce the ammonia dosing. If my nitrate levels drop below 10, I increase my ammonia dosing. And by doing that, I'm able to regulate it fairly quickly and easily and see the growth. As I said at the beginning, uh Sanjay started doing this three years ago, and I went and visited his tank every six months, and I probably have 5,000 pictures of Sanjay's tanks over the last 25 years. So, I have a pretty good background as to what things looked like. And prior to his dosing ammonia, he was pretty much fed up with things.
The corals weren't growing. They weren't healthy. He made a couple other small changes like cleaning his sump and and doing a couple other things, but then he started dosing ammonia on a regular basis. And in six months, the growth rate was extraordinary. And then six months after that, it was just absolutely mindblowing the amount of coral mass that he had grown. And as I said, it it filled in literally every spot in this tank and that obviously convinced me to start dosing it.
>> And I can just ask you there, sorry about ura then. So you talk about ammonia. So where does ura conversation come in?
>> URA is a a sort of add-on to ammonia.
I'm having such success with ammonia. I have not added ura, but I know people that were even more nitrate deficient in their tanks started adding ura to the tanks. They didn't have a lot of fish in their tanks which are going to generate a lot of ura. Sanjay and I both keep a a lot of fish in our tanks. So, it may not be necessary to add the ura. If you have a thriving SPS population and a limited amount of fish, ura may add to the benefit of adding the ammonia in my opinion. Yeah.
>> Uh I have I haven't done the the tests with ura, but adding the ammonia now for going on I think two years and 10 months, I'm pretty convinced that it makes a significant difference. Uh I've also spoken to probably 200 people that have dosed ammonia.
I've had maybe half a dozen say they had problems with it. The main ones that had problems had too high a nitrate level or too small a population of SPS corals. I I've also seen it work in LPS tanks where I' I've shut off my LPS system and dosed ammonia and saw it taken up very quickly. Uh one of the things I have done is after the dosing of ammonia, which I do in four doses during the day when daylight's on, five minutes after the ammonia is dosed, you will see an ammonia reading. An hour after the ammonia's dosed, there will be no ammonia in the tank, which shows that something is taking it up, preferentially the corals in the tank.
So if if you wonder if you're dosing too much, test what your dose is right test what your levels are right after you dose. Test an hour later, test two hours later. If you're still seeing ammonia, you're obviously dosing too much. Same thing with nitrate. If your nitrate creeps up slowly over 15, cut the dose back. It's pretty simple. How do you how do you how do we know the corals are uptaking and it's just not being converted >> based on the on the scientific literature that the corals are taking it up or the bacteria is taking up and then the corals are feeding on the bacteria >> which you see a visual you know benefit from okay >> I mean not seeing As's tank for six months and then going and comparing the pictures uh which I've done in the ammonia article you can see how fast the growth was and one of the other things is one of the things we've always done is is is bank frags with each other. So, taking some frags off and get bringing them some frags and dosing them in and see how much faster the corals heal relative than when we didn't add ammonia to the tanks definitely shows how quickly I mean most people when they break a frag off it takes two to three weeks to start to see it completely heal over. If the dosing of ammonia with relative to the nitrate level is right you'll start to see healing less than a week. I mean usually significant heal.
You won't even be able to tell that it was broken off when you have everything tailored properly. I think she needs to go out, honey.
>> Sorry, I got a pupp.
What ammonia are you using?
>> I'm doing ammonium bicarbonate, which I use from Dong's company, Amazon. Uh, >> me too. Me too. Incidentally, me too.
>> I I I add 20 grams per liter of water and I started off dosing. I It's a small amount 10 milliliters per day and now I'm up to roughly 120 to 140 milliliters per day and this is on a 600gallon system.
>> So while I've got you the man of the hour, the petta with the pinkst tip in the world. Uh what is the 15 15 is the nitrate?
Yeah, I I in my experience I have other people that have had it go up to 20 with and they still were seeing the benefits of ammonia, but in my system because I'm of the firm belief that every system is different. If the >> Yeah, >> there's there's no one magic rule because if there was we'd all be doing it.
>> So every tank is different based on little trivial things that we take for granted. It makes huge differences.
>> Yes.
>> So I as I said I haven't done URA. I probably won't be doing URA. Uh if I did, I would probably make my own URA rather than buying it because I'm not going to need a ton of it.
>> I know what you guys are about. I've been on this here before.
>> Yeah. That that is the ura from my company Amazon.
>> Okay.
>> And this URA probably going to last for 30 years.
>> Yeah.$10.
>> You don't need a whole lot of it. I think you use >> You don't need a whole lot of it. four parts to one part ammonia >> or four parts of ammonia to one part ura. So you're adding 20 grams of ammonium bicarbonate. You'd be doing like four grams of that which is probably a two pound bag. So you're looking at 10 years at least of that.
>> Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
>> We've not got you for much longer, Mike.
Apologies here. So just going back to just just to sort of s in summary, it's all about what the corals can uptake easier. So ura is they can uptake ura easier than they can ammonia. They can take ammonia easier than they can nitrate. Am I right?
Correct me if I'm wrong. And that is the thought process behind this.
>> So there's kind of a fine line between ammonia and ura. I mean it may be better in one tank versus another tank. Uh like I said I have not done enough work on it and I'm not because I'm like I said I quit tinkering. I know it's working now.
So I I'm very much convinced that the ammonium bicarbonate is the ticket. The keys with it is don't overdose. Only dose during daylight. Uh what early on in the system I missed the day of dosing. So I do it all in one bololis. I lost a couple of big pangs as a result.
They did not tolerate high ammonia dose.
>> Yeah.
>> So now it go dosed four times a day >> in roughly 30 or 35 milliliters, which is a small amount >> relative to how much ammonia you're dosing. And like I said, I I've gotten now to where I could test see it five minutes after I dosed it and an hour later it's gone. And it's not a huge spike. It's it's like a gradual spike. I mean, I've tested it five minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, you can see it goes up and it starts to come down in about 15 minutes and by an hour it's all gone.
>> So, I'm only I'm assuming the corals are taking up, but I'm also assuming the bacteria is also taking it up as well.
>> Yes, definitely.
I'm seeing the bacteria and then the coral take it up. It doesn't really matter. I'm still providing nutrition, >> right?
>> Don mentioned to me the other day about uh it going foul. I think that's a really important thing that people understand. So, you got to appreciate that people going to watch this. They're going to try and do it themselves.
They're going to have a go. I've been that person still like to tinker a little bit with my tanks. So, Don, you were talking to me the other day on on the WhatsApp about it going foul about air getting in getting into it.
Oh, add adding too much.
>> Yeah, adding too much. Yeah, about it getting foul. So, having the concoction and not having a lid on it and getting air getting in it and it getting a little bit dirty. So, what I'm saying is people can't just mix it up, put it in a container and put a do line. It needs to be >> You might laugh, but that's what people think. So, >> yeah, you're right.
>> Yeah, I remember what what that is. Is that when you diluted the ammonia and then the bacteria uh even from the air we get in there and start to utilize ammonia as a food source.
>> So your bottle ammonia can go foul pretty quickly.
>> So but that that's a in very inexpensive and you you can just make another >> So going back to what we're talking about food, if you're going to pee in a bottle, put it in the fridge.
>> Yep.
>> Oh yeah. Yeah.
>> Well, that's only if you have a bacterial infection. If you're if you're clean, you shouldn't have a UTI. If you have a UTI, don't add it to the tank.
>> And and before you put it in the fridge, clearly label it.
>> Yeah.
>> This is not apple juice.
>> Clearly get your own refrigerator for this one because this one will not go over big with the wife.
>> No.
>> One other thing I strongly suggest, buy a cheap doser. Don't rely on yourself to dose the ammonia. Have it dose in the same time every day. Uh mine I'm on the bolus dosing system for uh sodium bicarbonate. So an hour after the bicarbonate is dosed, that's when the first dose of ammonia comes in because that's probably also when the fisher start feeding in the morning on a reef and that's when they tend to dump a lot of stuff in the water. So it's all everything is systematic in my tanks now. There's no none of the randomness that has typically been there in the past. So I I bought a $70 doser. It doses the ammonia four times a day. It alerts me when the uh ammonia needs to be replenished. It's it it's simple and easy. Make make your life as simple as you can. I mean, the two things I I try to tell everybody that's in the hobby, one, have fun. Two, make it as simple as you can. If it's simple, you're going to do it. If it's not simple, you're not going to do it, and that's when you're going to screw up.
>> Exactly. Yeah.
>> I got a question about the ammonium and the dosing. Um, you know, you you mentioned, you know, if you know, I knew about this. You know, if you leave it too long out, it'll it'll go foul a little bit. Um, what do you do for like a dosing container if you're going to put it on that? Like, you know, because I can understand, let's say if you're only using 50 milliliters a day and you put it on a, you know, a large dose container, it's going to last a while.
So, what what would be >> I mix it up in a in a liter coke bottle and that lasts me a little bit of a week. It doesn't really go foul in that short of time and it's in a cool area, in a dark area. So, I wouldn't have it sitting in sunlight or, you know, in the back of a fridge what's heating it up, but sitting in a cool, dark place, it's not it's not going to go quote unquote bad for lack of a reason. And again, like a week to two weeks, >> uh, don't go on a drinking binge and add that to your tank.
>> So, you think maybe like one to two weeks for, you know, before you kind of maybe I should change this out and add a new batch?
>> Yeah, two weeks is about as long as I'd go. Maybe two two and a half at most.
You don't want to go a month with it.
>> Yeah.
>> Because what what'll tend to happen, it's what I've seen, even though I uh rinse out the bottle and run it through a microwave before between batches, >> stuff in the air will eventually get into there and eventually get a bacterial growth >> because ammonia is not just a nutrient for corals, it's also a nutrient for some bacteras and other organisms. So, you don't want to have it just sitting out there and you don't want to have an open container. You don't want a big open beaker sitting there with ammonia in it. One, it smells horrible, and two, it's gonna be basically everything that's in the air is going to feed on ammonia, >> right?
>> Yeah.
>> So, you got me for five more minutes.
And the last thing I wanted to talk about uh is one of the big changes I made in my tank was managing the DOC levels in the tank. That is the yellow in the tank. Uh I I I've I've over 42 years, I've made many changes in the tank. One of the biggest was dosing ammonia. One of the other biggest was maintaining and lowering the DOC levels in my tank which I had taken for granted. Uh whenever I ran the ICP test with OAMO and with Fonomarin, my uh DOC levels were around 11, which is extraordinarily high. Uh it looked like I was peeing in the tank is is how yellow the water was. And how I tell how yellow the water is, I take water off the top of the tank, put it in a clean bucket, clean white bucket, compare it with freshlymade seawater. You can see how yellow it is. I started adding catalytic activated carbon. Regular carbon doesn't take out the DOC to the same level that this stuff does. It's more expensive, but you don't need a whole lot of it and you use it passively. You do not run it in a reactor because it will turn to dust and cause problems. I run it in mesh bags.
And I got my DOC levels down now to where they're two to three to four. You don't want to have zero DOC. organisms require dissolved organic carbon as he mentioned.
>> So, you want to have some.
>> So, when you compare the water, I don't pay for the the uh DOC test every time.
I pay for it a couple times a year. I just take out a bucket of water and I can compare because when I had it at 11, I took a picture. When it was at 7, I took a picture. When it was at four, I took a picture. When it was at two, I took a picture. You can put the buckets next to each other. You can see the difference. Mhm.
>> And by doing that I significantly reduced any RTN or STN modal or occurrences in my tank. One of the things that high DOC level has been linked to if you look into the literature is the explosion of pathogenic bacteria particularly vibrio and arctobacttor which are two nasty coral killers. So by bringing down my DOC levels all of a sudden where I would have a spathulada or a millipore bleach from the bottom along with the feeding lowering the doc has made a significant difference in the tank. Uh the only other thing I did of note is I also brought the temperature of the tank down where I used to keep it at 778 I now keep it at 7475 that has also significantly reduced any RTN STN instances. Does it slow the growth? It may have, but I think I've made that up by adding ammonia and feeding the corals. So, I I I think I I've fine-tuned things much better to where uh we literally just shot a video yesterday for American Reef. It'll be coming out in the next couple weeks. You get to see what my tank looks like versus what it looked like seven months ago before I did this. And you can see the growth tips are phenomenally better.
The overall growth of the corals is better. The health of the corals is better. And the fish all still look fat and happy. So nothing has changed from that context other than simply I I I started dosing pneumonia like I said two and a half almost three years ago that helped but lowering the DOC changing the reef salt to NIOS and lowering the temperature and feeding the corals have made significant impact this year. Uh the general stability of the tank has been there for last year and the tank was doing well, but making these four changes has made things phenomenally better.
>> Cool. Uh well, I'll take this opportunity to thank you on behalf of myself, Don, and Terrell. I know you're going to disappear in a minute because the misses wants to go shopping. You've got it's your credit card clearly because she's not spending any money, of course. Um to those in the in the comments, we we are going to finish Dong's presentation as amazing as as ever. But thank you very much from Mr. Mike Plet himself. Give him a round of applause for tuning in and joining in the chat. Really do appreciate it. For those of you that aren't sure about Mike's background, Mike obviously was the the uh the famous tutor of Ching Tatum in the old Magic Mike. If he he has got a new DVD that's just come out.
So if you want to see it, it is downloadable of course at Amazon. This is the cover you you are looking for, of course. Um, yes.
>> There you go. Yes, it's out on Blu-ray and DVD. If you want to download it, he's brought out a new video. Uh, that will of course be able to download at some point. Mr. Mike Fletter, we love you to bits, man. Thank you ever so much for coming on. Have an amazing >> Thank you very much. Anytime you want to have me back, I always enjoy it.
>> Thank you very much. You take care.
>> Yep. Bye.
>> Right. Back to your presentation.
>> Okay. All right. Next one.
Uh, next.
>> There you go.
>> Okay. All right. Oh my goodness. That is uh that's a slide I intentionally make to try to make everybody's head spins.
So, basically, this is a coral and symbol as LG's love hay relationship.
So, the current scientific study shows that the coral treats the symbolis.
If the coral want more uh food and more eat more beef and pork, they feed the symbis LG more nutrient by releasing more nitrate.
So basically nitrate they control it.
Okay. Now when the symbiosis algae population grow overwhelmingly it has a side effect. The side effect is that photosynthesis produce radicals. They can damage the coral host. So if they do not want the symbols algae to be that active or that much amount right now they actually the the uh recent scientific study shows coral actually be able to eat them and utilize by consuming the symbolis.
So the coral not only controlling the the nutrition requirement of the same bus as LG to control its population it activity also they can consume them uh when they're overpop populated or when they when the coral needs a large amount of nutrient they just eat it.
>> Uh let's see uh citiz.
>> Oh okay. So uh yes the for dozing those yeah yeah yeah you you can definitely do that. Um so Corey yes for trace element that's let's go to the uh the reason actually I want to answer the Corey's uh the that remark when you those trace element actually the citray and uh whatever that the other one is I totally forgot can bind to the trace citrate yes >> and glutinate basically uh is organic molecule they bind to the trace element metal and allow the core coral to be easily uptake this element.
For example, the coral is not going to open its mouth and swallow uh maganese.
>> Mhm.
>> There the coral intake or mostly organic stuff. So try to imagine a citrate will complex to your maganesees and become a big organic grease ball and the coral can eat it. So that uh adding those organic material it helps the coral to take in the trace element you dose into the water. That's what cory meant. Okay, next slide. Okay, here is uh we talk about that uh the study done on what is the trace element requirement for the symbiotic algae.
Many many studies shows iron, iron, iron, iron, iron, iron, iron, iron. Iron is the most important trace element for your sim boss's LG's health. Where the iron come from? Definitely you need to dose it and then the coral take it in and then feed it to the same boss as LG.
With that said, the organic content in your water plays a important role on how effective this metals get taken in by coral just like Cory said.
So basically this is slide to tell you iron supplement is very critical for the same boss as LG. Basically is a feeding the part of the nutrient requirement.
Next please.
Uh let's go to the next one.
Now we talk about feeding the bacteria living on a coral.
There are million mouse to feed. When you look at the detail, you can look at it under the magnify glass. Yeah. Not only the coral hose and the sim says algae need nutrition.
Nutrition including the organic nutrient plus the inorganic metal. So the bacterial helps for the bacteria to get good nutrition is so critical because that there are millions of bacterial living on the coral that do their function. They're very important to the the whole ecosystem of the the coral's health. So let's let's go to the next slide. Tom, >> how do you control feeding bad bacteria versus good bacteria though? Can you can you >> You cannot. No.
>> Okay.
But you can selectively feed bad bacteria.
For example, we bacterial love formate.
>> Yeah.
>> And exclusively feeding on it. So that's let's let's go to the next slide.
>> And even to that point um controlling duck, >> you know, removing.
>> Yeah, I was just thinking exactly that thinking.
>> Well, the the doc is a very complicated matter. So doc just means dissolve organic content. The question is that what exactly but even you test high DOC it doesn't mean good or bad at all because you cannot tell what exactly those DOC's are unless you do a uh ICP test or whatever elemental analysis those Oops.
>> Oh yeah he real quick. Okay. Okay. Yeah.
So um >> so my on the market >> go ahead. I just had a qu you know and I'm just thinking about so in my idea I've always heard do you know do high DOC essentially like takes you know pathogenic bacteria and turns it like manurian candidate to where it becomes active. So can you know and you know and it goes along the same ideas um you know high uh detritis concentrations you have you know high you can you can have more concentrated levels of pathogenic bacteria that you know uh congregate in there. So can controlling you know your your a your dock um you know and kind of keeping your doc at a healthy level that way it doesn't become pathogenic and and you know and start kind of tearing up your corals as well as controlling you know your uh your detritis buildup.
Could that potentially go and help like against like when you're feeding all the bacteria it helps feed you know it helps isolate feeding the good bacteria versus you know it's less bad bacteria to feed.
Does that make sense? Uh no the answer is no. First of all, DOC we cannot tell.
So far, we cannot tell what's a good DOC, what's bad DOC. And for each different organism, there are good and bad, you really cannot separate them clearly and the so so far all the test only show you that the total organic content that means you have organic material. But uh maybe 99% of them are not totally not utilizable by bacteria or coral or maybe 10% of them are utilizable. There's no answer for that.
>> But reducing DOC does not necessarily reducing the bacterial population because that you do not know what the content composition of your DLC.
So many of these organic compound are excreted by coral and uh uh and bacterial and other organism. they're totally inert or some DLC has some kind of uh uh biological activity, some of just don't.
>> So, oh, what's that? Can I see that?
>> Yeah, you get you're getting some points. I don't want your head to get any bigger tonight. Sorry, I just had to go and uh ammonia do that time. All right. In the back.
>> So, uh so controlling DLC to control the bacterial growth is still far remote.
uh is not quantitative measurement. Yes.
Yeah. Absolutely true. Right.
>> Because that Yeah.
>> I guess the idea was if you were feeding both, you know, like your your point was you're feeding both good bacteria and bad bacteria. Can you uh you know reduce your bad bacteria?
>> Can you control it? Can you influence it?
>> Yeah.
>> No, you cannot. So you can't get you know so the idea but like detritis buildups like you know Mike said earlier where you know >> having it clean in the first place maybe >> oh you can you can control the total amount of bacteria you can influence it but you cannot control it by refusing yeah but then you uh mostly so-called a bad and good bacteria it turns out >> uh pathogenic bacteria has the same similar nutrient requirement as beneficial bacteria Mhm.
>> And uh of course you can I uh for all the literature I so far I see is that you can selectively boost the bad bacteria. Seriously.
>> Mhm.
>> Instead of selectively boosting the good bacteria.
>> But can it can it not be selectively removing the bad area buildups where bad bacteria will populate more?
>> Yeah. Got you.
>> No. It's very difficult to do. Yeah. is you you have no control on on on to there's no method to do that.
Uh yes uh but you cannot some of the carbon source like formate are utilized uh exclusively by vio bacterial. Mhm.
>> So what we can say is that if you really want your coral to get pathogenic vio bacterial those formate you can achieve that goal. Then what happen is that if I want to suppress that vio bacterial no you cannot do I I I'm not aware of anything you can dose to suppress it.
>> Yeah.
>> So that basically uh unfortunately that's what it is. So uh uh actually let's go to the next slide because the more important thing I want to go through. Okay, marine bacteria need proper nutrition.
One thing um uh is all source amino acid. Yes, amino acid actually feeding marine bacteria more than feeding your coral.
So when you those uh amino acid in your tank actually boosting your uh bacterial so that's a bacterial food. So if you want to feed amino acid think about it you are basically enriching your bacteria but there's no selectivity. Seriously there's no no such thing as a longer chain versus shorter chain or cornbase versus polymer base whatever those kind of [ __ ] That's pure [ __ ] That marketing [ __ ] So, no such difference.
>> Question here from Shny Boy. Uh, one of our guys in the U in the UK.
>> Uh, I refuse to answer. I take fifth element. Oh, but no. Fifth. What? What's the fifth? Fifth.
>> The fifth.
>> I be the fifth on that one. So, >> isn't Yeah. Uh, fifths. Uh, let's go to the next one.
>> No, no comment. Okay. No comment.
>> No comment. like he likes to put people he likes to put people on a pedestal.
>> So there's your answer kind of >> but this slide is very important. Look at what element actually important to new uh to bacterial. If you look at this potassium magnesium potassium magnesium uh that is why magnesium level actually is quite important to maintain a healthy bacterial level. Some salt we shall not name sometimes has a 900 ppm of magnesium. That's why that should be avoided. That is another reason use a good quality salt. Make sure your magnesium level actually is high is up there around 1300 to 1400 ppm >> because magnesium very important to a bacterial as well as potassium.
potassium. The reason for that is that uh it's interesting way that how bacterial treat potassium because in order to let the biological function inside the bacterial to function properly it require a lot of potassium.
So bacterial basically is like a potassium sponge.
So the potassium level inside marine bacteria can be 50 times higher than the surrounding seawater.
So bacteria need to constantly pump in potassium so to allow the internal biological function to properly function.
So if you see your potassium get depleted, think about it mostly is done to uh by your bacti bacterial. Of course, potassium also a fertilizer for algae.
>> Depleted in what level? Depleted >> uh 400 ppm is the uh natural seal water level. So lower than 400 ppm um it get impact impacted. I think is around if you as low as 200 ppm you're you're going to see the coral gets affected as well. Okay. So, uh potassium also is uh pest killer. Um the safe range of potassium around 800 to 400 ppm it should be pretty safe. But uh if your potassium is over 1,200 ppm, God knows how you can achieve that. You accidentally dump in the wrong wrong thing, then your coral is going to pale.
Just like you're dipping your coral in potassium chloride solution for a long period of time, you can see your coral also get affected.
>> Yeah. What about fish levels though as well? That's going to have an effect.
>> Uh fish level 1,200 ppm is the fish torrent level.
>> Okay. because there uh there is not a very clear level about how high the coral can tolerate it but at 1200 ppm coral definitely pill so yeah so potassium potassium potassium okay now we actually done that already let's go to the next slide ura that's what people talk about oh my god all the first grader pee in the swimming pool. That's what it is. Let's go to the next slide. Yeah, ura itself have to be reduced into ammonia before it can do anything is reduced by this enzyme. This colorful thing it called a urerase is basically it's very very common enzyme in algae um and also coral tissue. So to break down the ura into ammonia then it got utilized. So the the the bottom line is that ammonia ammonia ammonia everything is using ammonia.
Nitrate need to be reduced to ammonia before the cora can utilize it. All the algae can utilize nitrate directly.
>> URA has to be reduced into ammonia before you can utilize.
>> So you don't really need to do ura then do you because it's going to turn you're going to break it down. So you may as well just do ammonia in the first place.
>> Yes. Absolutely true. So you do not have to dose ura. uh but I'm going to talk about one thing why why dosing ura can have a benefit because ura is much much less toxic >> okay >> for example if you have 1 ppm ammonia your fish is going to suffer and it's very easy to overdose ammonia and then kill your fish kill your coral because ammonia is highly toxic at the high level so going back to the scientific literature I talk about ammonia dosing.
Guess what the concentration ammonia is used in that study?
The top highest concentration in that study is 0.06 ppm versus 0 ppm of ammonia. That is the study is done at that low concentration.
uh because that if you reach 0.1 ppm of ammonia even momentarily it can definitely do some harm to your fish and coral. So when you dose ammonia use a dozing pump and you can do the calculation and make sure you dose very small amount.
>> Yeah.
>> But ura has a high tolerance. If you have 10 ppm ura accidentally drop in your tank, no side effect.
So think about this one. Another comment from another comment. Another comment from Cory Coralled. Here he is. Okay.
Carl's going to switch from utilizing ammonia via >> Yes.
>> Glut glut glut go on.
>> Yeah. Whatever glutamic acidic synthesis that what Cory mentioned is a study done uh in the South China Sea. So uh what happened to the coral is that when the coral is under heat stress and bleaching. So uh the enzyme that uh the pathway basically the the the mechanism to take in ammonia and nitrate is hindered are broken and or in that situation actually they use the vibio bacterial living on the coral surface to uh reduce ura and produce ammonia again to feed the coral.
So in a stress situation, ura can be utilized as a lifesaver for the coral under stress.
In a normal situation, ura will be reduced by this colorful enzyme on the photo on the slide to become ammonia and carbon dioxide and utili utilized by coral. But with this saying is very important message is that is a nickel dependent enzyme.
That is why the nickel is important as a trace element in your tank. Without the nickel you cannot the the ura cannot be utilized at all. And think about it fish pee is ura right? So and where the pee go besides it go to the swimming pool for the first grader it stay in the water get consumed by uh all these enzyme so it needs nickel >> what >> we talk what sort of levels we talk about dong to people >> uh you just uh look at your ICP what because it's catalyst you only need a very small amount >> okay >> but uh uh it can be depleted too especially Make sure you're dosing hot water. Be careful. Yes, it can be precipitate out your nickel quite heavily.
>> Oh, that's interesting.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Okay, next slide.
>> Yep. Sorry. Can you have too much? Can you have too much nickel just out of interest?
>> Yes, of course. Then you get a poisoning. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. How much do those here from my favorite um the company I own called Amazon? Uria.
And the good thing is that you really come in a pure form. Let's go back to the slide. I give you a very simple >> It's called It's called Amadong. Just just >> this will last you for 36 year if you have a 100gallon tank. Okay, >> here he is.
>> Yep. Here it is for an collector scrolls. It was on last week.
Here he is. Nikoled fast.
>> Thanks. You're good, man.
>> Excellent. So now we have a real life example. So here's the same to reach 0.1 ppm of ura 0.1 ppm is a pretty uh good concentration. Uh that is because that if based on all the study that this is a pretty good standard uh to reach 0.1 ppm for your coral 0.1 ppm of ura in 100galon or 380 liter tank. All you need is 38 milligram.
Here I have a little scale also purchased from Amazon. Unfortunately is a jewelry scale.
Dirt cheap can measure up to 1 milligram.
So this is what I use. So use this uh uh scale balance to measure out 38 migram.
Put it into a cup of distilled water.
Pour in. Done.
>> Wow.
>> Simple, >> easy, inexpensive. $9.99.
Last you 36 years >> or you can make a stock solution by peeing in the tank.
>> Okay. Next. Yeah.
>> And and I'm just out of curiosity, which one of your 50 doses do you dose that on?
>> Oh. Just saying. Just asking for a question.
>> I'm kidding, mate. Amazing tank. Amazing system.
>> Yeah, you do. Here we go.
>> Yep. You do. That's what we discussed already. So, uh yeah, that's the end of my slide.
>> Thank you. Thank you, >> man. My my man. Honestly, Don, thank you ever so much. Um you know, I mean, >> thank you. Thank you very much. Has anybody genuinely got any questions for John on the back of what he's just put together? Because I know some people are going to watch this back. Some people listen to this on Spotify because we have obviously got the channel now on Spotify for people that are, you know, are on the move and want to listen to it back. Uh unfortunately for these slides, you probably need to bit of visual you need to see them. But uh I think for me, I think there's so much to so much to to think about. Well, I think for me the the the ultimatum is I I keep I've said this numerous times tonight is if it doesn't smell right, doesn't look right, if you've left it out, then discard it.
Don't use it. I think for me is is Yeah.
>> Yeah. I think we try and cut corners, don't we? In life, in this hobby, we just cut try and cut corners. No, but we do, don't we? We try and cut corners.
This is easy, this is faster, this is whatever. And I think sometimes it's it's not always the right thing to do.
And you can you can you know uh genuinely experience uh getting it wrong.
>> So um that's why I want to add one thing is that when you're really busy uh you have no time to feed a coral, don't feed it. Just skip that feeding.
>> Instead of putting some stinky food in your tank, >> you can skip several meal. No, no big deal.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> Uh question here from Akuma. Uh we'll wrap up in the next five 10 minutes, ladies and gentlemen. If you have any questions, please do throw them in the comments. What are the long-term side effects of dosing cal? Are there any in your opinion?
>> Um, not very significant if you keep supplementing all the other elements. It it because cowaser is definitely uh calcium hydroxide and well the long-term effect is not really that significant, but you just keep an eye on all the trace element.
it. Yeah, I I I it's perfectly okay to use >> uh use a system that has it all including like modern reef. Um I personally I haven't tried modern reef yet but I heard good things about it.
>> I use it in my DT downstairs and I run Calquas on reverse life cycle. So, I do modern reef 12 hours over 12 hour photo period on that tank and I do cali during the night to keep the pH elevated and alkalinity at certain level. And uh people might have an opinion on that, but it's worked my tanks. I love it. It works. And going back to me saying, you have fun. You got to have fun. You know, you can have fun. Find out what works for you.
>> Uh okay. Uh any more questions from anybody? Uh who else we got in here? A few more questions coming up. Uh there was a few more questions about Miracle Mud, but I think that was for Mike. Um plans for this weekend, gentlemen?
Anything to report? Anything happening?
Anything exciting before we wrap up?
>> No.
>> Another good week. We got Father's Day this weekend. So, uh happy Father's Day to all the fathers out there.
>> Yes.
>> You should buy yourself a coral for Father's Day. Terry, >> treat myself.
>> Say treat yourself.
>> Buy it from yourself.
Hey, look at that. I just purchased this coral for $10,000 for myself.
>> Just saying. Just saying. Right. Go on then. I'll wrap us up there. Thank you ever so much, ladies and gentlemen, for tuning in uh wherever you are across the world. Uh this evening on this Friday night's live stream, we had obviously the greatest Mr. Mike Pleta was with us throughout uh the show. Um I couldn't do it without these guys. Mr. Dongar from Arog, Mr. Terry Newell from Pang Reefs and the real brains behind the operation, Mr. Lindsay in the background. Mrs. Lindsay, should I say, in the background and the gang, how is the new recruit? Is he doing well?
>> Little chopsticks. Is he doing well?
>> He's doing well, man. He's uh he's fit right into the pack and uh he's causing a whole lot of trouble. So, he's he's he's doing good.
>> Yeah, >> it's when it's when he chew it's when he chews through a uh a tank support leg while you're at Palooa or something. And Yeah. Thankfully, we don't have that.
But we had the other night, we're going to bed and, you know, we put him in his crate and we're, you know, it's our little French bulldog puppy, you know, for those of you that don't know. So, we're I I sit down in bed and my my air conditioner goes off and it's silent and I hear, >> right? Well, I know that you don't go to bed. For everybody else in the comments, this guy never sleeps. Okay. So, I can message him before I go to bed. And we're obviously, what are we five hours in front? He messages back. I message him at 5:00 a.m. in the morning, which is technically like, well, midnight or 1:00 a.m. He messages back. I'm at work, he messages him back. This guy does not sleep. So, Trunk Tank Reefs is 24/7. If you want to buy corals, buy him. He will deliver 247. Just call him. He's 247 customer support. Do it. Anyway, as I said a second ago, thanks ever so much, dog. Thanks ever you both my man. Uh thank you ever so much. Have an amazing weekend whatever you're getting up to.
And for those of you that have tuned in, if you don't already, please do give us a like and a subscribe. And if you are watching it back, don't forget we are on Spotify. Thank you very much. Much love, much reefing love. Have an amazing weekend. Whatever you're up to, see you all next Friday. Take care. Bye-bye for now.
Heat up here.
Heat up here.
Heat up here.
Heat up here.
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