pappone and BLU Coral method

[chrisd1009]

Glutamine: it's an AA, a source of nitrogen and a source of carbon.

[Psionicdragon]

so would your mentor or you think it will be possible to just use the glutamine as the AA source since it provides C and AA?

[chrisd1009]

I think you would fall short. There are several types of amino acids. Arganine, aspartic and so forth. whatever else is in the commercially available AA's? I can't answer these questions or which ones if not all are absolutely necessary.

[mr.wilson]

After reading through this whole thread, I really don't see anything new here.

AA & C dosing have faded in and out of fashion for many years. Everyone raves about polyp extension until they overdose and get algae blooms. Carbon fixing and bacterial growth can be sustained with small doses of sugar. This is the key to most of the dosing systems on the market.

Claims of "The Italians mastering the recipe" are just silly. It's a 5 of this and 5 of that recipe, with the old Italian standard of "everything must be fresh". It's the same recipe as Eric Bourneman or Stephen Spotte, without the research and analysis.

Using GH as a source of AA seems very inefficient.

[chrisd1009]

Claims of "The Italians mastering the recipe" are just silly. It's a 5 of this and 5 of that recipe, with the old Italian standard of "everything must be fresh". It's the same recipe as Eric Bourneman or Stephen Spotte, without the research and analysis.

I see where mr.wilson is coming from with this and I kind of agree with him. I don't hold much weight in polyp extension either. A tank full of brown acros with great polyp extension is useless.
My question on the food would be: If all I need is a nitrogen source, why not just add pure ammonia or ammonium nitrate? PO4 is always available in our tanks, I don't care what any of our test kits read. So I would not consider PO4 being the limiting factor in growth unless it is too high. If you guys can't tell, I'm not a huge fan of home made foods and I'd be happy if I didn't have to mix this again. After I run out, I may let the tank run it's course on AA/C and see if there is a difference. I have not been using the food the entire time. However, I've been dosing the AA/C for much longer. The only thing I can say is my water is clearer and my colors are better with the food.
As for the AA/C part, I'm not trying to sharpshoot or knock you down. I'm seriously asking a question. First you say AA/C has gone in and out, but at the end, you say GH wouldn't be sufficient. So do you feel dosing AA/C is okay or not?
I made a bunch of changes in my tank all at once, so it is very difficult for me to explain exactly what it is that is helping things go as well as they are. Unfortunately, I can't back anything up and say anything in particular is the reason, or combination of things, or what is doing nothing at all.

[DarkXerox]

Originally posted by mr.wilson
After reading through this whole thread, I really don't see anything new here.

AA & C dosing have faded in and out of fashion for many years. Everyone raves about polyp extension until they overdose and get algae blooms. Carbon fixing and bacterial growth can be sustained with small doses of sugar. This is the key to most of the dosing systems on the market.

Claims of "The Italians mastering the recipe" are just silly. It's a 5 of this and 5 of that recipe, with the old Italian standard of "everything must be fresh". It's the same recipe as Eric Bourneman or Stephen Spotte, without the research and analysis.

Using GH as a source of AA seems very inefficient.

Borneman's recipe doesn't use sugar and isn't as heavy on the bivalve ratios as in this recipe. His also includes a whole fish, squid, sea urchins, artemia, and has the AA's + selcon and vitamins mixed into the frozen mash. Plus he doesn't say anything about keeping the mix as cold as possible and the dosing regimen is what makes it really different. Pappone is much more streamlined, as many have found that pre-mixing the AA's into the mix causes cyano blooms.

Somatropin is NOT required, something that Americans need to get into their heads.

Last I checked, we still don't know exactly what type of amino acid is being limited, so just dosing glutamine isn't going to do much when there are 20+ AA's that are usable (more or less, I'm saying this from an anthropomorphic point of view).

But what really makes the BC method different is the elevated tank parameters. Pappone is just 1 part of the equation, but can be used on its own.

[DarkXerox]

Anyways, here are some photos:

Jan 07


March 27th 07 (1 week after start of pappone)


May 19th 07 (had to use a PowerShot SD800 instead of the 10D SLR, so the shutter speed and aperture size were different)



My chips acro (left of the stylo) and the acro above my ponape birdsnest finally took off once I started feeding. Plus my montis started going nuts, just look at the sunset and rainbow on the sand. The ponape birdsnests also seem to be growing like nuts now too as well as the war coral. The colors are a little stronger too compared to January.

[chrisd1009]

Well, I didn't want to be the one to say this, but it needs to be said:
Reading through the thread, I was really under the impression that 3 people were all over this stuff and had the tanks to back it up. It's all hype. You guys hyped this up. The 2 guys hyping it up the most and giving advice post pics of a monti cap and a FTS where the most noticeable growth is in a monti digi and RBTAs. The third never posted a pic. Where are the 17 inches a year? Where is the color? I've been aggressively trying to kill a monti digi in my tank and it's grown just as much as that one.
We can all say give it time and such, but these individuals have been posting explosive growth and bold colors throughout the whole thread. I was expecting to see something. Very unimpressive.
This is on me. I always say never trust anyone who doesn't show pics. If I saw these pics before I started, I never would have mixed the s***. I was not expecting this.
Thanks to this thread, I'll go ahead and change my signature.

[znut Reefer]

I don't use this method in my tank. But have been following this thread also just to see how it works out on the people that are using it.

We all know just a few months of doing anything to our reefs takes time to show results. IMO more time is needed to judge if using this method really works. I would not say it is a Hype until it is proven. JMO.

We all know nothing good happens fast in a reef tank.

[chrisd1009]

znut, I agree with you. I even stated that in my previous post that it hasn't been long, but then they are talking about explosive growth and color throughout the thread. I'm all about giving it time, but they should give time before posting on success of techniques if they can't show results.

[znut Reefer]

Chris, I must have missed you stating that. Oops! Anyway yes I will agree with you. If they are talking explosive growth then they should post pics to back it up.

Proof is yet to be seen.

[DarkXerox]

yeah I agree, I mean I've only been running it for a couple months now so I figure it costs almost nothing and does not appear to be harming my tank. All I can say though is that I haven't had my encrusting montis, Acros, or my LPS grow that much in 2 months before, and I haven't changed anything with my husbandry except the feeding of pappone.

The explosive growth that people were having was in tanks running the BC method as well, so I can't expect to have as much growth as that (ie I dont keep my Ca at 500, Mg at 1500, alk at 11 etc). But I like what I'm seeing nonetheless.

[mr.wilson]

Italy is home to some of the worlds greatest chefs and fresh ingredients, but this pappone recipe shows us the trick, not the magic. Just as it takes more than a recipe book to make a gourmet meal, it takes more than a basic fish goo recipe to have a successful reef tank.

The Italian reef tanks in these threads are maintained by long term aquarists with extreme dedication to the hobby. There diligence and persistence is the true magic behind their success stories. The idea that you can take a smaller, perhaps even problematic, reef tank and turn it around with a perfect recipe is just silly.

The reef aquarium hobby has had a roller-coaster ride of "don't feed", and "do feed" methodologies. Coralife had a huge line of foods, like Invertebrate Gumbo, back in the mid 80's. It triggered a feeding response in corals similar to a cat looking in a seafood store window. It fell out of fashion when people realized it was just clam juice with preservatives.

In the 90's we had Mark Weiss and his wonderful array of sugar-based products such as Living Water Vital and Coral Vital etc.. It too lost its' momentum when people realized they had bags of it (sugar) in their kitchen cabinets.

The 90's also brought us Marine Snow by Two Little Fishies, but it never really hit market saturation for some reason. Perhaps the claims were too honest to build hype? Dr. Ron Shimek didn't help much with his 2001 article, challenging the accuracy of their guaranteed analysis for Combisan.

Phytoplankton and zooplankton have now become the norm, but it's more a matter of when then what. The pappone method employs a night feeding regimen, which is common sense, as corals feed at night when zooplankton is active and photosynthesis ceases.

The reason why a more substantial nutrient import works now, where it didn't in the past, is we now have multiple methods of nutrient export and reduction in our arsenal.
Where a lot of hobbyists go wrong, is in trying to follow the practices of successful reefers too closely without adapting it to their systems needs. A thriving reef tank can handle elevated calcium, carbonate, magnesium, phosphate, nitrogen, and carbon; while a more primitive system would allow for nuisance algae to utilize these organic and inorganic nutrients.

The amount of fish goo, amino acids and sugar you give your tank needs to be carefully assessed according to the bioload, lighting and carrying capacity of your system. To blindly follow the rough guidelines set-out by someone with a completely different set-up is foolish.

[Psionicdragon]

Originally posted by mr.wilson
Italy is home to some of the worlds greatest chefs and fresh ingredients, but this pappone recipe shows us the trick, not the magic. Just as it takes more than a recipe book to make a gourmet meal, it takes more than a basic fish goo recipe to have a successful reef tank.

The Italian reef tanks in these threads are maintained by long term aquarists with extreme dedication to the hobby. There diligence and persistence is the true magic behind their success stories. The idea that you can take a smaller, perhaps even problematic, reef tank and turn it around with a perfect recipe is just silly.

The reef aquarium hobby has had a roller-coaster ride of "don't feed", and "do feed" methodologies. Coralife had a huge line of foods, like Invertebrate Gumbo, back in the mid 80's. It triggered a feeding response in corals similar to a cat looking in a seafood store window. It fell out of fashion when people realized it was just clam juice with preservatives.

In the 90's we had Mark Weiss and his wonderful array of sugar-based products such as Living Water Vital and Coral Vital etc.. It too lost its' momentum when people realized they had bags of it (sugar) in their kitchen cabinets.

The 90's also brought us Marine Snow by Two Little Fishies, but it never really hit market saturation for some reason. Perhaps the claims were too honest to build hype? Dr. Ron Shimek didn't help much with his 2001 article, challenging the accuracy of their guaranteed analysis for Combisan.

Phytoplankton and zooplankton have now become the norm, but it's more a matter of when then what. The pappone method employs a night feeding regimen, which is common sense, as corals feed at night when zooplankton is active and photosynthesis ceases.

The reason why a more substantial nutrient import works now, where it didn't in the past, is we now have multiple methods of nutrient export and reduction in our arsenal.
Where a lot of hobbyists go wrong, is in trying to follow the practices of successful reefers too closely without adapting it to their systems needs. A thriving reef tank can handle elevated calcium, carbonate, magnesium, phosphate, nitrogen, and carbon; while a more primitive system would allow for nuisance algae to utilize these organic and inorganic nutrients.

The amount of fish goo, amino acids and sugar you give your tank needs to be carefully assessed according to the bioload, lighting and carrying capacity of your system. To blindly follow the rough guidelines set-out by someone with a completely different set-up is foolish.

Nice

[chrisd1009]

Yeah, mr.wilson... Well said. The magic bullet theory has been brought up earlier in the thread. People focus on one thing, not the complete system. As I mentioned before, I know a guy who set up a new 120 G with an ASM-G2 skimmer and was dosing pappone almost immediately. He ran into problems and has been bashing pappone ever since.
It's no different than anything else though. Post a thread on refugiums, guys will say their refugium is the reason their tank has never been better and then make a thread about skimmers and the same guy will talk about how his tank is as good as it is because of his skimmer.
At least I was smart enough to first ensure my tank could handle the food. I was doing constant testing for the first month. I have seen growth, but I don't count it towards the guts of shell fish. I'll probably keep using small amounts since I do feel our corals do need some food. But I'll never post threads where I talk of how great this method is working for me and give the credit to the pappone and then post pics like those that we have seen.

[mr.wilson]

I don't want to discourage anyone from using the recipe, as it certainly has more to offer than the regular frozen fare at your LFS. There are a few caveats to any fresh seafood mixture however.

1) Make sure the seafood you buy is free of STPP (Sodium Tripolyphosphate). Fish mongers use it as a preservative (whitener). Apparently they use enough of the stuff to bump up the weight.

2) You run the risk of introducing vibrio (bacteria) and parasites when adding any fresh seafood. Your clams and other bivalves would be the first to be affected. Gamma UK manufactures irradiated seafood for the aquarium hobby. Quality Marine distributes their line in North America. Cooking it would help.

Stephen Spotte has an excellent "wet food" recipe for marine organisms. It was developed for public aquarium use, with extensive analysis of both their dietary requirements, and properties of the ingredients. Vibragrow is based on his recipe. I lent my copy of his book (Captive Seawater Fishes 1992) out and never got it back, so I can't post it, but it included crude fat, amino acids, EFA's, and all kinds of stuff like choline that go well beyond my knowledge of the subject. He even gives contact info on where to buy the chemical portion of the ingredients in the USA. Maybe someone else could post or link it.

[stony_corals]

I hear what you're saying, there's a lot of truth to what you're saying, especially with the commercial crap that have come out over the years (I remember Coralife's Invertebrate Gumbo - **** flew off the self like a bat outta hell). However, one situation hasn't been brought up, the case in which N is limited and potentially C. In a tank that isn't N limited, the effect may be negligible. But if your system is running really low due to denitrification and an established tank, this could help your corals grow. The other part of this is the Redfield ratio, whatever the specifics are I can't remember off the top of my head. So if your ratios are different, your corals will suffer. (This is also why sugar/vodka may not work to lower NO3s, P limitation)

[Freds]

Ah, now I like where this thread is going

[DarkXerox]

Just so everyone knows, I can't afford a 200 gallon tank, a giant skimmer, and huge calcium reactor while trying to put myself through school. I also don't have the ability to run my tank at the 500ppm Ca, 1500ppm Mg, dKH of 12, and 16-30ppm strontium levels that the Blu Coral method requires since I'm only home on weekends, so I simply use the pappone. The people that were getting up to 40cm of growth had established tanks and were using the full BC method as well as administering AA's. I'm not expecting anything near this, just more than what I was getting before.

I didn't not try to hype it up either, all I did was translate the articles and physically talk to some of the people in Italy that have way more experience with it than anyone here in the US does with the BC method. The hype came from everyone here that was interested in trying something different.

What I was trying to do was bring another perspective over here. If we had kept with tradition, we would still be running dead coral skeleton tanks with sickly lionfish like in the 80's, rather than trying something revolutionary like the Berlin Method. I'm not saying this is a magic bullet or anything, just that I have corals growing that previously were doing nothing in my tank.

I'll get some closeup pictures of some of my pieces, but in general all of my corals started as >.5" to 1" frags, so they are going to grow much slower than established colonies. Plus my war coral grabs a lot of the food at night and is getting to a pretty nice size--larger than the mother colony itself. The sunset monti (next to the war coral) also started small and has gotten really large as well.

Mr. Wilson is right that the difference now is that nutrient export is reaching the point where we can keep up with heavier feedings. There are a lot of people here with SPS that start to lose color and notice much better color after increasing feedings or adding more fish to the tank. There is a reason also why the guidelines are low to start (1/4 of a formula 1 sized cube per 100 liters of water, once per week). Too many people have had serious nutrient problems overfeeding or adding things to the recipe without testing their tank the day after feeding. You have to test your tank and adjust your feeding based on how much it can take--just like any 2-part addition or dialing in a new skimmer or a Ca reactor. Dumping in food blindly isn't going to do anything.

I don't want this thread getting locked because of people getting angry and I'm afraid it is going in that direction ala Zeovit threads. I also feel like I'm repeating myself a lot regarding the use (or non-use) of somatropin, feeding regimens, and other parts. If you guys want me to repost the methods and recipe, then I'll be glad to.

I also encourage everyone to go and ask questions over at ReefItalia in the english section since they are always willing to answer questions--especially if you think I'm not doing a good job of explaining anything or you think my tank is unimpressive (it's only a 29G so I'm not expecting much).

[chrisd1009]

DarkXerox.. my bad... I wasn't trying to fire the hate cannon at you. I didn't call your tank unimpressive either. I just feel the results were not what was expected. Also, yes you did act as more of an interpreter for us. Please keep in mind that on page 7 of this thread I already said that my tank isn't all that good and by RC standards, it sucks.
I'm not trying to deter anyone from using this either. I'm still using it. I would just like to see us be more careful in the way we present success. Remember my broken lawnmower anaology. Threads like this have a tendency of making us look like a bunch of newbies who say "I've been doing it for 2 weeks and everything is great".
Again, I'm not trying to start arguments or insult anyone. I'm sorry for coming off that way. Give me some time to organize some photos and I'll show some individual growth shots and we can talk about the methods.

[Serioussnaps]

Originally posted by Psionicdragon
Oh really? I thought glutamine and arginine are used as Amino acids for the tank.

If you are adding glutamine you are adding yeasts and other additives. Glutamine sold as supplements in the US are full of additives....hence, c sources......pure pure pure and truly pure glutamine is tough to find.

[Serioussnaps]

Originally posted by chrisd1009
No... it's all good. I'm just letting you know that I don't have all the answers. I'm trying to get a hold of the guys who helped me along on this so I can hopefully give a better explanation.
As for the AA's, I use the zeovit AA's. I'm not a Zeo user. I've only ever used the AA's and the Coral Vitalizer, which IMHO, is sugar water.

I agree 100% with your last sentence. Thats what I think about alot of the prodibio type stuff as well.

[Serioussnaps]

Originally posted by DarkXerox
yeah I agree, I mean I've only been running it for a couple months now so I figure it costs almost nothing and does not appear to be harming my tank. All I can say though is that I haven't had my encrusting montis, Acros, or my LPS grow that much in 2 months before, and I haven't changed anything with my husbandry except the feeding of pappone.

The explosive growth that people were having was in tanks running the BC method as well, so I can't expect to have as much growth as that (ie I dont keep my Ca at 500, Mg at 1500, alk at 11 etc). But I like what I'm seeing nonetheless.

I think you should give yourself more credit...rather than boast that it is the pappone(which IMHO is no different than adding any other food to the tank) why not chock it up to good husbandry?

Whats so new and groundbreaking about feeding a tank? Maybe I am missing something.

[Serioussnaps]

Originally posted by mr.wilson
Italy is home to some of the worlds greatest chefs and fresh ingredients, but this pappone recipe shows us the trick, not the magic. Just as it takes more than a recipe book to make a gourmet meal, it takes more than a basic fish goo recipe to have a successful reef tank.

The Italian reef tanks in these threads are maintained by long term aquarists with extreme dedication to the hobby. There diligence and persistence is the true magic behind their success stories. The idea that you can take a smaller, perhaps even problematic, reef tank and turn it around with a perfect recipe is just silly.

The reef aquarium hobby has had a roller-coaster ride of "don't feed", and "do feed" methodologies. Coralife had a huge line of foods, like Invertebrate Gumbo, back in the mid 80's. It triggered a feeding response in corals similar to a cat looking in a seafood store window. It fell out of fashion when people realized it was just clam juice with preservatives.

In the 90's we had Mark Weiss and his wonderful array of sugar-based products such as Living Water Vital and Coral Vital etc.. It too lost its' momentum when people realized they had bags of it (sugar) in their kitchen cabinets.

The 90's also brought us Marine Snow by Two Little Fishies, but it never really hit market saturation for some reason. Perhaps the claims were too honest to build hype? Dr. Ron Shimek didn't help much with his 2001 article, challenging the accuracy of their guaranteed analysis for Combisan.

Phytoplankton and zooplankton have now become the norm, but it's more a matter of when then what. The pappone method employs a night feeding regimen, which is common sense, as corals feed at night when zooplankton is active and photosynthesis ceases.

The reason why a more substantial nutrient import works now, where it didn't in the past, is we now have multiple methods of nutrient export and reduction in our arsenal.
Where a lot of hobbyists go wrong, is in trying to follow the practices of successful reefers too closely without adapting it to their systems needs. A thriving reef tank can handle elevated calcium, carbonate, magnesium, phosphate, nitrogen, and carbon; while a more primitive system would allow for nuisance algae to utilize these organic and inorganic nutrients.

The amount of fish goo, amino acids and sugar you give your tank needs to be carefully assessed according to the bioload, lighting and carrying capacity of your system. To blindly follow the rough guidelines set-out by someone with a completely different set-up is foolish.

I dont think it could have been said any better.

[chrisd1009]

I'm going to roll through some individual growth shots. I'm not good with the camera, so some of these photos will show inaccuracies. Very few are true to what your eye would see if you were standing in front of my tank. Some show far better color than I deserve and some show much worse. I find it hard to gauge color when the individual behind the camera isn't exactly good with cameras. In some cases, different cameras were also used. This was time consuming and a PITA.
I wouldn't exactly consider any of these to show growth that would be out of the ordinary. Also, keep in mind that I was doing AA/C throughout the entire time, not pappone.
A lot of improvements were made to my system during the early photos. First and foremost, my refugium was pulled off line. I also replaced a reeflux bulb. All photos from 5/17 are with new T-5 actinics that were not there before and my center halide is off, so it shows heavy in on the blue.
First is the ORA Blue Tip Stag
1: 11/8/06
2: 12/27/07
3: 03/02/07