SPS hanging/suspension

[Anthony Calfo]

For the purpose of increasing colony number (grow and break) ... I was referring to the frags only (after the initial sample from parent/wild stock... no more is needed from that donor).

So... for example: a 2" suspended frag/sphere is grown out to 4" and then divided in half. Those two, 2" frags are grown out to 4" again, and then split into four, 2" frags and so on.

For coral farmers it is a dreadful mistake to sell from inventory too early. Going from five to fifty corals in six months is great, but turning fifty into 250 pieces in another six months is even better. And the patience to wait one year to get to that point will afford a mother colony that allows you to harvest many tens of heads monthly instead of a just a handful with a colony that cannot exceed 50 (by premature harvest).

Again... which method/path all comes back to one's purpose... growing suspended frags in private for fun and experimentation purely as an aquarist, or... having some inclination toward producing coral for regional trade and beyond.

Hope it helps

[scubadude]

Sci,
Im not opposed to try something new and advanced and Im totally against anyone who makes statements like "You must do this THIS way" I think new inventors, thinkers, and motivators is one of the main things that excels our hobby. On a different note I will quote Henry Ford "Do not come to me with something I can add to my cars to make them run more effecient, but show me a piece I can take off my car to make run more effecient" I think your idea of the motor has merit, and I for one would like to see it in action. You are probably the best person to put it in action as you have it in your mind. Please if you do take pictures and share with us if you do it.

Anthony,
I have a problem with a fragging method that you suggest of just keep fragging new growth branches. The problem is the branch eventually keeps getting thicker and thicker and harder to frag. In particular is an A. youngei I have I can see that eventually if I keep fragging this mother colony that I will have one huge chunk of calcium and will not have an as appealing growth pattern. Your thoughts to prevent this?

Brian,
Cant wait to see your new pieces hanging. I think im gonna try some orange M. Digitata in suspension. BTW I really enjoyed myself and chattin w/you on the way up to ORCA ;-) Thanx for hanging w/me buddy.

[Anthony Calfo]

Rocky,

We have a miscommunication here bud...

You are correct that repetitive fragging of the same donor will leave an aesthetically detractive specimen. But even then it is a moot point since the purpose of the process was to produce a volume of new frags and the donor (parent) simply is sacrificial. However... I still cannot see it getting thick for many species if at all... you are fragging new growth: for a parent in the same position and getting the same water flow, the new branches should be the same thickness as the old branches having grown to suit in the same spot. Unless you are only talking about pillaging old growth from an imported specimen.

Even with that said... none of the above was my actual point.

From my last post:

"I was referring to the frags only (after the initial sample from parent/wild stock... no more is needed from that donor).
So... for example: a 2" suspended frag/sphere is grown out to 4" and then divided in half. Those two, 2" frags are grown out to 4" again, and then split into four, 2" frags and so on. "

I'm not sure if you missed that post before your reply or if I missed making my point clear...

Whether the parent/donor is wild or fully cultured makes little difference. We are fragging it one time only to get a piece (or pieces) for suspension. From that point on... only the suspended pieces are divided (all new growth). 2 becomes 4, 4 become 8, 8 becomes 18, etc. You might literally take a single branch of "youngei" for example and never look back. Of course... this advice may be a little late now that your parent colony looks like the survivor of a nuclear holocaust... heehee.

Somebody let me know if I'm making any sense yet or if I should make another Prozac and Yukon Jack cocktail. Oh... wait a minute, its not noon yet.

PS: Rocky... send me your websites banner, my webmaster is updating my site. Thanks bud

Kind regards to all,

Anthony

[Corpus Callosum]

Rocky,

Sorry about my last post it came a bit off. I agree that keeping things simple can very well be more efficient at times, and obviously everyone here knows this as they have far more experience than I do. I was just trying to say that sometimes trying complex things can be very beneficial, and many other times it won't be. Getting rid of some equipment and taking a risk that way, making things simpler, can also be successful at times. I guess it really just works both ways. I have work and personal projects that I'm pursuing at this point plus some college applications but given a couple of weeks to a month or two, I can build the contraption and then at that point send it to someone who can have a dedicated tank for it. I wouldn't mind setting up the tank and monitoring the experiment with my digital camera and all but I really doubt I have enough money for another metal halide plus bulb at this point in time.

Anthony,

Are you trying to say that once the suspended frag has grown into a 'sphere' or something like that, frag it symmetrically so that the 2 new frags look like small colonies in themselves. Then take those 2 new frags, suspend them upside down all over again, and once divided again you will have twice as many 'small colonies' or frags. Is this what you are trying to say?

Anyhow I have my digital camera, and if I begin any work I'll let everyone know. I have many other ideas like the one I mentioned, but I will take things one step at a time before I release the rest of my crazy experiment ideas.

-Mike

[bgdiving]

sci33
One of the draw backs of using a single Metal halide over a tank is that you have a single point light source giving bright and shadowed areas But if you used 2 of your contraptions each centered over over the 1/3 point of the tank you could possibly grow 3 times as much high intensty light loving corals as you could other wise with the same single bulb. i.e. a six ft by 2 ft wide tank lit by a single 400 watt halide with your device center half way between the bulb and the end of the tank and anouther on the other side of the tank. That way all of the corals would be rotaing though the bright and the less brightly lit areas. Problably could get as much growth or more as you could with 3 fixed 400 watt halides.
They do something like that with Phyto Plankton cultures rotaing them in and out of the light.

[Corpus Callosum]

Well if I did it it would be in a small tank like 10-20 gallons , maybe 40 gallon breeder, anyway I could probably spread out the light enough. But that's not my point. I'm not rotating the corals for light distribution, if I wanted to that I'd just place the metal halides on a light mover - this is what everyone does in the agricultural world, and it is what I will be doing on my future larger tanks. With metal halides moving left to right , slowly though, throughout the day, light is used much more efficiently and there are fewer shadow spots, given an amount of time so the light can get to that area. Anyway back to the rotating gear thing. My plan was to do this and have just one powerhead on the corals. Water needs only to flow in one direction, since the corals are rotating, each side of the coral gets the same amount of flow. That's pretty much why I wanted to try it, to see the growth patterns the rotating of the corals, dealing with water movement, would produce. thanks for the info!

In agriculture, there are other ways of getting even light distribution by using parabolic shapes going upwards from beneath the bulb. I'll draw up a picture if photoshop later on and show you what I mean cause I can't explain it too well..

[Anthony Calfo]

BG...

Very good point about the limitataions of static posterior illumination. I'm hoping that we will see new and interesting applications for simulating the arc and path of a lamp over aquaria mimicing the sun in the near future. I know that more than a few people are working on this. It makes perfect sense.

kindly, Anthony

[Frick-n-Frags]

How about radically reducing the moving pieces, parts count on the contraption to reduce cost and increase reliability. Instead of having umpteen gears and shafts, have one large acrylic merri-go-round that rotates. Each frag won't rotate on its axis, but more like the moon rotates as it revolves around the earth. This could be done without the light mover also and it makes for a possibly extremely geared down system with a much cheaper higher speed motor, ie visualize a belt drive turntable, with a vee in the platter edge and a big rubber belt drive....or some such nonsense
(tell me to stop thinking like a machine builder)

I would also recommend having as little machinery under the water as possible where it can get clogged or jammed and generally degraded.

[Corpus Callosum]

sounds good

[Frick-n-Frags]

ps, IMO this may be one of the greatest threads ever regarding people thinking and doing and generally making progress.

Sure has my mind going (but then again with only 2 brain cells, and one of them waving bye-bye to the other, anything gets my mind going)


Has anyone played around with a white sided prop container to really optimize reflected light? Could one actually light the coral from many angles using a integrated reflector/tank design? (and keep the dang coralline off) white sand is a good start

[Corpus Callosum]

try painting every side of the aquarium (from outside) flat white.. good light usage.

[Corpus Callosum]

Here is what I was talking about considering parabolic/circular placement. Directly under the MH bulb gets the most light, but on the same flat plane of a spot under the MH, moving to the left or right will be farther away from the bulb and a little less light (the whole deal with point source lighting). Anyhow in some agricultural places they keep plants directly under the MH bulb at the lowest spot, then to get equal mounts of lights to the spots left and right, they move the plants higher up, so that once arranged properly most plants are getting around the same amount of light (even though its from different direction). Like in the picture below if it was a frag tank you could have a row of eggcrate shelf in the middle on the bottom of the tank, and on the left and right just make taller and taller shelves, etc..

[Corpus Callosum]

Now, here's another idea from my large box. Ignore the considerations about what it would take to make this structurally sound, just assume it's thick acrylic or whatever and will hold itself, or it has bracing etc.. lets call this my donut plan.

I mean this tank would be pretty expensive also, but just put that aside for now. You have a cylindrical tank. In the center is a partition/second cylinder, which is very well attached to the tank and is sealed properly. On the inside of this area there is no water, only on the outside. Mounted in the center of the middle cylinder is a vertical MH bulb (those which can be mounted vertically), above it is a fan or whatever blowing in for heat control etc, not important for the concept anyway. Then the light from all directions from the bulb can be used to culture frags, if the MH bulb was mounted above the tank like it is in everyones tank at the current time, a lot of light hitting the reflectors and such isn't getting used as it could best. Anyhow, frags are either mounted all along the walls of the tank so they grow from all sides towards the center, or they can be suspended from the large lip on the tank. Since this is a cylindrical tank, using a strong powerhead in one direction would keep the motion going all around the tank, then there can be like 2 powerheads facing opposite directions each on a timer so the current varies from one direction to the next when the other powerhead is off.. anyway the pictures will help explain this better than all that mumbo jumbo I just typed.

here is the overhead shot of the tank.

[Corpus Callosum]

and here is the frontal/side shot.

frags would be mounted like 3 on a string, all around the perimeter of the outer wall, on the inside.

[Corpus Callosum]

Or,

for another concept, if you're one of those people who just wants more light from the sides as well, maybe to get more coloring going deeper in the coral, and/or the sides/bottom, you can try something like this. A tank with partitions on the side that are not filled with water, sealed, and have a couple of long bulbs in them that are strong, one example could be T5 lighting. Here, the picture will explain it a little better.

Even if better coloration was achieved this way it wouldn't be worth it though, as if the corals were moved to a tank with just lighting from the top, it would probably lose some of the colors deeper in the coral or more on the sides. Lighting a tank this way though might allow the coral to grow out 'fuller' in terms of diameter as well.

[bgdiving]

Anthony
I am a little confused as to why you would cut the newly grown sphere in half and resuspended the 2 halves rather than frag it into several sections or branches and resuspend the multiple sections which would be more like what we started out with, that worked well, than the 2 half spheres would be. It would seem to me that the half spheres would already be crowded on the now bottom and would restrict growth compared to fraggging out brances or sections and resuspending. I haven't moved up to this level YET!

Do you think the 3 month suspended Pocilipora, that I have posted as an attachment (my 2nd pic post as attachment middle of page 2 of this thread), is ready to be split or do you think I should let it grow more before splitting? My intent (other than pure experimental) is to place one section of the split on substrate to see how it grows out after having been suspended and with the rest of the split try to go for maximum production. This is all still new to me and I'm finding it exciting to play with.

[Anthony Calfo]

BG... sorry for the delay in response. I just got back in town from presenting to the Brooklyn Aquarium Society. What a great club! They pull aquarists from Philly and as far north as Boston. Huge too... almost 400 members... and 30-50% in attendance monthly.

Regarding your question, I get the impression that you really are overthinking the process my friend. You simply need to try it and experiment to see it. The method you use will need only to serve your purpose. If you were fragging large scale, your goal is to get your colony size up quickly... as such, you'll break them young and frequently just to bring the numbers up to a point where you can afford sit back and relax while they grow out. In this situation, you seem to be missing my point. The frequent frag-grow-and-break cycle does not let individuals grow so dense that they have to adapt with difficulty. Its not like a 1" frag turns into a 60 branch monster in 2 months (if so... we want your recipe!). So there is no imbalancd sphere to be worried about. You simply need to have a goal in mind... like: I want to grow/sell 10 frags per month of this species... then figure out by experimentation how big of a parent colony is needed to support a sustainable harvest of 10 pieces monthy. If a species could grow to saleable size in one month, the your low end target should simply be a parent colony of ten. Ten is broken into 20 and grown out for 4 weeks. At that time.. 10 are traded/sold and the other 10 are broken in half to start again. One month later... 20 saleable sized pieces exist again... 10 get sold, and 10 get split... and so on.

Since you just want to experiment with 2 specimens (one each hung and fixed)... then my advice to be fair would be for you to start with two very small frags with few branches. Thus, each delelops entirely to match its new parameters.

Best regards, Anthony

[eddie]

sci33 not sure I understand your rotating idea?

I do have a startrac light mover from ACI hydroponics over my new 180gal(linear type & they do also make circular movers that can rotate 1,2or 3 lights also

would'nt that achive the same goal?

the mover I have now is the most advanced on the market and can be adjusted to pause at each end to even out light distrubution slow down or speed up.

I'll be getting a 3 arm circular mover also for a 8ftx8ftx18"vat (sooner or later)I'll run a 400 Iwaski,10kushio & 20k all combined in a circular pattern(or mabey just 2 1000watters like the sunmaster cool delux 65k & 20 ushio)

btw my 180 is barebottom I'll put some styrofoam under it to reflect but from past experiance the coraline will cover the bottom pretty quick so aluminum is not very practical unless you keep the bottom scraped

[Corpus Callosum]

I think those 3 arm light movers also have the ability to add up to 5 arms if you feel like having more light..

Anyhow I was suggesting the rotating thing more for the effect of water movement on it than light..

[eddie]

oh..well sounds cool but what about smaller snails?

[Corpus Callosum]

nothing I have suggested was intended for people's tanks at home as I think that's pretty pointless. These would be dedicated experimental tanks, bare bottom, nothing in them, with their own lights and hood, then it could be plumbed to the main system. No snails or inverts would really be inside it unless there was a huge algae problem for some reason..

[mustangsv0]

yo yo yo,
interesting thread. i have an acro hanging on fishing line. the line's been encrusted around and it's beginning to branch out.

i was wondering what you all think would happen to a frag of a plating coral, like an acropora efflorescence?? i have three efflo, i could try hanging one of them. i guess the same question applies to montipora capricornis/foliosa.

victor.

[mustangsv0]

well, i have suspended a piece of my a. efflo, just out of curiosity. hope it does well.

[bgdiving]

Getting ready to terminate my first experment with suspended corals. I was going to split the suspended pocilipora in half and resuspend one half and attach the other half to substrate... BUT ... I kind of like the way the frag developed into a nice nearly round colony (Thanks Anthony for this great idea) so I'm thinking about moving the whole thing into my display tank. I should be getting my light meter tomorrow night so as soon as I can identify a spot that semi matches the light I am going to cut the fishing line!

[Newreeflady]

Why don't they swing and hit each other? I'd figure in a high flow sps tank they'd swing around a bit, are they that heavy that they resist the flow?

thx,
Angela.