Info from MACNA 2007 Pittsburgh speakers

sshindell · Sep 24, 2007

I took this from Reef Central (http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=1208929&goto=newpost">http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=1208929&goto=newpost</a>)

All credit should go to Steve Lowes - he did a good report from some of the talks - I thought people might enjoy it.

MACNA 2007 Trip Report - Steve Lowes

[B]Mike Palleta â€“ Pharmaceuticals and Marine Aquaria[/B]

Pharma industry experience â€“ Genentech, with an oncology background.

Presented a good review on use of pharmaceuticals in the aquarium. Highlights:

Levimasole hydrochloride â€“ pig/cow dewormer, available from Agway and other farm suppliers
- Flat worm killer
- Eggs of FW are not addressed
- Needs multiple dips
- Concentration and details of dip not mentioned
- Described training new wrasses (six line, banana, and fairy wrasses) in a in-tank-corral to eat FW before release into main tank

Metranidazole â€“ dewormer
- Often new fish carry worms into the aquarium- many fish eat feces of others
- Reported recent improved success with Leopard Wrasse and Moorish Idols after de-worming 
- Apply through treated food â€“ no further details
- Reported improvement for lateral line disease?

Interceptor â€“ red bug treatment
- No new info but confirmed success of this treatment
- Usual caveats

Maracin/Erythromycin
- red slime treatment â€“ surprising (to me) recommended this to â€œhitâ€ red slime outbreaks and then let less nuisance algae dominate.
- Narrow spectrum gram-positive bactericide, most sand bed bacteria gram-negative
- Recommended 2 treatments â€“ didnâ€™t get other details

Chloramphenicol
- RTN treatment (supposedly)
- Antimicrobial / Antibiotic
- Didnâ€™t get any details of treatment
- Better advice was to drop temp to 74F for a few weeks

Garlic
- Referenced E. Borneman Sep 07 â€œReef Keeping Magazineâ€ article on addressing Montipora eating nudibranchs

Then we got into the quasi-pharma topics

Vodka
- Carbon source for bacteria promotion â€“ with subsequent draw down on nitrogen and phosphate
- Described home built vodka reactor with warning of consequences of overdosing.
- Noted danger of this technique
- Work up slowly over weeks/months if you are going to try this
- Mike has reached an optimum dose for his system of 30 ml vodka going into a 1200g system over 3 days

Human growth hormone (HGH) / Amino acid (AA) dosing
- Idea is to promote fast growth
- Question why you want to do this in a typical display tank â€“ aquaculture possibilities
- AAâ€™s make some sense (theoretically) but HGH seems far fetched. Only thought is that HGH may be broken down (enymatically) into some useful amino acids
- Pappone Recipe / Blue Coral Method â€“ Italian website
o [IMG]http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=8791724">http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=8791724</a>
o 
- Dose AAâ€™s 2 hrs before rest of feeding (after lights out)
- Feed 10 mL/100gallon after acclimation to feeding
- Recommended the Elos brand of AAâ€™s

Finished with a quick review of pharmaceutical from the sea - for human use.

[B]Stan Dannemiller â€“ Do Fish Feel Pain?[/B]

Cleveland Clinic Foundation â€“ Veterinary background

Interesting presentation that concluded that we donâ€™t really know but if they do then itâ€™s probably not as we know pain. Presentation spurred by some recent reports that fish do feel pain. Data is really lacking to conclude this!

Evidence for: Opiates have a behavioral effect on applied â€œpainâ€ â€“ i.e. subdues pain results (increased breathing, hypoactivity, decreased feeding, rubbing of affected site, rocking behavior â€“ and some blood chemistry) when trout were injected with bee venom.

Evidence against: Essentially no neocortal (cerebral neocortex) area in a fish brain. This is the area of a human brain that is associated with emotional state and hence what we associate with â€œpainâ€.

Good discussion on the differences in Teleost (typical fish) vs Elasmobranch (sharks/rays) nerve and brain structures. 

Introduced MS222- anesthetic vs clove oil 

[B]Scott Fellman â€“ Advanced Aquascaping[/B]
Scott stepped in for Sara Lardizabal who was not able to attend.
[IMG]mailto:algaeguy01@socal.rr.com">algaeguy01@socal.rr.com</a>

Brief overview of aquascaping trends and the move away from the wall of rocks with as many species of corals as possible perched in there in a completely unnatural display.

1 to 1.618 focal point â€“ (also see â€œrule of thirdsâ€). Easy way is to take length of display and divide by 2.618. This gives you the optimum focal point of the display â€“ use this in aquascaping design.

Current trend is to emulate nature. See following site for idea:
[IMG]http://invincible569.squarespace.com/">http://invincible569.squarespace.com/</a>

Biotope aquaria and in particular the seagrass aquaria:
- shoal grass (Halodule wrightii) easiest
- star grass (Halophila) not easiest
- turtle grass (Thalassia hemphricii
- need 4-6â€ established sand bed
- consider enriched substrates (mud, boiled potting soil)
- care not to damage rhizome on planting
- plant as you would a terrestrial plant by digging a whole and being careful with roots
- prune leaves
- use herbivores to graze algae â€“ i.e. snails
- be patient â€“ leaves drop 1st then get new growth
- sources of sea grasses:
- [IMG]http://floridapets.tripod.com/marineplants.html">http://floridapets.tripod.com/marineplants.html</a>
- [IMG]http://www.live-plants.com/">http://www.live-plants.com</a>

sshindell · Sep 24, 2007

Part II

Ron Shimek â€“ Status of Coral Reefs

Indications are that around year 2050 (if not before) will be the â€œperfect stormâ€ of reef decline
- leading to death of scleractinian corals as we know them
- prediction is that weâ€™ll head back to a cyanobacteria dominated reef by then
- sobering if not depressing
- go see the coral reefs now if you can â€“ theyâ€™re changing every year relative to what we think of as a â€œhealthy coral reefâ€.

Steve Pro â€“ Building a Coral Greenhouse

Great (and humorous) step through the trials and tribulations of building a greenhouse aquaculture operation â€“ good luck if you want to do this. But good luck to Steve who is on his way and tackling problems as they arise. $35K â€“ $100K investment and a lot of work in the process and to follow. Long way to break even in my assessment. Got to be a labor of love.

Ron Hessing â€“ European Reef Perspectives

http://www.marineaquarium.nl/English.php">www.marineaquarium.nl/English.php</a>
[IMG]http://www.dejongmarinelife.nl/">www.dejongmarinelife.nl</a>

Ron is now working at a major European importer in the Netherlands â€“ Marinelife B.V.
Took us on a tour of some example European reef tanks including the set-up of a new tank for Ivan Mans:
- T5 lighting very popular 
- Sand filters being used to improve water clarity as wide and deep tanks become popular â€“ need backflushing as part of maintenance
- Humidity control systems in sump room
- Off-line/On-line quarantining set up â€“ nice
- Zeovit systems popular â€“ need to follow recipe for success
- Nearly all are using phosphate absorbers
- Frequent carbon changes (small amount every week), passively filtered, for clarity
- Some using ozone and UV
- Siemens LOGO system for whole house and reef tank control
- Filter feeding foods from Germany catching on â€“ reports of success with dendros now coming in

[B]Kelly Jedlicki - Fish Necropsy Work Shop[/B]

Anesthetic â€“ MS222 â€“ now available from Foster and Smith
Dose level 75-100 ppm need to buffer 
Commercial anesthesia unit now available â€“ no reference, need to follow up
Need to aerate well
Microscope with 10X, 40X and 100X
Recommend generating a fish species, size and weight database since dosage rates are hard to come by.
Walmart sell a convenient balance for weighing out medicines, buffers etc
Blood sampling technique:
- needle in at base of tail till hit spine
- pull back
- angle down
- back in to parallel spine and draw sample
Gill biopsy:
- easiest thing for hobbyist to do to confirm ich
- snip off ends of gill filaments and look under microscope
- look for ich parasite with cilia under 40X- 100X mag.
Dewormer recommended â€“ proziquantol, Prozipro - Hikari 
Books on necroscopy:
- Fish Disease: Noga >$100
- Fish Medicine: Stoskopf (out of print)
- Fish Disease: Basleer (OK but so-so?)

sshindell · Sep 24, 2007

Part III
Dana Riddle â€“ Coral Coloration

Apogee meter - $275 Photosynthetic Photon Plus
Typical tropical sun @ 2,100 umol.m2.sec max PAR @ noon
Typical SPS aquarium 233 umol.m2.sec

Reported data from PAM on ETR rates with on-set of photosaturation, saturation and photo-inhibition. Thought provoking presentation but I question data because fact that corals can/may be able to photoadapt would undermine the results. Not sure what conclusions can or should be drawn from this data other than we can overlight our tanks with MH lighting. Worth studying Danaâ€™s data on pigment absorption spectra. Photo-adaption studies need to be done.

See http://www.advancedaquarist.com/">www.advancedaquarist.com</a> for pigments articles â€“ search under Dana Riddle.

Dana concludes that LED lighting is a viable option now

[B]Sanjay Joshi: Understanding Lighting Technology and Implications for Reef Keeping[/B]

As usual â€“ great presentation.
Reiterated that there is no â€œbestâ€ bulb/ballast/reflector combination. Output, needs, tank dimensions and aesthetic objectives all play into the decision. Sanjay has set out to answer the following questions instead:

- What light levels and distribution can I expect for a given lighting arrangement?
- What are the differences between comparable set ups?

Gave a good review of lighting including energy Vs wavelength plots and how these relate to photons. All his data is now searchable on [IMG]http://www.reeflightinginfo.arvixe.com/">www.reeflightinginfo.arvixe.com</a>

Discussed metal halides and confirmation that over life of bulb there IS a shift in spectrum â€“ typically to the red end of the spectrum. Data does suggest that most MH bulbs are perfectly usable for as much as 2 years giving allowance for some slight spectral drift. Be aware however that with some combinations the power draw may go up significantly on older bulbs e.g. 400W bulbs drawing as much as 650W of power. Interesting that data to date indicates that same increases may not occur with electronic ballasts.

Sanjay currently using Geissman 14K 400W bulbs with icecap electronic ballasts and no supplemental fluorescents.

T5â€™s run best at 30C â€“ outside of this temp performance drops are to be expected.

LEDâ€™s â€“ just another light source â€“ no reason why they canâ€™t provide to the needs of corals. Currently Sanjay concludes that LEDs are up there with T5 lights. Projection is that they will eventually out perform MHs.

At end of day objective is to be able to generate 100uMol PAR at bottom of tank. Doing so will allow you to keep most hermatypic SPS corals

[B]Daniel Knopp[/B]

This was a fantastic essay in beautiful macro shot photos from aquaria. All taken with a Cannon 5D camera and a 1:5 objective lens. Focused quite a bit on tunicates that heâ€™s been demonstrating success with â€“ all in non-fish aquaria. 

Emphasis on refugia and 2 X /day feedings with fresh blended sea foods, vitamins, Cyclops, phytoplankton, yeast preparations and amino acids. Details were not documented but he did say during questions that he was using two German preparations of phytoplankton.

[B]Ron Shimek â€“ Feeding Gorgonians (Diodogorgia nodulifera)[/B]

Investigations into flow regime and current velocity on feeding rate of gorgonians. 
- described an experimental set up that allowed laminar or turbulent flow simulation
- used artemia as food source â€“ best able to handle circulation pumping (Tunze Turbelle Stream) Note : oyster eggs a preferred food, suggests gelatinous surface most similar to natural plankton?
- Counted artemia before and after 2 hrs of circulation in presence of two gorgonian specimens
- Results
o At low speed laminar no significant difference with control
o At low speed turbulent there was a significant difference (approx 2X capture rate of artemia) compared to laminar
o At high speed laminar there was a significant difference (approx 2X capture rate) compared to turbulent
o At high speed turbulent no significant difference with control
- Conclusions
o At 30cm/sec or greater â€“ laminar flow may be best suited to feeding
o At 22 cm/sec or less â€“ turbulent flow may be best
o For this species using artemia
- Note: experiment was challenged with high mortality rate of artemia repeatedly passing through pump

sshindell · Sep 24, 2007

Part IV

Lee Goldman â€“ University of Guam
 
Excellent presentation on experimental investigations into competitive growth of SPS corals. Two experiments
<ul>
<li>Feeding live food vs artificial</li>
<li>Interspecific interactions</li>
</ul> 
Live Vs Artifical feeding
â€“ commercial implications of harvesting parent coral colonies leading to preference of culturing from larvae. Key reported to be rapid growth in 1st month
â€“ artificial food used â€“ golden pearls(50um), live food â€“ artemia
â€“ tested on Pocillopora damicornis
â€“ 3 treatments control, live and artificial
â€“ 3 reps of each, experiment done 6 times
â€“ Equal food to each group (not control) 0.55g of GP = 0.5 g of pre hatched artemia
â€“ Results:
o Live food showed increased growth over control
o Artificial did not
o More algae with GPs
o Still 80% survival for GP and control
o 100% survival for artemia group
â€“ Conclusions:
o GPs only buoyant for < 1hr â€“ lack of bioavailabilty
o Higher nutrient load in GPs group (evident by algae) may have suppressed growth
o Corals will continuously feed if food is available â€“ important aquaculture point.
 
Interspecific Interactions
- Acropora pulcha Vs Porites cylindrical
- Placed corals in proximity to each other 140mm, 33mm or 8mm apart
- 18 pairs replicated twice = 36 containers in flow through system
- Measured basal width growth, and linear growth
- Monthly measurements
- Total growth, # new branches, branch orientation
- Results
o A. pulcha always dominated
o More so when in close interaction with competitor
o Porites growth suppressed in close interaction
 
Note: >1M SPS colonies traded in 2006 â€“ 99% Wild

Info from MACNA 2007 Pittsburgh speakers

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