New reported success with Dendronepthya!

[sammy33]

I have been researching the techniques and methods used in keeping non-photosynthetic corals like Dendronepthya for several years now. These corals are difficult to keep and require crazy feedings to keep them thriving. There have been some sporadic reports of marginal success with Dendronepthya by only a few hobbyists. I have been following some of these stories in a http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=524097&perpage=25&pagenumber=1">thread about Dendronepthya on RC</a>.

This months ReefKeeping Magazine online has a writeup about one of the more successful Dendronepthya tanks. He has kept Dendronepthya, Scleronephthya species and other azooxanthellate species alive, growing and spawning for over a year now! He uses a specific method including strong laminar flow (all Tunze powerheads on one side of the tank), vodka dosing and 12 hour constant drips of a dense phtyoplankton/rotifer concentrate. :eek:

So I am pretty jazzed by this news. Guess what type aquarium I want to set up now? :roll:

Here is the article:

[IMG]http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2008-02/feature/index.php">Progress in Azooxanthellate Reef Aquariums, Part 1- Dendronephthya Husbandry </a>
by Charles Matthews

 

[FutureInterest]

Yah I've been following that thread with great interest and read that article last night.

Alex, photokid, just finished setting up a non-photosynthetic tank. Hopefully it'll be as successful as those tanks, especially if we follow their pattern.

 

[mojo]

This is great news - I'm excited to see progress being made in this field - Dendros are some of most beautiful corals in the ocean.

I didn't read the entire thread (but I did read the Matthews link), so excuse my ignorance here. I remember reading an article a while back about Dendros and it seemed like the key was the flow rate- that there was a specific flow range (and I don't remember the numbers) that was optimal for Dendros to be able to capture food in the water. Too little flow, and the food doens't make it. Too much flow, and the coral can't catch it (in basic terms).

If anyone locally gets this up and going, I'd love to see it!

 

[sammy33]

mojo;133953 wrote:
I remember reading an article a while back about Dendros and it seemed like the key was the flow rate- that there was a specific flow range (and I don't remember the numbers) that was optimal for Dendros to be able to capture food in the water. Too little flow, and the food doens't make it. Too much flow, and the coral can't catch it (in basic terms).

Please tell me you saved a link to that article. I would love to know the general flow requirements. Chucks NPS tank on RC is a 180g with 9,510 GPH potential from 3 Tunze 6101 and a couple hundred GPH from the sump return. This is upwards of 55x turnover!

 

[sammy33]

Was that wetwebmedia?

"These corals [Dendronepthya] are found in waters (doing best) with flow rates between 5 cm/sec and 25 cm/sec (2 in/sec and 10 in/sec)."</em>

That is crazy flow. There is a loose way to convert that to GPH. Lets take even a low number in that range (4in/s) and look at what that works out to in GPH for my 125g reef tank.

Start with your aquarium and divide the estimated volume (minus live rock and sand displacement) by length. This gives you the relative gallons per inch. I estimated 100 gallons in my 125.

Aquarium Volume/Length = gallons per inch
100÷72 = 1.38

Multiply the result by 4 to find the numbers of gallons of water you'll have to shift to move the entire water column 4 inches per second.

1.38x4 = 5.52 GPS (gallons per second)

Now multiply that figure by 60 for gallons per minute and then again by 60 for gallons per hour.

5.52x60 = 331.2 GPM (gallons per minute)
331.2x60 = 19,872 GPH (gallons per hour)

What the... :wow2:

19,872 GPH...no problem. I'll just install 68 Maxi-jet 1200's or maybe 14 Tunze Nano Streams would be more efficient? How about a closed loop with 5 Sequence Darts?

Dang!

I maybe could do 2in/sec of relative flow. This would be just under 10,000GPH which is about what Chuck's NPS tank has for flow. I am only about 3,800 GPH away. Maybe I could get away with only 3 VorTechs at 9,000 GPH.