Moontanman

I checked out the site, interesting the tank of the month was a 34 gallon nano reef, I saw several 2.5 gallons "reefs" nothing like what you are claiming and not near sucessfull as you seem to be. I guess you are the best of them all? Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedLot so very nice Nano reefs, lots more detail about keeping them, if you had been a bit more forth coming maybe we could have avoided this conversation but I still see no .5 gallon reefs.

Not mad dude, I never take this stuff personally. None of is proof and you know it. Oh contrare, a 2.5 gallon tank only works over the short term I never said it would be a stable self contained reef. You are the one making claims about tiny self contained reefs, even freshwater isn't self contained. I mentioned an eight square foot bottomed tank not a 2.5 gallon tank. I've kept the small reef tanks they require an extraordinary amount of effort compared to say a 70 gallon tank and are much more expensive both in $ per gallon and actual cost. Popular vote will never be proof, you upset me only because I do not like to see people mislead into thinking a tiny reef is easy. I am not mad, i have not attacked you personally, i think you are just misleading us, i hope by just not giving us all the pertinent details. often when something comes easy to someone, and I am guilty of this as well, it is easy to forget the details of how it was done. I want you to sit back and think about all the details of what it really takes to set up and keep a tiny reef. I think you'll realize you are leaving some stuff out. If I thought you were intentionally lying I would be pissed off. If you don't think my problems with your ideas and pics are reasonable I'll leave you alone to twist in the water current by yourself. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedFirst off i lost all my stuff almost ten years ago, financial meltdowns are bad but even then i never was one to take pics of my tanks. I had them on display around town and in my house. I don't see how a pic can be proof of what you say. i am still active in the reef tank community mostly as a consultant mainly because I genuinely cannot afford the expense of reef aquariums any more. if you don't like my critique of your methods then outline what you do by doing more than just making claims. How do you start out? how do you do what you do? Showing pics of what you do is as useless as me saying I call down UFOs and offering pics of unusual lights in the sky as proof. You claim to be so well known well guess what so am I my name is not moon or Moontanman it is Michael Hissom. I have been influencing Marine aquaria for more than 40 years. I've set up several pet shops and I had a live coral propagation business going 20 years ago. I honestly don't know if I'm all over the net or not. I know I've spent most of the last ten to fifteen years keeping and breeding fish native to the southern USA. Getting points for my posts are not important to me but being honest tis. You post exactly how you do what you do and I'll post what I do, i admit a preference for very large aquariums but that is just me. I remember very well the old days when coral was impossible and coral grew so slow (maybe an inch a century or something equally silly) Oh yes, light was the evil enemy to a marine aquarium and everything had to be sterile as the moon to work. Adding something from the ocean without sterilizing it was so stupid. We've come a long way since the early 70's if you can rewrite the ideas yet again then do it by actually giving us the details not just by making claims and showing pics.

Ok, you have made this claim. This is simply Bullshit, a 1000 gallon aquarium of any type much less a reef tank is not self contained. The oceans of the earth are not self contained over geological time spans. A .5 gallon reef tank is simply not capable of being self contained in any realistic definition of the term. There are no processes that could be contained in such a small container that could allow it to be "self contained" Now having said that there are coral like animals (I say coral like because you seem to want to use the word to describe any of the many and often unrelated organisms that people see and call coral) That are pretty tough, I have collected via scuba diving a great many colonial organisms, when I first started out there were no "coral like organisms" available any other way. I've collected them from under bridges near sewage outflows and even in freshwater. Yes there are freshwater colonial organisms. I think your post is disingenuous because you have failed to point out that the organisms you are culturing are not exactly the classic coral reef organisms most people think of when they think coral reef. Please stop saying I don't know because I haven't tried, I was having live coral heads shipped from Hawaii to me 40 years ago, I personally pioneered both live rock and metal halide lighting on reef tanks. I've kept reef organisms in glass globes and even and old 1500 watt light bulb. One real rule is the smaller that container the more outside support you need and the shorter the lifespan of the container. I think i could probably set up an aquarium with an eight square foot bottom area that would be stable for decades with enough outside support. But there are things that build up that cannot be recycled in the scale of personal aquaria that would mean that eventually the tank would have to be taken down and redone. your tiny tanks would require such a tear down every few weeks at least at my best estimate. next the very idea of using frozen food to feed such a small container is fatally flawed. Frozen food means the inner contents of the cells of the organism is being bled out into the water, rising takes away much of it but not all. Only live food is suitable for tiny containers. rotifiers are my choice for polyps, copepods for larger animals and yes i do culture all of them. Take away your assertion these containers are easy or do not require huge amounts of maintenance and outside support and I'll quit twisting your nipples but if you keep on I'll twist them off Displaying a tank full of Coraline algae and star polyps is not proof of or even reason to believe you can set up a self contained .5 gallon reef aquarium. All of the tanks you show could be and most probably are simply tiny displays that were once connected to a larger system and if not reconnected will die just like a huge coral head would die off in a small aquarium. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt on most of it but the assertion this is a self contained reef tank sis just not in the realm of possibility and that not because i haven't tried it. There are so many problems here, the heat from your lights would drive up the temps in such a tiny container, aeration would result in problems both with and with out it. I am still active in reefs and just because someone makes claims on the net doesn't make it true. The pic of the tiny tank in your car is so strange, was it air tight? why isn't it pressing down in the seat like something was full of water should? i see so many things that scream illusion. If you can really keep a "pico" reef that is self contained and stable long term then you my friend have really done something, I have some friends at NASA that would be interested in seeing your processes I am sure.

Ok, what do you feed them? What is your light source? What are the chemical parameters? What trace elements to do you add Exactly what species are being kept in each of the different sizes of bowls

I want to believe you i really do but i can just look at your pics and see many things that prove to me you are being misleading. 40 years of experience being on the cutting edge of both aquarium husbandry and coral propagation gives you deep instincts and what you are claiming looks to me like what it looks like for someone to claim faster than light information transfer does to a real physicist. You need to show why what you claim works, just showing the tanks and making claims really doesn't provide evidence of anything and I can see scenarios of who to do what you are claiming but not the way you claim. Getting view counts on something that is misleading is disturbing

How big is the sump associated with these "tanks" how big is the refugium" How much water is being held outside the tank and recirculated into it? When a coral extends threads to digest the coral next to it all the skimming in the world will not prevent it. Your tanks are too small to actually support the populations they show with a huge outside support system. I could grow coral In a test tube if I had a huge outside support system.

Yeah, for about 15 minutes, in most of the containers you've shown the individual polyps are too close to not kill each other, if you knew even a minimal amount about coral you would know this. The bio load on these tiny tanks is far to small for them to last more than a few weeks, in most days would be a stretch. I've been doing this for about 40 years, yes I'm made temporary displays much like you show but they are not long term habitats nor do they honestly represent what can be done with out a tremendous amount of outside resources being available. Be honest show what it really takes to maintain such a tiny environment.

I knew it had to be some sort of illusion, a 15 gallon tank has a similar length to height ratio as a 75 gallon tank as well. The 70/75 gallon tank is one of my favorites to grow coral in due to it's surface area to depth ratio. The 48" by 24" by 24" 120 is a good tank too. BTW I really wish people wouldn't do BS like this. It gives people who want to set up aquaria a very false idea of what is possible or even desirable.

I grow live coral, I've been doing so for more than 30 years. That pic is total BS, photo shop at the very least. Yes there are what are known as Nano reefs but they generally hold at least 2.5 gallons of water contain only couple species of coral, usually soft coral. The container pictured could not possibly hold more than 1/2 gallon as depicted. Every polyp depicted in the photo is way out of proportion to their actual sizes. If I had to guess I would say that is a photoshoped pic of at least a 15 gallon container.

Is triploidy what you guys are talking about? Most normal cells/organisms are dipliod. but triploidy does occur.