Video of rare aquariums in my living room, multiple biospheres etc.

[brandon429]

Rare as in there are no others like 'em! enjoy, you have a nice forum I've been lurking for a while and decided to post. these are all filterless tanks. the bioloading is set such that the internal surface area of the rockwork is enough surface area to process the complete nitrogen cycle. That is how the palmtop sps reef works, it was been around for a long time now
B

 

[match55]

this is amazing >O<

 

[Etunes]

Just awomse. Love the minirature reefs. Your mtiny alage scraper makes me laugh.

 

[buddha_red]

Just amazing, thank you for sharing this with the forum

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

Incredible

 

[match55]

they r so tiny yet much better than my reef tank.
make me wanna work on mine so bad haha

 

[brandon429]

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thank you so much for checking them out I have looked at several tanks on this site and I miss being able to have fish!

going to link up my other vid it's another vase and sealed reef
YouTube - 1 gallon Reefbowl I, half gallon completely sealed SPS pico reef tank

 

[HN1]

Are these currently set up? I ask because of the dates on the pics.

 

[WhiteDevil]

I think the date setting is wrong, i got one camera that reverts back a few years but maintains the month and day correctly.

 

[brandon429]

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thats so cool someone else has a edgy camera, you are right mine cycles a new date on each shot or at least this old camera did that took the pics...it's like a little virus that hijacks the date huh

but the year is right...the square one was sold for 800 dollars at a show. the vase is still here, it's casting a gravy blue haze on my monitor as we speak. I am soon to get a new cam and the pics will rock its old and sagelike here's old ones

even though I sold the brown one I still have the others waiting to be built along with the custom glass lids for sealing, this company was called 'r type' betta houses and you can mock them up to be reefs with retro lighting instead of betta houses...they went out of business there's not even any internet literature on them, I bought all the petstore had in one shipment (about 5) and no more ever came. I figured they looked like a hot ticket, I wouldn't sell em for any reasonable amount they are very rare with matching stands/canopies and being palmtop size...just a lucky find

 

[brandon429]

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[Bige]

Thats cool. How often do you change the water? How do you change it if the top is sealed?

 

[brandon429]

hi

thanks for stopping in! The lid is sealed only in between servicings. it can be raised very easily to reposition frags and scrape off coralline. the point is not to have daily fluctuations...

the vase reef is a constant bubbler, so the positive air vent just comes out under the lid or through the inlets for the wires for the heater/air. since there is only a tiny escape point, it's topoff is every three days which is unheard of in gallon reefs. The vase reef is the most stable and cheapest reef aquarium anyone could set up, that's why I like to discuss these bare-bones approaches to reef keeping its a new way of spending less money and growing corals much easier. imagine no skimmers, test kits, constant balancing etc (what nanos give only even smaller/cheaper/easier)

minus the fish of course if one can live with that!
also, each system has a tiny cork in a hole in the lid for dosings and feedings and even full water changes if I want to wait long enough for an airline to drain the tank via siphon...taking of the lid is a hassle sometimes because you have to line it up just right for a full seal

 

[Mitchell0605]

Absolutely amazing. I always waned to set up a nano with no filters and mechanical stuff in it but I always wanted fish in it but now... I love it. Great stuff.

 

[brandon429]

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Mitchell if you did ever set one up you ought to consider the vase. Here are several reasons that's the easiest nano reef anyone could run and the shape is 99% of the balance:

-the vase inner diameter neck allows a lid with the exact circumference to sit on the neck, inside the upper lip but held in place by the curve of the vase. This directs all splatter back into the bowl. The lid creates a high humidity micro dome over the tank, and nearly seals it, but still allows for pressure vent from the airstone. So the topoff is every three days and this is unheard of in gallon tanks. I have never tried auto topping a nano, I always controlled the evap instead. There are no moving parts or fluids it is 100% preferable in a micro sw tank.

-the shape of the vase somehow resticts nearly all microalgae glass growth to the upper neck areas, easily wiped/scraped. I believe it's due to lighting intensity gradients but either way if you ever get flatworms, a little algae etc it all eventually congregates here for some reason. The globe part of the bowl stays amazingly clear for a very long time in this setup. The constant upward flow of the airstone along the back wall must have some effect on depositions as well...
--this design is the ideal balance between sealing and heat retention. The sealed tanks' tradeoff hassle is temperature spikes, fanning is usually needed. The vase is only partially sealed, and along with CO2-driving abilities the constant airstone bubbling cools the tank considerably. No fanning needed, it only runs one degree above your ambient room temp/ the heater is grossly oversized, i think 50 watts in a one gallon vase. you couldn't put ice around this bowl and cool it lol

this image below is the atto unit. A polycarbonate passive flow unit for a destructive var of acropora predator crabs. This tank is housed in the refugium, and fed/respired off the flow in the tank passively via diffusion slits cut along all sides, like jail wire. he was fed cyclopeeze, lived well but in gulag. This shell is built out of the packaging for one nine volt battery from radioshack. In it was a sandbed, live rock chips and some mushroom juvenile pedal tissue type frags.

 

[brandon429]

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pipe cleaner > rub tip in cyclopeeze, then hand it over. takes food through the bars with his claw then runs back to the other side for a while to hide some under a mushroom frag the size of a bean...

 

[brandon429]

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tomorrow i might buy a new digital cam, been without for about three years, can't wait to post updates of the vase

 

[brandon429]

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heres a cell phone snap real quick just now. it's been about two years since last posted online a pic of this vase!! not a single one, been out of a cam. they cost too much.

hoping to build a laser clear featuring of it with a new cam soon, this is the oldest pico reef in the world so that makes it unique imo, i hope the details in the pic show the age. its filled out and the blastomussa merletti have added new bud polyps (about 20) that will be easy to compare to the vid closeups for verification. need the hd!!

In this pic I have also leaked my little tweak idea called exoscaping. A white piece of coral skeleton, correct in genus to the tabletop formation growing behind it in the water, protrudes out the front of the glass seemingly connected to the inside. Like the dolphin decoration magnets...

You can touch it on the outside and have a tactile percep of the vase now, and yes I get get asked all the time (but not by reef aquarists) "Is the coral growing through the glass" lol

 

[brandon429]

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last post...when I get my new cam I'll swap out these junk pics.

Also never been photographed before in a pico reef: alveopora production 10x over from the original frag. I have pics of this frag from the size of a pencil eraser. it has put on roughly 10x biomass in calcium carbonate skeleton. The A. has now plated over the back rock wall somewhat and sends up polyps from the rear of the tank, it cannot be separated from the reef rock and in fact it holds the left side of the rockwork together when moving this vase around. From a thumbnail to the size of the lower hand...does very well all packed in like this.

it's not bright pink or anything, but it grows best in the brightest part of the tank and has some pinkish tones on the heads.

the very small polyps right up against the glass are a feature of asexual reproduction. They show the sizing growth, as the large ones in the back are two years old. They will soon seal right up to the glass this year, and will lock the rockwall further to the actual vase glass, total binding is my goal and I frag corals and trade off if one ever does bad, like a big acan I had. got rid of him, traded for lobo
growth forms are sometimes strange in this low circulation environment.

the xenia right above the alveopora makes ten dollar frags regularly. Since this is the focal point of light, as magnified by the bowl shape to the inhabitants, it does not walk anywhere else in the bowl and simply grows huge here. I prune a handfull every two months or so when its touching everything. If I take time to glue a live rock frag up against a clean cut like this, when it's all overgrown you can pull it out and sell it for small cash. The dendrophyllia has also grown a new head in this pic, now 4, it's tucked under some zo's

 

[ilostnemo]

how are you heating the half gallon sealed? ive been looking at one a 2.5 gallon, also what are you using for moving the water? a powerhead or a airstone?