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OP
It definitely is happy!
Some of my Acro Collection
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chipchipbro
Valuable Member
dang such a pretty! 
OP
OP
Check out these Specs!
Vested
Well-Known Member
Noticed that you use tiles for almost all your colonies, thats gotta be super helpful for moving them, dipping, etc. Could you go more into detail about them? What tiles do you use? Do you just keep getting bigger ones every time the coral out grows it? Would you recommend this to other people? Considering converting all my stonies onto tiles.. would be so nice to be able to move them like legos whenever I think x might do better in x spot etc.
OP
OP
Yea I do put all of my corals on tiles instead of the actual rockwork, I can acheive this because I aquascape my system to be a large plateau/shelf that has a bunch of interconnected tunnels and caves for my fish. Over the years you just kinda accumulate a bunch of stuff, I start off my pieces on 2x2 tiles and have 3x3 and 4x4 tiles in case they encrust over. I also have a ton of old coral bases and shelf rock lying around so I'll repurpose them into larger coral bases if needed.
One major benefit to this is that I can keep a lot of fish and a lot of coral!
By not mounting anything to a rock I make sure I have easy access to every piece! The Lego analogy is nice, it pretty much is like a Lego system. If I wanted to I could pull every single coral out within an hour, but putting them back in and rescaping would be a pain, but it's not as bad as having to chip off mature colonies and destroying the rockwork.
Vested
Well-Known Member
Thanks, totally agree.. trying to figure out the best way to chip off mature colonies right now to move to a new tank. Think I'm going todo something similar to what you do with everything removable for the future. I do like the idea of the tiles themselves being shelf rock, going to see if I can incorporate "tiles" into the scape so they don't look super obvious.
OP
OP
An awesome colony of TGC Surprise Attack!
Poseidon03
Well-Known Member
An awesome colony of TGC Surprise Attack!
How did you learn to go from your original photos to these?
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OP
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OP
OP
More articles that I would highly recommend any curious reefer to read! Feel free to add to the conversation, these are only a few quotes I found interesting.
www.nature.com
www.nature.com
"The presence of the order Myxococcales (P3OB-42) in the Acropora core microbiome of corals categorized as visually unaffected and disease-resistant genotypes is compelling. These bacteria are predators that have been associated with other coral core microbial predatory bacteria54 and they have also been shown to have co-evolved with corals55. The role of the order Myxococcales has not been investigated thoroughly in corals but based on our results it may be an interesting order to explore for its role (if any) in pathogen control."
Anyone have any more information regarding Myxococcales?
www.nature.com
"The impacts of nutrient enrichment on coral health, however, are not always negative and depend on nutrient source20,21, exposure time22, and ratios of available nitrogen to phosphorus18,23."
So it seems that our nutrient levels in our tanks have an impact on microbial abundance!
"Despite the overall low abundance of reads mapping to the parasitic genus Aquarickettsia in genotype ML-7 samples (0.494 ± 3.141%), this taxon increased significantly by 6 weeks of nutrient enrichment compared to T0. Relative abundance of this taxa was only 0.021 ± 0.101% at week 0 and increased to 0.143 ± 2.67% at week 6 in nutrient-enriched samples, equating to an increase of about sevenfold. An ASV within the genus Ruegeria was also significantly more abundant in nutrient-enriched samples, though fold change was low. Unclassified Campylobacterales ASV1 exhibited a significant decline in abundance across nutrient-treated samples. An ASV in the genus Cysteiniphilum also significantly declined with nutrient exposure, with a negative response of more than twofold. Unclassified Bacteria ASV5 (with closest BLAST homology to Deltaproteobacteria) declined with nutrient exposure with a negative CLR-fold change of 1.4.
When ANCOM was performed as comparisons isolating each nutrient treatment individually, no individual treatment induced an increase in the genus Aquarickettsia. Combined treatment (nitrate, phosphate, and ammonium) induced a significant decrease in Unclassified Bacteria ASV5 and a slight increase in an ASV from the genus Ruegeria. Changes in the genus Cysteiniphilum did not surpass significance criteria of W = 0.7 (null hypothesis rejected 70% of the time), but did surpass the default ANCOM significant criterion of W = 0.6, exhibiting a ~ threefold reduction by 6 weeks of exposure to combined treatment compared to T0 (Fig. 5A). Nitrate treatment induced a significant reduction in Cysteiniphilum and an initial increase in the genus Haloferula, which then declined between 3 and 6 weeks of nitrate enrichment (Fig. 5B). Only an ASV belonging to the genus P30B-42 changed significantly with ammonium treatment, despite significant changes in community structure as indicated by alpha and beta diversity metrics in this treatment (Fig. 5C). Phosphate treatment induced a significant reduction of Unclassified Bacteria ASV5 and an increase in Ferrimonas futtsuensis (Fig. 5D)."
"Although microbial community structure was not strongly impacted by nitrate enrichment, chronic exposure to enriched nitrate levels led to a reduction in coral fragment linear extension. Differences in total linear extension (TLE, n = 107) were not significant by treatment at 3 weeks of exposure, but were significant by 6 weeks of exposure (Supp. Fig. 6, Supp. Table 7). Corals exposed to no treatment grew an average of 6.45 ± 1.81 mm by 6 weeks (n = 11), while fragments exposed to 3× ambient levels of ammonium grew the most of any coral fragments across treatments, at 7.00 ± 1.87 mm of growth (n = 6) by 6 weeks. Exposure to 4× ambient concentrations of nitrate treatment resulted in the lowest amount of TLE over the course of the experiment (3.33 ± 1.97 mm, n = 6). TLE of nitrate-enriched corals was significantly lower at 6 weeks compared to 3× ambient ammonium- and 3× phosphate-treated corals, and to untreated corals (p < 0.05, Tukey’s pairwise honest significance test on log-transformed data). Corals had significantly greater lengths at week 6 compared to week 3 for all treatments except for nitrate (Supp. Fig. 6).
Symbiont densities as visually assessed using a CoralWatch Health Chart responded positively to tank conditions, with chart scores (scale of 1–6) increasing from an average of 4.86 ± 0.528 (n = 55) at week 0 to 5.90 ± 0.300 by week 6 (n = 61). All corals exhibited increases in symbiont density and differences by treatment were insignificant (p > 0.05, Kruskal–Wallis test with Benjamini–Hochberg correction), although average health scores for untreated corals at 6 weeks (5.82 ± 0.405, n = 11) trended lower than for nutrient-enriched corals (5.92 ± 0.272, n = 50, 3× and 4× samples of all nutrient treatments)."
" Corals in aquaria were exposed to elevated levels of each nitrate (N, in the form of NaNO3), ammonium (A, as NH4Cl), phosphate (P, as Na3PO4), a combination of the three (Combined, C), or a no-treatment control. Inorganic nutrient enrichment was performed as previously described33 to approximately 3× or 4× ambient source water concentrations (Supp. Fig. 1)."
Seems like if our goal is grow corals fast then we have to start using Ammonia! So that means feed more food, add more fish! I was always skeptical about dosing nitrates instead of just increasing my feed. Perhaps this finding can reinforce my intuition.
Quite an interesting result, I wonder if these shifts would occur if their source of N, P and ammonia were from food sources.
"The reduced diversity and dispersion of ammonium-treated samples at the conclusion of the experiment may reflect the loss of rare taxa as a result of increased competition from dominant taxa (Unclassified Campylobacterales ASV1, Unclassified Helicobacteraceae ASV2, Cysteiniphilum). Interestingly, ammonium treatment also induced the proliferation of family P30B-42, a member of Myxococcales, which has been suggested to play a commensal or beneficial role based on its relatively high abundances in disease-resistant genotypes of Acropora34. Notably, significant changes in overall microbial community structure and diversity were not significant until 6 weeks of ammonium exposure, suggesting that microbiomes of genotype ML-7 may withstand short-term environmental shifts without alteration in structure, but long-term exposure to elevated nutrients may stimulate the growth of certain microbial taxa and/or the loss of rare taxa."
"The genus Ruegeria, which responded positively to nutrient enrichment, has been proposed to play a beneficial role in coral microbiomes by producing antimicrobial compounds that inhibit growth of Vibrio coralliilyticus59. The increase of this taxon may represent preemptive defensive activity in response to nutrient enrichment to prevent the growth of opportunistic pathogens, found to respond positively to nutrients15,60."
Very interesting! Ammonia leads to less biodiversity. This is not necessarily a bad thing, the study indicates that increased ammonia could stimulate positive shifts in the microbiome as beneficial microbes outcompete potentially pathogenic ones. However, one must remember that we are playing on a fine line and any deviation from this specific study could lead to different results.
"There were no significant changes in diversity and few taxa responded to 3 weeks of nutrient enrichment, suggesting that microbial communities of genotype ML-7 samples were initially resistant to nutrient exposure and did not experience community shifts. Chronic (6 weeks) exposure to nutrients, however, led to changes in microbiome diversity and variability, with a significant decrease in overall species richness and evenness."
"Nitrate enrichment did, however, demonstrably impact growth rates, with 6 weeks of nitrate enrichment significantly reducing growth rates compared to untreated corals while no other group responded significantly. The reduction of growth with nitrate enrichment is consistent with previous findings that nitrogen enrichment leads to an overgrowth of the algal symbiont Symbiodiniaceae, which subsequently fixes carbon so rapidly that coral calcification rates are limited20,50. "
Calcification rates may have decreased, but not all hobbyists are in it for insane growth. The study does not focus on hobby related issues such as coloration, so I wonder what effect high nitrates had on the color of the corals? There seem to be many anecdotes among hobbyists that higher nitrates = more color. I wonder what the specific trade offs are in these nutrient enriched environments.
www.frontiersin.org
"The inoculation cocktail was made from pure cultures of bacteria belonging to the genera Acinetobacter, Bacterioplanes, Marinobacter, Paracoccus, Pseudoalteromonas, Pseudovibrio, and Vibrio, which had been previously isolated from marine invertebrates and stored as frozen stocks (Table 1). As the goal of the present study consisted in assessing the potential of manipulating the microbiome of juvenile corals, the bacteria used were not selected for putative beneficial properties. Rather, we aimed to test to what extent the bacteria harbored by young recruits could be influenced by targeted inoculation as further support for the proof-of-concept of coral microbiome manipulation. The use of isolates from various marine organisms provides information about a range of bacterial sources that could be taken up by given coral species and hence how flexible these symbiotic partnerships are."
Very interesting! I wonder what would happen if we were to only select bacteria that had beneficial properties.
"Within each coral species, the inoculated recruits had significantly lower bacterial species richness than the control recruits ...The relative abundances of two and six bacterial strains used in the inocula were significantly greater in the inoculated compared to the control recruits for A. tenuis and P. daedalea, respectively "
"The observed differences in bacterial communities retrieved from corals versus those from the surrounding water column are compelling evidence that coral-bacteria associations are non-random and subject to selective mechanisms "
"Some of the ASVs corresponding to the inoculated bacterial strains were more significantly abundant in the inoculated compared to the control coral recruits (Figure 5). The two corals, A. tenuis and P. daedalea, may exhibit specific preferences for certain bacterial taxa and possess different selection mechanisms to shape their bacterial communities. Potential probiotics for corals might therefore need to be tailored to particular bacterial species in order to achieve optimal uptake. Interestingly, the same two ASVs significantly enriched in inoculated A. tenuis (ASV4 – Paracoccus and ASV6 – Pseudovibrio) were also characterized by the highest LFC in P. daedalea (Table 3). ASV4 and ASV6 both belong to class Alphaproteobacteria, which was the dominant bacterial class in all coral recruits in this study, while the five other ASVs used in the inocula are Gammaproteobacteria...the water-associated microbial communities were considerably divergent from the coral microbiota (Supplementary Figure S5), which emphasizes the ability of corals to select certain bacteria from the environment."
So it seems that coral have some ability to curate their microbiome, now it's just time to identify what each of these microbes do and their interactions. This really makes me wonder about the composition of zeobak and other bacteria supplements. If anyone has any information regarding their composition or any means of finding out, please reach out to me!
www.nature.com
www.nature.com
"The unique oceanographic conditions in the Dry Tortugas that produce periodic upwelling most likely enhanced coral-feeding opportunities45 and specific coral microbial community composition46,47."
"Elevated heterotrophy is associated with coral resilience as feeding can provide a critical source of fixed carbon to bleached and recovering corals, allowing them to meet metabolic demand, build tissue, and synthesize lipid thereby reducing the probability of mortality from heat-stress16,20,28,48. When corals are deprived of zooplankton, their calcification rates, survivorship, and other health indicators decline49,50,51."
"the most likely reason for the greater physiological health and performance of A. palmata in the Dry Tortugas is increased access to heterotrophic food resources."
Remember to feed!!! The question now is what to feed and how to feed.
Microbial dysbiosis reflects disease resistance in diverse coral species - Communications Biology
MacKnight et al. compared the phenotypic and microbial responses of seven Caribbean coral species with diverse life-history strategies after exposure to white plague disease. The different species exhibited a spectrum of disease susceptibility and associated mortality that corresponded with...
www.nature.com
Microbiome differences in disease-resistant vs. susceptible Acropora corals subjected to disease challenge assays - Scientific Reports
In recent decades coral gardening has become increasingly popular to restore degraded reef ecosystems. However, the growth and survivorship of nursery-reared outplanted corals are highly variable. Scientists are trying to identify genotypes that show signs of disease resistance and leverage...
www.nature.com
"The presence of the order Myxococcales (P3OB-42) in the Acropora core microbiome of corals categorized as visually unaffected and disease-resistant genotypes is compelling. These bacteria are predators that have been associated with other coral core microbial predatory bacteria54 and they have also been shown to have co-evolved with corals55. The role of the order Myxococcales has not been investigated thoroughly in corals but based on our results it may be an interesting order to explore for its role (if any) in pathogen control."
Anyone have any more information regarding Myxococcales?
Microbiomes of a disease-resistant genotype of Acropora cervicornis are resistant to acute, but not chronic, nutrient enrichment - Scientific Reports
Chronically high levels of inorganic nutrients have been documented in Florida’s coral reefs and are linked to increased prevalence and severity of coral bleaching and disease. Naturally disease-resistant genotypes of the staghorn coral Acropora cervicornis are rare, and it is unknown whether...
www.nature.com
"The impacts of nutrient enrichment on coral health, however, are not always negative and depend on nutrient source20,21, exposure time22, and ratios of available nitrogen to phosphorus18,23."
So it seems that our nutrient levels in our tanks have an impact on microbial abundance!
"Despite the overall low abundance of reads mapping to the parasitic genus Aquarickettsia in genotype ML-7 samples (0.494 ± 3.141%), this taxon increased significantly by 6 weeks of nutrient enrichment compared to T0. Relative abundance of this taxa was only 0.021 ± 0.101% at week 0 and increased to 0.143 ± 2.67% at week 6 in nutrient-enriched samples, equating to an increase of about sevenfold. An ASV within the genus Ruegeria was also significantly more abundant in nutrient-enriched samples, though fold change was low. Unclassified Campylobacterales ASV1 exhibited a significant decline in abundance across nutrient-treated samples. An ASV in the genus Cysteiniphilum also significantly declined with nutrient exposure, with a negative response of more than twofold. Unclassified Bacteria ASV5 (with closest BLAST homology to Deltaproteobacteria) declined with nutrient exposure with a negative CLR-fold change of 1.4.
When ANCOM was performed as comparisons isolating each nutrient treatment individually, no individual treatment induced an increase in the genus Aquarickettsia. Combined treatment (nitrate, phosphate, and ammonium) induced a significant decrease in Unclassified Bacteria ASV5 and a slight increase in an ASV from the genus Ruegeria. Changes in the genus Cysteiniphilum did not surpass significance criteria of W = 0.7 (null hypothesis rejected 70% of the time), but did surpass the default ANCOM significant criterion of W = 0.6, exhibiting a ~ threefold reduction by 6 weeks of exposure to combined treatment compared to T0 (Fig. 5A). Nitrate treatment induced a significant reduction in Cysteiniphilum and an initial increase in the genus Haloferula, which then declined between 3 and 6 weeks of nitrate enrichment (Fig. 5B). Only an ASV belonging to the genus P30B-42 changed significantly with ammonium treatment, despite significant changes in community structure as indicated by alpha and beta diversity metrics in this treatment (Fig. 5C). Phosphate treatment induced a significant reduction of Unclassified Bacteria ASV5 and an increase in Ferrimonas futtsuensis (Fig. 5D)."
"Although microbial community structure was not strongly impacted by nitrate enrichment, chronic exposure to enriched nitrate levels led to a reduction in coral fragment linear extension. Differences in total linear extension (TLE, n = 107) were not significant by treatment at 3 weeks of exposure, but were significant by 6 weeks of exposure (Supp. Fig. 6, Supp. Table 7). Corals exposed to no treatment grew an average of 6.45 ± 1.81 mm by 6 weeks (n = 11), while fragments exposed to 3× ambient levels of ammonium grew the most of any coral fragments across treatments, at 7.00 ± 1.87 mm of growth (n = 6) by 6 weeks. Exposure to 4× ambient concentrations of nitrate treatment resulted in the lowest amount of TLE over the course of the experiment (3.33 ± 1.97 mm, n = 6). TLE of nitrate-enriched corals was significantly lower at 6 weeks compared to 3× ambient ammonium- and 3× phosphate-treated corals, and to untreated corals (p < 0.05, Tukey’s pairwise honest significance test on log-transformed data). Corals had significantly greater lengths at week 6 compared to week 3 for all treatments except for nitrate (Supp. Fig. 6).
Symbiont densities as visually assessed using a CoralWatch Health Chart responded positively to tank conditions, with chart scores (scale of 1–6) increasing from an average of 4.86 ± 0.528 (n = 55) at week 0 to 5.90 ± 0.300 by week 6 (n = 61). All corals exhibited increases in symbiont density and differences by treatment were insignificant (p > 0.05, Kruskal–Wallis test with Benjamini–Hochberg correction), although average health scores for untreated corals at 6 weeks (5.82 ± 0.405, n = 11) trended lower than for nutrient-enriched corals (5.92 ± 0.272, n = 50, 3× and 4× samples of all nutrient treatments)."
" Corals in aquaria were exposed to elevated levels of each nitrate (N, in the form of NaNO3), ammonium (A, as NH4Cl), phosphate (P, as Na3PO4), a combination of the three (Combined, C), or a no-treatment control. Inorganic nutrient enrichment was performed as previously described33 to approximately 3× or 4× ambient source water concentrations (Supp. Fig. 1)."
Seems like if our goal is grow corals fast then we have to start using Ammonia! So that means feed more food, add more fish! I was always skeptical about dosing nitrates instead of just increasing my feed. Perhaps this finding can reinforce my intuition.
Quite an interesting result, I wonder if these shifts would occur if their source of N, P and ammonia were from food sources.
"The reduced diversity and dispersion of ammonium-treated samples at the conclusion of the experiment may reflect the loss of rare taxa as a result of increased competition from dominant taxa (Unclassified Campylobacterales ASV1, Unclassified Helicobacteraceae ASV2, Cysteiniphilum). Interestingly, ammonium treatment also induced the proliferation of family P30B-42, a member of Myxococcales, which has been suggested to play a commensal or beneficial role based on its relatively high abundances in disease-resistant genotypes of Acropora34. Notably, significant changes in overall microbial community structure and diversity were not significant until 6 weeks of ammonium exposure, suggesting that microbiomes of genotype ML-7 may withstand short-term environmental shifts without alteration in structure, but long-term exposure to elevated nutrients may stimulate the growth of certain microbial taxa and/or the loss of rare taxa."
"The genus Ruegeria, which responded positively to nutrient enrichment, has been proposed to play a beneficial role in coral microbiomes by producing antimicrobial compounds that inhibit growth of Vibrio coralliilyticus59. The increase of this taxon may represent preemptive defensive activity in response to nutrient enrichment to prevent the growth of opportunistic pathogens, found to respond positively to nutrients15,60."
Very interesting! Ammonia leads to less biodiversity. This is not necessarily a bad thing, the study indicates that increased ammonia could stimulate positive shifts in the microbiome as beneficial microbes outcompete potentially pathogenic ones. However, one must remember that we are playing on a fine line and any deviation from this specific study could lead to different results.
"There were no significant changes in diversity and few taxa responded to 3 weeks of nutrient enrichment, suggesting that microbial communities of genotype ML-7 samples were initially resistant to nutrient exposure and did not experience community shifts. Chronic (6 weeks) exposure to nutrients, however, led to changes in microbiome diversity and variability, with a significant decrease in overall species richness and evenness."
"Nitrate enrichment did, however, demonstrably impact growth rates, with 6 weeks of nitrate enrichment significantly reducing growth rates compared to untreated corals while no other group responded significantly. The reduction of growth with nitrate enrichment is consistent with previous findings that nitrogen enrichment leads to an overgrowth of the algal symbiont Symbiodiniaceae, which subsequently fixes carbon so rapidly that coral calcification rates are limited20,50. "
Calcification rates may have decreased, but not all hobbyists are in it for insane growth. The study does not focus on hobby related issues such as coloration, so I wonder what effect high nitrates had on the color of the corals? There seem to be many anecdotes among hobbyists that higher nitrates = more color. I wonder what the specific trade offs are in these nutrient enriched environments.
Experimental Inoculation of Coral Recruits With Marine Bacteria Indicates Scope for Microbiome Manipulation in Acropora tenuis and Platygyra daedalea
Coral-associated microorganisms are essential for maintaining the health of the coral holobiont by participating in nutrient cycling and protecting the coral host from pathogens. Under stressful conditions, disruption of the coral prokaryotic microbiome is linked to increased susceptibility to...
"The inoculation cocktail was made from pure cultures of bacteria belonging to the genera Acinetobacter, Bacterioplanes, Marinobacter, Paracoccus, Pseudoalteromonas, Pseudovibrio, and Vibrio, which had been previously isolated from marine invertebrates and stored as frozen stocks (Table 1). As the goal of the present study consisted in assessing the potential of manipulating the microbiome of juvenile corals, the bacteria used were not selected for putative beneficial properties. Rather, we aimed to test to what extent the bacteria harbored by young recruits could be influenced by targeted inoculation as further support for the proof-of-concept of coral microbiome manipulation. The use of isolates from various marine organisms provides information about a range of bacterial sources that could be taken up by given coral species and hence how flexible these symbiotic partnerships are."
Very interesting! I wonder what would happen if we were to only select bacteria that had beneficial properties.
"Within each coral species, the inoculated recruits had significantly lower bacterial species richness than the control recruits ...The relative abundances of two and six bacterial strains used in the inocula were significantly greater in the inoculated compared to the control recruits for A. tenuis and P. daedalea, respectively "
"The observed differences in bacterial communities retrieved from corals versus those from the surrounding water column are compelling evidence that coral-bacteria associations are non-random and subject to selective mechanisms "
"Some of the ASVs corresponding to the inoculated bacterial strains were more significantly abundant in the inoculated compared to the control coral recruits (Figure 5). The two corals, A. tenuis and P. daedalea, may exhibit specific preferences for certain bacterial taxa and possess different selection mechanisms to shape their bacterial communities. Potential probiotics for corals might therefore need to be tailored to particular bacterial species in order to achieve optimal uptake. Interestingly, the same two ASVs significantly enriched in inoculated A. tenuis (ASV4 – Paracoccus and ASV6 – Pseudovibrio) were also characterized by the highest LFC in P. daedalea (Table 3). ASV4 and ASV6 both belong to class Alphaproteobacteria, which was the dominant bacterial class in all coral recruits in this study, while the five other ASVs used in the inocula are Gammaproteobacteria...the water-associated microbial communities were considerably divergent from the coral microbiota (Supplementary Figure S5), which emphasizes the ability of corals to select certain bacteria from the environment."
So it seems that coral have some ability to curate their microbiome, now it's just time to identify what each of these microbes do and their interactions. This really makes me wonder about the composition of zeobak and other bacteria supplements. If anyone has any information regarding their composition or any means of finding out, please reach out to me!
Stony coral tissue loss disease induces transcriptional signatures of in situ degradation of dysfunctional Symbiodiniaceae - Nature Communications
From profiling the gene expression of five coral species exposed to Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease (SCTLD), this study finds signatures of in situ degradation of Symbiodiniaceae experiencing photosystem dysfunction. These results indicate that Symbiodiniaceae may be the target of initial SCTLD...
www.nature.com
Heterotrophy, microbiome, and location effects on restoration efficacy of the threatened coral Acropora palmata - Communications Earth & Environment
Periodic upwelling in the Dry Tortugas National Park, Florida enhances coral heterotrophy and positively influences the microbiome supporting higher survival and growth rates of the coral Acropora palmata, suggests coral transplant experiments off the Florida coast.
www.nature.com
"The unique oceanographic conditions in the Dry Tortugas that produce periodic upwelling most likely enhanced coral-feeding opportunities45 and specific coral microbial community composition46,47."
"Elevated heterotrophy is associated with coral resilience as feeding can provide a critical source of fixed carbon to bleached and recovering corals, allowing them to meet metabolic demand, build tissue, and synthesize lipid thereby reducing the probability of mortality from heat-stress16,20,28,48. When corals are deprived of zooplankton, their calcification rates, survivorship, and other health indicators decline49,50,51."
"the most likely reason for the greater physiological health and performance of A. palmata in the Dry Tortugas is increased access to heterotrophic food resources."
Remember to feed!!! The question now is what to feed and how to feed.
OP
OP
Ending the night with some pics!
CRT Insidious, I haven't posted this one up in ages. Mostly because it hasn't grown in ages! This is one of my classics, hoping to grow out a nice colony again soon.
CRT Acromancer, one of my growout pieces lookin fly!
CRT Navy Orange, I've held onto this gem for several years now and have grown a few nice colonies out. Now it's time for a hair cut!
CRT Insidious, I haven't posted this one up in ages. Mostly because it hasn't grown in ages! This is one of my classics, hoping to grow out a nice colony again soon.
CRT Acromancer, one of my growout pieces lookin fly!
CRT Navy Orange, I've held onto this gem for several years now and have grown a few nice colonies out. Now it's time for a hair cut!
OP
OP
Marine probiotics: increasing coral resistance to bleaching through microbiome manipulation - The ISME Journal
Although the early coral reef-bleaching warning system (NOAA/USA) is established, there is no feasible treatment that can minimize temperature bleaching and/or disease impacts on corals in the field. Here, we present the first attempts to extrapolate the widespread and well-established use of...
www.nature.com
Aqua Splendor
Well-Known Member
So after reading all this, how can you buy a bacteria bottle?
Since companies are not transparent and most of the product or just for cycling (honestly, just buy a coral instead, bacteria on it and put some energy source...anyways there's many way to achieve something), which one to get to add or restore some bacteria that get exterminated in long run. Some package that are suitable for mature tank and another one maybe more oriented for feeding coral?
I'm having a lot of issue in the past years to find answer, I find my self hitting a wall when it comes companies and their generic response. Have you find something that is wort mentioning by experience or know something in particular from X product?
I started a new tank with some disease and it spreaded after an event that crashed my tank, it took about 5ish to recover correctly, great to see research that show a direct issue with antibiotic. So I'm kinda also looking for probiotic that help the corals to fight naturally against pathogen. I have (had) the FM RTN/STN, but it's probably the worst product I ever bought in 30 year. I tried around 6 time in 3 different ecosystem and all answer the same way, bad coral reaction especially softy, repeated 2 or 3 time, same results, so I was hoping that would help, didn't. So even if I had RTN and mostly STN issue (mostly something else) I didn't even bother with that bottle. From what I understand it was suppose to prevent.
And since the market is currently full of snake oil with it comes to probiotic, antibiotic, bacteria because we can't see or measure, it's hard to navigate through them and find the right product ... for the right condition ... for the right coral.
Since companies are not transparent and most of the product or just for cycling (honestly, just buy a coral instead, bacteria on it and put some energy source...anyways there's many way to achieve something), which one to get to add or restore some bacteria that get exterminated in long run. Some package that are suitable for mature tank and another one maybe more oriented for feeding coral?
I'm having a lot of issue in the past years to find answer, I find my self hitting a wall when it comes companies and their generic response. Have you find something that is wort mentioning by experience or know something in particular from X product?
I started a new tank with some disease and it spreaded after an event that crashed my tank, it took about 5ish to recover correctly, great to see research that show a direct issue with antibiotic. So I'm kinda also looking for probiotic that help the corals to fight naturally against pathogen. I have (had) the FM RTN/STN, but it's probably the worst product I ever bought in 30 year. I tried around 6 time in 3 different ecosystem and all answer the same way, bad coral reaction especially softy, repeated 2 or 3 time, same results, so I was hoping that would help, didn't. So even if I had RTN and mostly STN issue (mostly something else) I didn't even bother with that bottle. From what I understand it was suppose to prevent.
And since the market is currently full of snake oil with it comes to probiotic, antibiotic, bacteria because we can't see or measure, it's hard to navigate through them and find the right product ... for the right condition ... for the right coral.
OP
OP
Well regarding choosing what bacteria you use, it depends on the use case. There are types to speed up cycles and types to maintain a healthy microbiome. At the moment I use
AF Pro Bio S
KZ Zeobak
FM Rebiotic
I think these three cover pretty much everything. However, it is hard to say what type of bacteria I am putting in. I will say that each product is different in color and form. So I think that they each contain different ingredients. I've noticed all of my corals have responded well to this. I also incorporate KZ Zeozym.
Aqua Splendor
Well-Known Member
Yeah I'm not sold on these products, from what I can extract from their information it's mostly nitrifying bacteria
Rebiotic - Nitrifying mix, can't tell what strain
Zeoback - Monoculture of probably a nitrifying bacteria
ProBio S - Nitrifying mix strain and they are doing an awesome job of marketing wording to make it look special.
All these are simply good bacteria to breakdown poop basically. I don't mean they don't work, they probably do their job but... It's like putting shampoo one time, rinse and later on the shower you use again the shampoo on your hair.
It doesn't mean it's not working, but I don't see the value of these products. I believe they are great once you hit a little bump of organic compound in water and they become source of food for corals.
If the corals looks good, it's more link to the fact they have food and the water is clean. With or without this kind of product you already achieve this.
That's my line of thought, but I could be wrong somewhere, it's just the informations is scarce and seems to point not where we think it should go. The mirage.
Rebiotic - Nitrifying mix, can't tell what strain
Zeoback - Monoculture of probably a nitrifying bacteria
ProBio S - Nitrifying mix strain and they are doing an awesome job of marketing wording to make it look special.
All these are simply good bacteria to breakdown poop basically. I don't mean they don't work, they probably do their job but... It's like putting shampoo one time, rinse and later on the shower you use again the shampoo on your hair.
It doesn't mean it's not working, but I don't see the value of these products. I believe they are great once you hit a little bump of organic compound in water and they become source of food for corals.
If the corals looks good, it's more link to the fact they have food and the water is clean. With or without this kind of product you already achieve this.
That's my line of thought, but I could be wrong somewhere, it's just the informations is scarce and seems to point not where we think it should go. The mirage.
chipchipbro
Valuable Member
Are you sure that Rebiotic is only Nitrifying bacteria? Would not make so much sense
BaliReefBox
Well-Known Member
hi can i ask what is the red algae growing on the frag plug. Do you know...btw awesome tank corals and picsEnding the night with some pics!
CRT Insidious, I haven't posted this one up in ages. Mostly because it hasn't grown in ages! This is one of my classics, hoping to grow out a nice colony again soon.
CRT Acromancer, one of my growout pieces lookin fly!
CRT Navy Orange, I've held onto this gem for several years now and have grown a few nice colonies out. Now it's time for a hair cut!
OP
OP
Completely fine to be skeptical, especially with the amount of products out there.
Zeobak is the main proponent of the zeovit system, and while I do not run full zeovit anymore I have found it to be an amazing tool to feed the corals and maintain nutrients. Probio S is essentially Aquaforest's version of zeobak with some different ingredients I presume. The rebiotic is a dried bacterial supplement, and from the recommendation of Perry I began using it. Using these 3 in conjunction has not led to any ill effects in my system, but that could be attributed to how I administer these products and my overall husbandry.
What makes you believe that all of those products are specifically nitrifying bacteria? They certainly could be, but who knows. Each of those products are a different color, and the rebiotic comes in a dry form with other particulates mixed in. So I think that they all have a distinct composition. Also, I've used nitrifying bacteria products such as Dr. Tims, MB7 and Fritz turbostart (Fritz salt is complete DOOKIE, I can explain via pm if interested) in the past. They do not perform the same as these products, and also do not elucidate the distinct feeding response that I currently experience when used with my concoction. Sonny, a proponent of bacteria dosing, noted a difference from switching from mb7 to zeobak too. This also makes me more inclined to believe that the bacterial compositions are different. I also did not notice corals recovering from RTN events on their own, whereas I do now, even without human intervention. These anecdotes seem to align with the study where the researchers dosed probiotics and noticed the corals recovering from stress events.
Marine probiotics: increasing coral resistance to bleaching through microbiome manipulation - The ISME Journal
I agree, these bacteria products are great for nutrient cycling! However, in many cases our home aquariums are not so great at nutrient cycling. That's why many reefers get cyano blooms, detritus piles, and films on their sand bed. I don't have these issues anymore, and if I do it is not to the same degree as before.
This can also be a result of many other factors too, but the only difference since before is my incorporation of these bacteria products and zeozyme. Many reefers expect immediate results, but instantaneous change is catastrophic.
Also if we use these bacteria and enzymes in a different manner, we can also achieve different results. I don't just dose the bacteria into the tank, I dose the bacteria into a concoction of food, aminos, trace elements, and enzymes which I believe then creates a more bioavailable source of nutrition. With the added benefit of nutrient reduction, and water clarity.
I think the value of these products stem from microbial stability, and not necessarily diversity. Most likely these bacteria sources can outcompete pathogens and mitigate stress. Research has repeatedly shown that the bacterial composition of the water and the coral mucus are largely different, this indicates that the coral hosts can curate their bacterial composition. My theory is that if the water column is filled with beneficial bacteria, then they will be able to outcompete pathogens and then transplant themselves onto the coral which they then provide additional support by helping the coral cycle nutrients and potentially provide an added antiseptic effect.
Again this is just my theory, as I have no direct evidence. I do believe that this theory has some merit though, as I have noticed certain corals exhibit a larger area of denial as they grow. I use "area of denial" to represent the perimeter of area the coral clears out as it continues to grow. I'm sure most sps keepers have noticed that as certain sps encrust they create a barren environment prior to encrusting over. Typically one will notice that the algae and other organisms are cleared out of the way before the sps encrusts over that spot.
Prior to my dosing, this area of denial was not very visually noticeable. Perhaps because those corals were not growing very fast, but after I began dosing my concoction I noticed that the corals began to grow faster and that this area of denial was becoming more prevalent.
Sure, completely agree. By no way am I telling anyone to go out and do what I do. You can achieve success without the use of any supplements and by just relying on a good salt mix. What my specific goals are will not translate to every other reefer. However, I am specifically looking to
1. Reduce stress on new corals and limit random RTN/STN events
2. Promote increased pigmentation and coloration
3. Enhance coral growth
My methods have checked off these three for me, and so I will keep on doing it.
While many people seem to point out that bacteria can reproduce at a very fast rate, they seem to neglect that their population can also dwindle at a very fast rate especially when you factor in predation and competition. The research has also shown that healthy corals are mostly dominated with only a few specific types of bacteria too, so in theory, if we keep those specific bacteria in abundance then it would limit foreign pathogenic bacteria from invading and becoming substantial enough to cause mortality.
From my experience the results achieved from my method can drastically reduce both N and P within one day. In a significant amount, and without any visual signs of stress from the corals. Like I mention earlier in this thread, I was able to reduce 50 ppm of nitrate and roughly .6 ppm of phosphate within the period of one day.
Nutrient control by other means such as excessive GFO, would probably result in a major RTN event. Macroalgaes directly compete against my corals for trace elements as well, so that is why I do not employ them.
However, I've been repeatedly dosing my concoction without any issues whatsoever. If anything I've noticed my acros have developed much richer coloration, tissue, and polyp extension. I experienced a calcium drop from 400 to the low 300's, at the same time I noticed the majority of my acros experience an explosion of growth tips. So what does that say?
You can even visually verify my claims if you go back and analyze the pictures I post.
I understand that what I am trying convey is hard to believe without seeing it for yourself, but I definitely would not be continuing this regimen if it did not produce noticeable and reproducible results. The sheer amount of product used is quite expensive and it would not make any sense for me to keep using them if they did not work. I have 4 full blown sps systems to experiment on so it makes it easy for me to notice change, especially with a keen eye. I have also shared my concoction with a few of my friends to use and they also noted significant changes as well.
If I thought my systems were already top notch before, then this takes it to the next level!
OP
OP
I'm not exactly sure on the name of that algae, it seems to grow on mature rocks. It's not very problematic in my experience, and the corals have no issues of growing over it.
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