Rappin' With ReefBum
Guests: Julian Sprung, Charles Delbeek, Dr. Sanjay Joshi & Mike Paletta
(upbeat music) - "Rapping With Reef Bum" is sponsored by Polo Reef, champion lighting and supply and polyp lab. - Hey, what's up, everybody? And welcome back to another episode of "Rapping With Reef Bum." I'm your host Keith Birkelhammer. So on tonight's live stream, I have the pleasure of hosting this very special panel of reef keeping rock stars. Tonight on the show, we have Mike Paleta. We've got Dr. Sanjay Yoshie. And we've got Charles Delbake. And we're supposed to have Julian sprung. Julian is missing in action at this point in time. Gentlemen, do we have any clue what's going on with Julian? We've texted him and I'm not heard back. - Nope. - No, Julian. Well, let's keep the fingers crossed that Julian will be joining in progress. So all of these guys here have made major contributions to the hobby over the years, yet they don't necessarily agree on everything when it comes to keeping and maintaining a successful reef tank. Well, if Julian was here, maybe he and Charles would agree on everything since they wrote books together, but that's neither. No, you guys don't. Okay. Anyway, not having alignment on everything is cool because there are many ways to reef, right? So there is no single blueprint for having a healthy thriving reef tank. And one thing that sparked this get together is a difference of opinion on dosing ammonia to a reef tank. That's gonna be one of the many topics of discussion tonight. But before we start chatting with these guys, I want to take care of some business and thank the sponsors of the show. My sponsors are really important to me because they make this show possible with their support and that means a lot. I want to continue to bring on awesome guests to help foster this learning environment on the show. Polar reef, make sure to check out polar reef's new YouTube video that drops is Friday. The 900 gallon dropdown has been a long time coming in after the first one arrived, cracked. It's finally in place and the progress that is made in a short time is unreal. Watch as aquascaping lighting and corals go in. Make sure to subscribe to their YouTube channel at Polar reef for video drop notifications. Champion lighting and supply. Besides being in place for hobbyists to purchase saltwater aquarium supplies online, champion lighting is also a wholesale distributor from many popular brands. If you own an aquarium store or an aquarium service company, contact champion lighting through their website at championlining.com to set up a wholesale account. Todd and his crew will be at reef stock Chattanooga on August 24th and 25th this weekend. So stop by and say hello. And finally, a new sponsor, Pilot Blab. They're a support of this live stream and I thank them and Phil. They do their part by being ecologically responsible, using less plastic and more recyclable material. Reefroids is backed by science and uses 100% ocean-sourced ingredients. No filler, no OGM, no gimmick, Pilot Blab, straight results. The best choice for your marine collection. See the reefroids difference for yourself. All right guys, so I'd sent around a list of topics. It was pretty extensive. I'm sure we're not going to, I'm sure we're not going to be able to touch on everything. But if there's something that is on the list that you feel strongly about talking about, certainly chime in and let's dig into that stuff. But also folks that are watching, this is a rare opportunity to ask these guys some questions. So if you dropped your questions in the comments section here in the live chat area, we will do our best to work that stuff in. So I think I want to start with a question, Mike, that you thought about that was an interesting question. And that's just generally is the hobby as much fun as it used to be? Is the hobby as fun as it used to be? Does anybody want to tackle that one? - I mean, it's fun for me. - That's an easy answer. - So I enjoy it. I mean, I've got parts of the hobby that I don't like. I don't get involved in it. - What about versus when you first started reef keeping? Is there more joy these days versus back then or is it different? - Back then there were a lot more headaches too. You know, we get all learning and there are a lot of mistakes made and stuff. So there were a lot more headaches back then. There are now, you know, there's fewer headaches. There's still headaches, but there's fewer. And they mostly turn out to be errors that we make ourselves. - I disagree. - You disagree, okay? Go ahead. - I disagree. - I think, well, I think your last part is true. I think a lot of this people bring upon themselves and they're creating their own headaches by trying to make things I think sometimes too complicated and always looking for the next best thing. And I think that's never going to change. I don't think, I haven't been in this long enough now over probably 50 years now. I can say that that's never going to change. People are always looking for better ways to do something and always questioning themselves. You know, I remember whenever I forget, it was a Mac and I think it was in Miami. It's the first time I met Larry Jackson, came up, showed us pictures of his tanks and they looked beautiful. And then his question was, how can I make it better? I don't know. Looks pretty good to me. - Yeah, I agree with Charles wholeheartedly. I know that surprises you, Charles, but I think a lot of the issues we have are self-induced from us A, always looking and I'm the master tinkerer and I have caused more problems of my tanks by constantly tinkering, rather than saying, okay, let's settle down. So as I said the last time, Sanjay and Iran, I'm actually following the master in Sanjay, I'm trying to keep things more stable, not miking around. But I also agree with Charles from the standpoint of, I don't think it's as much fun as it used to be 'cause one, I don't think there's quite a sense of awe for a lot of us that have pretty much seen everything. And two, there's very few new things coming out. There's very little new technology. There's no basically new fish, and very rarely, a new coral to get us excited about. I mean, I remember in the '80s, flying out to California and opening the boxes at Lekit, the aquatic depot when the boxes of achres came in from Fiji, and it was like Christmas morning. I mean, I have never been in such awe 'cause I had never seen boxes and boxes of achres before. Now I see them and it's like, yeah, you've seen them before. And what's funny is, at that time, a lot of them were brown. I was still excited to see brown corals. If they had a little bit of color, it was like, wow, this is amazing. So from that standpoint, I don't think it's as much fun. And also from the standpoint of, I don't think there's quite as much camaraderie in the hobby as there used to be. We've all been friends for a long time, but very rarely do we add new friends, quote unquote, the group in that there aren't people that have that same sense of excitement and a sense of awe that would allow that. So from that standpoint, I think we're missing the boat on how much fun this is. And lastly, I think a lot of people look at this as a business where we never looked at it as a business. We always looked at this. This was a hobby. This is what I relaxed with. And this is what I enjoy versus now, I'm gonna buy this frag for $500, break a piece off, grow it, and sell it for $500 and break even. And if I don't, well, then my wife's gonna kill me. I mean, that's a bad way to look at a hobby in terms of having fun with it. What do you guys think? - People are still very passionate about their reefs. They're still a strong sense of commitment to it from a lot of people, right? Even if they're trying to sell coals, but they're still very committed to keeping the coals, keeping them alive, you know, making sure that they're healthy enough that they can actually propagate them and sell them, you know, and so on. I just don't agree with all the high crazy prices and names of these things. But, you know, there's a lot of enjoyment still left in the hobby, otherwise I would have been out of it, right? - Yeah, I think also social media has really changed the landscape for this as a hobby in terms of enjoyment because in some cases, yeah, it's fun to chop with people, but it's also not fun when you get into these arguments with people and things get nasty. And I know people that avoid social media, like to play it for that very reason. And a lot of people that have very nice systems that you would never know about because they don't post anything because they don't want attention. - You know, Chris Meckley mentions in the chat here, reefers code is important. You know, that's something, do we not see that kind of generosity anymore? The kind of, well, not generosity, but the trading. Really, you're, you know, what he's talking about reefers code is you're kind of banking corals with a buddy. And, you know, in case something happens, you always have somebody to kind of tap on the show. And it's like, hey, I lost that piece. Can I get it back from me at some point? You know, is trading, is that a lost art? Is the reefers code, is that a lost art these days? Very few people practicing it in your opinion? Or is that not, does that not? - I mean, there's a big group of people that practice it and, you know, I hang around with those group of people. So, I don't have any problem with it, right? And then there's a lot of people who like to sell stuff, you know, but that's fine too. The hobby has got all these different aspects to it, right? And it's not cheap, but it needs to any means. Right, so if somebody wants to supplement there and come a little bit, I mean, so be it. I mean, I'm not going to sit there and say bad things about them, you know, but... - I think if you also look at all the shows that are out there now, they're shows, they're trade shows. They're there to make money and people setting them up or making money and the learning and the lecturing and those kinds of things that sort of academic side of it is kind of, you know, kind of gone to the back seat, not becoming the main focus anymore. - Now people think they know everything, right? I mean, it's all there, they've learned it all. If you go back to when we started, there wasn't much information, there wasn't much knowledge, right? Now most people can very easily set up an acro-tank and have it look good, set up an LPS-tank and have it look good, right? So in some sense, you could blame all the knowledge that was created, that's got us to the point where it's not that difficult to at least go through the initial stages of setting up a nice tank. Maintaining it long-term, that's a different story. - Mm, yeah. I just, I was in Europe in June and I visited with some people in the Netherlands and Germany and in France and what the guys in Holland were saying was that, you know, a lot of the online forums or people are talking there, all the talk is about the technology. There's a lot of talk about what technology they're using and this and that and how to do this automatically in ICP testing and then he said, then they related how finally they would show pictures of their tanks and they weren't very nice. You know, the corals didn't look that great and because there was so much, their take was that they were too focused on the technology and not looking at the animals and watching the animals and learning from the animals. That seems to be less of a focus than looking at the numbers and trying to meet certain numbers and targets. - Yeah, I mean, because those are easier to do, right? - But there's always been a downside to the numbers and you adjust the numbers. - But we've always discussed forever that the goal is not to chase the numbers. If you run into more problems, if you're chasing numbers constantly and that's probably why they don't have as beautiful a tanks as they could, is we all know your tank differs markedly from my tank and the numbers differ markedly, but they're both successful. And we know hundreds of people that numbers all differ and they're all successful. So it's not necessarily the numbers or as Charles said, looking at the technology, but still, I mean, I can look at my tank and know it's doing well and the corals are good regardless of the numbers, but the numbers give you a precursor of whether it's going to, you're gonna have problems down the line where when you focus on them and you're constantly changing things to try and tinker and get the numbers perfect, I think that's when you run into problems. - Yeah, I mean, do we have too much data? You know, does, are we falling into a trap in terms of the ICP testing and making adjustments in terms of dosing things that we're seeing on those ICP tests? Is it just, are we getting too far into these rabbit holes and making dosing too many things to our tanks? - Well, I think there's a plus and minus to the trace elements stuff. One, I think the people that do the trace elements and do it well, typically do a lot more testing and stay focused on everything and are very meticulous. And in that regard, when they're adding the trace elements, it's the cherry on top of the Sunday. They already have a very nice Sunday and then they finish it off. But if you're not doing it, I mean, that's one of the questions I always ask is, was it, why was it seemingly easier, quote, unquote, 25, 30 years ago than it is now for some people in that we weren't doing ICP testing. We weren't doing trace elements. We were basically just doing water changes and metal headlight lights. And we had a fairly good success rate. I mean, at least the people that are here, we did pretty well. So is there something we're missing or is this just one step ahead and is it only really an incremental increase? So it's not really that appreciably better than it was in the past. - I mean, what you're saying is that there's a huge range of parameters that the tanks do well. - Yeah. - Yeah, we've all seen that. We've all seen that. So what does it really matter? If you are within this range of parameters. - But Mike, in Sanjay, I don't remember 20 years ago seeing the colors that you see now. And is that because even with theectinics on, I mean you had green carbon, you know, green star polyps. You know, that would glow, day glow, green underectinic. But you didn't see the colors that you see now. And I think a lot of the focus now is for people to do these colors and looking at these trace elements as the panacea for that and making up the colors and making them better. You know, in the Europe they call them, they refer to them as US tanks. These are US tanks, all blue and everything's glowing. And some of them don't like that. And they prefer a more natural look. So it really depends on what your goal is, right? What, where do you get your enjoyment from as we were talking about? - Yeah. - To some people, it's all those colors and they want, that's what they want to promote. - And these days with the technology and the lighting, I mean, we've seen that you can grow tech corals with all blue light, you can grow corals with white light. Again, it's a huge range. One, you know, if you don't care about fast growth, then maybe the blue light's good enough for you, right? And you're more interested in the colors that show, just because you're growing them under white light doesn't mean the colors aren't there. You're just not seeing the colors because they're being overpowered by the blue or the white light. They're there and you can switch to blue and you can see all the colors right away. - Yeah, Sunjis take is a perfect example of that. I mean, I've been there all different times in a daytime when it's all white light. It looks like a reef in that it's all browns and beiges and a few greens. And then when he switches it over to all blues, it's like blindingly beautiful in terms of the colors. So it all depends on, as you said, what you're looking for, but also depends on how you want to light the tank. If you want the Windex blue tank, that's great. If you want a white tank, you can do that. You can be successful either way. - You know, Ken, is that the Windex blue tank? Is that sustainable over time, I guess is my question because the, you know, you see a lot of these tanks on Instagram and sometimes, you know, I kind of wonder, are these one hit wonders? Is this like short term success? I don't see, you know, personally, I'm, I guess, questioning whether these types of tanks that really show off the fluorescence or the colors. You know, are they, you know, is that a formula that can be good in terms of like spectrum over time? Will corals be able to, you know, handle that? Or is it full spectrum lighting is, you know, should there be a mix? What's, you know, and in terms of trying to, you know, build up immunity for corals in terms of coral diseases, you know, how does all that come into play? I guess I'm kind of randomly throwing out some thoughts here. Anybody have opinions on that? - Well, my opinion is that if you look at what the corals absorb, right? If you were to look at an absorption curve of the corals, every absorption curve that I've ever seen shows the core absorbing completely over the full spectrum. May not be as much in the greens on the yellow, but it's still absorbing 30, 40% in that range, right? So they are capable of absorbing all that light. You just give them blue, then maybe you're not giving them enough light. - Well, I would argue that just because they're absorbing it doesn't mean that they're using it. It's, there's reflectance and there's absorbance. So they're taking it in, but we also know that they have certain pathways where they can channel that energy into the pathways they need it. So if you give them all blue, you know, some corals will also take that UV light and they will channel it into a photosynthesis pathway where they can use that energy. So they have that capability. That pathway ends at 680 nanometers and 700 nanometers. Right? That's where it ends. That's the absorption spectrum for the PS1 and PS2. You know, you look at the photosynthesis. - But they channel that light. - They channel it down. - Yes. - They just take this hydrogen photon and they're able to channel it down, right? Channeling it down, that means they have to release some of that energy. - Mm-hmm. - Right? To get it down to the end. - Well, that's what they think. That's what fluorescence is too, right? There's some. - Fluorescence is some of that, right? - Yeah. - It's basically, - Yeah. - Founcing that, changing the frequency of that wavelength. Yeah. So if you give them a lot of light, yeah, you're gonna see a lot of fluorescence because there's less light to mask it. But whether the coral is using all that light or spending a lot of energy and trying to channel it, channel the energy some way, right? I don't know the answer to that question. And I keep asking that question, oh. - You know, and it's the same with the nutrients and these trace elements because the coral is not just an animal by itself. It's a complete community of bacteria, viruses, phages, fungi, all kinds of stuff that lives in there. And there's a lot of evidence now that they're finding that these organisms are playing a significant role in the coral's nutrition by channeling these nutrients to them and also generating things like nitrogen. That's why they can survive in very low nitrogen environments is because they have these bacteria that live on the surfaces that can fix nitrogen for them. - So, Chris, make, go ahead, Mike. - I was gonna say that gets us to the whole thing. When you get to light, we all know that light probably provides 80 to 90% of the nutritional needs of the corals. The other 10% is provided by everything else. That's the one thing we're finally starting to learn is it's a whole microbiome that plays its role in providing nutrition for the corals. And that's something we're just starting to understand. - I don't think we understand anything of it. (laughing) - I said, we're starting, I didn't say we're there. - Well, that's part of what makes it fun still is because we don't know everything. We don't know nothing. The more we know, the more we find out, what we don't know. And we don't know yet what we don't know. - No, we don't even know the questions we don't know. (laughing) - Chris, from me, I said, it says corals adapt well, but it doesn't mean they are happy. And Waterlog says ACI agriculture surviving versus thriving. So, you know. - Yeah. - Well, the thing that Sanjay was working at was trying to get his corals to spawn. So he was following a lot of things that Jamie Craigslist was working on. I mean, I always look at the end spot for where you've been successful with your corals is you provide enough nutritionally that they're ready to spawn. They've grown big enough. They have packets of eggs and sperm. The nutritional needs are being met, so they have enough energy. I mean, to me, that's the criteria of are we providing enough? And I've had corals spawn, I believe, once or twice in 40 years. So obviously, I have not mastered what exactly I need to do. And I know Sanjay's been working on it for pretty much a year and a half. And he-- - Six months. - Six months. - Six months, okay. But to me, that's the next big thing to work on, is there is a finish line for that. And you can say, okay, the corals have reached this spot. They're big enough, they're nutritionally met, their needs are met. And if we're getting enough energy and nutrition so that they can spawn, I mean, will spawning be a good or bad in a tank? That's a whole different question. But getting to that spot may be something to look for in the future. - Well, I would partially agree with that because we do have a coral spawning lab here. And while you can get them to spawn, it's the quality of the gametes that's gonna determine whether it's a good thing or not because some of those gametes, they don't look good. When they come out, the eggs are all kind of shriveled. So that's the next step. Okay, now I got them to spawn. So I fooled them into doing that, but there's still something missing. You know, it's nutritional or what it is, you know, or the nutrient levels are too high. Or in the case of ammonia, if you have too much ammonia, like if you have prolonged ammonia levels that can impact the quality of the reproduction as well and settling as well. So there's a lot of things that go into it. So yeah, I would agree, Mike, if that's what that comes for the freshwater hobby too, right? If you're doing something right in the fish are spawning, then you're doing something right, right? Because they've spawned for you. So they must be, quote unquote, happy. But when it comes to the same with fish, I mean, if they don't have the proper nutrition, they will produce fry, but they're not gonna be very viable and they're not gonna be very, you know, fit. - Yeah, those are the frontiers where we need a lot to learn that, right? - Yeah, we're still on the infancy of that. But if you get away from that mode of education and learning, then the hobby's boring. At least to me, that's what keeps me interested, keeps me happy, keeps me challenged, right? - All right. - Agreed. - So let's switch gears here a little bit. And Charles, I think you mentioned ammonia. So I mentioned at the beginning that there is not complete alignment among all you guys in terms of ammonia dosing for a tank. Just to remind folks, you know, the use of ammonia rather than nitrate as it means for providing corals, nitrogen requirement. The reason, you know, the reasoning behind using the ammonia versus the nitrate is that there is some evidence that corals are better at utilizing the ammonia rather than nitrate to meet that nitrogen requirement. And by doing it, this would be better met. And while ammonia can be toxic at moderate levels to some fish, as long as small doses are provided over, this time it should not be an issue. So I guess the question is, is there any long-term risks with ammonia dosing? - Well, Charles just mentioned one, right? He said, maybe the corals spawn doesn't develop well. Again, I am no reason to refute it. So I really haven't seen any research on it. Maybe there's some, but that could be one reason, right? But as far as corals growing and being happy with adding ammonia, yeah, I'll say that, yeah, they're very happy and growing well with ammonia. - How long have you been doing it, Sanjay? - I would say it's almost been a year now. - Have you ever measured ammonia in your water? - No. - So you've never had it, but it doesn't mean it's not there, right? - No, no, I'm sure it's probably there with 60 fish in that tank that could be ammonia. - Yeah, there's probably tons of ammonia that's being produced by those fish. So, you know, and it's nothing, it's not new news that ammonia is the preferred source of nitrogen for corals because it's much less metabolically expensive to extract the nitrogen out of ammonia than it is nitrate. So that's not surprising. And you would think that with the amount of food that goes in and the amount of fish you have producing in ammonia and the bacterial symbionts that they have, that they would have more than enough a nitrogen to do what they need to do. - Well, when the nitrogen levels start to go down to close to zero, right? - Yeah, then you have a problem. - Then you're gonna have to add something. So, instead of adding nitrates, I'm like, okay, I'll add ammonia because it's preferentially more usable by the coral. - Yeah. - So that's kind of what I, I don't tell people to add ammonia if their nitrates are high and it doesn't make sense. - Yeah. If the nitrates are ever tight, they get negative effects. - It's a way of adding nitrates. - Yeah. - So my question would be if the nitrate is high and you add ammonia still, would they preferentially go for the nitrogen in the ammonia and nor the nitrate and therefore your nitrate will climb even higher? - You climb even higher. - Yeah, that's typically what we've seen. - Is it? - Yeah. - Yeah. - That's why we only recommend if you're 10 or less, five even better of nitrate levels. And if your nitrates start to climb, cut back on your ammonia dose or do carbon dosing to keep it under control. But we also don't recommend it for people that have low bio loads in terms of corals because then it won't be beneficial. If you have a lot of corals that are starving for a nitrogen source, then ammonia may be beneficial. But if you don't meet those criteria, then don't add it. - Well, the, you know, the well water that we had in Hawaii, why he keep, by the way, Julian's on his way. He had an emergency he had to take care of. So he's coming. The water of Waikiki was high in nitrogen and it was in the form of ammonia. And it was groundwater. And you know, Martin Atkinson did a study back in 1994 where he looked at the nitrogen and other nutrients and elements going into the wall, into those coral tanks and that water coming out. And basically by the time they left these tanks, they were stripped of everything. So they, and by, once you got past a certain density, then the corals just take off, they suck up everything. - Right, yep. That's what Sanjay seen in his tank. My tank is more sparsely populated in his, but the growth rate in his tank, he hit seemingly critical mass for maximum absorption of ammonia. And they just seem to want more and more of it in a growing faster and faster. I mean, two months ago, he took out six boxes of frags and two weeks later, he couldn't even tell. He took anything out of the tank. - Julian is, so Sanjay was Mike at his doorstep then, probably, right, wasn't he? - No, my partner, Kevin was there. - He sent his partner up there. Go get all the corals. - Hey, there you go. - There you go. - Welcome, Julian. - Forgive me, forgive me, everybody who's watching. I just, you know, I had to be last always looking for attention, right? Okay, let me see on the view. Can I get my background blurred? We're doing some construction, so I've got some things going. - Well, we're in the middle of talking about ammonia dosing there, Julian. - Yeah, right into Mike's freshwater planet tank there, right? - Yep. (laughing) - Okay, so where on earth is the thing where I can-- - Well, blur your background. I'm not an expert in Zoom. - Look under video, go to video. Right there, there should be a setting that says, blur my background. - Yeah, I've done this a million times, but it looks different on this computer. Let's see, blur my background is not, actions. - He's on mine. If I click on a video, it says, okay, one of the options. - So next to the video icon, there's a little upward arrow stuck on that little arrow. - Yeah. - There we go. - Let's just say blur my background. - Nope, but choose virtual background is-- - Yeah, you can do that. - Yeah, go for it. - Let's see, background and effects. - Put up some mermaids or something. - I'm going to be a mermaids. (laughing) - Well, we're really digressing now. - Yeah. (laughing) - That was, who was it? Helmut de Billius is a magna with the mermaids. - Oh, yes. - My Julian is figuring that out. Let's, let me read a comment from Ron. - Talk about real things here. I may not be able to-- - The very first magna Helmut de Billius gave a talk on the Red Sea, and most of it was topless women snorkeling in the Red Sea. (laughing) - Well, I'd probably get thrown off a YouTube of Julian pulled up that kind of background, but. - Oh, it seems to be frozen. - Never mind, Julian, let's keep talking. - That's interesting time. - And never mind the background. - Hey, don't mind the background. - Oh, ammonia, you know, do you use ammonia D? - No. - We've had people wipe out their Windex tanks with wind. - Right, yeah. - Yes. - Everything turns blue. - Yes. - Okay. - Yeah. - So, ammonium carbonate, right? - Bicarbonate. - Bicarbonate. - Bicarbonate. - Of course. So, bicarbonate is wet. - Oh, that's why your curls are doing better, 'cause it's like, you boosted the alkalinity. - Yeah, there you go. - No, I'm seeing that. - Monia is just a carrier. - Yeah. - Don't you used to run alkalinity. - But ammonium chloride in. See if you see the same thing. That's what, that's your-- - You probably will see the same thing. - Come on, professor. - Yes. - None of this, probably will. Where's the experimental evidence? Where's your controlled study? - And I throw my salinity off, and I do that. - Oh, yeah, your ionic balance case. - You're putting your .001 ppm nitrogen in there. - No, no, no, no, no. Nice try, though. - Hey, my ICP told me my salinity is too high when that happens, you know. - So, Julian, I think one of the questions-- - All fades are low. - One of the questions, Julian, that I was asking these guys is, in terms of ammonia dosing, you know, are there any long-term risks over time doing this? It seems like we're, you know, some people have just started, I guess, Sanjay's been doing it for a year or what have you. Is there something that, for those people that have started doing it? - Definitely a risk if they get hooked on it. Somebody's going to come up with another technique that will be stuck with a boatload of ammonium by carbonate in their closet. And then they'll try to sell it, but they're already past that phase, and nobody's going to want to buy it, right? - This is a trend. - That's why it's a fad. - This is a risk. - Right, you know, Sanjay, what were you telling me about that other, you know, like shotgun approach? What did they call it? - Oh, that's the bolus method. - Bolus. - Yeah. - Bolus. - That was one of my questions for another topic. - Okay. - Well, do not do bolus with ammonia, by the way, okay? - Yeah. - Yeah, that's how you bring, you bring Flem up, you know, and make a little bolus and, yeah. Right, so, I don't know. Your serious question was whether there would be any risk of dosing ammonium bicarbonate, and I can't think of one. It's not going to accumulate. The ammonium is assimilated rather readily by corals and algae, and the bicarbonate is utilized, likewise readily by the corals. So sounds like, you know, a worthwhile thing. I don't know if, you know, when the ammonium is taken and you have excess bicarbonate, could you be pushing your calcium level down? We'll leave that to the chemists to figure that out, whether you need to somehow balance the bicarbonate with an additional dosage of calcium. So maybe you use calcium formate, I don't know. - If you need calcium ammonium carbonate. - Yes, right. But if you try to put them all together, you're going to precipitate calcium carbonate and have ammonia in solution. - Perfect. - Right, there you go. But, you know, you asked the serious question, long-term effects. I mean, if you were not additionally dosing calcium, maybe, you know, the extra bicarbonate is going to shift and result in your calcium level falling. You need to add calcium anyway. So presumably, if you're adding caulk wass or calcium hydroxide, then you probably, you know, - The amount of ammonia that's being added is very small. - Yes. - Yeah. - So the amount of bicarbonate you're also adding. - It's also going to be small. - Oh, you're not? - Yeah, so once you get started, once you get started, you know, it's going to want more and more, right? - Yeah, it's like, correct. It's like, correct. - There it is. - Yeah, they're going to look on it. - You may start small, but then that's the risk long-term. You'll be, you know, all of a sudden, the Bay Area Town are going to be running out of ammonium bicarbonate and the bread's going to taste terrible. - Yeah, it's the game where the risk for corals is ammonium bicarbonate. Then you move up to ammonium sulfate and other form of ammonia, it just gets bad. And at the end, you end up peeing in your tank to produce enough ammonia, so. - I started with about 50 ml and now up to 400, I mean, 200 ml. - Wow. - Yeah, getting there, they like it. - It's not a small amount, it's a 500 gallon tank. But what's the, how much? - Beer sales will go up. - Yeah. (laughing) - I keep telling Julian to start selling this stuff. See? - There you go. - Give me a little commission and I promote it. - Beer or the ammonium bicarbon? - Both. - Both. - Both. - Okay. - Another problem is that it's like the freshwater industry, where everybody was growing their plants with CO2, then they sell it to somebody who doesn't use CO2 and everything crashes. - Yep. - Is that going to happen to your corals? Who knows? - I don't know, Mike has a lot of my corals and they haven't crashed yet. - There's Mike, there's Mike, there's Mike Tank without any CO2 going into it. It looks like the plants are growing. - Yep, there you go. But you didn't buy him from somebody that grew them with CO2. - That's my point. - No, I did not because I knew I wasn't going to run CO2. I'm trying to have as low tech stuff as I can at this point. - Right. Yeah, you and me both, my freshwater planet tank is the same way as CO2. - No CO2. - Yeah, I've added a bunch of fish relatively recently and it's rather noticeable how much the plants benefit from the fish and the food that you put in there. It's really a nice balance. - Yeah. - That's the same thing with a coral reef tank. I mean, yeah. - Same thing. - Yeah, it's the ammonia. I'm telling you. - Yes. - That's it. - We have another believer, Sanjay. We've converted them. - Sorry, look at these. - We're working on them for a long time on this. - You look at these retailers and wholesalers that have these huge tanks filled with like flat low tanks filled with corals with very few fish in them. Those would benefit from ammonium additions, I'm sure. - Yeah. Actually, I'm speaking to like three aquaculture facilities and they've all shifted to adding ammonia and they've all been quite happy with it. Some of them have said that they basically have all their, when they frag a coral, it used to take two to three weeks to let's start to see the frag spots gone. They're gone in a week now and some are now keeping specios, acropora specios so that they couldn't keep before as since they started dosing ammonia. So that's anecdotal, but I probably heard from 150 people that have been dosing it and I've only heard from like two that didn't see anything positive but they also had high nitrate levels. So it's anecdotal yet. I'm waiting till someone does the study. - Yeah. - Or a more scientific study than what we're doing now but I'm fairly positive that it does have positive effects under the circumstances that we discussed. - That goes, that holds true for like all this stuff with trace elements and all these things. It's all anecdotal. - It's always been anecdotal since we started in a hobby show. - Well, that's right, it's a hobby, but I mean, what really is needed is a controlled study where they look at reflectance and absorbance of different wavelengths. Is those colors really increasing or not by how much? And what is the mechanism by which this color is improving if it's due to a certain element? Like, you know, if you go to fundamental marine's knowledge base they have all the elements there and they will tell you, you know, based on what they know from the literature this is the role these things play, but it's still, okay, we know that's the role they play but is that really what's happening when we add this stuff? Are they really, are they making more of it? Or do they not have enough to begin with in terms of the enzymes or the products that they're using these elements to do? - You're talking about serious research money and somebody doing a university, you know, with lots of money. - That sounds like Mike. - Yeah, I have my own university, I'm gonna start that. - I wanna thank a wife price, wife price reefer for the Super Chat. This is a very unique comment. I'd pay 25 bucks for Julian's bottle P. - So, I guess that's a new product for us. - No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. - Yeah, oh, that's Julian's juice, right? - Yep, that's it. - He said he would or he did? - He would. - He would. - Maybe I'd be dead. - I got it. - You already dead. - It was a whole nod on us. - I thought he was criticizing his product. - Is carbon dosing necessary when you're dosing ammonia in most cases? - Not really. - As with everything, it depends. If you have an adequate coral load, probably not because they're gonna absorb it faster or if you don't have that many fish in it, you're probably not gonna have it. It's a balancing act as with everything. I mean, the one thing that it does cause you to do is probably more testing, which is probably always better 'cause more information is always better. - Yeah. - Well, it depends on the quality of the information. I still carbon dose though. I do it. - Which one? - My strategy these days is I want to be able to manually drive down things to zero and then adjust them by myself. - So which form of carbon are you dosing? - Well, it's vinegar because I'm using it as a caulk washer. It mixes it with caulk washer. - Yeah. It's simple. - But I noticed that when my ammonia ran out and I was out of town sitting in Miami happily, came back and the nitrous was at zero in the tank. - Well, I think, you know, you dosing these things, we really are influencing the bacteria populations. - Oh yeah, for sure. - Yeah. - 'Cause there's gotta be a lag time, you know, that you kind of grow in and then maybe they might starve when you stop doing it, but they don't stop doing their work instantly. - Right, right. - So they go into a... - Well, they also decrease the number. - Yeah. - So the ones that are left are still doing the same amount of work. There's a few of them. - Or this is what we think is going on at least. - Right. - Although now maybe with all this stuff. - As that tier list to study, Mike, at your university. - Yeah, but bacteria not study me. Maybe look at these kinds of things. - Yeah, for sure. - Well, that's one of the whole areas that we really need to understand is the bacteria in the microbiome and how everything interacts. 'Cause one of the things we didn't talk about with trace elements, we're adding them, but there's nothing in a literature that says the corals are taking them up. It seems more likely the bacteria are taking them up and then the corals are getting them from the bacteria. So that's another one on my university list of things to test is try to get a better understanding of the bacteria and its relationship to trace elements. - Well, I mean, we know that the symbiotic, the zosanthellae are taking in, you know, nutrients that plants might typically take in. - Right. - But yeah, there really is a scarcity of literature talking about corals up taking trace elements. Charles, I think there's some soft coral literature, right? - Yeah, yeah, and organics and certain things. But there's also the gut fauna. There's the gut fauna that lives inside the cilantro and in the coral. There's also bacteria that live in there just like in our guts. And it will take things and make them bioavailable for the coral, right? But the coral itself, see, there's so much work for graduate students to do. - Yeah, Sanji, you're in the wrong damn field for being a PhD. You should have been in this and you'd have 20 TAs instead of just one. - Right. Who's funding this research? I want to know that first. - Noah. - Noah, that's it. - Yeah. - And even Noah, they want to fund climate research, you know. - Well, trace elements have everything to do with the whole climate thing. So yeah, yeah. - Well, the other thing that we have to also take into account is, sure, you're adding ammonia now. So now your corals are growing faster, or whatever you're adding, your corals are growing faster. Doesn't that also mean that the demand for everything else will also go up for every trace element, everything else that I think. - Yeah, just trace them. - I'll see an alkalinity at the very least, right? - Yeah, those typically, once you start dosing ammonia, you will see your alkalinity and your calcium consumption go up. But we get back into Charles, if you were a chemistry teacher, when I first met you, we're back to the limiting factor. What is the limiting factors for the growth? And we don't know which trace elements are gonna be those limiting. So that's why they do more ICP tests. They can say, okay, we're short on nickel or we're short on chromium or whatever, and people add it. You know, is it doing anything? We don't know. But the ICP test shows that it's in shortage, and it could be the limiting factor for growth and coloration. - I just wanna thank a few folks just quickly for the Super Chat's Thirsty's Reef. Thank you very much, Rob Alexander. I think this is in regard to the Julian P product at his age, it would take three days to get a bottle. - Hello, tonight at Rob, Rob of State. - Is that Terry Seagull? - I don't know. And Rob of State, New York. Thank you, man, for that very generous Super Chat. Sounds like chapter three and volume four to me, gents. - Yes. More. - Charles, volume three and a half, right? There we go. - Yeah. - So is this something that, you know, my understanding in terms of ammonia dosing is that you shouldn't be doing this for a new reef tank. This is not something that should be done for somebody. This is coming to the hobby, or somebody starting up a new reef tank, and it's trying to establish the tank, and the still, you know, getting the tank stable and all that sort of thing. This is for like a mature reef tank, healthy tank, healthy corals, and all that sort of thing. So, I mean, it's the recommendation here on the panel to, you know, for folks that have a, you know, a healthy, happy, growing, thriving reef tank to start, seriously, consider ammonia dosing? - No, only if their nitrates are being sucked up so fast that they have to add nitrate. If the tank is happy and balanced, I've learned this the hard way, quit monkeyin' with it. Follow what Sanjay does and just keep it stable and be happy with it. But over time, things tend to change. So if the corals get so fat and happy that they're sucking out all the nitrogen, that's the point where you start looking at adding ammonia, but you better be prepared for more rapid growth, because one of the things we didn't talk about is, when Sanjay and I talked about it the last time I was over, the most colorful corals are those that are growing the fastest. So it is the function of coloration due to ass-adding trace elements or everything, or is it simply due that we're getting faster growth and faster growing corals are more colorful? - Let me amend the question. You know, got a happy, healthy, thriving reef tank, things are doing really well, and you've been dosing nitrate, okay? Should people be considering switching over to ammonia dosing? - If everybody is dosing nitrates, yes. - Yeah. - Yeah, ammonia is the preferred form of nitrogen anyway. - Right. - So you'd be choosing the better. - If you're feeding so much and your nitrates are always high, maybe you don't wanna add them on, yeah? - Yes. - Yes, right. - That's what I said, bring them down, bring them down first and then add them on again. - So here's a question that I posted a positive years ago, like 20, 30 years ago, about people that will, "Oh, I want my corals to grow fast, I'm bumping up my alkalinity, my calcium, and I had more light, they're growing great, but is that natural?" And in fact, you're growing these corals so quickly that the skeletal density is about 50% of normal. So you've got fast growing corals that are super brittle. So this is one of the problems they've looked at in situ, in the reefs where they're dosing with, they're purposely adding nitrogen or phosphorous to a reef to see what happens. And one of the predictions is as the pH and alkalinity go down and nutrient levels go up, the corals are gonna grow faster, but they're gonna be more brittle. And so the first storm that goes through is going to basically decimate a reef and the shoreline behind it. So here we are growing these corals really quickly, but as far as I know, has looked at the density of the skeleton and compared it to a wild coral. - But we're growing these for our enjoyment. We're not growing them to put them back out on the reef. So that's kind of-- - No, I understand that, but you're creating these corals that are much more brittle, more prone to breaking, is that a healthy coral? That's my question. And then if your goal is to breed them and you want to spawn them, I get the same question, like, what's a healthy coral? - Sure, you can make-- - Yeah, that's a healthy coral. - Sure, you can make 'em spawn, but the spawn quality might be crap. - Sure. - Or, yeah, you can grow really quick, but they're full apart. I used to, in Hawaii, we used to take a, I could crush a uphilly in my hand. That's how brittle it was. - Yeah. - You do a lot stronger when you're younger, Charles, so that doesn't count. - No, it's the opposite, Mike. - Good. - Yeah. - Yeah. - I don't know, they're-- - Stronger now. - I really cannot cut with the pliers even right now, with the cutters. Right? - I don't know if that's, how does that compare to the ocean? I don't know, but there are-- - What's your alkalinity level? - It's pretty, it's pretty, density's still pretty high, it's hard to cut them. - No, what's your alkalinity? - Just a nine, 10, someone that reads. - What's that in real numbers? - In real numbers? - Real numbers. Like, molar equivalents are PPM. - You multiply by 3.1, whatever you need to multiply with. - Well, you're the professor. - I don't even know. - Okay, do that in your hand. - Mr. (laughs) - It's a multiplication problem. - Yeah, it's all algebra at this point. - Keith told us to be no math tonight. - Yeah. - You lied. - Okay. - Thanks to Rif Culture Company, thirsty for God, his question, laugh out loud. Yep, and Polo 1126, thank you so much for that generous super chat. Legends, thanks for this one, keep you all with your $100 frags. Don't forget to tip your host. (laughs) - Thank you very much, Polo 1126. - I wanna talk about your second question on your list there, about the ratio of nitrate to phosphate of 100 to one. - Oh, okay. - Yeah. - How important is it? - Dr. Mike about it. - Yep, yes. - He's the promoter. - I'm the promoter. - What's up? - Okay, well, couple of things. Yeah, well, so one of the things that I wanna point out for the people watching is that it is not the ratio of nitrates to phosphates. It's the ratio of nitrogen to phosphorous. So you can't just take your nitrate number and divide it by your phosphate number. That is not the ratio. You've gotta convert it to nitrate nitrogen or phosphate, phosphorous, and then do the math. But when you look in the scientific literature and I've been working on this for the last year and a half and reading the little papers that I said can on it, they're not looking at that range. They're looking and this is a mass ratio. So this is the ratio of the grams and milligrams. What the research look at are the molar ratios. So I convert all my ratios into molar ratio so I can then compare it to what I'm reading in the scientific literature. So this ratio, no, it's got this ratio that you have 101, it's a mass ratio, right? So it's mass. So you cannot compare it to anything you would find in the scientific literature or be able to understand it. But I think that a lot of people get hung up with the red field ratio and all that stuff. The red field ratio is also a molar ratio of 16 to one. It's a molar ratio. So you can't take your nitrates and phosphates and try to get 16 to one. It doesn't work. The math doesn't work that way. The other thing to remember is that the red field ratio is based on oceanic phytoplankton. It's not coral, it's not bacteria. Bacteria's ratio is 10 to one of a molar ratio. And cyanobacteria is five to one. In corals, they're finding the ratio is 50 to one. But there are very few reefs in the world that are that high. Most reefs are like two or three to one in terms of a molar ratio. Except for Florida, which is around 35 to one because of decades of mutification. Nutrification, yeah. So the question is that 50 to one ratio is the one and some molar ratio. So to convert that, if you want to, no, wait, that's the other way around. So if you take that number, what is it? And you would divide it by 1.53 and that will give you the mass ratio. But anyway, the mass ratio that I would shoot for would be much lower than that. But I know that this is what Claude promotes. No, the ratio ranges like 90 to 110 or something. Actually, where this came from for me is during COVID, when we had nothing to do and nobody had anything to do, I was communicating with 25 people that I thought had gorgeous reef tanks and getting all their numbers and plugging them in and playing with them and doing everything. And that's where I found by pure happenstance, the tanks that had the nicest, most colorful, healthy corals had a ratio of approximately 101 nitrate to phosphate. I then, two years later, after COVID, was discussing this with Claude, who does, has done 250,000 ICP tests. And he said, and I said, you know what was interesting is, I wasn't looking for this, but what I found is the tanks that had the most colorful corals had a 101 ratio. And that's why I talked about it, 'cause from a hobbyist point of view, a reef tank is not like the ocean. So the ratios on the ocean, while they may be beneficial there, may not necessarily be perfect in a reef tank. So I brought this up to Claude's attention and I said, I found 101 to be the best ratio. And he said, that's curious, 'cause that's what I found. So it's purely by pure happenstance that we agreed upon, 50 to one is a good ratio, but if you get it up to 101 in a tank rather than in the ocean, it seems the beneficial for the inhabitants of the tank. So that was all I was talking about. And that's from looking at 25 tanks. Again, not a scientific number. If I could have had 100 tanks, which is what I would look at now, it would be interesting to see how well that ratio holds up. - But hang on, so taking into consideration what Charles was just talking about, what was your actual ratio? Were you talking about parts per million and parts per million nitrate to phosphate? - Yes. - Yes, so you need to do that conversion and see what that truly is in a red field. - Right, well, that's the question, is how relevant is the red field ratio in a reef tank versus in the ocean? Again, we've always-- - The red field ratio is not relevant to anything. - Okay. - Not relevant to the ocean or the shooting tank. - It's the same as-- - It's vital plankton. - Yeah, I know, but people always tout it. That's what I'm saying. - I know people tout it, that people are wrong, that's what I'm telling you. - They're wrong. - They're wrong. - Even this guy that's right there right now, Sanjay, and I watched your talk on YouTube talking about the red field ratio. You got it wrong. - I don't talk about red field ratios. - No? - Yes, you do. I have you on video. - It's got the evidence. - It's got the evidence. - This'll keep this one, Jay. - He was talking about red LEDs. You didn't know. - No, it got a near properly. - The red LED ratio. - Oh my. - No, so that's where I came up with a number for hobbyists, from what I found. Again, during COVID, when there was nothing to do, but run numbers around and play with your calculator all day 'cause basically we were all stuck at home. So, and then Claude agreed that was a good ratio in a reef tank. Whether it's relevant or not, I try to stick by that 101 ratio in my tank. And I seem to have a better, I don't have problematic algae. The corals seem to thrive better and I get better coloration. The close ran to that ratio. When I get phosphate too high, then I seem to run into problems, which has been what we've talked about literally since the beginning of the hobby. If your phosphate levels are skewed too high, Sanjay used to run 90 nitrates and two phosphates and this tank was thriving. I mean, there literally was not a speck of algae in it. So, it was a very high ratio. - So, what are you talking about? - That was it. - Yeah. - 20, 45. - No, no. No, his ratio is fine. - He started dancin' ammonia. - That's not the problem. The problem, the problem-- - When you have high phosphate, your corals are nitrogen starved. And when you have high nitrogen and low phosphate, your corals are phosphate starved. - Right, yeah, you have to have a balanced ratio. But is that ratio-- - No, I don't know. - It's not a balanced ratio, 100 to one is not balanced. Balance ratio is one to one. - No, no, no, what I'm saying, I'm not saying balanced from a one to one ratio, I'm saying balanced in terms of their nutrient needs. They probably need more nitrogen than they need phosphate or phosphorus. - As long as they have phosphate, they're happy. And this is from, when I went to France, I went to Monaco, I visited the scientific research center. They're not the museum, but there's a scientific research center and they work on coral nutrition in terms of the nutrient levels and the effects of these nutrient levels on corals. And what the researcher there told me, she says, "As long as they have phosphorus, "the corals are happy." And if you limit them in phosphorus is when you have problems. And the reason I was talking to her was because I've gone through our data in our tank over the last 16 years. And I can pinpoint three episodes where we had massive loss of coral and every single one of them that are molar ratio was over 200 or 300. And so once they got below that, my tank looked the best. I have photos tonight of the tank. The nitrates were like 30 and the phosphate was 1.7. And that's when the corals looked really, really good. And when soon as we said, "Oh my God, the phosphate's too high. "We gotta get the phosphate down." That's when we started having all kinds of problems. And soon as we let the phosphate climb back up, everything was fine. So what I'm trying to do now is I'm trying to get my nitrogen down so that I can lower my phosphate. 'Cause I don't want to run with that high of phosphate. 'Cause there are other issues when you run a high phosphate like that. Because you have so much zooxanthellene now with so much nutrition, there's such a high demand for carbon, inorganic carbon, they're robbing the calcification process for carbon. And that's from the alkalinity. So that's why you end up with more brittle corals too. So you have to boost your alkalinity. It's something that Marlen Atkinson found back when working on the biosphere, the same thing. And he went back in the '90s and he was saying, "How are these hobbyists growing these corals "in these high nutrient levels?" It's because the alkalinity was higher than normal. It allowed to compensate for that. - That was Albert Teal's fault, right? - What? - Albert Teal at that time. - What about him? - Well, he was telling people to run 10 to 15 DKH back then. - Yeah, 'cause your nutrient levels were much higher. - Yeah. - Yeah. 'Cause one, the testing was much more inaccurate than it is now. And we typically didn't know how to bring the nutrient. We didn't have GFO or other means for bringing it down. And two, typically fed the tank way too much. - Yeah. So there's another public aquarium in Georgia that's a very nice coral tank. And I have their data for the last four years. And their nitrate and phosphate levels were pretty low, but they were a very nice ratio. They were around 50. And, but they added a lot more fish. And so now the nitrogen and phosphorus have gone up. And you can see that both lines are going up in tandem. So the ratio is still nice around 50. So everything looks good, and everything's growing fine. - No, you're agreeing with me. I said 50 is a good number, but we found that I found that-- - No, no. - 50 is good. - No, 50 is a molar ratio. - That's a molar, I'm talking a molar ratio. - You're talking a molar ratio. Now, how many hobbyists are gonna run the math to do the molar ratio? - I'm just telling you. - Okay. - Don't equate your ratio to my ratio. - No, I'm not. - Your ratio is no, your ratio. - Okay, and if I have a mass ratio of 60, that's nitrogen and phosphorus. It's not nitrate to phosphate. - Right. - So if you do the math, I think that comes out to you close to your value. - Right, you need to create a conversion chart showing, to parse per million, to parse per million. How does that compare to moles, to moles? - Well, the key has sharing turned off, or I would show you my spreadsheet that I have that does exactly that. - You might be able to share it, Charles. You might be able to share it, but-- - I tried, it says it's turned off by the moderator. - Really? - Okay. - It's your fault, Keith. - Yep. - Let me see here. - I'm trying to figure out how I can-- - It isn't allowing multiple presenters sharing for this meeting. So it does turn my share on, nobody else's. - Yeah, I am so unfamiliar with Zoom. I'm, let's see, here's-- - Don't worry about a security share screen. - Enable, just enable share screen. - Enable, share screen. Don't ask me though, I'm not Mr. Technology. - Enable, waiting room, I don't share. I'm not gonna share my screen. - No, but you can just let Charles share. - Just enabling for everyone, and Charles can share. Doesn't matter, just enable share. - And how do I do that? I do that going to-- - There's a little sharing button at the bottom. Maybe it's in top of yours, I don't know, but there's a shared button. Green button with an arrow. (clicking) - Hmm, I don't see it. Oh, share screen, okay. - Right there. - So now, share. - Just hit share screen, that's it. - It's gonna share my screen though. - No, no, pick all participants or whatever. - Yeah, I don't see that. Or is it advanced there, or share slides? - I do it now because it's disabled, but you should be able to share it for all participants. - All right, let me look-- - Let me look at-- - Let me move on to another topic. - It's another topic. - I should get one of those. I'm gonna share my screen here. - Okay, close that out. I wanna close the Zoom out call out here. - No, don't close this out yet. - Yeah, don't worry about it. - Another time. - All right. - There we are. - So, I wanna be conscientious of everybody's time. There were a lot of topics on this list. Is there any other topics on this list that anybody is interested in covering, or else I'll just pick one. - Yeah. - Yeah, pick one. - All right. - An interesting one. - How about the use of-- - I see P testing. - How about the use of chemicals to solve algae issues, like cyanol? Is that a good thing? Can people, you know, is it fine to use like, can we clean, to get rid of cyanol? Was it okay to use, what's that thing you use to get rid of, psoriasis, prokontazol for borapsis? Let's talk about that sort of thing. Is that something, I mean, you know, my personal experience, you know, at one point recently I used flukontazol to get rid of some borapsis in one of my tanks, and it triggered a diatom outbreak, and the borapsis eventually did come back, you know, a few months later. So, are we kind of playing with stuff there in terms of triggering one thing to solve, you know, one certain issue. It's kind of like this domino effect in a reef aquarium. It's a complicated thing. - Yeah, I mean, I can speak for cyanobacteria. I mean, I use it once in a while. I mean, I try to use it as infrequently as possible, but there are times when the cyanobacteria bloom is so thick that it's not gonna go away on its own. - I think once you've exhausted all avenues-- - Small patches, I don't worry about because they come and go, right? But when it sometimes gets out of hand, at that time, I'll do it. And there's enough evidence to show that eventually your bacterial composition just comes back to where it was. - Did you dose a lot of bacteria when you're doing that to kind of try to know? - I never dose bacteria. I mean, there's so much bacteria that you think to begin with. - But you've never done a-- - Oh, you've never done a bacteria. - You've never done an aqua biome test to see what your ratios or anything like that either. - I did one long time ago and I was having issues. But I know Eli has done these tests whether it's from my son or whatever they use for getting clean, right? That it, yeah, sure, it does impact it right away, but it comes back. - Well, that leads me to a second question. Have you guys seen more of an issue with cyanone and other issues in the spring when the pollen counts get real high? Because I've been following my pollen levels here and I have more issues when the pollen levels goes off the scale than like in the winter or dry summer. But whenever pollen levels suddenly skyrocket, I've had issues in my tanks. Have you guys seen the same thing? And I've also had a bunch of people telling me the same thing. - There's plenty of online forums with that very topic. So you're, yeah, obviously you're not alone, but I don't know. We don't have as strong a pollen season in South Florida as you do it more. - I mean, I think it's just springtime. Everything wants to bloom. It's naked. - You're putting the sign of program. - Look at the sign of bryopsis. - Everything. It's summertime, it's coming in the springtime. Let's bloom. - And the good Charles' reef tank right there. - Yeah. - Charles, by the way, I think I've enabled sharing for everybody. So you wanna, it looks like you're sharing right now video of your, one of your big display tanks. - That's the tank in Charles' bedroom. - Yeah. - Right. - Thank you. - I think he's got his sound on. - These are the fishies. - Yeah. - Big fish. - I don't know if you're trying to talk Charles, we can't hear you. - That was a big fish. - No, I'm not talking. - No, I'm talking. - I don't know if you heard me, but I believe I haven't enabled sharing among the participants if you need to. - Okay. - We wanted to try to do that. - Yeah, so this is live. So I'm at work. - Greg Carroll's in the house. Greg's got a question for the panel and then we can get back to the prior question. Would love to hear thoughts on recent push of biome testing. Is it worth it? - I think it's too early to say. - Yeah, I think we're still in its infancy and you get the results back like three weeks a month later by then your whole biome could have changed depending on what your manipulations are making while you're doing the test because you're usually sending it in because you have a problem. So you start trying to manipulate things. So how much is it relevant once you've had it in? - I think it's worthwhile as a baseline to give you an idea. Like whenever I had issues, I had a high level, I'm an extremely high level of Vibrio and then I had an extremely high level of Arco-Bacter. So from that standpoint, I did find out what the pathogens were but I've sent in a couple other tests and it didn't really show any kind of change or anything that was actionable 'cause that's gonna be the next thing. How much of what you get is actionable and then what are you gonna do to manipulate it? And is that gonna be beneficial or is you gonna cause more problems since we know so little about the microbiome? - Good point. Do we answer his question? (both laughing) - Julian, what are your thoughts on that microbiome testing? - Well, I'm glad that people are starting to do this. I do agree that I think it's in its infancy. And I mean, you had the commercial company doing that initially. You have Salem Clemens now looking at microbiology in aquariums. It's basically a black box that we really know very little about at the moment but the more people seriously investigate it, the more will be illuminated, will be able to understand it better. And, you know, it's not a simple subject where you say, "Ah-ha, okay, yes, now here's the answer." It's gonna be many years of discovery. - And you still wanna have the answers? - Well, no, we won't. But we may learn some little branches, some practical application I'm hoping for. And I'm delighted that there are people looking at it, young people, enthusiastic people who are sharing and writing, that's what needs to be happening. I would only caution that, you know, we have to take the information at face value, that it's not just because you have a publication and it's saying, "This is happening, "that doesn't mean a-ha, okay, "that's how I control my hair algae," you know? It's, you know, it's part of the picture, not the whole picture, yeah. - So now, instead of selling Julian juice, he can sell other Julian products, you know? - Yeah, by, of course. - Go back to your off you, Julian, that's the next. - Yep, that's it. We're gonna be taking scrapings on that subject. I still, to this day, it completely baffles me. Mike Pelleta came to visit me one time and, you know, I'm giving him frags. And I say, "Hey, Mike, you know, "why don't you get a piece of this beautiful green "height in a fora? "It was a branchy one that I got from a shop in Chicago. "It was being farmed in Chicago." And it grew like a weed. I mean, it was just unbelievable how fast this beautiful fluorescent green height in a fora had grown for years for me. And Mike says, "No, no, no, it always dies. "Don't even bother. "I don't wanna take any, you know, I kill it." And I swear to God, within days after his visit, it died in that aquarium. Every other aquarium I had, I'd been growing it for years. So there may be something to this, you know. - I don't wanna tell you. I did pee in your tank, Julian. Just the three. - Ah, that's it. No, I know. (laughing) Yeah, I mean, honestly, to this day, I'm totally baffled by that. You know, did you embarrass the coral? I mean, was it just, you know, that or was there some biological effect of your presence? - Well, I can take it a step further. Since then, the voodoo curse was lifted off of me. I don't have three different hidden offers. I hadn't been able to grow them for 10 years. They're all thriving in different tanks. - Excellent. - I have no idea. - Well, maybe now they'll die because then that's the other aspect that may be, aside from microbiology, there may be a metaphysical connection to our aquariums. So it could be that simply by paying attention to something, we influence its health. Not by any manipulation of the water parameters or anything, just physically looking at it, you may be doing something. - Yeah, that's what your most expensive coral dies first. - Yeah. - We are looking at the most. - What you're looking at, same thing with giant clamps. - So, yeah. - Well, the same thing with, I used to count the number of fish in my tank, and as soon as I would count the number of fish, they would always diminish by one or two. It didn't matter if I had them for two years or 10 years, never count the fish because they will die. I can guarantee you that. So I never count them. How many fish do you have? So 62, well, today I have 59. That's how it happens. So I don't ever count the fish. I have no idea how many fish I have in any tank. I don't count them. - Good. That's why, yeah, people will always ask you that question and not ask you. How many fish you have? I don't know. - I have no idea. - Do you need them? - No, I don't name them. - Do not name them. - Do not name them. - Do not name them. Yeah, if you learn nothing else tonight, do not name your fish. - But name your corals. They'll be more valuable. (laughing) - So I wanted to read Greg's follow-up comment. He said he got criticized for saying it's not action. Well, at this point he's talking about the microbiome data, but they are saying buy my reef, we're able to fix your tank. So the question is, is this stuff actionable? Julian, there was recently a published paper in Coral magazine with a protocol for oxalenic acid, right? An in-tank treatment, a dip as well as full in-tank treatment. What are your thoughts on Greg's comments? - It is actionable, right? Buy this rock. I mean, it's coming with all these bacteria that's missing from your tank. - Yes. - So in that sense, it's actionable, right? - Well, I guess what I'm saying in terms of being actionable, let's say you've got microbiome reported, it says you've got pathogens in there, then you do a full in-tank treatment using like oxalenic acid and the RTN STN episodes go away. - Well, they might have gone away anyway. - They might have gone away anyway. - Yeah, well, what you're saying was what you wiped out with the oxalenic acid, should you add a good live bacterial culture to repopulate the tank? And in that case, would all agree probably yes. If you can get good live rock, good live rock is still one of the best things you can put in a tank. - The question right now also is, what is good bacteria in a race tank? - Yeah. - But that's what they're doing. - Sure, you don't have to go rogue and go bad, so. - Yeah. I mean, you read the article that Salem Clements wrote that you could have Vibrio that's good and it suddenly turns it into bad or this bacteria is good, something else turns it pathogenic. - That's scary. - We don't know. That's the whole point. We don't know. And we're in the infancy of understanding bacteria, microbiome, coral diseases. I mean, even the scientific literature is pretty much still in its infancy. I mean, they're putting a paste with a moxacillin around the rims of corals. I mean, seriously, there's probably could have come up with something better down the line, but you're basically at Fred Flintstone management of a lot of things in his hobby still. Despite how much better we've gotten and how much success we now have, we're still in the infancy and a lot of things, understanding coral nutrition, coral diseases, coral pathogens. I mean, in every week, you find a new coral pest and then you have to try to find a way to eradicate the pest. So there's still a lot more going on that we don't know about than we do know about. - Yes, you know, look at the humans, right? We don't know enough about the human diseases. And we need some research on these forever. We spend so much money on all of this. - There is a lot more money going toward this. So why do you think we're going to solve the coral problem? - Well, there has, you know, in the past five to 10 years, been a lot more money going toward research on coral disease because the diseases have become more prevalent, especially in the Caribbean. So the fact is there are biologists looking at both antibiotic and probiotic protocols, treatments, whether it's for corals being maintained in aquariums or corals out on the reef, it's being done in a scientific way. And that's the literature that we do need to be paying attention to. - I agree. - Yeah. - Is it a waste of time for hobbyists to dip all incoming corals in a antibiotic bath? - That's a scary question. - I can say that from my experience with the elegance corals, I think that the types of elegance that come in the deeper water one with the horseshoe shape, I think that they all should be treated, not just dipped, but actually treated with oxalinic acid. And I know that Chris at ACI does that. I mean, and the result of that is staggering because if you don't do it, they get that condition and they die. If you do, most of them will survive. And that's a, you know, it's clear that that's a protocol that should be taken. - Same thing with a lot of trudacta clams. We all have had clams, you have them for years, something goes wrong, they all die. Or you stupidly had a new one without doing anything to it and it wipes out all the other ones in a week. We've all done that. - Yeah, we have. And, you know, with the clams, there's multiple pathogens that can be causing them. Of course, with corals, there's multiple pathogens. But, you know, with the elegance, we know that that was sort of one thing and it was susceptible to the oxalinic acid treatment. And that's just a wonderful discovery. There is also the strain of elegance coral that is immune to that problem and they do not need to be treated. They don't get the condition. It's the most common one, not deep water variety. They don't have a horseshoe shaped skillet and they just grow a nice meandering shaped skillet and purple tips, green striped mantle. You know the one I'm talking about. - John Burlesons. - I know, Burlesons was different. - This was, I've never seen one that's spectacular since. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. His was not a horseshoe shaped one. His was meandering Mandroid, more like the one that's resistant, but his was a pink tip one with a green. - Green blue body. - Yeah, and they, there is a strain that is being cultivated. A few farmers have it. I forget what they call it, but it's probably the same one John had. And it is hardy, you know, it doesn't have that issue. So, yeah, I would love to see the Mariculture farms focus on the hardy strains and get more color varieties of them and, you know, get it into Mariculture. That would be, but to your question, just prophylactically dipping in antibiotics, I don't know, I think that could lead to more problems with the exceptions of corals where we know they're gonna die if you don't do it. So, you know, I think dipping for pests may still be. - And then for pests. - Yeah, that's key, you know. Obviously I make a product for that purpose. It does. - Do. - Yes. (both laughing) And whether you use mine or somebody else's or a combination of them, I think it's beneficial to try to eliminate a lot of these pests. - Are there things that we can do as hobbyists? To make our corals more resistant to pathogens, to pests, you know, outside of dips and antibiotics? Are there things, certain parameters that we should be paying more attention to, certain trace elements that we should be paying more attention to to make our corals stronger and more resistant to these? - Stress. - What's that? - Neremized stress. - Yeah, keep 'em stable. - One of the things. - Neremizing stress and maybe, you know, helping the core, increasing the adaptability of the core to different ranges. - They do adapt, feeding them, of course, the more food you give them, the stronger they are. But I will say that my trip to Silhouesi opened my eyes to something that I was not aware of. I mean, sure, I've been diving for, you know, many, many years and I've experienced thermoclines periodically in different places in the tropics, but it became very apparent to me that there is a special zone in Indonesia, in deep water where quite a few of the LPS corals are collected, where they are exposed normally, all the time to much colder water than at the surface. So, you know, I mean, this really supported what Charles and I said so many years ago that keeping your aquarium in the mid-70s is a good idea. And we could see that in the health of our corals. Well, for certain corals, I would say that it's critical. And that would be some of those deep water tracheophilia, you know, the brightly colorful open brain corals and of course, the acanthophilia, the big donut corals, they're coming from this, you know, 80, 90 foot depth and the water temperature there is like 73, 74. It's not 84, it's really chilly down there. And it's that way most of the time. So for them to adapt to our higher temperatures may be a stretch and something to consider. What's, oh, Charles is showing the NPS tank with the feathered oyster worm. It's a beautiful tank there at the Steinhardt and it's got the peppermint angel. See it? - Let me see if I could... - I don't see the angel yet, but... - I don't see the angel. - Oh, there it was, there it was. - Oh, okay. - There you go. - There it is, yep. - There it is, there it is. - Peppermint angel. - Nice, nice. - Wow. Charles, start speaking and I can make you the speaker view and blow up that shot. - Yeah, look at that. - How long have you had that fish? - Five years. - All right, we've blown it up now for everybody. Oh, now we've got me blown up here. - What's the temperature in that tank? - 73. - Wow. - Oh, wow. - It's on the high end for that fish and he's doing great. - Not really, that's what it is. That's where it was collected. - Wow, 73 there. Whereas like I was just talking about... - Really? - But in Sulawesi Indonesia at only 80 feet, it's 73 degrees. - Yeah, I guess it depends on the season. Like remember in Vanuatu in the summer, like at night, it gets into the high 60s and that they used to be able to collect chambered nollas in like 30 feet of water. - Yeah. - So yeah, she's kind of shy. So we had a pair of these. - Yeah. - We lost the mail a couple of years ago, but we had the juveniles, we had the larvae up to 40 days. So we were very close. - Super close. - That's awesome. - Anyway. - Yeah, it's such a beautiful fish. - Yeah, thanks for sharing Charles. - Yeah, my pleasure. Come and see it in person, Michael. I don't travel as much as I used to, Charles. - Somebody said that we had glossed over, Mike Richardson, we kind of glossed over the question that I had about fluconazole and whether that's a good or bad thing to dose to a reef tank. What do you, quick thoughts in terms of using fluconazole on a reef tank, any collateral damage potentially? - Again, if you're at your wit's end and can't get rid of bryopsis, there's pretty much nothing that we'll eat it that I know of. It comes down to a resort, a last resort 'cause it'll start to overgrow everything. It kills it very well, but the problem is it tends to come back if you haven't figured out what the source is, it's inducing it to grow in the first place. So it may change having worked in the pharmaceutical industry for 40 years. One of the things I will say is there are no perfect drugs. There's side effects for everything that you use. And the same thing with anything you dose a tank. There's always gonna be some kind of side effect. You just have to be prepared for it and do your homework before you dose it and try to figure out what cause it to happen. Is some ratio off? Do you have too high of this or that? Something's causing the bryopsis 'cause it doesn't just tend to take off for no reason, but you have to try to do your detective work and figure out what exactly is causing it. - I mean-- - Here's an interesting thing about algae, right? Growing in the tank. I've noticed with a lot of tanks, when you put an algae scrubber in there, the algae doesn't grow in the tank. - Yeah. - Yeah. - That always puzzles me, right? Then why would it start to grow there, but not growing the tank? - There's times I've seen it grow in a tank. - Yeah. Depends on the nutrient levels, of course. But there's-- - And the herbivores. - Here's an experiment to help you see that in a different way. If you have one aquarium and it's got algae and you then connect that one aquarium to another aquarium that is identical, okay? But put more light over that other aquarium. The algae is gonna go there. So your display will be algae-free and the other aquarium that has more light is gonna have the algae. That's what happens. And I think that's part of what's going on with an algal filter. The algae will grow where the illumination is brighter. It's an observation you can make. They're able to uptake their nutrients better when they have more light. More light. There's a top view. - Oh. - Charles. - What are we looking at now, Charles? - It's like the water's moving. - Seeing his lights. - Can I make this so? - You're watching drop his laptop in. (laughing) - It's only 5.30 out there. - Yeah, I wanna be respectful of everybody's time. So is there anything else that you guys wanted to bring up that I had on my list or anything off the top of your head that is gnawing at you? - What was your other list? Or what about your viewers? Are they throwing questions at you? - Yeah, let's answer their questions. - All right, folks. I saw a man in Mecley had a question earlier in the stream and folks, you could drop some more questions in the chat. But I think Amanda's question, if I can recall, the man is still watching, remind me. But anything, let's see here. Anything new in the hobby that you guys think is something to pay attention to? I think that's the gist of her question. Any new trends that potentially are popping up in the hobby that. - Well, we talked about bolus. - Yeah, we didn't really talk about, we didn't talk about bolus in depth, but we did refer to the bolus method, but we could save that for another time. - Another time. I hear there's this couple that had, they can't defile your spawn and they're raising them up now. - You're talking about the Mecley's? - Yes. Giving them a hard time. I'm excited about that. That's new. - Well, everybody always wants something new. What about old? Right? Mike, talk about, I remember Lemkemeyer? What about his-- - Oh, you're gonna Lemkemeyer, the guy that did the book that I translated and gave to you and John and Charles, yeah. - Yes. - 40 years ago. - Steve? - Yep, the member said. - No. - What's old is new again? - Yeah, he wrote the Bottom Marine Aquarium in 1982. My father got it for me when he was in Germany. He didn't understand German, but he saw they were keeping corals in their tanks. He brought it home. It took me two years to translate it. My aunt then transcribed it and typed it. I photocopied it and gave copies to everybody. And that was the original basis of a lot of stuff. I mean, it had a oxygen reactor that John Burleson built. Remember that? - Yeah. - It had a variety of a power trickle filter. It had protein skimmers, what else did it have? And it talked about live rock in depth. So I mean, it was way ahead of its time, but no one ever knows or remembers this guy. - Yeah. - I mean, Li Cheneng, God bless his soul, was dead in the '60s, but we all still remember him. But this guy actually wrote something in the '80s and showed pictures of live corals and no one remembers the guy. - Yeah. - Don't figure. - Yeah. - 'Cause he was in technology. - And where is he now? - I corresponded with him for about three or four years and then he vanished. So you may still be alive, you may not. I've looked for him on Facebook and-- - I keep him in the closet. - All right, Amanda's corrected me. Her question is actually anything new and exciting we may not have heard about. Anything new and exciting we may not have heard about in the hobby. - The same question. - Oh, variation. - It's a variation of what I asked. You know, so-- - That illusion that we were always on the cutting edge. - Yeah. - I mean, we heard about Julian's new product today, so-- - Yeah. (laughing) - You heard it here first. - Yeah. - The problem is he's gonna have difficulty mass producing out without becoming a true alcoholic. - It gives a whole new meaning to the term liquid gold. (laughing) - Oh, the old liquid gold. Good one, Charles. - It's a good one. - I think I'm gonna call it ICP. (laughing) - Wow, there you go. That's gonna be copyrighted now. - That's a good one. - Oh, there you go. - Chris for Katherman, what keeps you interested in the hobby? What keeps you interested in the hobby? - Learning new things 'cause there's always something new. We've already talked about all the things that are in their infancy. Our goal is to live long enough so we see them get to their geriatric stage. But I doubt we'll see all these things reach geriatric level, particularly disease, nutrition, maybe pests, but that's about it. - Yeah. - Go ahead, Julian. - You know, there's always new corals and new fish. I mean, honestly, whether you go on diving on a reef or just go to a wholesaler and new inemones, that's always a new algae interesting to me to see that. And I really get a thrill also seeing the enthusiasm of other hobbyists and how they come up with new ideas, whether it's a mechanical invention or an idea about the biology of our aquariums. That inspires me. I find it something that motivates me to stay involved. I personally always find things new in my aquariums. I may not have the time to share it as much as I'd like to, as I did when I was earlier in the hobby. When people come and visit me, I might point out and say, look at this, this is something that's happening. It's truly a never ending, as you all know. There's something going on new that you've never seen before, even if it's a pest. - A lot of times it's a pest. - Yes. - This is what keeps me going. Can you see that? - Yeah. - So that's a video I had shot for, we have a drone in-house, so... - Wow. - The guy fly a drone over the tank. - Looked like a lot of frags. It has a bit cold. - All very brittle. - How about your alkalinity, it's one of a problem. - An alkalinity's in scientific units, you know? - Yeah, yeah, go ahead. What is it? - Oh, 3.2. - What's that? - Yeah. - We're getting a question here about what everybody keeps their temperature at in their tanks. - Oh, good. Who's gonna start? - It depends, when. - Yeah, in the... - Right now my tank's running at about 80 degrees. - Yeah. - Yeah, in the winter I run around 55 degrees. - Yeah, the winter I run it warmer, 'cause if there's power outage, it won't go bad by getting cold too fast, and then the summer I run it cooler, so that if the temp power goes out, it doesn't get overheated too fast. - I mean, I don't have a chiller, so it does what it does. - Yeah. - So I have many aquariums, and they're not all at the same temperature. The biggest aquarium at home runs between about 78 to 82, but it's controlled by air conditioning, so no chiller there. - So aquariums at my office run more like 74 degrees, pretty much around, also because of air conditioning. - So, but there's enough scientific evidence that shows that corals grow faster at higher temperatures. - Yes, yeah, that's true. - What was that, Charles? - Hang on. - Are we gonna get to see the debiliest photos, or what? - You wish. - Wow. - Yeah. - You could see that the giant octopus about to reach down with its suction. - Yeah. - Fluck Charles right out of the deep. - Right out of there. - Yeah, so this was in April, so. - So this tank, we keep at 78 degrees. - Yeah. - And then our deep sea, like our twilight zone exhibits are usually like 72. When we were diving in the Philippines, they said the temperature there was, even at 400 feet was like 78, 76. - Wow. - So it's all seasonal. I mean, it depends on upwellings and downwellings and those, that kind of stuff, so. But one thing we don't do is we don't vary the temperature, so, except for in our corresponding lab, then that lab, that tank can get up to 80, 82. And then it goes down to about 74. We found that we had a lot of RTN issues if we kept the temperatures too high. - Are those-- - Yeah. - Man, Chris is an ACI, is commenting. Look at all those 1,000 watt metal halides. Is that what you got going over there, Charles? Metal halide lighting? - Yeah, there's 76,000 watts of metal halide. So, some of them have been changed out. They're not all running at 1,000 watts. I would say maybe eight to 10 of those are 1,000. The rest are at 750, or there's a few at 600. 'Cause we have electronic bowels, so we can dial them back. But we are working with a castle lighting, and so we do have some castle lamps that we have on there. - What's the electricity bill every month? - No idea. (laughing) Can't separate that out for the rest of the building. That's the problem. - He's not paying it. - Exactly. - I don't care. - That wasn't part of the budget cuts I hope. - No, no. Plus, we get a very, very favorable electrical rate. So, it's like less than five cents a kilowatt hour. - Here's a great question from Todd, a champion lighting and supply. How did all four of them meet each other? How did you guys meet? - Oh, good. Yeah, I think question. - Have we met? (laughing) - I've never met Keith. - Yeah. - In person. - The mango supplier, that's how I met him. (laughing) - I met Julian. - We all met through the hobby. - Yeah, obviously. - Yeah. - I met Julian when I went to, we had invited, when I was in Toronto, we had the Marine Aquarium Society of Toronto, which still exists. And we had invited John Burlington to come and speak. I think it was in 1987, '88, summer morning. We had some around there. And he came up and spoke, and the following year, we wanted him to come back. And he said, "Ah, I haven't got time to go." But I got this new young guy working for me. And I can all gonna send him. So I said, "Well, he could stay with me 'cause I've got room at my house." So I went to the airport and I met this guy got off the plane and he had hair down to his waist and spiked hair on top. And that was Julian, and then so he stayed with me and we became fast and good friends from decades now. And Mike, I met when we came down. - Yeah, no, Marine Aquarium. The first time I spoke was an '86 for mast, and I stayed at your house. - That's right. - And then the next year, you had me and Scott Michael stayed at your house, and we slept on the couch and Scott kept me up all night, laughing 'cause he's out of his mind, and we laughed the entire night. We were like, "Hang over the next day." And we were going, "Well, you guys drinking?" And I'm going, "No, Scott would not let me stop." He would not stop talking at night. And then I met Julian at Mac, the one or two or three or one of them. And then we became friends. And Sanjay came visit me when I lived in Greensburg, which is an hour away from here, an hour closer to him. I'd written an article and he came in, this is before he even had children. So it's how long I've been friends with him. - Yeah. And now he's got grandchildren. - Yeah, I know. (laughs) - Yeah. - Right. - So that's, you know, if somebody asks a question, what keeps you going in the hobby? This is part of it. - Yeah. - I mean, friends that you made over the years in the hobby that keep you going. - Yeah. - Every time I'm bored with the hobby, I'll end up talking to Mike or Julian, get re-excited about something or the other. - Yeah. - Yeah. - So-- - You have that bit, that's really been the best part of the hobby for me, other than the aquarium itself, right? It's meeting all these people and becoming friends with all these people for years and years. - And having fun with all these people, I mean, we can't tell you how many laughs we've all had together. I mean, it's hard to find people that you can laugh with and have a sense of humor and don't take anything very seriously. And the group of us have been doing this long enough that we don't take each other that seriously and we actually enjoy each other's company. And like Charles said, that's the, these have all been friends of mine for 30 years and hopefully for 30 more. And nothing changes. I don't see them for six months or six years. Nothing changes. When we see each other, it's like, oh, everything's still good. - Because that's kind of how it all started, right? Back in that, back in those days, you went to a club to give a talk, you ended up staying at somebody's house. - Yeah. - That was in that much money. - That was so funny. - Right? - That was the best part. - Yeah, that was the best part. Most of the time. - Most of the time. - It's usually a stranger who you had no idea that picked you up at the airport and sign or they'd be wearing a fish shirt. That was the only way you knew who they were. They could have been a serial killer, picked you up and dumped you by the side of the road. You would have never, no one would have ever known. - Well, it's Joe Yolos. - He's seen in the house of a serial killer. - Yeah, he does. - This is our temperate reef tank. - It's sleep on their couch, you'd sleep on the floor. It's, you know, 'cause that was the fun part of it. And then you come home with a big bag full of frags. And you were like, wow, this is great. - Yeah, well, I didn't because I lived in Canada and I couldn't take anything back. - No, we still got you a lot of free stuff, Charles. - It's got like a lot of free stuff, yeah, yeah. - Yeah, like the rare white leather coral. - Yeah, the red clam. - Or no, the red clam. - The red clam, like, yeah. I still have to show you the mine, red clam. It's in here, it's in this tank. This is our temperate reef. This is what it looks like off Deepwater, California, about a hundred feet down. - Yeah. - So, anyway. - Charlie, thank you so much for that super chat. Go ahead, Charles. - No, go ahead. - No, well, listen, guys, this has been a real treat for me and for everybody out there that's been watching the live stream. I think this is a great way to kind of recalibrate and just think about stuff more, just kind of like the basics and try not to, I think, get too into the weeds of things. At least it's kind of like what I'm getting out of this discussion is that I've always tried to lean on observation and not get too crazy with the complexity of the hobby. And I think there's definitely many ways to kind of dive deep into this stuff. And there's a lot of unknowns and a lot of areas to explore, but I think when it all comes down to it, it's kind of like getting back to the basics. - Well, getting back to the basics and having fun with the hobby, like we talked about in the first topic, enjoy the hobby. It's a hobby, have fun with it, have fun meeting the people, have fun going to stuff and hanging out with the people. But don't get, I mean, the one thing we also all know is when your tank's bad, life's kind of bad. I mean, it's sad to say that, but when your tank sucks, it's like, oh, then everybody feels that way. Anyone I've ever talked to that's serious about this all feels the same way. If something's dying, you have no idea why, you tend to be down. So talk to people, share your experience, and oftentimes you come to an answer by talking to other people rather than by doing a test or something. Hey, did you look at this? Hey, check out that. I mean, it's usually something simple or something stupid. Like Sanjay said that we did, it causes a lot of our own problems. But one of the ways to resolve that is by talking with your friends about it. - Yeah. - The relationships are key. So, so key. - Yep. And conversely, I mean, you see online a whole lot of people trashing each other, which it seems to be a fairly recent trend. There was a little bit of flaming on CompuServe years ago, but nothing like this. - Nothing like lately. And I think that's really counter to what we were just talking about. It detracts from the joy people have in sharing their love of the hobby. - Yeah. - Yeah, have fun with it, right? I mean, that's what this is all about having fun. - It's a hobby. If it's your job, that's why Sanjay and I never did it as a full-time business or even as business in any way, 'cause we have fun with it. I mean, how many countless roadships we've taken, we always laugh half the time about all the craziness that's going on. - Well, the hobby is in my business. I mean, that's the fun we should enjoy doing those. - Yeah. - Well, the hobby isn't my business, but it's what I've done as a professional for almost 30 years. But I don't remember the last time I saw you, Mike. - Probably 25 years ago. - Probably. - Yeah. - Yeah. - It's so longer than that. At least 29 years ago, 'cause you never met my daughter and she's now 28. So at least 28 years ago. - No, I just remember your sons, Tony and-- - Mike. - Mike, yeah. Cleaning our clock, playing the memory game on your carpet. - Oh, that's right. Now, they were three and four. They were sharper than us and playing concentration. - Yeah, same. It was the memory game with the two matching cards. - Oh, I know, that's a memory game. It's like concentration. - Flip one over, flip one over. Like, how'd you get that? You never, you know, flip them over before and you got a match. Like it was, it was, it was, it was strange. I used to play-- - I remember Mike telling me that Mike Jr. knew more about corals and most of the guys in the pet stores that he went to, that he bought corals from. And he was five at the time. - No, we used to play that memory game with 100 cards and they would clean my clock. It was the first one to 50, I'd have two, that'd have 50. That's how good they were. It was scary. It was supernatural. - Yeah. - Well, I think on that, we're gonna wrap it up. Guys, I just thank you so much for taking the time and sharing your stories, your knowledge, your insights. It has been a really incredible and entertaining and taking a lot of information in. So thank you, thank you, thank you. I also wanna thank the sponsors one more time. Our Polar Reef, make sure to check out Polar Reef's new YouTube video that drops this Friday. The 900 gallon dropdown has been a long time coming and after the first one arrived. Cracked, it's finally in place. Oof, that's bad. And progress that has made in a short time is unreal. Watch as aquascaping lighting and corals go in. Make sure to subscribe to the YouTube channel at Polar Reef for video drop notifications. Champion lighting and supply besides being in place for hobbyists to purchase saltwater cream supplies online. Champion lighting is also wholesale distributor for many popular brands. If you own an aquarium store and aquarium service company, contact champion lighting through the website at champion lighting.com to set up a wholesale account. Todd and his crew will be at restock Chattanooga in August 24th and 25th this weekend. So stop by and say hello. And are you guys going to reap stock in Chattanooga this weekend? - I'll be there. I'll be there. - Sanja's gonna be there. All right. And finally, Polyblab is another support of this live stream. They do their part by being ecologically responsible, using less plastic and more recyclable material. Reefroids is backed by science and uses 100% ocean source ingredients. No filler, no OGM, no gimmick. Polyblab, straight results. The best choice for your marine collection. See the reefroids difference for yourself. I want to give a big thank you out to Paul, who is the moderator, as well as Greg Carroll, who I saw in the chat. Please, both of those guys are presidents of their reefer societies. So please join and support your local reefing clubs. They are so, so important to this hobby. That's another big thing. People should join clubs. And. - That's the last time you guys spoke at a club. I can't remember the last time I, well, I spoke at, I think the barrier reefers club I spoke at many years ago. - I don't open at a club. I just speak of the DC club last year. It was after a very long time. - I do zoomed up a little. - John Couplino asked me to come for that as well. I haven't been able to come out yet. - That's a good club. I enjoy going there. - Clubs are awesome. - Let me close to the active, but it's kind of. - Yeah. - On a low, on a low right now. - Meaning a push. - Yeah. - Yeah. - So what's the latest on Magna, do we know? - Magna? Yes, it's next weekend. - Good. - Yeah, well, that's right. I'm sticking there for God. - Yeah, you should book your ticket. (laughing) - Start driving now. (laughing) - Maybe next year. (laughing) So listen, the last thing I want to say is my next wrap and we're going to brief them live stream will be next Tuesday, August 27th at 7 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, my guests will be Dr. Alex J. Hall, who is an aquatic veterinarian. Could check out the full upcoming schedule of guests on reefbum.com, under the YouTube section. Until then, be safe and be well.