Rappin' With ReefBum
Guest: Steve Weast, a.k.a. OregonReef
(upbeat music) - Rapping with Reef Bomb is sponsored by champion lighting and supply, Polo Reef and Fauna Marine. - Hey, what's up everybody and welcome back to another episode of Rapping with Reef Bomb. I'm your host Keith Berklehammer. So, today I have the pleasure of welcoming back Steve Weast, what's going on there Steve? - Hi Keith, look, it's been what? A year since we've talked about. - Well over a year, it kind of seems like yesterday, just seems like it was yesterday. I don't know why that as we get older, those calendar pages just flip on past. - Just go flying by. - It's hard to believe it's been a year, but here we are. - And the tank is looking fantastic behind you there and looking forward to digging in. You've provided an incredible update video, so we'll be able to run that as well as another video that you've produced, which is gonna be awesome because I know the last time we're on, we talked about the very unique setup you had for Flow. And I think without the video tutorial that you put together for tonight, it was a little tough for some people to get their heads wrapped around exactly what you had done. So we'll show that as well. So Steve's 1,000 gallon reef tank was like one of the most iconic reef tanks of its time. Very inspirational tank and he took a break from keeping reef aquariums, but now has his stunning 400 gallon tank that's been up for about four years now, right Steve? - Big four years. - Same bird will be four years. So Oregon reef.com is the website that Steve has put together to chronicle his reef keeping journey. Have you been keeping that up to date there, Steve? - No. - And it probably will end when it's... - Time to pay. - It keeps auto renewing, but then in March, it'll come, probably it'll be taking it down 'cause it's over 20 years old now. - It is a little archaic, we'll say that, but time for either a refresh or a tear down, I guess, right? But I don't know. You got the YouTube channel going, which is cool. What's the name of the YouTube channel? It's Oregon reef, is that? Oh, Steve, oh, Steve Wiest. - Uh, yeah, yeah, it's just on my own name. I really don't like names. I mean, what's wrong with the name we were given, so, you know? - So, all right, before we get into some of the details with Steve, I wanna take care of some business and thank the sponsors of this show. My sponsors are really important because they make the show possible. With their support, and that means a lot 'cause I wanna continue to bring on awesome guests to help foster a learning environment on the show. Polar reef, make sure to check out Polar reef's new YouTube video that drops this Friday. Where a behind the scenes walkthrough tour shows us the ins and outs of the equipment needed to run Polar reef facilities and also check out their previous video showing some shocking fish, coral, and pet health issues uncovered by their veterinarian, Alex Hall. He was on this livestream recently, dropped last week. Make sure to subscribe to their YouTube channel at Polar reef for video drop notifications. Champion lighting and supply besides being placed for a hobbyist to purchase saltwater aquarium supplies online, champion lighting is also a wholesale distributor for many popular brands. If you own an aquarium store or an aquarium service company, contact Champion Lighting through their website at championlighting.com to set up a wholesale account. My third sponsor is Bottom Marine. I do use the Bottom Marine Reef ICP Total Test Kit, which gives a quick, accurate, and easy overview of over 90 water values and reef aquariums from macro elements, trace elements, and pollutants you get a complete overview with corresponding dosage and action recommendations. You use the Bottom Marine ICPs, don't you there, Steve? I use both Bottom Marine and Oshimo, basically the two that I use, and then compare them against one another or whenever I use them. The only thing that I have a trouble with on Bottom Marine is how come they don't put a postage label in there? You have to run it down yourself. Claude's been talking about doing that. I know I'm a boomer, and you think I like standing in line at the post office, but no, not really. I think that's my only complaint about that. I think they're working on that. Let's keep the fingers crossed, but yeah, that is true. So how often are you doing ICPs? Are you doing both of them on a regular basis? I would say right now, quarterly. We talk a little bit about trace elements and all. We can kind of go over that a little bit, but I would say quarterly for, or if there's some reason that I, you know, beyond that that's suspicious of something, but basically about quarterly. So three or four times a year, so. And in terms of, I don't know, maybe we could dive into the trace element discussion. What, so what are you, are you still doing, are you still doing captivate traces, right? Is that what you're doing? Yeah, so I use the captivate M&T, and I've been using that for a long time. Jake turned me onto that one. So that one I've been using for a long time. I'm not one for having 30 bottles and dropping it in. That is just way too out there for me. You know, kudos to those who can do it, I can't. And I'm not necessarily convinced it's necessary, you know, but so I'm just basically using the M&T. And pretty much whenever I run a test, there's very few that come back non-detectable or very, very low. They're all kind of like, okay, some could be on the lower side, some a little bit on the higher side, but nothing really out of whack. So I just go on, it's going to keep going the way it is. Yeah, and so I use the captivate agriculture traces as well, but I don't use the M&T. You know, I do the individual. And just for folks that don't know what isolated M&T is, it's got iodine in it and molybdenum, nickels, anginaes, selenium, and vanadium, iron, copper, and cobalt. So it's a more of a catch-all in terms of the trace elements addition. There's, you know, it's pluses and minuses with that, right? It makes it easier. You don't have to dose as many different traces because you've got multiple traces in that one bottle. But if you wanted to, of course, correct on one individual, one, it would make it tougher, but I guess you could always go and dose an individual trace if need be to try to make something sink up to your ICP. But, you know, what I do, and I don't know if we talked about this the last time you're on, I do the all-in-one cocktail. So I'll do the individual traces and I'm dosing, you know, maybe seven or eight different traces, but I'm mixing them all together in like a one-gallon jug, putting some RODI water in there. And then I'm just, 'cause you can do that with the captivate stuff. You can put them all together. And then I'm just dosing on a doser on a regular schedule 24/7. So that's what I'm doing. And I'm doing like ICPs with just bottom rain every 30 days. And yeah, I mean, it's pretty simple. I mean, there's not a lot of stuff that I have that gets out of whack when I'm doing it that way. But obviously you're doing something, you know, obviously you're doing something right. What are you using in terms of salt these days? - I've always used ESV. Mix is clean, mix is fast, and mix is in the batches, you know, using the entire box. It's not terribly user-friendly for small increments. - No. - So for small increments or adjustments, it's usually either a Tropic Marin or Julian's accuracy. So if I need to adjust and throw a cup in, it's that. But on water change, it's always ESV. - Yeah. And I feel like I'm doing a lot of talking about captivate, but I use their salt. So it's a similar product. It's a four part, you know, thing. So two parts solid and two parts liquid. But I had also been using the ESV salt for a number of years, way back when. And I just, I like the individual elements like that. I think it just gives less of a chance of something happening with a mass-produced salt that is kind of like that all in one, you know, solid salt mix. So, I don't know. I think they mix a lot cleaner and I think there's a lot less chance that something will go wrong. - Yeah, well, I have another reason for using it. Because of, like you said, those individual elements, you know, you have the sodium chloride separate from the magnesium sulfate that they have putting in there. - Well, since I run a sulfur reactor to control nitrate, my sulfate lines generally trend high. So what I do is I substitute out there magnesium sulfate with magnesium chloride. And that keeps my sulfate numbers down on an ICP. I think, I think, polo Andrew Sandler is doing the same thing on his tanks. I don't know, obviously a much larger scale, but it's the same thing. 'Cause I think he uses sulfur reactor too to control nitrate, just like I do. So, I don't know, Steve, what do you give people just a quick overview in terms of how you like to run your systems? I know we talked over a year ago, but we're gonna get into the whole flow thing. But just, I guess, give us a quick rundown on the equipment setup in terms of lighting. You mentioned the sulfur reactor. What else you got going on? - Well, first off, as you know, I've been in this gig for decades. You know, I first started in the 70s and did the mini reef thing through the 80s, basically took the 90s off, got back in the 2000s, took the 2010s off, and now I'm back in the roaring 20s of the 2020s. So my perspective on pretty much everything is skewed by all those experiences. You know, I used to run tanks back in the 2000s and a lot of people did very simply, there was some fantastic grief back in the day from Michael Bryan in Seattle, all the way out to Joe Burger in New York and everywhere in between. And those tanks will run a lot more simple than we tend to run things now. So I probably skew more back to my roots and on the simple side. So I don't dose a lot of things. I use a calcium reactor. One of the changes I've made since we've talked last as I do now, a dose caulk at night to help with the stabilizing my pH. So I know I can feel the rolling of the eyes from Meckley right now 'cause I'm using a caulk reactor instead of a big-ass bin in the corner. But it's, it's been working, so. - Why did you decide to go that route versus, you know, a drum drum? - Well, even on my old system, I used to run caulk, but I just don't have the space and time of a big old bin sitting here next to the tank. The reactor works just fine. I may not get the super saturated product that he gets out of it here, but, you know, my pH range right now, let me peak, is 8.48. - Nice. - Right now, and it'll drop, it'll drop, might drop to the high 8.3s tonight. And that's my range that tank runs at. But past that, the tank has really run simply. Water comes down, goes through a filter roller, goes through a skimmer. And in the last chamber, I have a sulfur reactor 'cause I have an enormous fish load and enemy load, everything else. So without it, my nitrate's just skyrocket. So I have that to control that. Now I used to in my cold water, I had that on there, so I'm used to dealing with them. And I had it on my large tank back in the 2000s as well. So that's pretty much it. And then, flow in the tank. So I really don't have a whole lot of equipment, you know, on the tank at all. It's run really no different than we ran it in 2004, 20 years ago. It's not run any different. - Yeah, I mean, listen, man, it's a formula that has worked for many, many, many folks for many years. And I think it's something that we've kind of gotten into in terms of recently with the hobby. It's just, there's a lot of things, a lot of different options and a lot of different ways to run tanks. And, you know, listen, a lot of people have success with a lot of those different methods. But I also think that you can get a little kind of twisted and, you know, too many twisting turns and what have you to, you know, get over complicated. And then, too many variables in play and more things can happen, more things can go wrong. So it's, I think simplicity is good in getting back to the basic. There's, it's a good formula and it's a proven formula. - I wasn't going to ask you, the, oh, lighting. So what's going on with the lighting? You still doing the radiance? - I use multiple lights because, you know, each light has its own speciality in what to use. Mostly what this tank is run is, or effects, icons. So I have three, I have three of those on here. And I also have a two radiance and also a Kessel 500 cannon. So that's the lighting on there. So a fair amount of lighting. - Enough that, up by my magnifica here behind my head, has top of his tentacles there. It's a little over 2,000 par he gets. - Really? 2,000 par? Holy smokes, man. That is, you're really cranking a lot of light on that tank. - Yeah. Well, last year we had our last session. You asked me about my enemies. Well, here we are a year later. He has not moved an inch. He's still there. My gigante on the other side has not moved an inch. My head and I, an enemy carpet here, hasn't moved an inch. So if you supply them with what they need, they're not going to move on you. So I can have a, you know, I get that, hey, even Jake used to ask me back in the day, how you have an enemies with all the corals, doesn't they destroy them? Like they don't move. I created the spots for them that they want to. They're not going to move, so. - No, so I forgot. - Yeah, so I have a fair amount of power. - I forgot, did the enemies get introduced first? And they found their happy places. And then you started adding a lot more corals around them. - Okay. - The tank was basically designed initially around the enemies because that's kind of what I'm partial to, both the gigantes and the magnificates. So they, I created spots for them and they went in early on. They've been in here almost since the beginning. They probably went in maybe four or five months after it's, the water went in the tank. And the only change that happened right off of my gigante, if you see up here this whole coral section, initially I wanted a, the gigante up there and I placed him there. He was a lot smaller then. It was just a couple of days he moved to the other side of that whole pinnacle and just stayed there and went, okay, well, I guess you can just stay there and that became coral. No, no, an enemy's first and then coral around them. - Yeah, yeah. That makes sense. I guess you gotta just keep the fingers crossed that they're not going to move, but I guess like you said, man, they're happy. So they're not going to move. - Exactly. And moving almost four years, so, you know, and if they do move, something's going on. Something changed. - Right, then you know, that's kind of like your canary in the coal mine there is like, those an enemies are on the move, then something could be happening with the tank. - Exactly. - Yeah, exactly. - And they require high flow and high light. So that's why the lighting and the flow, 'cause the flow is directed right at them, so. - Oh, really? - I didn't realize the enemies required the high light. I mean, what kind of par would you say these are enemies? I mean, obviously you've got some very high par with 2,000 you said near the top, but if you were like recommending to somebody that learned to like put some enemies in their reef tank, what would you suggest in terms of par range? - Depends on the species of an enemy. Magnificos and Gigantes are notoriously for you can never give them enough, 'cause they're usually in shallow water right near the surface. But you know, if you had bubble tips or dorensis or some of the other ones, there are a lot lower pars that you can get away with on there, probably in the 200 range. It's just these particular two species, these are a bit more par, so that's why the whole system and where they are was built around them for what they needed. So, but if you have a Gigante or a Magnifico, you better think about how you're jacking that par. There's a reason why everyone complains how they always crawl up the back of the glass right up to the end. Well, they're like suffering for light. They're trying to get closer to it, so. - Yeah, and let me show the video that you've produced of the tank so people don't get a much closer detailed view of what we're talking about here. And so we're gonna run that with some very relaxing music and then it's about four and a half minutes. So we're gonna run that and then we're gonna come back. So let me get that going here, hang on. (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) Well that's pretty unbelievable man. Not only is the tank incredible, but the production value of that video Steve was outstanding. And I feel very fortunate that you produce one video a year it seems like, and you do that right before you come on my show. (soft piano music) Hours of footage to get four minutes out of it. (laughing) Well if you guys want to watch that video again, go to SteveWeest, that's the channel on YouTube to watch it again. So man there's a lot of stuff to talk about in that video, more stuff. The Cantheus Reef, Noah Hesentee, Hesentancy, repeating it's well balanced aesthetically in terms of the tank. Corey Page, fire right there. (coughing) What's the dims volume on this? What do you ask them Paul, Corey, beer to reef, what's the dimensions volume on the system? So it's a 400 gallon tank. Steve what's the dimensions? Well it's 400 system gallons, there's 400 total gallons in the holes. The tank itself measures like 360 gallons, it's 78 by 36 front to back and 32 inches high. Yeah, and it's an in wall tank, right? I mean it's a peninsula right, but it's viewable on two sides. Two sides, it's set up just like a peninsula tank is, but it's viewable and it's in my garage. So I'm sitting here in the garage. So it originally set up as kind of like a play tank. You know it's just used to be my old cold water tank and it's just like yeah, it's been sitting here for almost a decade. Maybe it's time I just started up and play around and see what's going on. It's not set up for really displaying things though. Well, geez man, I think that's, you've made very, very good use of the space in that tank. I mean I love the, just the aquascaping and the, what did you say the width of the tank was again? Front to the back would be 36 or 3 feet. Yeah, that's a nice width. And then for height 32 and 78 length. I've got it. My peninsula tank is six foot long by 36 inches wide by 20 inches tall. I like the 20 inches tall, but I don't have the kind of fish population that you have in your tank. And I want to kind of dig a little bit deeper into the fish we had seen. When we were way watching that video, you and I were talking and I mentioned the Moorish Idol, how just gorgeous of a fish that is. Not an easy fish to keep. What do you think is the key to your success? You said you had it for about three years now. He's a little over three years old now and like most Moorish Idols, they come in on the skinny side and as you can tell, this guy is fat now. So he's been long, pretty healthy in here. And you're right, Moorish Idols have a horrible track record in captivity. They don't do well at all. And the reason being is kind of unknown, but my own theory is diet. A lot of folks are making mention of how sponges is really the key to their success. So we don't have access to sponges a little bit in some of the frozen foods and all, but we don't have access. I grow sponge in here naturally and I'm sure he picks at that, but it's not enough. I think the key to his success in here is Nori. He has Nori available to him almost every day. And by the end of the day, it's completely gone, along with the tangs get it too. But he is a constant, he is the most voracious eater of Nori, even more so than the tangs in there. And I think most of their demand in their eyes is probably intestinal. And maybe just feeding them frozen in a higher protein diet doesn't agree with their system. They need a little bit more ruffage to get it through because he is a super Nori eater and hence a super pooper. That's not your first Moorish Idols, right? You had one on the old tank? No. I had Henny Ochus. No. I had Henny Ochus, school banner fish in the old one. I didn't have Moorish Idols. Moorish Idols aren't really a schooling fish. On the larger tank, I wanted something that's schooled. Moorish Idols generally kind of beat each other up and sometimes will pair up. What gave you the idea to try a Moorish Idol knowing how the reputation in terms of being tough to keep? I mean, what was your thinking behind that and did you have that kind of thing in the back of your head? Maybe I should just go heavy with the Nori. Moorish Idols are probably my favorite fish and it's what got me into the hobby when I was 10 years old. 10 years old. And why first snorkeling on Maui off Blackrock off the Sheridan there and seeing Moorish Idols there. And that hooked me on saltwater aquariums at that time. So it kind of sentimental to have like, that's how I kind of got into this hobby as a Moorish Idols. And I think it's just happenstance that because I feed a lot of Nori and always have all the time. And I've had no issue with him at all. Even though he came in a little bit on the sickly side, had a little bit of Popeye. It wasn't the best right off the bat, but he mowed down the Nori and then turned into what you see today. Gail Escobar says I've heard fiber is essential for Moorish Idols. Is that something that you learned as well, Steve? Yeah. That's exactly right. My impression of it is if you put a lot of Nori in there for fiber or any other fibers materials that he'll go after. Like sponge, sponge is a high fiber. Absolutely. I think that's the key to success on the Moorish Idols. No, we have no way of showing that or proving it. Every single thing is total in this hobby. You know, my success doesn't necessarily mean it'll be somebody else's success, but it's worked for me so far. Do you can't this reap is asking how much growth lengthwise has it put on in three years? Have you seen it? Noticeable growth? I put a small penny side when I first got him in here. So he was a little bit of a project fish. I didn't see how much he would acclimate. But he was one of the first fish that went in. I didn't really have a whole lot. The yellow tangs are probably the first ones to go in and then the Moorish Idols next right after that. Gorgeous fish. All right. Another fish that I'm very jealous of that you have in your tank because I used to have this fish as the powder blue tank. And they have quite the reputation for being aggressive. Have you seen that behavior yet, Steve? I really haven't with him, but I hold no illusion that that would remain the case. I think one advantage I have is that I got him when he was the smallest powder blue I've ever seen. He wasn't much bigger than Emzels in her. And I knew that if I put him in there, none of the other tangs would just damsel. And he grew up in here with everybody else. He was the last tang in here. So I think that's helped alleviate aggression, is that there's no newcomers after him with the exception, one wrasse. He was the last fish. He's the second to last fish to go into this tank. And he's grown up in here. He's gone from a little size of a damsel to now, you know, as big as the other tang. So he sometimes gets a little aggressive. He's more past that. You know, I don't see a whole lot of aggression. Occasional, you know, grab-assing some of the other fish real quick, but nothing of true aggression. What about the Achilles tang? How has that been working out? Those are tough fish to keep, man. Yeah, it goes with their Iq magnets. That is a big problem with Achilles. And he rules the roost. Nobody messes with him. And he also doesn't bother anybody, but somebody decides, what happens if I chill? He'll find out in shorter order what happens when you taste the Achilles. But he's pretty peaceful. Everybody just gives him a wide berth. And he's the main fish in the tank. He's the ruler of the roost. Maybe that's what the secret is to keeping a powder blue. You've got to have a Achilles tang in the tank because nobody's going to go above that one in the pecking order. Yeah, actually, he's pretty far down there. Even the purple and the yellows will, you know, show the powder blue. Yeah, you're still the new boy. Well, I mean, I kind of did the same thing when my powder blue was like the last tang that I added to my peninsula tank. And then he just turned, man. He turned. And it was kind of like, you know, turn on the light switch on. It was like, oh boy, this guy was like the super, super alpha male aggressor of the tank. And I had to I had to get it out. And I gave it to Donzo at Accra Garden. I've had him on several times. He's he's he's an incredible. Got a great skill in terms of growing SPS. But he put it in one of his raceways, frag raceways, which I think was eight foot long. And the thing was model citizen for a while. But then it then it it's true personality, you know, started to show through when he had to get rid of it as well. But I'm keeping my fingers cross for a man that you got you got one that's going to be well behaved for the duration. There's no doubt. I think so far he's a man bites dog rather than dog bites man. So I think he's the anomaly for right now. So in that could change at any time. Just like I think my Emperor could suddenly start nailing soft corals. Just like my morse idol could suddenly get a taste for something. All of my questionable fish someday may change. That's right. More right now. All good. More shadows are coral leaders, right? They've been known to. So maybe if you give them enough nori, they won't. Let's talk about another coral leader, the Emperor Angel. Jesus man, you got some guts. Well, this is a similar story to the powder blue. In fact, it was just probably he was probably in the tank when we last talked. It just was so small. He was so itty bitty again and even smaller than my damsels. Like where are they getting these? I've never seen them this small. How he is that? So again, he's grown up in the tank on the prepared foods. Maybe that's why he's not bothering anything. I've seen him sample a couple zoos occasionally and then to spit him out. So I think he's looked at it and is going, OK, maybe he goes, yeah, no, I'll just wait for the midnight buffet. So there's some better tasting stuff that's coming from above, right? Exactly. So what? Let's talk about, you know, bringing in fish disease and all that stuff. Do you do anything in terms of quarantining fish or are you just kind of being careful in terms of where you get your fish from? Get your fish from. I try to take as much care as I can in acquiring the fish, but and I don't recommend it. I do not quarantine. I do have a hospital tank if something comes the ride that I need to, mostly for my anatomy. So, but I do not quarantine fish going in. They're going from the store right into the tank. That's why I know there. I have it in the tank. If something goes bad, I know my, you know, tanks will probably show it, especially the killings. So I know it's, I know I have some of those in the tank, but, you know, it's controllable. It's controllable through UV and other sources. So it's worked out pretty good, but certainly don't recommend it, but it's just too much energy for me to go through that. So I've had pretty good luck even back in the 2000s. It was the same thing. I really didn't have any issue. I think a lot of it is. Quiring it and watching it in the door and having pretty good stores to acquire it from. So, but certainly not recommended, but you asked the question. I'm not going to lie. What is this? Right. So you're, you're doing the same thing that I'm doing. You're using UV 24/7. Yes. I use UV 24/7 and believe me, I would like not to. There is so many things that are negative about UV. I mean, what can go wrong with a high voltage bulb and a holder stuck in your sump or second water? Let's see. What can possibly go wrong with that? And I'll actually, I'll actually tell you what can go wrong with that. I have a buddy of mine and this goes back to the last Denver restock this last March. We went to there together and he was kind of late to the airport. What's wrong? It goes, my tank just crashed. What do you mean your tank just crashed? Tank just crashed. And it was failing. Everything was dying in the tank. Fish, corals, everything else. And he could not find out what was wrong until he started taking things apart. And he took apart his UV that he had on the tank and it was completely flooded. It mounted a connector on there and that was putting toxic acid into the water and it's still running. Even with the metal running. It never tripped anything. It never tripped the GFI. And what the problem turned out to be is the court sleeve had a pinhole leak in it. It actually had a manufacturer defect with a pinhole in it. He had just put it in maybe a couple months before. And it wasn't a crack. It wasn't over. There's nothing, you know, there's so many things that can go wrong. Not to mention the heat that it puts in the water. Not to mention, you know, the power draw on it. But for me, water clarity and disease management overrides those. I would love and I experimented twice. And I did it just recently, experimenting, turning off my UV for months. And I had to switch back. So I went back to UV. So right because you saw. Yes, I run UV 24/7 because you saw some cyan on the alcohol biomics report when you were not running UV correct. Well, in this last February, I turned off my UV and ozone because, as you know, the bacterial biome. That's kind of like the new emerging field in this hobby and the advantages it has. And you know how everybody is pimping, pylagia bacteria and growing it and everything else. Okay, my tank is now styling. It's doing fine. I'm going to experiment a little bit. So it's a little bit of paleda in me, I guess. But I went ahead and I turned off my UV and I turned off my ozone. And that was back in February and I had an aqua biomics report for a before when I did that. And I went through all of February, March, April, in May, I suddenly, I should say suddenly, but I've got tired of lack of water clarity in the tanks. I'm used to pretty clear water. And I was like, I hate this not having the water clarity since I looked through so many fetal water and texted Andy Bowman. Because he's local here and said, hey, if I put back the just my ozone just a little bit to help clear the water. Should it affect my biome? It doesn't show up on Eli's thing. He just has UV listed. He doesn't lift ozone, which is, I think, should be changed. So he didn't think so, but it might, I can't take it anymore, put it back on. And a couple days it was at the end of June, I submitted an aqua biomics report and I got it back, you know, in July, it takes a little while to get through there. And on that report, it came back with two coral pathogens, including ArcoBacter. I have never had ArcoBacter before. And it was a very, it was a very low amount. I mean, you know, Andy's like, it's a really low amount. It's like, I don't care. I don't want any amount. Those gurus gonna grow. So I went, so I go, that's enough. And I started noting a little bit of flashing going on with my tanks. The Achilles and powder blue and all sort of flash a little bit, nothing extreme, just the occasional flash that they weren't doing before. I go, okay, that's enough. That's it. So I went ahead and treated the tank with oxalenic acid. Oh, you did? And then the usual water change caused, then, blah, blah, blah. That's the only thing that's not going to go in on its own. So I went ahead and treated that and this was, you know, now in August. So I went ahead and treated that early August. So I treated that and water change, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Ran for a month and back goes ozone, back goes UV. And I just got back just about a week ago, the latest aqua biomics because I wanted one after. And both those, all the coral pathogens are now gone. It's a clean report. So nothing else on there. And to say this, the entire time of this was no effect on the coral. None. I saw no decline. None. No coral decline in colors, polyp extension, growth, nothing. But it was still there. And there, I think, it lies the value of aqua biomics reports. A lot of people say it's not actionable. Well, maybe it is actionable if you use the reports more to report rather than let's solve an existing problem that comes up and now it's too late type thing. I wouldn't have known I had arco-bacter in there until it maybe became the dominant species in there and started affecting things. And then it's even harder to get rid of. So I'm starting to believe now that going on the aqua biomics testing is more of a wellness, maybe doing that quarterly as well. To catch anything that before it gets out of hand, because in this case it was. I mean, you know, running the UV in the ozone. Yeah, I mean, running the UV in the ozone is certainly not going to eliminate, you know, completely fish and coral pathogens. But it's got to help a little bit, I would think, you know, that to potentially prevent something really going, you know, crazy. But, you know, I also probably assume that the oxalonic acid was probably the key in terms of knocking those arco-bacter out and, you know, right, I mean, that was definitely it. But that was going to be my question to you was like, how did the corals look? How does the tank look with and without the ozone and with and without the UV? So I think you answered that question. I saw no difference. No difference. Good. Didn't tell. Other than I can't see through the water as much. Let me go back to the, you mentioned your friend's UV and the crystal or the sleeve cracking and whatnot and getting causing an issue with the tank. Corey Page is saying there's a transformer between the bulb and the 120 volt connection. So the fault does not always go through to trip the GFCI and it continues to run. Need to check sleeve at least every six months. I check mine like every three months. But the question I was going to ask you, Steve, are you a GFCI guy? Do you believe in those? No, I am not. I do not. I would say I would probably believe more arc fault interrupters because that's going to, you know, for fire protection. Arc faults probably do a little bit better job, but I don't want anything tripping in here. Now, they're on dedicated circuits. They're on dedicated 20 amp circuits, dedicated to the tank. But a lot of people are taking it to regular house. I, you know, set up this one specifically because, well, I'm a home builder and I can do that. But I do not put any of these on GFI's. I'm aware of the risks I have, but most of my stuff is isolated away from the tank. It's not in the tank or under the tank. It's isolated actually over here in this closet next to me over here. So, but that's what I told my buddy, why he, on his, I go, I bet you that brick is preventing their chipping your GFI. So, it's, you know, I did constant power to that thing. And it wasn't cracked. It was a pinhole, a defect in the sleeve. So one of the things you can do, a lot of these, I know mine are the aqua UVs. They have an end cap. I don't put that end cap on. I leave it off. If water ever does penetrate into that sleeve, it'll just kind of pee out, at least give me some of a warning that it's flooding. Oh, interesting. That end cap doesn't do jack, but hold it in. So I told my buddies, you don't need that last end cap. Just leave it off. You know, put it that further down. If it gets in there, it's just going to pee out the end. You'll see it. This is the aqua UV sterilizers. Yes. Yeah, because that's what I run. I run aqua UV. So you're saying the end cap that screws on on top of the sleeve. You don't leave that. The last end cap. The last end cap doesn't, doesn't do anything. It basically keeps you from the bulb being pulled out or something like that. So that's not going to happen. So, but what it does is it puts a cap on the end and it's completely up. Right. And then it'll leak. If you leave that cap off, I think it'll get out any excessive heat or anything else. So, you know, I think no reason to put that end cap on at all. Interesting. I might have to look into making a change like that. I've had some issues with my UV bulbs burning out, but it's not because water's been getting in there. But I do have GFCIs on all of my service. I used to not have that stuff set up. My concern was the premature tripping, and I think it depends on the GFCI that you're using. I mean, you're a home builder, so you would know a lot more about that stuff than I would. But what I had installed by my electrician are these audible GFCIs, which are pretty cool, because if they trip, then the alarm will sound, which is really nice. And I also use these things that will text me and email me if a circuit trips. It's a GFI notify. Have you ever heard of these things? You basically just plug it into an outlet, and if it loses power, you'll get that notification. So, that's kind of a thing that I have in all of my GFCIs and went them away. If one of those things does trip by chance, I'll know it, which is nice. I can't do anything about it, but you'll know it. Yeah, I'll try to walk the tanks that are through. You've got to push the reset button. Yeah, they're definitely risks, which I'm fully aware of. But it's just one of those things, man. It's like either you're on that train and you're not. Sure, I am not, but I understand the safety estimates. It's irrelevant, but you are at risk. Chiodi Rass, man, this is a fish that I used to have a lot of luck with. And then when I lost my last Chiodi leper Rass a couple of years ago, and then I went bare bottom, so I stopped trying to keep those. Those are not easy rasses to keep. How long have you had yours going? He has been in here since January. And believe me, you know, you are absolutely right. For the leper grasses, they are, I don't know why, but they are so hard to keep and they are not cheap. Yeah, what's the what's the routine for our local fish story? Okay, it's time. Right now, they're about a $200 fish. That's not bad. I mean, I think I might have paid $300 for my last one. Well, they saw you coming, so yeah. They are kick-ass fish, man. So it is a hard one. Yeah, they are. What are the rasses you have in the tank? I have a regular, you know, regular leper dress. I also have a black one and an ornate dress, so they're all in the leper family. Because for the rasses, those are probably my favorite as a leper. But the Chiodi Rass is definitely is my favorite. So it's just a matter of time before one came through. It's like, okay, I got to try it and go on through. And this one's been pretty fortunate. As soon as I got it through about two months, I went, okay, we're going to be golden here. Because usually they, if they're going to crap out on you, it's in the first couple of weeks. So do you have a screen on top of that thing? Yes. Okay. I don't use screens and my Chiodi jumped twice. One time it jumped and I didn't know it. And I came down stairs and it was starting to get stiff. So I just threw it in the tank and it frickin' lived for like another year. Wow. And then it jumped again. And what do you think the lesson is? And it jumped. I was sitting on my desk right here and I saw it jumping and I think I put it right back. Yeah, what the lesson is is you've got to put a screen on. I don't like the look of the screen because I have an open top tank. So I don't keep your asses anymore. That's my solution. But then it just disappeared one. Yep. So no, I like the leopards. So no, he's probably the fish I look for first going through there. It's like, okay, are you up yet? Yeah. Is the finest sand the best and how deep are the sandbed? What would you say, Steve? Well, obviously the finer, the better for them, I would think. And it's a little bit, I use Florida life sand exclusively in the tank here. So it's a multiple green sand. So it's pretty some pretty big pieces, including shells as well as down to some fine particulate. I tend to pile it up into areas that are three or four inches thick just for them to bury themselves into. So I don't think it's too coarse for them, but I could see if your substrate is too coarse, there's got to be a line somewhere around there. Is that two millimeters, five millimeters, seven millimeters? I don't know. But the Florida life sand that I'm using here, which is pretty coarse because of the flow I have in the tank, still seems to work for them because they bury themselves each night in the big thick areas that I make for them. Hey, Todd from Champion Lighting Supply. He, going back to the GFCI discussion, which is having Leviton makes a GFCI that connects to your Wi-Fi and sends notifications when it pops. That's cool. I like that. I wonder if that also was an audible one that it makes a sound when it does that. ACI agriculture. What's happened there? Chris Mecley, better late than never. What's happening, everyone? We're talking about it before there, Chris Cockwasser. Steve finally got on the Cockwasser train, but he's not doing the drum method. He's doing the Cock store, but sounds like his work is just fine. And there goes the eye roll again. [laughter] I can feel it from here, Chris. I should probably play that video. You just mentioned flow. The last time we were on the show, we talked about the fact that you have no visible pumps, plumbing, or wires in that tank behind you, which is freaking amazing considering that it's a peninsula tank. We talked about it in depth and in detail. I think there were still some people that couldn't connect all the dots in terms of how you pulled off that magic trick. You spent some time, and I appreciated putting together a 10-minute video on a deep dive on this thing that you had done to create an incredible mechanism for flow in your overflow box that is not visible to anybody, and it's got some side panels. I'm not going to keep talking about it. Why don't we just play the flow video? And that should help explain a lot of the things that people were asking about the last time we were on here, Steve. So thank you for doing this, man, and let's roll this one, and then we'll come back and talk about it. Let me get this rolling. Hi, this short video is going to show how I create hidden flow inside this 400-gallon reef tank system. This tank is set up like a conventional peninsula tank with the overflow on one side of the tank. And when you have that overflow on one side of the tank, generally, there's created two alicos on either side of the overflow, which is kind of an awkward space. I'm utilizing those alicos to actually create hidden flow within the tank where there's no visible powerheads, pumps, wires, plumbing of any kind. It's completely clean from the viewing panels. So first off, this area here by the cabinetry is cropping off that area with the overflows and my two boxes of alicos on either side. If I remove the panel, it shows one of these alicos, which is really now I'm calling a circulation box because it's completely sealed off box. The wall here goes coast to coast all the way across. However, the only center portion has the wear. There's no wear up here at these at all, so it's a completely sealed box. So what I did next is I cut a hole in the bottom of this wall to accommodate these screens. These are intake screens for the circulation box, and it sits right about there. And it's about four inches by six inches plus or minus with about an eighth inch screening on here to protect for any critters getting through. And it's behind the rock work here, so it's not visible at all. The rock work here, when it was first put in, was basically using a shell frock, caropsy shell frock. And I went ahead and put several holes within that shell frock to create penetrations within the rock. And one of those holes line up with a two inch hole here that accepts the exhaust salute for an L2 vector pump. This pump here on Mobius and then on Reefcrest basically sits in here loose against a supporting bracket here. I can easily reach down, pull this in, pull this out, which I'll show you here shortly. And as a result, this can also be vectored left, right, up, down. Currently I have it shooting up into the tank and towards the center, along with the other sides as well. And it creates a top to bottom circular gyre in the tank. And on the Reefcrest it varies in speed going through here, but generally it's always top to bottom, top to bottom for the flow. So these chambers here really kind of act in a way like a closed loop, but without any plumbing, because there is no plumbing here. Or it could be kind of a riff on a wavebox really. If I actually post this, I think I could get a standing wave going between the two. I don't miss tank because I keep the water level high, but it's kind of a riff on even a wavebox. But there's other advantages to having this box here besides just hiding the plumbing in the flow. It's a great spot for the return to be coming into the tank. I don't need nozzles in the tank. I don't need to worry about backflowing or back siphoning at all, because that return is actually above waterline. So very little water backflows into the sump once the pumps are off. So the other advantage for these chambers is it kind of acts as like a catch basin. As flow comes through here at 3000 gallons an hour, particulates settle out, and this is where the area I collect detritus over the course of a month, which eats water change. I can always just reach down a hose here and vacuum out that whole area and not find the spot in the tank where it mostly accumulates. It accumulates right here on both sides of these chambers. And the last advantage is these are the perfect spot to put a marine land polishing filter. Whenever I storm the tank, most people, a lot of people these days are using those marine land filters to filter additional filtration. It's always kind of like cumbersome. Where do I put it in the tank without hurting something, putting it on something, something being sucked into the flow? Well, I just put it in this box. It's completely protected from the main tank. Nobody can get to it. And I can leave it in here. Either charge would die to Maceous Earth or just depleted filter for hours or days or whatever I want it to do. It's just going to sit in here and keep filtering away inside this chamber. So this penetration here through here with the flow really is completely hidden. All of the flow generated from the tank. So these circulation chambers really kind of paid off and worked really well. Right now the flow is again shooting out here. I'm going to now drop down a GoPro right about here so you can actually see the intake or the outflow take here and see how it really is truly completely hidden going through here. And it's just these two pumps creating the flow in here. Both at 3,000 gallons an hour and then on a repress mode it generates sufficient flow through the entire tank. Now the aquascaping helps a little bit too, allowing channels for the water to flow through so it's not completely blocked. But I'll drop the GoPro down here next. Let you take a look at that thing and then we'll go up top and see how it looks from up top. Stand by. [BLANK_AUDIO] Okay, we're now at the top of the tank here and we can take a look at these circulation boxes from this perspective. You have the center overflow box here that creates the two alichos on each side and a coast to coast wall going across that fully walls off each of these circulation boxes. The weir is only for the center overflow section and this weir is actually removable. I can take this weir out from the inside of the box here for cleaning and put it right back in. So as to access the pumps, all I have to do is take it off, reach right down and pull out the pump. And there it is, ready for any servicing cleaning, whatever needs to be done. The only modifications that I've had to make is make a cover for the the lute here which is white which is normally be very, very visible looking especially from the side view of the tank into the hole where the flow is coming out of. This is just made out of some Velcro pad that I had laying around, seems to be holding up pretty well. It's still the same pad I put on almost four years ago. And I also had to take some vinyl tubing, some black vinyl tubing, a little chunk of it and jam it into the center of the lute here because it's also white down here in this hole. So you can see between that it is completely blacked out, can't be seen at all. So to put it back in, pretty simple, straight back in and there she's back in and ready to go. And put the lid back on for the center overflow. There are only two penetrations in the center overflow, a two inch line bulkhead at the bottom of this overflow and that's for the dursso drink. And then a one inch bulkhead that services the return from the sump that drains into each of the circulation boxes. And again these are above water lines so it just pours into here so any time there's a power outage or the main pump fails, very little water flows from the tank back down to the sump. So those are the only two penetrations of the entire tank, again done into the splay so a catastrophic failure really isn't possible. So that is pretty much an explanation of the entire circulation system I hope that was helpful and shows how the circulation can be created and not visible yet still be accessible. So thanks for watching. Wow. That's a pretty, pretty unbelievable. Steve. So reef keepers asking so the output doesn't have any types of nozzle just an opening. No nozzles at all just unscrewing it's just a balloon itself. No nozzles. It's really just truly amazing and so does it make it easier with an acrylic tank to have that sort of set up or it's obviously possible with a glass tank and would you say acrylic is going to be easier to kind of configure something like that. Well this is a custom set up remember I made this ran the same way back in late 2000s on my cold water tank I ran at the exact same way so it's no different. But yeah it's better obviously if you had a custom a tank to create those but I think you could create it on anything those alicos I looked at Jake's tanks you know he put his MP 40s and MP 60s and those little alicos. It's like okay all you have to do now is put something in front of it to hide them now crop off the cabinetry here hey look at that they're gone. So you know there's ways of doing it if you have the desire for me it's the paramount importance I don't see any plumbing that's rule number one as soon as I see that it's a fail. So for me and for others it is important so you know to each his own for me that's mine. What's the in terms of the engineering of the the whole system there in terms of the alicos and where the pumps are back siphoning how does that not happen. There is no back siphoning. One the return pump that I'm using as a powerhead the vector L2 that's more like a closed loop it's just no different than dropping it into the tank so there's no plumbing anywhere back siphoning. And the return from the sump that flows into those two chambers is above water line. So if those pumps cut know what that drains down is that water that's above the we're normal which is probably about you know 15 gallons. So I get almost no really rise in my sump on a power failure. Right I mean so basically you have you have openings at the bottom of those two overflow boxes or chambers whatever you want to call it that would allow the pump to pump the flow through those those chambers and you've got screens that are covering the holes in the bottom of those chambers so that's you're just pushing water through the bottom of those chambers into the bottom of the tank and that's just basically getting redistributed throughout the tank itself and that's where you're getting the flow from. Yeah water water never leaves the main display tank it's nothing but a closed loop that does not that stays within the confines of the display tank doesn't leave the tank at all flows in the bottom pushes right back out. It's no different than your mp40 in concept sucking water in pushing it out from the main display tank. What kind of turnover do you think you're getting on that tank? I run through the whole system about my return pump maybe 2000 gallons per hour. And that's plenty good enough that it doesn't overtax my filter roller and it doesn't and it's plenty enough to make my chiller and heater effective still. And that's the only thing I care about so it's about 2000 gallons per hour. So reef keeper's got a good question and the four years as reef has been running has he ever felt the need for additional flow, additional flow. No not at all in fact right now with those two pumps the way I have them configured when they sync up on the most obvious reef crest and they're both now running high. I get a whirlpool at the other end of the tank right by my gigante on the end glass and that whirlpool will go all the way down to the sand. So it's kind of actually cool to see when they sync up like that but it's an enormous amount of flow because I'm pushing it all to the surface where it spreads out and shoots to the end wall where it's off and now starts flowing back. And it's why my aquascaping is what it is with not walls are blocking. It's more of bommies and pillars and water just flows right around there. So the aquascaping helps quite a bit to channel it to where I want the water to return to. Well obviously Steve you're doing something right because your corals are happy and speaking corals. Let's talk about some of your favorite corals you pass along some pictures of some of these corals. There's a lot of classics that we're going to talk about here. One is the $500 e-flow man that's been on the hobby for a long time and e-flows are notorious in terms of attracting and accruiting flatworms and beautiful, beautiful corals. Talk to us about the $500 e-flow. I don't know if you are aware but I'm the one behind the $500 e-flow. Oh you are. I don't know if you're aware of that. That emanated from you back in that came from me. This is back in I'm going to say 2006, seven somewhere around there. One of these was about four or five inches came up for sale and that was back when I had far more dollars than cents. And I decided to spring for it back then. So I was eagerly awaiting its arrival and it arrived. Only in 60 degree brown water completely RTNed out completely RTNed. I was so disappointed. Is this like really after all of that? It's like wow. So fast forward now 20 years later quite 15 years later into 2000 and 21. That same guy that I told you had the issue with the UV. He texted me one day and says, Hey, I just bought you a coral and it's coming tomorrow. I go, you did. He goes, yeah, and you'll never because he knows the story that I was the buyer of that $500 e-flow back in thing. It's a $500 e-flow and I went really okay. It's coming back to me 20 years later. It's finally coming back to me. So it came back and it arrived in 60 degree brown water. No way. Really? It's like second first, same as the first. I texted him, I sent him pictures and a thermometer and everything else. There was a little flesh left back on it and I fragged it back and I was able to save not one, not two, but three polyps. That's all there was. Three polyps and I glued it to a rock and the picture that you have now is those three polyps took root and that's the way it stands now. So I grew that from three polyps. It's taken three years. So finally came back to me 20 years later and then you'd have to grow it out myself. But that's why that coral, they're not the biggest lookers or anything else, but it has special meaning to me because of the history behind it. That coral I look at every day. It's not the biggest and brightest or anything else, but it has a special meaning to me. I love that coral. I actually have a $500 e-flow in one of my tanks and I think it's a stunning coral. It's really the formation. I love it. Exactly. It's cool, man. When they're happy, you can get a lot of purple tips. Depending on the type of e-flow you have, it could be a real serious deep purple. But they're really cool corals. You don't see a lot of them around. Like I mentioned, they do attract the acroting flatworm. It can be a challenge sometimes to keep those corals even though they seem to be pretty hardy. And pretty fast growers too, I think. I have him pretty low in the tank and he's hard to photograph because he's in the back. So it's really hard to photograph him. He's probably only about under 200 micromoles a par, I'm going to say, because he's right there near the bottom. But he's growing fast and he's actually growing two plates on him. So I'll show there in that picture that I sent you, but he's got two photos going on there. So I'm just leaving him and letting him grow and see what happens. I'm not going to move him, but he's Tim a lot. Because I figure if I ever get flatworms for whatever reason, I'm pretty careful with corals. Far more so than fish. When they go away and I dip and spend, I don't put any pluggings like that. And so I'm pretty careful on corals. It's not a more cavalier with fish. But I turkey based him because I know he will be a canary in the coal mine. What are you using for your dips for acros? What's your go-to dip? Potassium chloride or ribeye and/or ribeye. Put any kind of base on there. So if any coral comes in immediately, it gets cut off. Any base that it's on, no matter what it is. So no bases, no plugs, none of that go into the tank. Only standing tissue. Yep, yep, do you use a magnifying glass to try to identify eggs or a microscope? Exactly, I do have a microscope section. It's the same one that Richard Ross uses because it's a little bit more user friendly, but bigger pieces under there and look underneath of it that he uses for his coral growing outfit. You can kind of take a peek under there and take a look around as well as magnifying glass. But you try to watch it very carefully because you get stuff in there. It's hard to get out as you know. I think a microscope is like an invaluable tool. You can buy one for 250 bucks or something like that. Not terribly expensive and they're very effective. At least get a magnifying glass, I'd say. If you know what you're looking for, you can see the eggs without a magnifying glass, but obviously with a magnifying glass and with a microscope, it's a hell of a lot easier to spot them. Sometimes it doesn't take a lot of eggs to make it through when you miss them and then you're screwed. Which certainly sucks. That's why no plug goes in and no rock goes in because legs are not laid on living flesh. All right, here's another oldie, but a goodie. I have this coral as well, the Crayola Plana. How do you pronounce it, Steve? So that one, look, coral ID and pronunciations, they have way too many vowels. I always call it a plana. I guess it's plana, who knows, but that's always been one of my favorite. I got a couple of years ago, came through the local fish store going through there. It just takes me back to the old reefer madness days because those were ubiquitous back in the day. And I just don't see them anymore and it came through and it's like, okay, I got to get that. And it's been doing great there. It came in, first of all, completely bleached. But it has to tell signs of it, a little bit of purple rim, a little bit of green interior. You can kind of make out. You know what it's going to turn. You know exactly what those turn. And he has turned a solid purple with a bright green in there. He does great where he is. He's under pretty high par. I'm going to say 700. He's under pretty good thing and he's under a lot of flow because it comes right out of the slot between my two pillars and bumps right into him. So he does great from that standpoint. But that coral does take me back to kind of the old days because I consider kind of those, the 2000s is the heyday of the reefing world. That was the wild west. You know, and you know, between between, you know, getting live rock covered in recordia from Florida or all the stuff from reefer madness. You never know what you're going to get into species diversity. There was no such thing as frags or agriculture or anything like that. So yeah, those, that was the wild west and it kind of holds a kind of a soft spot in my heart for those days because those are fun. Yeah, I don't know. I don't recall where I got my piece of the, the Crayola, but you're right. I mean, they used to be very, very common back in the day. I used to see him all the time being sold as colonies, not as frags, but I think it's just a unique coral. I mean, the one that I, I currently have in one of my tanks, it was tabling out. So it's, it's, it's neat, man. I mean, it's got all those, you know, that purple certainly, but I also love the, the, it's kind of got the, you know, the greenish. And, and the, what's the other kind of, not the beige. There's so much stuff going on with that coral. It's, it's a, it's a gorgeous, gorgeous coral. So I, I'm all for the, the old school stuff. Now, there's one right next to it that I could see. It's the Jake's crystal experiment, which is a Monty. And absolutely, that's, that's a really unique formation. I've got a piece of that too. I got that from Meckley. So it's, it's, it's, and it's fast grow or tour, right? So yeah. Holds a real special kind of place in my heart because it takes me back to my Saul Jake in person at the studio. And I went there and just a visit and I actually took him a couple of frags. And I didn't want anything in return. And on the last days he says, no, you're, you're not leaving until I give you something because I don't want anything. You know, so I got to go on a plane and everything else. No, no, no, I'm going to put together a frag pack. And I go, okay, put together what you think I need to have. So, you know, he, he even gave me, and I still have to this day his reef builders branded little, you know, those little ice cap frag trays that you can take through the airport. So he filled it up. And of course there was, you know, the, his immortal tour and his hoax in my eye. And there's a Samacora, which I still have. And then there was this little green chip. And when I got home and I took, I go, Jake thinks I need a green montage. What the hell? You really think I need a green montage? Why? It's just this little green chip. And I went, okay, well, I'll plant it. And lo and behold, it turns into that. And it's an incredible coral. Yes, it's solid green. No, it doesn't have rainbow polyps, but it's growth pattern. It's extraordinary. And it's a bright toxic green. And every time I look at that, then I think of Jake. And I think of kind of how narrow minded I was poo pooing his coral. So it's now one of my favorite corals in there. And I've been kind of spreading it around locally a little bit through our local club here. So a few people have it around here. So pretty soon it'll be as ubiquitous as probably orange cap, but it's growth pattern. And it's coloration. It's incredible. It's nothing like a regular encrusting Monty. So don't poo poo it. It's just because it's a solid green. Are you, you know, I'm into like solid, you know, colors that are striking versus, you know, stuff that might be, you know, rainbow tenuous or something like that. That's kind of like hard to see from a cross room. Is that kind of like what you're drawn to with the with acros or corals in general? Absolutely, my eyes are too old to be focusing on power. So I'm not going to do that. So I just got to walk past and see which and I'm more about the overall display. It's why it's truly a mixed tank, mixed reef tank. It's not all acros. It's not all OPS. It has everything in there, little bits of everything in there. And I just looking at the overall display and how each coral contributes this whole lap. I've been resetting this tank quite a bit last this whole last year. Several sections. I've completely tore apart. This whole middle section here has all been torn apart and completely rebuilt. And then of course this upper section up here at the end, I had a massive milka style of it just overgrew and is dominating the tank. It's over 18 inches in diameter. I'm showing that picture now. I couldn't trim it. I couldn't really make it. I couldn't do anything with it. So it's like it's time for you to go. I'm sorry. So I just pulled it out and took it into the fish store and let them divvy it up and do what they want to. But that coral is kind of hard to fry it up and not make it look like you butchered a plant, you know, type of thing. So did you leave? Did you leave? Save it. Did you leave? Save it. So this last. I did it. I decided to go with something else. So I redid now it's becoming dominated kind of by a strawberry shortcake. So I tried something different. And that's the thing. These tanks evolve and you have to interfere because all these tanks are kind of on a bell curve. Gets better, better, better, reaches a zenith. And now we start going down the back. So you have to reset it. So other than where my stags are in the upper right hand corner, that's the only section. I haven't completely rebuilt. And probably the next section I'm going to rebuild is down here in the corner with this massive torch here that's getting just incredible. It's got to be 50 separate polyps on there. So that's the next one I'm probably going to have to rebuild this section here. But these tanks are ever evolving. It's not static. No, you can't. If you have any success at all in growth, you're going to end up with Big Corps? Yeah. You just can't sit back and take it all in. I mean, it's tough, man, right? I mean, when you've got a mature reef tank, mature colonies, you've kind of like reached a pinnacle in terms of what you're trying to achieve. And it's a tough decision to start tearing shit out that, you know, looks like it, you know, I mean, people will be like, what? Are you crazy? Well, why would you be doing that? I mean, for you, what kind of like the tipping point when you say, you know what, this section or the tank has a whole need to reset? Two things. One, the corals have now gone so large that they're shading themselves out and killing themselves off and they start looking crappy from below and elsewhere on there. It's time to break you up and try again, something else or maybe make you smaller, whatever it may be. I did that back in February with my Oregon tort. It got enormous. And I basically was killing itself off on the inside from shading it off. So I broke it all off. And now it's again growing another colony. He's probably about six or seven inches across. He's behind these guys here. We reduced him by two thirds on the center because he just got too big. So, and the other thing is if the coral itself, like the milka style, it wasn't really shading itself off. But it was just so at a scale and not a big out of scale. Our reef tanks, they're not natural at all. So this is more like bonsai. And you have to trim these things. Otherwise, it starts looking weird. So these are miniaturizations in a way. You know, any one of these corals in the wild would be considered an 80 bitty baby. So, so I would say those two factors when they start, you know, becoming too large either visually or killing themselves off. It's time to interfere. And I've done that pretty much with the entire tank this last year, rebuilt it. Have you ever thought about a complete tank reset or you, you, you happy with the section approach? Reset is only if you're trying to solve some other, you know, auxiliary problem. You have your problem with whatever it may be. Maybe it's dinos. Maybe it's, you know, flow restrictions. And maybe it's, I really hate this rock. I'm happy with my aquascaping. It's where I originally envisioned with it. I wanted pillars and not rock walls. Or, you know, today, pretty much every time you look at peninsula tank, it's exactly the same. There's a pile of rock down the middle, becomes completely entrusted with corals and tends to look the same. Every tank you have, and then it's allowed to be overgrown. My liner on separate columns and pillars. And then I'm going to go ahead and keep on zying them back so it kind of maintains kind of a unique perspective. Because again, it's visual art. Let's, let me throw out a scenario to you. And this is not something I would wish on my worst enemy. But let's say you find accruating flatworms in the tank, you know, next week. What would be your, what steps would you take with that tank? Well, it probably will be isolated to a particular coral. Maybe, you know, notorious to get them are humanless. Jennifer Cara, and like you said, efflos. Those corals are coming out of the tank. I don't care how good they are. You know, I'll pull them out, pull them off the rock. I may dip them and cut them back and save some frags. If they're really kind of special to me. But that's the first step, is get them out. The one thing I don't want to do is immediately start turkey basing them just as there anything else. Because all you're doing is spreading them around the rest of the tank. So if I find them, let's say one of my cleaning something pops off that's like, ooh, that looks like a worm. Especially if my copper band's going, you know, after it or my rasses. That becomes a sacrificial coral. It's just like, okay, you're out. You're out of the pool. So I think that's the best way is to remove it, not try to do anything inside the tank itself. Because it probably will be at least an initial stage is isolated to a particular place, a particular coral. How often are you blowing, you know, to try to soften your rocks with a powerhead and sand bed? Oh, I'd say, I don't know, what time is it now? It's about every day. Really, every day. I'm in the tank and I am turkey basing around every day on corals and everything. And about once a week, then I'll take like a maxi jet and really get in there and get into the rocks and around and blow everything out. But I basically stir the sand and stir things up at least once a day. Okay. That's for the tank. You know, not is it necessary? No, but you know, kind of how I keep attached to the tank. I figure if I have time to sit and look at the tank, I have time to clean the tank. Well, the sand bed, you know, looks pristine, which is, which is awesome. I remember the last time I had you on, we took a look at your sump and I was just flabbergasted how freaking clean it was. You know, I've never seen such a clean sump. And I'm selling it. Oh, yeah. It's a water change. That's how I water change. I just, the tank, I don't touch the tank for a water change. Also, I don't return pump empty the sump down 20 gallons. And you're wiping it down, right? That's all. It's all through the sump. So it gets cleaned once a month. Yeah. Sponge, sponge, bath it, basically. Yep. Well, if you could see my sumps. It's a whole different story. But I got a lot of, you know, I got a lot of stuff growing in there. You figure that. It's not, it's not a pretty sight, man, but I got a lot of good stuff. Growing on my sump. So that's got to be beneficial. Like, you know, sponges and filter feeders and all that good stuff. So I'd be afraid to clean my sumps now. I think I think I might really impact the micro blam. I just took out my speaking of like simplifying things. I took out my, just recently took out my cryptic sump. I also took out a 50 gallon frag tank on one of my, my systems. So it's, it's running a lot smoother now that I don't know. Cause I kind of like Frankenstein, one of my, my systems. It was a 187 gallon display tank. I had a 74 gallon, a real exclusive dream box as a sump. And I had originally idea was put a 75 gallon frag tank plumbed into that. So, but after that initial plan, I added a 50 gallon frag tank. Then I added a 60 gallon cryptic sump. So I had a lot of stuff going on there and just going back to your point about keeping things simple. It's just, it was kind of a relief to take that, that frag tank and the cryptic sump offline and to remove a lot of that plumbing. And it's a, you know, it's, it's obviously it can upset the apple cart pretty well when you, when you do something like that. Cause I lost a hundred gallons of system volume on a 446 gallon system. But, you know, knock on wood. Things are, things are good. But I think that's what I just keep gravitating back towards is being, you know, not having a lot of stuff running the, the tank and just kind of sticking with the basics, calcium reactor, cock waster. I'm dosing nitrates and phosphates. I wanted to ask you, did your dosing nitrates? No. No. I'm trying to remove nitrates. You're removing nitrates. That's a unique problem. Because of, yeah, because of how many anemones, large anemones, and these guys get fed some large scallops, the fish I have, if I don't have handled nitrate in the tank, it will skyrocket off the charts in the heartbeat. So I use a sulfur reactor. And that keeps my nitrate in the tank right around 5 or 6 parts per million. So it keeps it pretty low. Now I jack that down to 2 or 3 parts per million because of the water change. And now that makes a cascade effect on my sulfur reactor because it's a function of the concentration of nitrate coming in as well as the amount of flow. So right after I do a water change, now I add dose, basically ammonia by carbonate for about a week and a half to actually jack it back up to where I want it to be. And it's somewhere between 5 and 10. So every time I water change for the next week, 2 afterwards, just put it out of a squeeze bottle, put a squeeze in each day. So it's just like dosing fish. And jack it up just like jack it up a little bit. So because of how I have my reactor set up and I don't want to change its function, I ammonia, so I do dose ammonia by carbonate for a couple of weeks a month. And you're still using a lithium chloride for phosphate removal? No, I do not use that. I'm able to maintain it pretty much now in the tank. I don't know where the uptake is coming from. Right around 0.08 to 0.1. And occasionally, if I'm a little heavy, it gets higher. Then I'll just put a couple bags of GFO in the overflow and I'll knock it down. But I'm not dosing any lithium anymore. It's not necessary. I'm able to keep it right around 0.1 all the time. I test certainly once a week, sometimes twice a week. And it pretty much stays the same every time I change. I was tested in the morning. I think it's important to test the same time each day. So you're not comparing fluctuations. And so no, no lithium at all. So just occasional, some GFO in the overflow fix starts getting a little high. But the nitrate is more of a concern of mine for how much. You know what the additional uptake is coming from? The corals, man. You got more corals. That's what's probably doing the yeoman's work. Absolutely. Yeah. That's probably absolutely true to where it's all coming from early. But it's been pretty much on autopilot there. So yeah, there's really no dosing on there. I'd like to keep it. And that's the way I ran it back into the 2000s. Kind of what my, I'm kind of setting my ways. And that's, I go back to those days. And the last thing I wanted to ask you is what's changed in terms of feeding your tank? Corals and fish. Anything? What are you doing? Feeding mostly Norrie and pretty much every day. It's always in the tank pretty much. It's not there now. In fact, I pulled it out right before showtime here. But Norrie is a big part of it. And then usually in the morning, maybe I'll throw in some flake. Kind of an additional breakfast treat. And then it's frozen every night. And that's a mixture of mysis, LRS, maybe some enriched brine, something like that. So pretty simple. And that's every night. Yeah. No amino acids. No special coral food. That's to it. Nope. Nope. None of that. So absolutely not. So, you know, I still like to play around with the tanks a little bit and see what's going on. Probably the most experimenting I've done is trying to maybe improve the bacterial bio. And that's why I've been doing the aqua biomics tests. I always come back my tests with a pretty high diversity. But I have a different diversity than what quote the typical tanks to Eli has. And I try to experiment twice to the whole pellet bacteria. And of course, both times it kind of was a dismal failure. Back to my old ways. And started thinking, you know, people tell to me, in fact, it's going to happen to me. He goes, my tank always looks best when I have a big fat pink layer of pelletium bacteria. And then now on the internet everywhere, people are joining that kind of thing. Pleasure bacteria of this. Pleasure bacteria of that. Because it's the dominant strain of marine reefs. And I've come to the conclusion that it's actually the water. Pleasure bacteria in the open reefs aren't enabling your corals to survive. They're just liking the same water conditions that the pristine reefs corals like to have. Because otherwise, this tank behind you wouldn't grow any corals. Same with the same tanks we had all through the 2000s. And there are some amazing tanks back then. We were running UV and ozone up the yin yang. And so we were, we were pelletium bacteria killing fields. I think pelletium bacteria is more of an indicator of your water quality. If you have it, you can grow corals. Now, if you go ahead and kill it all off, you know, the back, you know, yeah, maybe the corals, you know, do eat some of that pelletium bacteria. I have no doubt they probably do. But they eat a lot of things and a lot of other bacteria. Corals have their own bacterial biome on their own, within their own tissues. So I think the height over pelletium bacteria is maybe a little bit overblown. And I think it's more of an indicator of your water quality and ability to support corals than it is actually growing corals. So when people say, hey, we should be culturing pelletium bacteria so we can dose it. I think that's pointless. If you have a tank that can't support corals, you're not going to support your bacteria. And the pelletium bacteria aren't, its presence isn't going to make your corals grow or do anything better. It's just like the same water quality that your corals like. At least that's my take on it from my experience of decades. Why did we're able to grow corals back then? And we can't now, you know, just because it plays your bacteria. Have you ever done any carbon dosing? No, I haven't had any need. So like I said, my biggest challenge is nitrate and I can do that with a sulfur reactor. As soon as you dial that in, it's set it and forget it. I haven't touched it in a couple of years. Nice. Don't do anything bad. As soon as you get it dialed into what you need, you're done. That's a nice piece of equipment to have. Not having to worry about, you know, I love set it and forget it. So Steve, man, this has been awesome, dude. Any final wars before we sign off for the night? No, I think that's pretty much covers everything. You know, the world has changing, our hobby has changing only. In my opinion, it's around the fringes of the hobby. I don't think there's any kind of really mass changes like we had in the 2000s when, you know, even a skimmer was new, you know, type thing. So today, you know, we're able to grow corals back then, do pretty good. We can do the same now, but we do have some. Excited material stuff is fascinating, trace elements and what they might do. You know, that is kind of really interesting, but it's not going to fundamentally change the tanks at all. Kind of nibbles around the edges. Kind of reminds me of one of my favorite movies, the spinal tap. And when the guitar, he has guitars, all his guitars go to the one that goes to 11. I think that's, you know, trace elements and bacterial issues. It's like, okay, maybe I can take it to 11. But when it comes down to it, at least for me, I'm okay with 10. Sticking with the basics, man. That's the way to go. Yep, pretty much. Yeah. All right, Steve, man, listen, dude, I want to thank you again for coming on the show. Always very enjoyable having to chat with you. And I'm going to try to make it to restock in Denver in March. So hopefully I'm going to see you there, man. Yep. We'll be there. All right, so that's going to do it for the show. And besides thanking Steve, I also want to thank my sponsors one more time, Polar Reef. Make sure to check out Polar Reef's new YouTube video that drops this Friday, where he behind the scenes walkthrough tour shows us the ins and outs of the equipment needed to run Polar Reef's facilities. And also check out their previous video showing some shocking fish, coral, and pet health issues uncovered by their veterinarian, Alex Hall, that dropped last week. Sure, too, subscribe to their YouTube channel at Polar Reef for video drop notifications. Champion lighting and supply besides being in place for hobbyists to purchase salt water aquarium supplies online. Champion lighting is also a wholesale distributor for many popular brands. If you own an aquarium store or an aquarium service company, contact Champion Lighting through their website at championlighting.com to set up a wholesale account. Bottom Marine. I do use the Bottom Marine Reef ICP total test kit, which gives a quick, accurate, and easy overview of over 90 water values and reef aquariums from macro elements to trace elements and pollutants. You get a complete overview with corresponding dosage and action recommendations. You can pick up those test kits at reefbum.com, as well as other Bottom Marine products. A big thank you to Paul, who's also the moderator, as well as the president of the Boston Reef for Society. Please join and support your local reefing clubs. They are so important to the hobby. I also want to let you know that all episodes of Rapid Marine Bomber available is podcast and Spotify, Apple podcast, Google podcast, Stitcher, and Amazon. My next Rapid Marine Reef Bum live stream will be on Tuesday, next Tuesday, September 24th, 7 PM Eastern Standard Time. My guests will be Tim Herman from Indoor Ecosystems LLC. You can check out the full schedule of upcoming guests on reefbum.com under the YouTube section. Until then, be safe and be well.