Deep Water Aquarium

[Copperband]

Greetings from Jo'kwane!!

Ok so many of us believe we need oodles and oodles of light to keep our prized inverts happy.

Question..How much light do corals 30m down need, when we place them in our 70cm max deep tanks? Also say an invert evolved to absorb O2 at 4bar due to water pressure, what effect does it have when suddenly it has to absorb O2 at a fraction of the pressure?

Here's an interesting read about deep water tanks:

http://www.fishchannel.com/saltwater-aquariums/reefkeeping/deepwater-reef-aquarium.aspx

 

[Carl]

Hi CB
This makes you think

Thanks

Carl

 

[irie ivan]

Interesting read. The article is however a bit vague on the reasons why most of these deep water species fail to thrive (actually fail to survive) in aquariums.

The reason they fail in our aquariums is because they are deepwater inverts.. What is the major difference between deepwater inverts and shallow water inverts??? Light! Light used by shallow water inverts as a food source is not available to their deeper friends.... deep water inverts therefor are required to obtain energy by other means..........i.e feeding!

Bottom line, they need to be fed, and fed a lot! and some more. Constantly fed being more natual. They do however live in low nutrient environments, which is where the problem comes in.

How to keep food (almost) continuously available, but not increase nutrients?
And then many of these deep water corals are picky eaters as well.....

By no means impossible to keep, but we are talking massive sandbeds, massive flow, massive feeding and massive nutrient removal (personally i think skimming is counterproductive for these babies).

The only way I see success with these inverts is by having constant phytoplankton cultures going, and constantly dripping this into the tank. A massive sandbed/refugium will be required, more so for microfauna to absorb the excess phyto and proliferate to become a constant source of zooplankton....
Oh, and of course water changes, lots and lots of water changes...

Have always believed this concept to be the pinnacle of advanced reefkeeping. The next step after sps....... Nothing comes close to the colour of a dendro with full polyp extension!

But then again:

Definitely easier to skim the sh!t out of a tank, blast it with light and throw in some seios/wavers/streams......