Speaker 1: This is Pet Life Radio. Let's talk pets. Welcome to
aquarium Mania. I'm your host, doctor Royanong, speaking to you from.
Speaker 2: The University of Florida if this tropical aguacultural laboratory. Thanks
for joining us. Coral reef tanks continue to gain in popularity,
and advances in technology and coral reef biology and ecology
have made reef keeping much more accessible. My guest today
is Chris Mechley of ACI Aquaculture, a well known coral
aquaculture and wholesale facility in Plant City, Florida. In Part
one of our reef and coraal Keeping one O one series,
we discuss tanks, equipment and accessories. Join us as Chris
continues our series with Part two, an overview of aquascaping
and water chemistry. We'll be right back after these messages.
Speaker 3: How many of you have pets? My hands raised now.
Think about how lucky you are to have such a
sweet little pet in your life, and that pet is
lucky to have you too. But unfortunately, there are countless
pets out there that don't have a home to call
their own. However, Bob's from Sketchers is trying to change that.
So we developed Bobs for Dogs and Cats to help
pets in need. With every purchase of adorable Bob's footwear
or fun stylish apparel, or even the cutest Bob's Pet accessories,
Sketchers makes a donation to pet Co Love to help
save shelter pets, and with your help, we've already saved
the lives of over one million pets and raised over
seven million dollars. So while you're getting style and comfort
with features like Sketcher's famous memory foam cushioning, you're also
helping to save an adorable pet in need and helping
another lucky owner be connected with a future best friend
and companion. Because happiness is having a loving pet. Buy
your side find Bob's at a Sketcher's store, sketters dot com,
select pet Co locations, or wherever stylish footwear is sold.
Speaker 4: Let's talk pets on Petlife Radio dot com.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to a Corinmanion pet Life Radio. My guest
today is Chris Meckley, owner of ACI Aquaculture, a coral
aquaculture and wholesale facility in Plant City, Florida. Chris is
continuing our discussion of reef and coral keeping in Part two,
Aquascaping and Water Chemistry and Overview. Hey Chris, thanks again
for being with us today.
Speaker 5: Thanks for having me on, and I'm really enjoitness fun.
Speaker 2: So I think we're going to just dive right in,
and you know, we talked a little bit, got some
personal information from you. We'll probably hit you up again
a little bit later with some more, but I wanted
to just start right into our one on one overview,
so we discussed equipment and accessories, including tax filtration and
other must haves. Let's now go into these other areas.
Saltwater sounds like a simple thing, but what are important
considerations for sourcing salt and water for your reef tank.
Speaker 5: Definitely, some of the most important things are the salt itself,
the brand of salt that you're using. I mean, there's
a lot of different brands out there, and the majority
of them are you know, been around for decades and
are very good. Depending again on the type of system
you want to keep, and depending on the shop that
you use for your advice, it's going to determine on
probably what brand you would use for your system. Me personally,
I'm very very particular with what we put into our
farming systems, and we use a product that is blended
by hand and not mass produced, but that's for us,
you know, it tends to be quite a bit more expensive.
So there's again a dozen different manufacturers and maybe not
quite that many, but there's a half a dozen at
least manufacturers of different salts that are on the market,
and uh, some of them I don't agree with what
they do, but others, you know, one hundred percent agree
with it. And it's a matter you know, the shops.
If you go to a shop and you're taking advice
from them and you see the quality of their animals
and anything, you like what you see and by all
means go with with with what they're doing. I can't
really put one brand over another because the one that
I use, in my opinion, supersedes them all because I
know how it's being produced and it's not being produced
on a mass scale. But for hobbyists, you know, it's
definitely something you know that they can graduate to down
the road. The basics that and the salt brands that
are on the market today that are very common are
definitely more than suitable to set your acquiring system up.
So that is definitely, you know, and a lot of
a lot of times people use the same brand of
salt and they use the same brand of additives for
their system. So you know, that way, you're familiarized with it,
and you know, if it's close and local, then just
keep you know, go with that, and if you want
to graduate down the road as you become more seasoned,
you know, people can always message me and I can
steer them in the red directions and to go what
we use if they want to go with. It's actually
not more expensive in the long rune. It's actually cheap
in the long run to use the higher quality. But
it's hard to wrap your head around the beginning with expensive.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then uh water you know tap versus d
I ro O, those sorts of things.
Speaker 5: Definitely don't want to use tap water unless you are
from an area that's got you know, a pristine well
system or you've got mountain runoff that is not contaminated
by city water. If you're out in the middle of
nowhere and you can get a well drilled and you
have you can get that water tested and find out
what's actually in it. You don't want to just use
straight well water or city water. In most cases, we
have a well here, I don't trust the tap water
that comes off the ground and also not tested, and
we use reverse osmosis and then we run that water
through after it goes through reverse osmosis, which purifies it
down to a very low TDS toy devolved solids, which
is two in our system, and then we run through
the IBED deonization bed, which removes the remaining possible contements
that are in water. So we want zero tds, but
zero totin is all solid for us in our systems.
I recommend that for anybody unless you have a good
source that's got minerals and stuff like that that are
very important for the brief system. And it might be
more beneficial if you have a good well system that
doesn't have iron and arsenic and a slew of other
things that can be found in treated water from the
city or well water, depending on where you are in
the country. So in most cases you're going to be
buying a reverse osmosis system and a DEI system that
goes to that so you can purify the water.
Speaker 2: All right, Great, now, I know in your and you're
kind of FAQs for a hobbyists, it's important you mentioned rock.
So tell us a little bit about rock, live rock.
You know, what do some of the hobbyists that maybe
don't have any idea why rock is important and different
types of rock for a reef tank, what they are.
Speaker 5: Well, super important. It's porous, its surface area, you know.
And you know something that I've been going around with
is not even having any other filtration media whatsoever ever,
other than a small amount of live rockets other than
your protein skimmer, which is important because the rock's not
going to remove that it is efficiently as the protein
skinner the officials it will, but the rock itself. Basically,
the more surface area you have in your aquarium, the
more area for bacteria to grow. Bacteria is the basis
of all life minus the sun. Without bacteria living on
this planet, we're all in trouble as well. The basic organisms,
the smallest, most minute organisms are what is one of
the most important aspects of the ecosystem you're trying to
create in the aquarium. So live rock is extremely important.
It used to say you have to go with one
pound per gallon, but you know that's myth has been
busted a long time ago. To go with the rock
that makes it esthetically pleasing for you as a hobbyist
and the type of rock that you use. Personally, I'm
a huge fan of old school, real live rock that
was taken from the ocean. And please don't frown upon that,
because the amount of rock that was taken from the
ocean for aquariums is minuscule because it wasn't even taken
when the reef was basically dug out of the sand
in most cases and wasn't really affecting things for a
small amount that was actually taken. But that true live
rock has so much character to it, and also it
has organisms that are very beneficial for your aquarium. It
also comes with its downfalls. It has pests and other
things that you don't line in your aquarium if it's
not being say, quarantined for months and made sure that
it's not a possibility for those bad pathogens or pests
to make it into your aquarium. So the way that
it's done nowadays, and this is pretty common is we
live in Florida here, so it might not be as
successible as it is to people here in Florida, but
we have basically living on a big dead reef and
as they dig through the sand, which we are a
big sandbox here in Florida roy As. You know, the
further you dig, the chances of you actually coming across
an old fossilized reef, and down in Miami is easier.
It's closer to the surface than it is up here
in Tampa area where we are, So there's in Miami
they mine the fossilized reefs for calcium to make concrete,
which is way better than what they do in some
of these far East countries where they mine the reef
for the calcium to make concrete, which is just beyond me.
I can't wrap my head around that, because without the reefs,
we all die. But again I digress. I didn't mean to.
Getting fossilized reef rock is common like Marco rock or
Julian sprung stacks rock, which I think is gotten from
the Marco rock. It's basically they call it. Reef bones
is another thing you can get, which is basically just
mind fossilized reefs. That's a good way to set up
an aquarium because it isn't it's brief rock. It's porous.
It's not as porous as the real live rock that
was taken you know, in the past, but it does
a really good job. I've got one of my systems up,
two of my systems that were strictly set up up
with nothing but fossilized reefrock. It works really well. I
battled some issues with the fossilizery rock in the beginning,
which was a little bit of phosphase, which is again
something that is very commonly mined here in Florida, and
it's tends to be in the dry rock as well,
but in minute amounts. It just takes a little time
for that to be removed from the system when it's
first set up, but usually once the biologically active, which
is the ultimate goal, once you put dry rock in
it biological activates over time and you can We'll get
into that more roy here and as the segments go on,
but definitely only put in what is esthetically pleasing for you.
If they tell you one pound per gallon, it's a myth.
It's not true. If that was true in here. I mean,
I've got a five thousand gallon coral system and it's
gotten maybe six hundred pounds of live rock in it.
I'm pretty far off. That's what a ton and a
half of over two tons is what I should have
in my system. That doesn't make sense to me. I know,
surface area is surface area, whether it is the walls
of your tank, the silicone on the seams, the fragg
that your call is glued to, or the rock that's
the corel that the coral came in one, or the
surface area inside of any part of your aquarium is
going to grow bacteria. And we found that at one
pound per gallon is just a myth and just the
overkill for you. It actually makes things more difficult for
you to enjoy with an aquarium. I remember when they
used to make rock tanks that were big rock walls
across the back, and now you see these same size
aquariums with these beautiful pillars and just a small amount
of rock, and it's very esthetically pleasing, and it's more
room for the fish to swim and less places for
bad critters to hide and pathogens to stick to. So
what is esthetically pleasing to you is fine. And you
can even just use a really cool aquascape that somebody
made that's just one big like a nano tank, just
one little aqua scape that's like maybe fifteen pounds in
a thirty gallon tank, and you perfectly find that's it's
going to see your tank or you have play of
a surface area for a bacteria to grow, to keep
your tank as a biological environment, not just you know, chasing,
and to keep it going great.
Speaker 2: And so I want to take a break in a
minute or two, but I wanted to talk a little
bit about the bottom of a tank. Most people don't
even think of the bottom of a tank as being important,
but you know much better than I. Y looking at
and considering what should be on the bottom of a
tank is critical for reef systems. What are your thoughts
on this?
Speaker 5: You know, I go both ways with having sand or
substrate on the bottom or going with a bare bottom.
You have to look at a coral reef itself, you know,
when you're talking about something like the Great Barrier reef,
it's a thousand miles long. There's tens of thousands of
small reefs that create this. So you have your reef
environment where the corals are growing, which is the rock
the structure, and then you have basically between all the
reefs you have sand. So you have to decide whether
you want to have an authoritium that you can put
a lot of flow in and not have to worry
about to try to settling in the dead spots or
whether that's not something that's one hundred percent sary. And
you know, when when you're talking about different types of
reef environments, certain corals live in the sand. So if
you want a large POLYPS stony coral reef or an
SPS coral reef, you might be different with what you
want as you're substrate for the bottom of the aquarium.
You might want to have a bare bottom for SPS
reef because then at that point you can put flow
that's going to just be like a washing machine inside
of there, which and I say that because SPS corals
live in the waves. They need that heavy, heavy current
and if you have sand or substrate on the bottom,
it can be very difficult for you to get the
flow correct in the aquarium. So there's good for the
corals and not blowing the sand all around. So there's
benefits to a stand bottom, and there's downfalls to the
sand bottom, and that's one of them is you know,
stirring it up and not keeping it stable or all
blowing around them. It's just being all pushed to one
side because of the amount of flow in your tank
and then pushing it back. It's still good. It can
be a pain in your end. Personally, I don't like
the sand because I want that flow. And the corals
that like the sand don't have to have a sand
bed to live, you know, they can be on the
bare bottom and they'll be fine as well. So the
downfalls to sand, I think are more than the benefits
to sand as you're substrate. Again, esthetically pleasing is a
sand bottom. I love the look of a sand bottom,
but you have the downfalls to it are is they
can actually hold phosphates and nitrates, nutrients that can be
They can build and build and build in a system
and can be difficult for you then to remove them naturally,
and then you end up having to go with chemicals
and natural means of moving them is by part of
the best way, and sand harbors those things. So again
that's not always a bad thing either, because sometimes some
people can't keep nutrients in their aquarium and the sandbed
helps them keep that small amount of nutrients there because
it holds them for them. Again, with all the technologies
that are out there and the way things are changing,
it's a matter of the type of corals you would
like to keep is going to determine whether you should
have a sand bed or not, or you just make
up your mind right from the get go. I like
it without or I like it with, and I'm going
to make it work no matter what. And that's you
know how, I'm going to leave that ship up to
the person keeping and maintaining work.
Speaker 2: Okay, No, that's good consideration.
Speaker 4: Definitely.
Speaker 2: Well, let's take a short break and we'll continue our
discussion of retanks with my guest Chris Meckley, owner of
ACI Aquaculture and Plant City, Florida. After these messages from
our sponsors, take.
Speaker 6: A bite out of your competition. Advertise your business with
an ad in Pet Life radio podcasts and radio shows.
There is no other pet related media that is as
large and reaches more pet parents and pet lovers than
pet Life Radio with over seven million monthly listeners. Pet
Life Radio podcasts are available on all major podcasts platforms,
and our live radio stream goes out to over two
hundred and fifty million subscribers on iHeartRadio, Odyssey, tune In, Stitcher,
and other streaming apps. For more information on how you
can advertise on the number one pet podcast and radio
network visit petlife Radio dot com. Slash advertised today.
Speaker 2: Let's talk past. Let's done pets at Life Radio, Headline.
Speaker 7: Radio Atline Radio dot com.
Speaker 2: We're back and continuing our conversation with my guests Chris Mechley,
coral guru and owner of ACI Aquaculture in Plant City, Florida.
So now we're going to start getting into some of
the more kind of complicated things Chris, And as I
mentioned I think to you earlier, I you know, don't
want to necessarily go into the major details of you know,
regulating monitoring. We're going to do that in a separate show,
but for now, I kind of wanted you to introduce
our listeners to sort of the concepts of the you know,
the major parameters that are important for a brief tank,
you know, just in brief and talk a little bit
about them. So let's start with some of these. Let's
start with salinity.
Speaker 5: Salinity, Well, it depends on where you are in the world.
Is a determinal what the salinity of the ocean is.
We always like to say that the average salinity of
the world's ocean is thirty five point four parts per thousand,
and I say parts per thousand, and not the one
point oh two six' five which is solinity or specific,
gravity because the specific gravity scale can be very. Misleading
or in parts per, thousand you know you are going
to keep accuracy. Better so at one point oh two six,'
five the difference between that in salinity down to say
one point oh two four is fairly big jump in parts.
Per THOUSAND so i, always say, you know most places
will start people off with reading with. A hydrometer, i
say don't waste your money on a hydrometer because in
most cases they're, very inaccurate because they can't be accurate
scientifically and affordable for a hobbyist to. PURCHASE them, i
mean if you wanted a truly, accurate hydrometer you're talking
about hundreds or even thousands of dollars to get, that
accuracy and then using it properly is the. Other key
so there's too many variables in there that, make it in,
my opinion more difficult for a refert to understand their
selenium and fluctuations by by using. A hydrometer a refractometer
is another method of, testing salinity AND personally i used
to use them and strictly, use THEM but i learned
from a buddy of mine who's. A physicist you're also
playing with fire on a refractometer because it does, exactly
that it. Refracts light so what YOU and i both
see could be completely different with that. Light refraction and
when we, calibrate it we calibrate to, my eye could
be calibrated differently to your eye or to anybobody else that's,
calibrating it and you could be. Completely off and also
going to determine on the amount of light going into
the refractometer is going to determine whether you are going
to get inaccurate reading. Or not so they're. Consistently inaccurate same.
WITH hydrometers i believe in conductivity because it's an. Electrical
current you cannot go wrong with an electrical current because
you're reading the conductivity of, the water which gives you
parts per thousand or salinity if you want to read
it In that so basically to make, this simple conductivity
is the, easiest way but you just have to make
sure you clean the conductivity probe every single time you.
Use it if you do not clean it with reverse
osmosis the, eye water it will be inaccurate. In time
using after the first or second or third use to start.
BUILDING up a drop that dries in there can leave
some salt which will cause the calibration to. Be off
so they're easier, to calibrate easier, to use and they
also are reading according. To temperature temperature is key with
knowing what your slinity is the core of. The temperature
the more dense, the water the higher slin the warmer the,
less dense the lower the slim. So temperature knowing the
temperature your water while you're testing the slanning is super
important and most people don't talk, about that but as
a farmer it's SOMETHING that i of course like the
relay and we Recommend the hannah. Conductivity probe it's a
little white thing. That's blue there's a couple other ones,
out there but it's relatively inexpensive and it's good to buy.
That first, that is to buy the hydrometer and then
realize you got to buy that again down. The road
buy one and. Be done it saves you money and.
Speaker 2: A longer so how would they determine the right? Conductivity
then and you know if you're shooting for thirty four
to thirty, Five ppt.
Speaker 5: So basically when you're mixing up the water or you're
testing the water in, the aquarium you want to have
a separate cup to hold the water so that way
the electrical currents that are flowing through your aquarium from
the equipment that you have on it doesn't interfere with.
The conductivity so you take a little sample the water
out and you put. It inside you put your conductivity
probe down inside of that cup of water. To measure,
that way there's no outside electrical currents influencing what the actual.
Reading is so when you get, the meter you calibrate
it with the calibration solution that comes with and then
you start, using it and then you, clean it immediately
store it again and you're good.
Speaker 2: To, go okay so it'll actually measure in parts, per
thousand the, connectivity meter correct.
Speaker 5: Correcting probe measures in parts, pre thousand or measures. In
salinity it all depends on what you want. TO use
i always recommend parts. Per thousand it's so Much since
i've been doing it a lot. Less issues split it.
Speaker 2: That, way, okay great so let's talk now a. Little
bit and again you don't for these you don't have
to TALK about i know that measurements are kind of
also going to, be tricky but if you can maybe
mention the kind of importance for these, specific parameters starting
with hardness. And alkalinity, so, calcium, magnesium alkalinity why are
those important for.
Speaker 5: Reef, tanks well they're very consistent in, the ocean and
without alkalinity or hardness being at the correct levels and
the calcium and, the magnesium the course. Can't grow so
they can they, can survive but in reality they will
not survive and do very well if they don't have
the calcium and the carbonate hardness to lay down their
calcium Carbonate sk so that's the. Most important there's, four
PARAMETERS and i would say there's three parameters that are,
super important and you didn't mention one, of Them so
i'm not going to say until you. Mentioned it carbonate
hardness and calcium are are super. Super important magnesium and
another one that is extremely important. As well those are
the three basic elements that are needed to grow for
the skeleton, To grow so keeping them at the bright
parameters at the right levels is. Definitely Key and i'm
sure we'll get into what they should be according TO
what i believe what they are compared to the ocean
as we move forward in this.
Speaker 2: Little, series, Okay great and then OF course i think
most of the freshwater hobbyists and even folks that are
just starting are familiar with the, nitrogen cycle at least
ammonia and. Maybe nitrite obviously nitrate is a little bit
more important than. THE reef i shouldn't, say obviously but
so maybe talk a little bit now about ammonia and
nitrite and nitrate as kind of their importance in a.
Reef system just like.
Speaker 5: Any ecosystem, you know if it's a, steroid environment you're
going to eventually get something in there that's going to
cause bacteria, to grow which would, be nutrients and the
main thing to start off with would. Be ammonia so
to get an aquarium, to cycle you've got to get
ammonia in there in order for it to be started becoming,
an ecosystem because when you first set, it up it's
not an. Ecosystem yet it's literally just a sterile box
with water and. Some substrate in order for the corals
the fish to survive, in there it has to become.
Biologically act so ammonia is the basis to start. Bacteria
growth so ammonia is added to the aquarium either there's
multiple ways you can, do it and we'll go into
cycling and quium down the. Road here but you get
ammonia in your system and what happens then bacteria starts
to grow to break that. Ammonia down the emmonia is
broken down into nitrites and two in a fresh, water
SYSTEM and o two is very toxic to. The animals
in a salt, water system it's not really toxic until
it gets to don't holmie. TO this i think it's
like seven to nine is when it becomes really a
problem with the. Saltwater fish ammonia levels above one are
toxic to any animal going into it as soon as
the bacteria starts to grow and breaking all that. Ammonia
down and when we cycle, QUORIUMS well i won't. Go
there i'll go back to what we're. Talking about you
got to get the ammonia in there to break down
into nitrites the bacteria and then broke, from there it's
broken down. Into nitrates nitrates are a common nutrient that
we find in, brief environments and believe it, or not
are super super super important for the corals themselves because
of that symbiotic relationship they have with the zoes and
daily allergy that lives in their tissue which. Feeds them so,
without nitrates they can't produce the sugars for them to feed.
The corals so you have to have small amounts of
the nitrates, in there but you don't want them to.
Be elevated elevated nitrate levels can cause major issues in an,
a quarium and we'll touch based on that down the load.
As well but the importance of there not, being ammonia
that's probably the most important one not to be in
a saltwater environment because it's very toxic to the animals
in cases. Like fish if you have a ammonia spike
in the aquarium and you have nothing that, neutralizes that
it burns their gills which then can kill. The fish so,
bottom line the nitrogen cycle which we're talking about is very.
Very important ammonia to nitrite to nitrate and then exporting
that is done by the protein skimmer and by the
plant life living in your eCos as it evolves.
Speaker 2: Right exactly, and yeah just as a reminder for some
of the folks that may, not remember ammonia is a
lot of it is actually produced by the fish as
waste going out of their gills when they're, eating protein
And so chris was kind of referring to the fact
that in his kind of sterile, box situation when you just,
start up there's none of these backteria there to help
break that waste coming from the fish's. Metabolism down, so, yeah,
definitely definitely. Really critical so we talked a little bit
about the, nitrogen cycle tell us, about, phosphate.
Speaker 5: Phosphate phostphased the one that usually is the most difficult
for everybody to. Deal with phosphate is it comes from
of course fish waste and. Core waste but the biggest
picture to phosphate in most of the systems is overfeeding and,
that is you. Know important like we said in the,
last episode you can overfeed, your fish but you can overfeed.
Your system overfeeding the system is what will be the
biggest downfall to most people su grams and that's why
feeding once per day is not. Always recommended usually, doing
small really small feedings and multiple times a day is
by far better because then you know your fish are
going to eat the majority. Of it you're not going
to get nights that nitrate and phosphate build up that
can be from decomposing food that wasn't utilized by the.
Animals themselves so. Removing phosphates we use algae's to remove
the phosphates is probably the easiest way to get them removed.
Or not protein s cameras do remove phosph, for us
but they don't remove. The phosphate so but if they're
removing if it's removing the, phosphor us it does bring down,
the phosphate but not nearly as much as say natural
means of like algae to. Remove that and once you
find out balance on how to remove phosphates with, you
know either now discover type deal or just by not
allowing it to build in the, first place which is the.
Ultimate goal there is other means of, removing IT but
i don't, recommend them but we can get into that
down from the road here for removal foss space. And
segments but again extremely important, for photosynthesis so you, need
it but you don't, need much very might. Even mounts
it's very important for an ecosystem like a reef environment
to survive and keep the.
Speaker 2: Animals, healthy, okay GREAT and i know you touched on,
temperature already so let's in the, previous podcast let's TALK
about pH and i know you're a huge ADVOCATE of
pH in the importance. Of it maybe touched briefly on
kind of your your THOUGHTS on pH and a, reef
system eh and a.
Speaker 5: Reef system, you know my, whole career nobody ever TALKS
about pH and it's been something that always bothered me because,
you know the biggestes essential threat to the world right
now is global warming and. Ocean, acidification well if that's
the biggest threat to our planet, right now why isn't
the biggest threat of the animals living in our acquirity
and the ocean is falling by literally a point five
is what. They're saying EVEN though i haven't be on
to find it around the WORLD where i have people
TESTING the pH of the reefs they're, diving one it's
still something you got to. Think about IF your pH
and your aquarium is below eight point two to eight
point two five at any given time during the twenty four,
hour span what is it doing to? Your aquarium what
is it doing to the. Animals themselves it's extremely important
to KEEP your pH at between eight point two and
eight point three at the. LOWEST points i keep mine
at eight. Point two eight is the lowest it goes
because natural sea water is at eight point three and
it rises naturally during the day when photosynthesis is happening in,
Your aquarium and, people, ask well why IS my pH
so low? At, nighttime well pH is so low at
nighttime because there's no photostorm MOVING the co two that's
being absorbed by. Your aquarium and it goes back to
global warming AND the co two outputs that the human
beings on this planet have been pumping into the atmosphere for.
A decade the water is. Absorbing it so as the water,
absorbs it loads. The pH so in, your home which
is the closed sealed in box basically with another closed
sealed in boxing inside of it with water. In it
when there's no photos this is happening in, your aquarium
AND that co two not being utilized as being absorbed by,
the water it, just rises which then in turn drops
your phs in. Your system and will Corals live, They'll
survive yes. THEY will I mean i did it for
two decades without keeping my phs from. Being suppressed what
we learned in two years of keeping our phs from
going below eight point twenty nine close thrive in. An
aquarium they, grow faster they, grow better they expand their.
Polyps more they're just healthier the. Fish too believe it.
Or not the little issues that we've seen on fish in,
the past where we have like little thin issues or lateral,
line issues. They're gone. They disappeared we had, some also
some issues with corals that were getting diseased that we
couldn't figure out how, to fix and WHEN the pH
was no, longer suppressed those diseases disappeared and we did
nothing but KEEP the pH from. Being suppressed so ascidic
water in a, saltwater Environment which i'm saying below eight
point ZERO is i guess col skeletons can start to
dissolve at seven point. Eight pH we used to go
down to seven, point six so we would go as
high as seven point. One nine now we don't go
below that eight point two to, eight mark and what a.
World difference the growth is, way faster and as a
farmer is very important for, a hobbyist it's not necessarily
as important to keep it as HIGH as, i do
because the means of being able to do that are
pretty much out. Of reach in most cases because of
what you have to use to keep. The pH but there's,
a cheap a very inexpensive product that we'll of course
talk about down the road when we're talking about maintaining
parameters and the cost effective ways versus the ways that
can become, money pits and use the ways in the
beginning OF a reef and then use the least cost
of the more cost effective ways as your, tank mature
which will also be a way for you to maintain
your pH at at more natural level than allowing it
to suppress over those night, ten hours which is when it.
Speaker 2: Only happens great, and yeah thanks again so much for.
Your time unfortunately we are out of time for this
part of. The series you have done a great job
explaining some of the kind of important concepts that will
hopefully help the hobbyist think a little bit harder on
their own tanks and when they decide to set UP
a reef. Type System in part three Of our reef
And coreal KEEPING one o, one series we'll talk, more
about as, you mentioned how to test for a monitor
and regulate, these parameters so hopefully everyone will stay tuned
for those. Coming up thanks very much to Our, Guest,
chris mechley and Our Producer mark winner for making the
show Possible and chris for. This segment do you have any?
Any again final words of wisdom or thoughts for. The
listeners keep.
Speaker 5: It simple, Bottom line i'm going to say that, every
time keep. It simple it, doesn't happy fancy. And exotic
graduate to that as you go and become a more.
Seasoned hobbyist you don't want to. Be discouraged you know
it can get discouraged with the cost, and expense and
if you keep, it simple that discouragement is one variable
eliminated from you becoming a. Successful, raper finally.
Speaker 2: Great advice. Great advice. Thanks again please be sure to
Check out chris's weblinks found on His aquarium mania. Guest
page if you have, any, questions comments or ideas for,
a show email me At doctor roy At petlife radio.
Dot com THAT'S. D R ro oi At petlife radio.
Dot com until, next time please be sure to visit
your local, cram stores keep your tanks clean and your,
fish healthy and stay tuned for more on a reef and.
Speaker 4: Coral Keeping Let's talk pats every week on demand only
On petlight radios. Dot com the pot put the bucket at,
the backstone