Conversation with Will about his Reef Aquarium

[@SpaghettiKillah]

Honestly this is better than National Geographic or Animal Planet ! So soothing, informal and down to Earth conversation with amazing footage. Me & my daughter watched through all without moving...even if i'm out of the hobby but i'm day dreaming when space will allow me to get back into it. Cheers from Italy 🍷

[@tidalgardens]

That's very kind of you to say. Thank you. I hope you and your daughter enjoyed it.

[@martijnvanbeek4387]

Space shortage? Try a smaller tank and make it beautiful. Watch Danny's Aquariums e.g.; beautiful and well-shot;) Thanks for the great video Than!

[@jamesbryan1285]

I laughed out loud when Will said he spends his time behind the system maintaining it, not sitting in front of the aquarium enjoying it. A true aquarist addict! Beautiful job. Thanks for making the video.

[@tidalgardens]

I know the feeling. I am only looking for problems when I look at my tanks.

[@MiddleAgedMike]

Love this format, casual conversation with smart successful reefers.

[@tidalgardens]

Thank you. I hope to do more of this style of video.

[@fredbarkley747]

Your channel is the reason I got into keeping coral. I have never kept fish, nor any aquatic animals. However, when I discovered your content by chance, I was instantly captivated by the grace and rigor of keeping corals. Please keep on producing content.

[@aquamind9996]

Awesome! really cool to see all those big grown-out colonies. I like this style over having little frags of 1000 different corals. When my 40 breeder grows up, I want it to look like this 👏

[@tidalgardens]

Glad you like them!

[@sandymanplays]

Love these showcases!

[@tidalgardens]

More to come!

[@spicyreef]

*I've been thinking about so many things you talked about. Thank you for the conversation!*

[@tidalgardens]

Any time!

[@scooterglass4497]

I love Will's comment around 19:30 about enjoying tinkering with the chemistry and habitat. Reef Ecology is Fascinating and I must know it all! I too enjoy witnessing the changes and documenting what I can.

[@XMRNYC]

Love the old school mentality of this reef keeper. Great looking setup Will! We need more vids like this!

[@lbenn43]

Please! More of these types of videos! Loved it!

[@1GolfJones]

Stability is everything in this hobby!

[@angelespino2513]

I absolutely love these videos. Thanks for sharing this amazing story and tank with us all. Can’t wait for the next one

[@tidalgardens]

Glad you enjoyed it. I hope to do more like this in the future.

[@harkinsaquatics]

I love wills reef so much

[@tidalgardens]

It is really nice and quite different from anything we keep.

[@jeffnc]

Gorgeous tank. I love seeing somewhat run-of-the-mill corals like that purple monti grown out and showcased

[@ou812reefing]

Beautiful reef great information

[@KillerKev1961]

What an outstanding video-full of great info from which I learned quite a bit. This hobby is a never ending learning process-it never stops. I stick to just a few bonifide sources of solid knowledge, and this channel and source is one of the few. Thank you.

[@InappropriateReefer]

Lovely chat with great visual 🙌

[@katchupoy01]

This is a very very good episode. Thank you.

[@tidalgardens]

Glad you liked it!

[@lunes-1]

Spectacular 🐬Reef tank 👍

[@tidalgardens]

Thank you! 👍

[@DeeFromBrooklyn]

It’s all about stability. Great interview

[@Richs_reef]

My dad has been in the hobby for almost 30 years now and one of the first ‘corals’ he bought was an anemone rock (the anemone being Aiptasia) - we laugh about it whenever we go to a fish shop together and see a coral for sale with Aiptasia on the plugs/rock

[@tidalgardens]

Back in the day there was also a thriving market for "algae rock" that was basically hair algae.

[@tricktaylor]

Someone sold me an anemone rock on eBay about 5 or 6 years ago when I first started...I was buying copepods from him and saw "mystery" $5 coral and thought hey ill buy 2. I green star polyp and 1 aiptasia rock with a zillion attached to it... some people man... I could sell my dirty water change water as "copepods" and cut pieces of aiptasia off my rocks and sell it as "mystery" coral to newbies online too. But I'm not a jerk.

[@GuruNick]

Awesome video, love the format and good questions/topics.

[@waterlover]

Gorgeous tank, I used coral pro salt from Red Sea loved it in my 1 gallon pico, 2.6 pico and my 375 reef never had no residual in my mixing container. To each is own I guess. When I had a aptasia problem I tried everything till one day I had a little piece of blue sponge that I broke off from my colony I placed it in a little shot glass full of peroxide smooshed it up then let the juice settle, got a syringe with a needle and sucked up the juice. Injected every aptasia visible in the mouth literally killed all in a three weeks span along with doing 50% water changes after each aptasia assignations. Well worth it and still use that method

[@BENK1515]

Super interesting format! KEEP GOING!

[@eddyortiz8110]

Since the last time we saw this tank? Wow! It looks like everything is on steriods😂 amazing growth and beauty!💜🐟💜 Cool.

[@tidalgardens]

Yes, thanks

[@1GolfJones]

I've found heating my rodi water all the way up to tank temperature (78F) ahead of mixing in my salt really cuts down on any sludge build up in my mixing tank!

[@tidalgardens]

Some salts it helps to raise temps like that. Other salts are supposed to be mixed with cooler water, and they get more sludgy if you mix them hot.

[@elianderson9883]

Do you have a podcast? Great conversation! A long time fan from Georgia

[@harrysworld327]

What are his secrets to not having any coraline on the back glass and all? Stunning tank!!

[@tidalgardens]

Elbow grease

[@ManuelLopez-gw4ui]

Good video I have a question I also use reef crystals when I mix my water in my mixing station my alkalinity drops each day do you know why I would do that and also what is best to add in there to raise it back up

[@S2minute]

One of my tanks in my multi- tank system has a 6” dsb that have glass partitions making up 12 compartments. If down the road years later if I so chose I can replace one compartment each month. However, the substrate is Southdown play sand which is sugar fine and aragonite. I rely on the worms and other critters to pull the detritus down into the sand and eating it. The grain size is small enough to keep the detritus on top and the grain texture lacks the sharp edges which is user friendly to the critters the live in the sand.

[@miguelortiz1104]

Nice 👍

[@ogsvideos6423]

Amazing system how long is the tank?

[@DCLEE-co3dj]

I love the channel and progress of the store. I wanted to ask since you have changed the light routine on the frag tank do you think if you tinted the front windows it might help with the algae build up? Also do your store ship orders out or is that too soon?

[@stevemunn367]

Great video 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

[@tidalgardens]

Thanks 👍

[@jimharkins3695]

What type / name is the red coral that the Clownfish are hosting?

[@tidalgardens]

Goniopora - kzbin.info/www/bejne/o2iwfWR8adGbp5I

[@jimharkins3695]

@@tidalgardens Thanks, that's what I thought but I wasn't sure because the distal portion of the tentacles looked a lot longer compared to most goniopora that I've seen and compared to the others in his tank to the left of the big red one.

[@PracticalReefer]

Great video! I have seen people dose Calcium Carbonate to kill Vermatids, apparently it doesn't harm anything else and clogs up the Vermatids tube and kills them? It was Craft Aquatic, not had to do it myself but interesting idea hopefully it works, fingers crossed!

[@kentedgar442]

Im having mixed results with my gonis some look like they are working there way towards growing and others barely open up but never fully extend out and its barely over low flow so they are not getting blasted i feed phyto and reef roids broadcast feeding parameters are in line and they are in the substrate any other ideas of how to get them to thrive?

[@tommycristaldi9037]

What coral is the clown fish hosting in? It’s dark red.

[@tidalgardens]

Goniopora

[@tommycristaldi9037]

@@tidalgardens do you recommend this for a tank just starting their first year? Or should I wait?

[@deadbrother5355]

I just want Than to come to my house and be the boss of my tank routine for like a month. It seems like I overtinker. Like 10 years ago I would just neglect my tank, and it would do pretty good. Now I bug out, and monitor, and test and supplement and it looks worse in spite of high tech pumps, lights, and a massive improvement over the old skimmer. Everything is meh. I love/hate this hobby sometimes. I'm done venting to yt comments now. Enjoy your day.

[@ryanrich06]

For these companies not being billions of dollars like Apple or Google, they make some decently optimized software. You’ll never get to Apple level fluidity so expecting that is unrealistic. Plus having some controllability is light years better than having none.

[@kenzolips5123]

How much gallon is this beauty?

[@alexl.9317]

Does this tank use any UV?

[@tidalgardens]

No UV

[@TehSharkX]

My biggest question with parameters is that everyone suggests stability even if they are suboptimal because changing will stress the corals. However, whenever you buy corals, the levels are rarely the same sometimes drastically different. Every the temperature change from floating the bags after transportation changes really fast in a short amount of time. With that said, I’ve never lost a coral immediately after buying it, even months after buying it. Why is altering parameters after they are established in a tank such an issue?

[@tidalgardens]

Some SPS, specifically Acropora change color drastically when tank parameters change and take months to regain peak color.

[@willholland7201]

This is an interesting point and I'm not sure why it's true. I've definitely had small frags die, but in general they survive. However, these older colonies that have been stable for a while seem to be more sensitive to change. I've changed nothing but salinity a point or two and had RTN on large colonies that were doing just fine.

[@SuperRell83]

I wonder if he is still using vibrant

[@adambahe9309]

I want to know more about dosing and dosing schedules. What product. How much. And over what time period. "I continually dose Acropower at 1ml/min 24/7/365. Or "my auto water change is once a day at 9am, first it removes 3 gallons over a 3 hour period from 9am to 12pm, and then replenishes 3 gallons from 12pm to 3pm" HOW you dose is almost more important than what you dose. For example, I started experimenting with Acropower maybe 6 months ago. But I was doing a manual dose once every few days. I noticed zero changes and just figured the product didn't really do much for me. But when I switched over to doing Acropower dosed by the Versa at 6 microliters/min for 6ish hours a day, my coral coloration and growth increased a ton. So for me, how I dosed Acropower was the difference between it doing nothing and it being successful.

[@tidalgardens]

That's interesting.

[@Qwiv]

Still dosing Vibrant?

[@tidalgardens]

nope

[@Qwiv]

@@tidalgardens Would be interested in a husbandry follow-up on that. Pretty sure it needs to shake out first but that would be an interesting discussion.

[@Alex_Correa]

Isn't continuous water changes a waste of money when using synthetic salt mix? It's not necessary at all. Specially with the easy corals in that tank. I would love to know more about that. What is the main reason to perform that way? 24:28 ATI Powermodule is what we see in the video, not Sunpower. They are the new Powermodule. The old school Powermodule were those heavy duty T5 only fixtures. ATI Sunpower T5 only rocks!! I don't care much for the hybrids, but I understand that everyone is different. And sorry, but this hobby should be about the corals and fish, not the equipment. LOL! If you feed 3 times a day you feed a lot!!! My tank doesn't not have nor ever had any Aiptasia, and I'm not a liar. LOL! kzbin.info/www/bejne/e5aomoaDnN6Wn8U Great video! Amazing tank! Thanks for sharing! Please keep doing it!

[@anniejefferson4642]

That is one sexy tank will.

[@willholland7201]

thx!

[@infinitytrippyvideos1662]

I live for stories like 19:46

[@VyvienneEaux]

'Etymology' is the most ironic word to be easily, often, unapologetically, enthusiastically confused.

[@willholland7201]

Guilty! I hate mispronouncing words! I really WAS referring to the origin of words, not the study of ... ehrm ... ents.

[@jeffatkins8103]

I really don’t use the Apex system, continues to tell everything that’s controlled by the Apex. 🤔

[@katchupoy01]

I believe he does not CONTROL via Apex.... Just MONITOR.... And he wants to do the controlling himself....

[@jeffatkins8103]

@@katchupoy01 that’s pretty much what an Apex does is monitor. Unless the Trident is added.

[@willholland7201]

I use the APEX to monitor pH, Salinity, Temp and CRx pH. The APEX direct controls the PMUP top off pump, but I no longer use it to control lights, heater, return pump or skimmer pump (via outlets) as I once did. I especially like having a separate controller for the return, circ pumps and heater, which is plugged directly into a large battery backup in case of power outage (as those are the essential ones to keep running)

[@clevelandfan91]

I'm surprised by the use of reef crystals. I find all instant ocean salt leaves sediment at the bottom of my container no matter how much flow there is.

[@tidalgardens]

Ours mixes clear so far but I am used to heavy sediment so any improvement seems crystal clear.

[@clevelandfan91]

Like you said, if it works for you then use it. Its not always the same for everyone.

[@katchupoy01]

Probably something to do with water? Mine mixes clear also, been using SEA SALT for 18 years... But now because of this episode, I might try the REEF version...

[@sebastiantoms4147]

First!!

[@mobius2545]

I caught a few Crypto references...Technical Analysis is getting around!

[@t.regnerus301]

GFO, throw it in the garbage. Save the carbon for emergencies.

[@tomg5405]

Hudge gonio

[@Wyz1981]

I can’t stand the old fashion mentality with controls and monitoring. Apex is an amazing system that is east to use and reliable. I don’t get this I want everything on timers etc.

[@willholland7201]

I'm not sure what you mean about timers. I like the Apex but there are disadvantages to centralized control. For example, if your Apex unit goes down you lose control of EVERYTHING. (which has happened to me). Also, sometimes it's easier to adjust something, like a peristaltic pump, or a lamp color, with just a twist of a knob rather than 20 clicks and moving points on a graph. And I need decentralized control of the heater and return pump in order to plug them separately into a battery backup for the power out scenario.

[@XMRNYC]

You are in for a nasty surprise. Never ever put your eggs in one basket.

[@XMRNYC]

@@willholland7201 you are doing right thing. Anybody in this hobby long enough knows not to rely on a single point of failure solution. I really on multiple apex classics to do the job and my new build is being even more decentralized. Funny how that Neptune wall with an eb832 @24:56 went right back to the tried and true EB8 @26:46.

[@willholland7201]

@@XMRNYC the new EBs just fail too much!

[@XMRNYC]

@@willholland7201 oh yes they do.

[@petarst]

To say that red sea has brown crude is a malicious comment, i am using blue and black bucket on all my reef aquariums and that is stunning salt with no brown residue and perfect parameters. And it is better than reef crystals for sure.