900 Gallon Drop Down Reef Tank with TONS of Colors! Visiting Polo Reef!

All right, reef keepers. We are at the famous Polo Reef. And if you guys do not know what Polo Reef is, you've probably been sleeping underneath a rock at this point because you guys do amazing work. Whether it be the 17,000galon, all the projects, the scientific work you guys are doing, you know, everything when it comes to charity work as well. Kudos to you, Andrew, for what you guys are doing. Uh really [music] happy to be back here today. This is an exciting moment. Always a pleasure to have you guys in town, whether it's to build scape, [music] bring coral, or just talk reef. Two years ago, we were, you know, kind of rounding it back. We were here, [music] and I know me and you talked offline and we were talking about, you know, so many projects going on here at Polo Reef. [music] And we've got one of them right next to us that was craned in over the house. [music] Um, just crazy. Let's The first one cracked. The first one, that's correct. The first one did crack. And it was like an extra eight, nine months before we got another one. And then what's the size of this tank we've got right here? The drop down. One of the most unique style of rec. And I think that's 30 something inches. This is 4 ft. And this is 36 I think depth. And then you had the team here on site build the scape as well. Correct. Yeah. And these drop downs, they just can't leave the stand. So So that's the difficult part about shipping them. Yeah. And these drop downs are so unique, right? And I think that's something people kind of when they utilize a drop down, a lot of it's nano drop downs. You don't see a lot of big time drop down tanks because the the transport and the [music] the the cost is double what a normal tank would be and the transportation probably also double the watching it on the channel getting, you know, from the outside looking in. I'm one of the viewers as well. I can't help myself but enjoy all the different things you guys are doing. When we're talking about the livestock you guys decided to go with on this tank, obviously we've got some deeper sections where we've got some lower light stuff, right? But we've got sticks up at the top getting juiced up with a bunch of lighting, too. Yep. Really some really nice rows. The PAR up top. One of the things about, you know, mixed reefs is like you got 300 on top and then the next level you have LPS and it's already it's hitting them at two 2 and a/4 250 and yeah, you're burning some out here and there. Down at the bottom here with the mushrooms, we get about 80 100. So, um yeah, pretty diverse ecosystem. Uh the ocras are enjoying life. Uh these dooas actually they color them up nice. They they look beautiful. You made a mention that it's got a kind of a haline kind of look to it. And I would agree. It definitely has that kind of style as well when it comes to the lighting and color it puts out. I think they made them like try to look like the radiant bulb. That's what I [laughter] think. We've got a gigantic elegance. You mentioned something off camera I think would be a great tip for people that are thinking about picking up some elegances. What have you seen with elegances here at Polo Reef? Don't mix uh Australians with Indos. Don't like keep your Malay the Malaysians together with the Malaysians keep the Australian the Australians once they start getting that elegance disease where they start getting smaller [music] it passes to the other elegance to be honest with you everybody's got their witches brew from dips and I heard another one recently I mean every antibiotic known to man just throw it at it and and and see what sticks I still couldn't bring the elegance back. So, um, they definitely like clams. It's very hard to pack clams from different parts of the country of the world together in a single box and not have them pass along something. It's funny, right? We play this, you know, kind of a game of God, right? We're bringing all these different pieces from around the world. We're hoping they're going to coexist, correct, but in reality, they haven't seen each other ever in their lives. So it can be a little and they come with vibrio or but in the wild it doesn't bother them. You put them in a closed box, everybody's got a cold and sneezing and next thing you know that they they'll go down like dominoes. Something unique, you know, you guys have picked out some very choice pieces, right? We've got a beautiful scolie garden. The torch garden up top is amazing. The Ghanis, but something that kind of hits home for me, there's some pieces that a lot of people have in their own reef tanks, right? We've got a beautiful toad stool. We've got a giant space of invader pictinia. There's some things that, you know, you guys have really done a great job with a variety of different species. And you know, now at this point, and I got my chalice wall to finally to finally not die on me before. What were you trying to grow on there? What did you see happening? The rainbow chalicees would just weren't weren't grow and they would just either bleach out or peel. And the minute we went towards the Crayas and the [music] orange chalicees, I think my chalice buying days might be over. [laughter] And I love it, by the way. It looks It actually looks more natural. It does than just rainbow everywhere. I'm definitely It kind of fits more with the rock structure how it looks. And you guys obviously built [music] a rockcape that kind of cascades down the drop down, correct? Yes, exactly. The fish in the tank. I know a lot of people have seen this system on your channel. There's a variety of fish you guys have put into here. Let's talk about some of the trials, tribulations you guys have gone through. And then the fish selection we went with. Um this one was uh amphas rass small fish. Uh there are some small tangs in here. Uh one one really nice uh that's a yurple. There's one yurle and then one um white koi tang. [music] But at the end of the day, uh, we threw a lot of amphas in, including the purple queens. And there's one right there. You can see. Mhm. Uh, but the population has gone down over time as they just can't compete with the other randas and Bartletts um for food unless you were putting in a automatic drip baby brine. So, as soon as you start getting a little lazy and you start feeding by hand and it becomes a squirt on top and they're down deep, they just the population dwindles. Yeah. It's something that I think a lot of people don't even think about is the fact that they are in the lower section of the tank and they're getting out competed before the food even makes its way down. Same thing with the hell freaky fires fish. Okay, we noticed same thing. Stayed down deep, couldn't couldn't compete. out competed from the top and all the way down. There's no no food that's [music] going to make its way down there. Right. For the equipment, we mentioned that we've got Doo is kind of cooking up top. We've also got a nice bar of kessles on the side. Talk us through what was the idea when we put the castles here on the side. Well, I had this huge uh overhang over this chalice wall, right? So that so the the the wall that's cascading down was getting no light from the [music] tops. So, we needed to come in this way to hit the light. And we've had we started with one, then we had two, then we had So, we had to get some more some more lights on on on [music] this guy. He had the elegance. And then I then I came in one day. I didn't like the way the Ghani looked and I took a PAR measurement and it was getting too much light from that one castle. So, that one's off now. And these two are on. But, it's been I don't know. There's something really refreshing about the yellow, orange, green chalice like the these uh uh Crayola meltdown chalicees. Amazing. You you could cook them at 250 par or 50 par. Wow. And they're beautiful looking things. See a mixture of flow too in the tank. Obviously, I think with the challenge of it being a drop down, that's probably something you guys are constantly battling. [music] Correct. I can't have too much flow because of the mushrooms, but yet I need to get some flow to the chalicees. Uh yeah, it's it's a it's a pain in the neck. And actually, when we did get some hair algae in this tank recently, [music] it was all getting blown by the gy on the ocros on top and getting stuck and you know, burning some some coral out a little bit. But yeah, the the flow in this tank is is difficult and it has to be there is closed loops. Uh there's closed loop here at the at the at the very bottom. It's blowing up. You can see the elegance being blown. Now [music] go find the right where everybody's happy. But the mushrooms say too much flow or not enough flow. It's then it's not enough flow for the gani. Like you know that that's the challenge. And flow is one of those unique things [music] as things continue to grow the tank develops. you it seems like you know probably the team here has to change things all the time probably you see this uh this red gnani until we put this gy here which kept it back it was start trying to sing the elegance so we literally put this gy in [music] to keep the red ganhani back and it worked utilizing the flow basically to kind of keep a blockade for a blockade getting into and start to sting other coals that was something I wanted to ask you too. A huge mixture of different corals in here probably having some coral warfare that's potentially happening. What are we doing to either mitigate that or is there something that you guys have tried to see to [music] try and kind of combat that coral warfare? Uh I mean this is connected to the to the NEM tank too and I'm sure there's some warfare up there. So this tank does run carbon uh and we change the carbon every two weeks to 3 weeks in the reactor. Um, and this system now we we [music] running just a little GFO but very tiny and it has a uh an algae scrubber on it downstairs. Uh, one of the clear water custom ones that they made for us. And somehow I guess a piece of got dislodged from there into the sump and then next thing you know you have a little hair algae problem. So, we cook some snails back in the back for 45 days and that's those are long 45 days when when you have a hair allergy problem and you're like, "God, I want to get those snails in there." And then you're like, "Can I do it in 30 days? I want to take a chance." A lot of people don't even put that into consideration. You know, I know every reefer. I'm at [music] fault to it, too. Throw immediately in. And you definitely have issues. You got a shot at [music] at a problem. God forbid it's a velvet tomant or something. Right. Right. I mean we we try to ask whether fish with these clan with these snails or not. Do you keep a fishless system but you know you don't know where they got them from and and what wholesalers and stuff. So I don't know how you how you have really know. You got an Abyss 400 pushing this tank as well. Is that also that same Abyss running the NEM tank up top too? Yeah, exactly. Wow. It's crazy how powerful those are. We just we just had to get the balance right. And then outside of that for nutrient control, we mentioned carbon. What other you know forms [music] of nutrient control are we doing in this system? The algae scrubber is the first time I've used actually the scrubbing nets. I never used it before and it definitely made us change the GFO less. That was a big that was that was big. That's a big time suck. [music] And the tank's a little more stable cuz you're not going up in phosphate and down with phosphate. Other than that, we got the big bubble king skimmer [music] downstairs and that does a wonderful job. And there's filter socks in there. There's a UV um that's it. Algae scrubbers, right? They're great. They do a good job, but they're obviously cooking some [music] nuisance algae. You said there was potentially something that you realized with algae scrubbers that most people don't even put in consideration. What happened? I don't know. We got a hair algae problem and and I I assume it's was from the spores from that reactor sending it out that way and then getting it into the sun upstairs. Yeah. You know, now it goes into a a filter sock and and the question is is that even enough, right? I don't know. You know, maybe it should be a very fine micron filter sock. We just threw in like 75 snails like literally two three days ago. So I'm hoping that uh we've seen the last of of this problem. It's a lot escape [music] to work through. So they're probably making their way and then sooner or later they're going to start getting it was a long way in quarantine. Like you know we really need this [laughter] here in Polo Reef. It's become truly a laboratory. I see it all the time on your guys' videos talking about ICP tests, going in and getting the numbers and really kind of crunching things, chasing after metals, all kinds of different things like that. When we're talking about the drop down and the NEM tank included the numbers, what are the numbers that you guys kind of generally have in these systems? Uh, this one runs slightly higher in nutrients, [music] but we do that because we have some mushrooms and and so this one will run.1 to 0.15 phosphate and the nitrate stays [music] around 10. Other systems around the house will be in the that 10 and 008 kind of range. I know you guys run our phytolanton here in the facility. What are we actively dosing into this [music] tank too? Is there kind of some secret sauce we got here at Polo Reef that's making things work? Yesterday I I I I made these corals a milkshake. I grounded up some uh some Larry's food and and then added some oyster feast and and put some bacterial stuff in there, lacto and made a little milkshake and you know I did some turkey basting around. But for the most part, we we'll we'll use phto with like what you guys use. If we need some phosphates, we'll use some reoids in the phto. If we don't, we'll use uh either Chris Wood's product or benefits invigorate or we'll use some of that powder. But it but in general, we found that like you feed enough like it it it almost doesn't matter. And these corals too, right? And I'm sure they're soaking it up so fast with the sheer amount of growth that's occurring. It's probably hard to even maintain keeping some numbers on the scale. Well, that 2500 upstairs, which which we'll talk about soon, I mean, that thing is I I it's the only tank we have in the house [music] that we have no reactors at all on. Zero. And the we have a it's too clean. I don't know whether the skimmer is too efficient or it's that rotary drum filter, which is my personal opinion. It just does an unbelievable job. And you know, for most people when we're they're talking about their reef tanks, you know, sometimes people really pack it [music] full of fish, right? But with this sheer size of like 900 gallons, 2500 gallons, you would need so many fish to really kind of show an impact of the numbers, do you guys try to play into the fact of getting, you know, more fish in? Obviously, you guys go through rigorous quarantine. You know, I once once we find the balance where where you're stable on phosphates, you're stable, everything is stable. I'm not looking to add new fish just for the hell of it. Although this 17,000 in the filter system in this 17,000, I could turn the suls in here. Yeah, I dump twice as much GFO in in the reactor. I could I can probably double the fish tank fish in here. Wow. So, this is just aesthetic. What do I want to see? the other tanks, how it looks, the balance, etc. I'm going to have to add more fish to the 2500 cuz that rotary drum is We're actually thinking about taking out this some screens. Wow. I've always loved the idea of a drop down and getting to see one at this sheer size is super [music] impressive. Did want to hear, you know, we talked about Alex the reef. He's been a huge addition to the Polaro Reef team. I think he's been, you know, extremely beneficial. talk us through, you know, you've got, you know, just like at TopShelf Aquatics, we've got a full team that's making this place run. It makes it happen. You've got a full team here, and that's kind of what is the driving heartbeat of the Polo Reef. Having him is a a protection of my investments, b we're doing experiments and trying different things and are on to some very important discoveries that I think could change the hobby. probably without not without a vet script though, which is the problem. And then third is there's no more guessing, right? Like I don't because we get to see the scrapes and on the scope all the time. I don't have to guess and throw the book at it at at a fish and treat them when it when let's say it's a sensitive fish that like doesn't do well in copper [music] and it's a deep water fish and it's expensive. So we do a lot of non-medicated quarantines now and he's just scopes them three four times over a four week period. You know his saying is three three scopes clean and [music] you're good. Talked about it offline too. Lighting. I think lighting is one of those things people tend to play with all kinds of different things. You've played with a million different combinations at this point. You mentioned kind of a triedand-rue combination that you love. What is that that you've seen that's one of your favorite combos of all time? I mean that that 2500 upstairs is hairline and LED. The 17,000 is a combination of LED and some hairs. But there's something about adding some hairline in with some beautiful T5s that just I I I I the coral. It does something for coral color and and your eyes that So, that's still my favorite. Outside of craning the tank in, getting it into the space, making sure you have it up and running. What has been the biggest challenge of running a drop down? I know a lot of people want to try running a drop down tank, but what have you seen? Even if it's, you know, on a grander scale, what's been the biggest challenge with running this drop down? Nobody wants to build a cabinetry for it. It's like not easy. I would say the the lights are tricky because you have so many so much different height thing and the flow is tricky because of that. Other than that, as long as you have the correct [music] animals at the lower lighting levels and the correct animals at the higher lighting levels, I think it's very doable. You guys definitely put a ton of [music] thought into it when it came to the location of the livestock, what what type of livestock even as well to make this system work. Well, Andrew, I want to say thank you for letting us come by, check out the 900galon. This is really exciting, but this is not the only tank we're going to be talking about here at Polar Re. Cannot wait to head up and check out the 2500galon. Let's let's go ahead and make our way up top. Okay, great. If you want to see more of Andrew's 2500galon office tank, be sure to tune in next week as we're going to be doing a full tank tour. If you guys have tuned in all the way till the end, I want to say thank you very much. Be sure to like, subscribe, and hit that bell notification so you guys don't miss out on any future uploads.