Unless you’ve been living under a piece of live rock for most of 2010, you may have noticed that non-Photosynthetic and azooxanthellae corals have been increasing in popularity. New species have been entering the trade, aquarium stores have started dedicating a section of their site to these corals, and a while ago “the dark side of the hobby” even got their own forum. The question why these corals have become more popular, can be answered quite simply with the aquarium of Mike Cao, an impeccable and unambigiously dedicated Azoox reef tank which has a lot to show for the hard work. Keep reading for more info of this amazing tank and a lot more pictures

Some aquariums are just hands down amazing. The non-Photosynthetic 120p ADA of Mike Cao is one of these cases. The aquarium system consist of three tanks, a 120p ADA, an ELOS mini, and a 40 gallon fuge. The main DT (the 120p ADA) is 48″x18″x18″ for a volume of around 65 gallons. The Elos mini it is connected to the 120- ADA and is being stocked with various sponges, tunicates and Waratah anemones (Actinia tenebrosa). Continues water changes (every 15min), along with carbon dosing, ozone and a 40g fuge with a deep mud/sand bed, caulerpa, ulva and shoal grass are employed as filtration.

Just like any azoox system, this system needs to be fed, and be fed heavily. Mike Cao add a mixture of a  lot of different foods through his feeding system as can be seen on the right. The feed regime consist of the flowing over a 24 hour period:

Left flask:
NLS Reef Micro Feeder
FM Ultra Clam
FM Ultra Pac
FM Ultra Life
FM Ultra Min F
FM Ultra SeafanFM Ultra Zoa
FM Ultra Min D
Frozen Cyclopeeze
Frozen Nutramar Ova
Frozen Rotifers
Frozen Baby Brine Shrimp

Middle flask:
Reef Nutrition Phyto Feast

Right bottle:
Reef Nutrition Oyster Feast

Although the feeding regime might seem like overkill, nutrients are kept in check by the automatic waterchanges and a lot of TLC. The heaving feeding also resulted (and continues to show) good  in growth in some of these corals.  For more information be sure to checkout Mike Cao’s build thread and feel free to drool over the pictures below: