3 of my Macro Tanks
 

Here are some shots from 3 of my algae based tanks. I have almost no corals because of various kill fests but plan on adding more. If you've never seen an algae based tank you can still get lots of color, but much of the variety is on shapes.

This is what I consider my main tank. 75 gal. This one focuses more on rockwork with corals. I plan on adding lots of frogspawn type corals and blastos and other LPS.

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This is my second tank. This one features 80+% sand bed so I can have fields of algae. It is tied to the first tank with a 55gal sump. Besides the macros I plan on showcasing feather dusters and tube and rock anemones.

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This is my third. I just did a major purge and clean out of this one and removed much of the algae and redid the rocks to give more space. It is a separate 55 gal with no sump. My plan is to have this one have a mix of softies and algae.

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I have about 30 varieties of algae right now. Of course the best and rarest ones I had I lost in my crashes. I welcome any questions on setup as I would like others to check out this small niche of the hobby.

The flickr gallery has many more shots.


-Steve

I think they are awesome, thank you for sharing!

Sweet tanks! I like the bottle, I've been thinking about adding an old bottle I have to my tank as well. I also keep a 90g macro tank with condy and rock nems, sponges, and gorgonians, and I very much agree with you that a macro tank can be just as colorful and interesting as a coral reef tank. One suggestion I have for you to get more of a color pop is adding sponges like the orange, yellow, and red ones. Forgivive me if you already have them maybe I just didn't see them. I also noticed that you, like me, have some nuisance algae creeping around, how do you deal with it? Manual removal, fish, inverts?

Awesome tanks! I like the idea of adding feather dusters and stuff. An algae invert tank would be an interesting combination.

Impressive systems. What additives are needed, if any, to keep the micros healthy?

Very nice tanks, I love the 2nd one and can't wait to see it with some gorgs and anemones in there, I'm starting a larger nps tank to keep tube anemones and was considering putting some macros in there.

I've drilled some holes in the side of the bottle and I think I will either have the feather dusters or some more tube anemones coming out of the side. The bottle is a blue wine bottle and makes a nice contrast with the green and red.

I'm going to a frag swap next week and hope the vendor who had a bunch of sponges last year will have them again this year. I haven't had the best of luck with them but want to try again. A bright yellow would really pop.

I don't let the micro algae bother me much. Any corals I want clear i dip in hydrogen peroxide. If it gets bad on my macros I will take them out of the tank and use a tooth brush and clean them. Most hold up well but you must be gentle. I keep nerite, cerith, and stometella snails. The main tank also has blue legged, white legged, and left handed hermits. I don't keep rare algae in that tank or halymenia as they will eat it. They also munched on my new lobophora so I had to move it already.

-Steve

I don't dose anything specifically to the macros. I often overfeed my livestock. I don't use RO water I use well (shocking I know) and my water has a lot of iron and sulfur in it. I plan on switching to RO eventually and will see if the maco seem to need iron. I'm not good at chemistry so I don't know if the iron in my water is a useable form or not. Anyway the algae seems to do great, some corals do fine and others not so much. I think it is more likely the corals that don't like my tanks don't like the alkinity swings I can't seem to get under control. I know I know use RO.

If I don't prune often enough I see little growth on most except the grape calurpa which out competes everything but the micro nusience algae.

-Steve

In awe. Lots of questions. Source? Substrate? Lighting Temp?, Type?, Wattage? Thanks. I just ordered from Live-plants.com The reds ususaaly don't make the ship well cause I see lots of red color in water. Has a lot of bad odor. But I will keep trying. The 2 day postal ship is what I think is causing the problem. I can't get it right. Either timed to too cold weather or hot spell

Source: Live-plants, LA Reefs, Local fish stores I've covered most of the state looking for fish stores.
Substrate: Ca based sand
Lighting: Top 75 - 4 bulb T5 54w 10k, actinic, blue+, fiji purple
Middle and bottom - 2 bulb T5 54w 10k, actinic
Temp: low 70s normally around 74

I'm on a two day ship as well. The halymenias are the reds that always give me problems. Yeah if there is lots of red in the water that usually a bad sign. The live-plants red sampler packs can not be beat for value. Lots of what is in the pics above came from live-plants. They are the best. Lots of the algaes always smell really terrible when I open them up, but they are ok most of the time.

-Steve

Aeration helps , yes the halymenias did do poorly. I have more questions: do you notice the copepod population being more than usual also do you notice any mysid (oppossum shrimp) population. Thanks

I've not noticed an increase in my copepod population. I must admit though my interest in checking on them left me years ago. I occasionally add a bottle of pods to my systems but don't really notice them after.

Sadly I have never had any mysid shrimp in my tanks. I have found some dead one in a shipment though. If you have them I'm sure they will appreciate more macro. I would like to find someone local who has them though.

My amphipod population seems pretty good though.
Recently I've had the urge to buy one of the pod packs from reefs2go but I haven't tried them yet.

-Steve

I would steer away from reafs2go. I have gotten the refugium pack from live aquaria. They sent me a small supply of amphipods. It didn't take long for them to multiply. With your tanks they should really take off. I think algagen sells amphipods also. I wasn't pleased with the other bad that reafs2go was doing. Sent me bleached mushrooms, sent me emaciated yasha gobies ( go figure: they sell live food but don't feed their fish with it). I have also seen where others have had issues also. I was also Leary of the multiple names that they had. The trick with home builders is that they would file bankruptcy and then form another name company the next day. Reafs2go was always offering me credit but so what if everything is crap and didn't want to waste money on shipping.

I have to say that these are some of the coolest tanks I've ever seen. I've recently started collecting macros myself and your tanks have been part of the reason I've done so! Thank you for sharing!

Is there a need to add CO2 like there is with freshwater planted tanks? Would there be any benefit to this?

Very cool tanks by the way!

:thumbsup: they are inspirational - thanks for sharing!

CO2 injection is not necessary for macro tanks.