A few months ago, I decided to try an experiment with a seagrass/seahorse setup. After doing a little reading here and elsewhere, and getting some advice from Sarah and others, I jumped in.
The tank is a 30 Xtall. I wanted the height to accommodate a vDSB for the grasses, and didn't want much more of a footprint than 12X24.
The original idea was to use things I had at hand, like a 24" HOB refugium, and a 130 watt PC fixture, but things have evolved.
When it was originally set up, it had an Aragonite sand bed, a fuge full of chaeto and rubble, the live rock and mushrooms and the PC fixture:
Just before the grasses arrived, I decided that I wanted to mix some Fluorite into the botton 4" of sand. It was a bit of a chore to move the sand aside, dump Flourite in, mix, move the top layer back on top, but I think getting iron and other minerals to the roots will pay off.
Then the first shipment of manatee and shoal grasses arrived, along with some porcelain crabs and snails. It looked fairly good right after planting.
I was a little worried about the ability of PC light to penetrate the depth of the tank, and I had some slightly-used Iwasaki lamps lying around, so I kept my eyes open for cheap electronic ballasts. Turns out Premium Aquatics was selling Reef Fanatic ballasts for $50, so I picked one up and slapped together a canopy.
After that, the algae started in earnest.
Somewhere along the line, I added a hydor heater/powerhead to try it out. Not my best buy. The thermostat became almost immovable, the insides get full of gunk pretty fast,and I forgot how much I hate suction cups. It will be good for mixing SW.
After the tank filled with cyano, the macros in the fuge melted down, and things were looking like a disaster, I decided to make some changes.
-Added 300 gph powerhead. That step alone really helped rein in the cyano
-replace the 24" fuge with an old 12", the low flow and rotting macroalgae combined to make a fairly awful mess. The amphipods seemed to be in heaven, though.
-added a skimmer. I regretted selling my old bakpak, but decided to try out a Coralife super skimmer because it was cheap and got decent reviews. It's big, clumsy and ugly, but easy to adjust and collects good skimmate.
The tank looked a lot better immediately, and the cyano is showing no signs of returning.
After the skimmer had a few days to remove the yellow stuff, the tank looks nice and clear.
The turtle grass from florida pets has started to put off new leaves pretty quickly, and some of the manatee grass has pulled through.
I have been very excited to see this new runner grow from the stargrass I got from Billsreef. It looks like the tank may support plant life after all!
This weekend, I will add a few gorgonian frags from the reef tank, to help fill things out a bit.
All I'm doing regarding chemistry is to add a little nitrate to keep it about 5-10 ppm, and using some vinegar and kalk in the topoff reservoir.
Anyway, that's the start.