Caribbean Biotope Seagrass Tank

[Michael Hoaster]

That is a big undertaking, JZinCO! All 3 tanks will be connected? This should be very interesting, learning how each ecosystem interacts with each other. Can't wait!

[Michael Hoaster]

The grasilaria hayi is back to its full glory.

[sam.basye]

Originally Posted by Michael Hoaster

The grasilaria hayi is back to its full glory.

Tank looks incredible, Michael!
Minus the little flowerbed of aiptasia? lol

How do you think it got in there in the first place? Attached to some macro you added somewhere down the line?


Thanks for the kind words regarding my wall

[Michael Hoaster]

Thank you, Sam! It is kinda pretty right now, thanks to some obsessive/compulsive pruning!

What, you don't like my thick, luxurious (aiptasia) meadow? They may have come in on some snails. I guess you have to be ready to get the good and bad, with the freebies! I have at least four macros I didn't pay for.

So, I started with one aiptasia. I did the chemical squirty thing, which seemed to work well. A couple days later I had ten…

Four peppermint shrimps and one filefish later, and they're back. They both worked well, but they also went after stuff I didn't want them to. So now, I'm doing the Berghia nudibranch thing, which will take some time. But it is working! In the meantime, I'm pretending they're pretty…

Your welcome, on the wall envy! I haven't seen one done better. FTS?

How 'bout some more eye candy:

[Michael Hoaster]

Tufted joint algae, among the seagrasses. Cool, weird plants!

The condylactis anemone seems happier than ever. I think 3 factors contributed; lowering my dosing frequency to once a week, not having a shrimp hosting in it anymore, and finding its spot in the tank, finally.

[jraker]

Looks nice. For some reason, I couldn't see the pictures on this thread for about two weeks. Now they are showing up. Weird.

[Darth_Tater]

That anemone does look good! Sponges look happy too.

[sam.basye]

Originally Posted by Michael Hoaster

Tufted joint algae, among the seagrasses. Cool, weird plants!

The condylactis anemone seems happier than ever. I think 3 factors contributed; lowering my dosing frequency to once a week, not having a shrimp hosting in it anymore, and finding its spot in the tank, finally.

The condy has nice coloration. What would you say in regards to its growth?
Doesn't look much bigger than when you got it. They get really big, so I was wondering why you think it hasn't grown much?

[Michael Hoaster]

Thanks, jraker and Darth_Tater!

And sam.basye, why you gotta busta ma balls? I guess that's kind of a good question…

The anemone has grown a bit, but it's definitely not exploding with growth. It's probably because I have not optimized conditions for it. My salinity is around 26ppt for the manatee grass. Dosing things like nitrate and ammonia is likely the worst thing it has to put up with. It really has been my "canary in a coal mine". Maybe I should feed it more? I've been feeding it once a week, plus what it gets when I feed the tank. Maybe an occasional big meal would help. I wonder if it will grow more now that it appears to have settled down. Maybe it has allocated its resources for finding a home, and now, if it has indeed stopped traveling, it can put more energy towards growth.

It would be cool for it to get bigger. But at least I haven't killed it. I've had it for a year and a half or so. Condylactis anemones have a pretty dismal record in the hobby. Maybe I'll take a look in the anemone forum and see if I can find some good info.

By the way, did your green bulb anemone make it?

[sam.basye]

Originally Posted by Michael Hoaster

Thanks, jraker and Darth_Tater!

And sam.basye, why you gotta busta ma balls? I guess that's kind of a good question…

The anemone has grown a bit, but it's definitely not exploding with growth. It's probably because I have not optimized conditions for it. My salinity is around 26ppt for the manatee grass. Dosing things like nitrate and ammonia is likely the worst thing it has to put up with. It really has been my "canary in a coal mine". Maybe I should feed it more? I've been feeding it once a week, plus what it gets when I feed the tank. Maybe an occasional big meal would help. I wonder if it will grow more now that it appears to have settled down. Maybe it has allocated its resources for finding a home, and now, if it has indeed stopped traveling, it can put more energy towards growth.

It would be cool for it to get bigger. But at least I haven't killed it. I've had it for a year and a half or so. Condylactis anemones have a pretty dismal record in the hobby. Maybe I'll take a look in the anemone forum and see if I can find some good info.

By the way, did your green bulb anemone make it?

Haha, at least yours is still alive! I've never had any luck with condylactis nems. The two I tried wouldn't attach and eventually died.


No clue what happen to my gbta... It was doing better before I left for that trip and when I came back - completely vanished. Never turned up anywhere.
Luckily, it didn't nuke my tank while I was away! Disappointing that it "died", but all things considered I'm glad it didn't take the whole tank down with it.

[wilder]

OMG! Your tank is looking fantastic! I love the changes and the overall health of your tank.

[Michael Hoaster]

Thanks, wilder!

It is fun, watching it change and evolve.

[Michael Hoaster]

I got a package from Florida Pets. Tiny serpent stars and live mud.

With the mud, I turn off the pumps, dump it on the sand bed, and immediately cover it with sugar sized sand. Then I turn the pumps back on and wait for it to clear. I was able to get in there pretty quickly and do some caulerpa pruning, while I waited. Hopefully, it clears before lights out.

I may wait on dosing, just to give the tank a chance to adjust to the new mud. I found a shoal grass shoot, so I planted it. That mud is such an inexpensive source of biodiversity. Pretty wild, dumping black mud into an aquarium!

[Michael Hoaster]

Tank cleared up nicely. Everything seems well.

Well almost everything-the dictoya appears to be gone. Oh well. The tufted joint algae looks happy, and it goes so well with the grasses. The blue scroll algae is still just 4 small fragments, but they look like they'll make it. As I said before, I'm pretty excited about this one.

I'd love to add some fish now, but I want to wait for the berghias to finish off the aiptasias first. I can't take a chance that the fish would pray on them. So I wait. I expect it may be months. That will give the new mini stars time to get established, and see what pops out of the mud…

[sam.basye]

Originally Posted by Michael Hoaster

Tank cleared up nicely. Everything seems well.

Well almost everything-the dictoya appears to be gone. Oh well. The tufted joint algae looks happy, and it goes so well with the grasses. The blue scroll algae is still just 4 small fragments, but they look like they'll make it. As I said before, I'm pretty excited about this one.

I'd love to add some fish now, but I want to wait for the berghias to finish off the aiptasias first. I can't take a chance that the fish would pray on them. So I wait. I expect it may be months. That will give the new mini stars time to get established, and see what pops out of the mud…

Where exactly does the mud come from? Is it like a mangrove mud?

What kind of fish??

[Michael Hoaster]

I would guess it comes from a marsh or mangrove swamp. It looks like pluff mud. It's black and soft, very fine grain-it's actual mud, not some dirty sand.

For fish, I'm considering a biggish school of silversides.

[sam.basye]

I bet there's a ton of nutrients in the mud that you grasses will like. Interested to see if you get increased growth in the next few weeks.

A big school of silversides will look great! Especially when they venture into the"blue zone". The light with shimmer off of them nicely. Got an idea how many??

[JZinCO]

Ah! I've been thinking about silversides too. I can only find that pollution bio-indicator place selling silversides. Let me know what you come up with.

[Michael Hoaster]

Yes, sam.basye, I think the grasses will like it.

Silversides would be great. Not sure how many until I know how big they are. A big school would look really cool in the grasses too.

[jraker]

I read that they get to be about 4-6 inches long, so you could probably get a decent sized school of them.

[Michael Hoaster]

I've got a couple more sponges on order. A ridge sponge and a fan sponge. Maybe I'll have better luck with these.

All attempts at bringing in sponges have failed, even though the sponges that came with my live rock have flourished. I'm pretty sure there is plenty for them to eat. I've decided to up the dose of sodium silicate, to see if that helps. Given there is a fair amount of sponge growing already, there could be competition for available silicate. And then there's the snails. They use silicate to build their shells. And I've got a lot of them.

If upping the dosage is successful, then I think competition for silicates is the problem.

[jraker]

I know what you mean about the sponges. Lots of people tend to have a difficult time with sponges that they actually buy, but the ones that hitchhike on live rock do fine. I have some in my reef tank that are super bright and are growing quickly, but I imagine if I added a ball sponge, it would die.

[Michael Hoaster]

True that, jraker!

On more than one occasion, I have read that if a sponge is not collected with the rock it is attached to, it is doomed. So far, none of the sponges I've ordered has come with rock, and none have survived.

It seems like collecting sponges attached would be a simple solution, but I'm of two minds on this. On one hand, I'd like to get them attached to rock, and flourish in my tank. On the other, by removing the sponge from the rock, collectors leave behind sponge tissue, so a new sponge will likely regrow in its place, which is much more sustainable.

So what's the solution? I think it's fragging. Does anyone still buy wild collected coral? I'm even seeing macro algae frags now. The time has come for sponge frags! It seems to me, if you've got a sponge growing well, you could prune it and glue the frags to rocks. Give them some time to establish, and they're good to go. Of course it's not that simple. The air issue is a problem. I've also had no luck gluing them to rocks. Sponges seem to defy all attempts at domestication.

I'll keep trying a bit longer, but I think maybe the best way to get sponges to survive is just to get farmed Florida live rock, and ask for "sponge rock".

[Michael Hoaster]

I took the scissors to the tallest manatee grasses. They were getting all tangled up with each other. Several blades were in the 4 foot range. A lot of them are getting encrusted with coralline algae too. I'm kinda hoping the tufted joint algae will take up some of that calcium, so the grasses have less. It's doing well, and appears to be growing.

The dictoya has vanished without a trace. I may be the first aquarist EVER to kill dictoya. Makes me feel special. I'm seeing some slight signs of growth from the blue scroll algae. It's a slow grower and keeping it in dim lighting probably makes it slower. One of the fragments in the best light looks to have added a petal. But it is small, barely peaking out around the push pin. But hey, it's growth! As I keep repeating, this one is going to be cool. Imagine a cross between a tree fungus and a plating montipora.

All the other macros are pretty much exploding in growth right now. Why? I'm not sure. I've been dosing ammonia instead of potassium nitrate, for the last month or so. I'm alternating the two forms of iron lately. The CO2 injection continues as well. I haven't done a water change in a while. I'm getting some detritus accumulation. I know it's not pretty, but I think it benefits the bottom of the food chain and the plants as well. In nature, seagrass beds accumulate a ton of it. I did add those micro stars the other day to help straighten up the bottom a little. Cherub Angelfish eat detritus too, so when I get around to adding them, that will help as well.

I have considered adding a caribbean cucumber, but I'm holding off on that. I've kept them before, and they gradually starved. Like keeping a tang in a planted tank, I think they need a really large tank to support only one.

It's strange, looking at reef tanks now. They seem so sterile and artificial to me. And the lengths people go to make their tank water invisible! I prefer my water alive, like in the ocean…

[sam.basye]

Originally Posted by Michael Hoaster

I took the scissors to the tallest manatee grasses. They were getting all tangled up with each other. Several blades were in the 4 foot range. A lot of them are getting encrusted with coralline algae too. I'm kinda hoping the tufted joint algae will take up some of that calcium, so the grasses have less. It's doing well, and appears to be growing.

The dictoya has vanished without a trace. I may be the first aquarist EVER to kill dictoya. Makes me feel special. I'm seeing some slight signs of growth from the blue scroll algae. It's a slow grower and keeping it in dim lighting probably makes it slower. One of the fragments in the best light looks to have added a petal. But it is small, barely peaking out around the push pin. But hey, it's growth! As I keep repeating, this one is going to be cool. Imagine a cross between a tree fungus and a plating montipora.

All the other macros are pretty much exploding in growth right now. Why? I'm not sure. I've been dosing ammonia instead of potassium nitrate, for the last month or so. I'm alternating the two forms of iron lately. The CO2 injection continues as well. I haven't done a water change in a while. I'm getting some detritus accumulation. I know it's not pretty, but I think it benefits the bottom of the food chain and the plants as well. In nature, seagrass beds accumulate a ton of it. I did add those micro stars the other day to help straighten up the bottom a little. Cherub Angelfish eat detritus too, so when I get around to adding them, that will help as well.

I have considered adding a caribbean cucumber, but I'm holding off on that. I've kept them before, and they gradually starved. Like keeping a tang in a planted tank, I think they need a really large tank to support only one.

It's strange, looking at reef tanks now. They seem so sterile and artificial to me. And the lengths people go to make their tank water invisible! I prefer my water alive, like in the ocean…

That's a lot of grass...
(CO reference )

Just remember; when you kill something you think is an easy addition and that you're the only one who ever has - you're not. You may be the only one to openly admit you have though. Lol
I've killed gsp, xenia, and cheap zoa's. Lol you're not alone...

Are you sure you're not staring at that blue scroll so much you're imagining growth?? Haha