Dawn's natural nutrient tank system!

[Christopher Marks]

Beautiful reef @vlangel, it's great to see it in motion. Love that royal gramma, one of my favorite fish. The one I kept years ago was so shy in comparison to yours, that's great.

[vlangel]

4 hours ago, Subsea said:

Dawn,

Outstanding.  Kudos to you.  Very nice.  What is the red macro in front bottom right of tank?

Thank you Patrick for such kind words!

 

I think it is grasilaria hayi but I am not certain of that.  I bought it off a reefer here I think and she called it red titan.  I have it everywhere and it grows as well for me as caulerpa!  Thank goodness not as fast or as invasive though.

[vlangel]

1 hour ago, Christopher Marks said:

Beautiful reef @vlangel, it's great to see it in motion. Love that royal gramma, one of my favorite fish. The one I kept years ago was so shy in comparison to yours, that's great.

Thank you very much CM!  I also enjoy all the movement (whether it be fish, shrimp, swaying coral or tentacled nems) in this system. 

 

How can anyone not love the showy fuscia and yellow on royal grammas?  None of the grammas I have had were shy.

 

I will say that I really miss the ponies but I love the ease of caring for this tank.  It is such a simple natural approach that suits me in this season of life.

[Subsea]

2 hours ago, vlangel said:

Thank you very much CM!  I also enjoy all the movement (whether it be fish, shrimp, swaying coral or tentacled nems) in this system. 

 

How can anyone not love the showy fuscia and yellow on royal grammas?  None of the grammas I have had were shy.

 

I will say that I really miss the ponies but I love the ease of caring for this tank.  It is such a simple natural approach that suits me in this season of life.

Dawn,

I like the way you worded that, “that suits me in this season of life”.  That describes my reef keeping style of “Laissez Faire”.

[Lypto]

That weeping willow is crazy.

[Subsea]

17 hours ago, Christopher Marks said:

Beautiful reef @vlangel, it's great to see it in motion. Love that royal gramma, one of my favorite fish. The one I kept years ago was so shy in comparison to yours, that's great.

Christopher,

Yes to Royal Gramma,  Dawn & I know an individual that got a dozen royal gramma to live in his seaweed mangrove root tank.  I so much liked it, I put 6 into my 120G display.  They dithered together for a bit, but then found  a hiding spot to be secure.  To dither, I got Pajama Cardinals.

 

Dawn,

I really like your post pony tank.  I am glad the work load decreased with an increase in visual appreciation.  

Of recent, there have been beautiful macro tanks on reef forums.  I now have “macro lagoon tank” envy.  Before the Big Chill, I had set up a 30G tank on a 55G stand and cycled the 30G tank.  I now have a more enhanced “vision on steroids”in mind.  Tune in for more developments.

 

First picture is temporary macro tank on top and seed start station for Spring garden vegetables.

 

Second picture is 75G 25 year mature display.

 

Third picture is 120G display after 7 days of peroxide treatment of 1ml/G of 3% h202.  
 

Dawn, the fourth picture is the only macro that Hippo does not graze on.  It is tubular in shape, not flattened like Hayi and it is pliable and does not succumb to grazing.  It was in a Red Macro grab bag from GCE.

https://www.live-plants.com/gracilaria.htm

 

 

PS:  I must upgrade to a new tank because ornamental macros can not be grown with a Hippo in my 75G display and considering the 120G with the Andromeda Galaxy and tooo many Asterina  Stars, I opt for new biotheme.

 

 

 

[vlangel]

18 hours ago, Lypto said:

That weeping willow is crazy.

I am guessing you mean the curlique anemone?  A lot of reefers do not like them as they have a reputation of eating small fish but I do not know that it is justified.  Also it is a myth that they reproduce like aiptasia.  I like it's delicate tentacles.

[vlangel]

I have been working on improvements to my basement refugium.  The shoal grass should be established by now but it was not flourishing.  The 1st improvement was for me to change the cheap led par 30 bulbs to my Coralife Quad T5 fixture that I bought for that tank.  Unfortunately the diy overflow I built is in the way for me to use the legs that come with the fixture so I needed my hubby's help with designing a way to suspend it.  He did a really good job with it.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/RCT7Gbpw4eRXeHEe7

 

https://photos.app.goo.gl/C7rbVgrGV7BX74tB6

[vlangel]

The 2nd improvement involved getting nutrient into the roots of the shoal grass.  I have been involved with a thread on another forum where an aquarist has a seagrass tank.  In his research he learned that regular garden soil that is not contaminated with anything is an excellent way to help get seagrass to thrive.

 

My problem was that the seagrass was already in the sandbed so how could I get garden dirt incorporated into an established tank????  As I thought on that I decided to syphon out about an inch of the top layer of sand.  Then I took my dirt and very slowly submerged cupfuls at a time and then slowly tipped out the dirt.  I had the fuge offline from the display but had an Aquaclear filter with floss to help aerate and clear the cloudiness.  Amazingly that worked pretty well.  Once the worst of the cloudiness settled I added more sand plus the original sand that I syphoned out back on top.  I put the fuge back online so that the bio-filter in my sump and display could offset any die off that may had occurred.  I think it worked very well.  The shoal grass is greening up and looks better already.  I am anxious to see what it will look like 2 months from now.  Here is how it looks today.

 

https://photos.app.goo.gl/RoQX1j9s6cpGoZ188

[Tired]

Interesting idea with the dirt. But I've always read that dirted tanks (at least in freshwater) should be left to sit for at least a few weeks before adding livestock, and not just to cycle them. Partly to make sure the dirt isn't actually doing anything untoward. Remind me, do you have activated charcoal in the filtration somehow? Might be good to run a bunch of that for a bit.

[Lypto]

I'm curious to see how the seagrass would react to aquascape soil that comes in little clumps vs garden soil vs something like river mud and a control of regular sand or miracle mud.

[vlangel]

13 hours ago, Tired said:

Interesting idea with the dirt. But I've always read that dirted tanks (at least in freshwater) should be left to sit for at least a few weeks before adding livestock, and not just to cycle them. Partly to make sure the dirt isn't actually doing anything untoward. Remind me, do you have activated charcoal in the filtration somehow? Might be good to run a bunch of that for a bit.

I can run activated carbon in the Aquaclear filter but have not.  I suppose that might be a good idea just in case. 

This soil is not a prepared soil from a garden center.  It is a mixture of our PA clay with composted soil that I have made myself.  That way I knew that there were not any contaminants in it.

It was no doubt a bit reckless of me to just add it to the whole aquarium system.  I did have the refugium offline when I first added it and when the conch, nassarius snails and grass shrimp seemed ok after I was done, I figured it was safe to turn the return pump on and connect the fuge back online.

[vlangel]

On 3/4/2021 at 12:46 AM, Lypto said:

I'm curious to see how the seagrass would react to aquascape soil that comes in little clumps vs garden soil vs something like river mud and a control of regular sand or miracle mud.

I am curious to see how it does as well.  I will keep you posted.

[Subsea]

On 3/4/2021 at 10:30 AM, vlangel said:

I can run activated carbon in the Aquaclear filter but have not.  I suppose that might be a good idea just in case. 

This soil is not a prepared soil from a garden center.  It is a mixture of our PA clay with composted soil that I have made myself.  That way I knew that there were not any contaminants in it.

It was no doubt a bit reckless of me to just add it to the whole aquarium system.  I did have the refugium offline when I first added it and when the conch, nassarius snails and grass shrimp seemed ok after I was done, I figured it was safe to turn the return pump on and connect the fuge back online.

Dawn,

In my early Reefing days before Dr Tim’s in a bottle, I added RidX, septic tank bacteria, to my system. 

[vlangel]

On 3/12/2021 at 7:43 PM, Subsea said:

Dawn,

In my early Reefing days before Dr Tim’s in a bottle, I added RidX, septic tank bacteria, to my system. 

That is clever Patrick, I never would have thought of that.  I guess it is basically the same thing though.

[vlangel]

I am waiting on an order from GCE.  I got sargassum, a sample halimeda pack, a couple ricordia and dragon's breath.

[Subsea]

9 hours ago, vlangel said:

I am waiting on an order from GCE.  I got sargassum, a sample halimeda pack, a couple ricordia and dragon's breath.

I like Sargassum, but it doesn’t like me.   The cultivar of Dragons Breath you got is the Pacofic variety.  I want some and if yours does well I’ll trade you some Red Grapes.

 

 

 

[vlangel]

1 hour ago, Subsea said:

I like Sargassum, but it doesn’t like me.   The cultivar of Dragons Breath you got is the Pacofic variety.  I want some and if yours does well I’ll trade you some Red Grapes.

 

 

 

I have heard that Sargassum can be difficult.  I decided to try it because Michael on RC was having good luck with it.  His came on live rock however and that might be the difference.

 

I used to have dragon's breath years ago and it did great.  I gave a lot away and then what I had left began to languish and eventually I lost it.  Anyway, if this grows I will be glad to share some.  I already have red grape however but you can just have the dragon's breath.

[Tired]

I've read that the variety of sargassum which clings to rock is much easier to keep. The floating kind needs extremely high light, since it's usually in direct sun. More troublesome, it's naturally tumbled around and turned over by the waves, and it needs that to stay healthy. Hard to mimic in most aquariums. A public-aquarium-sized tank with a heck of a wavemaker could probably do it, but it's not pretty enough to be worth the trouble in a home aquarium, unless one is very determined to have a Sargasso Sea biotope.

[vlangel]

5 hours ago, Tired said:

I've read that the variety of sargassum which clings to rock is much easier to keep. The floating kind needs extremely high light, since it's usually in direct sun. More troublesome, it's naturally tumbled around and turned over by the waves, and it needs that to stay healthy. Hard to mimic in most aquariums. A public-aquarium-sized tank with a heck of a wavemaker could probably do it, but it's not pretty enough to be worth the trouble in a home aquarium, unless one is very determined to have a Sargasso Sea biotope.

I had heard about the high light needs of Sargassum but I felt I just wanted to give it a shot.  I have it up high in the refugium which has a quad Coralife HOT5 fixture with a 10k, and actinic and 2 grow bulbs.  If that is not high enough light then it will be impossible for me to mimic the light conditions. 

 

I could move it over closer to where my drain from the display empties into the fuge.  The drain releases a lot of bubbles and maybe that would be enough turbulence to mimic the tumbling action?  Thanks for sharing that aspect as I did not know that.  I will let you know how it does.

[Tired]

I would ask the seller if it's a clinging or floating variety. I swear I've seen a tank somewhere with a nice cluster of clinging sargassum, and I don't remember it being mentioned as fussy. You said you're getting it from GCE? They always send loads. You could try half of it in a 'normal' place, half of it in the most turbulent spot you can find. 

[Subsea]

9 hours ago, vlangel said:

I had heard about the high light needs of Sargassum but I felt I just wanted to give it a shot.  I have it up high in the refugium which has a quad Coralife HOT5 fixture with a 10k, and actinic and 2 grow bulbs.  If that is not high enough light then it will be impossible for me to mimic the light conditions. 

 

I could move it over closer to where my drain from the display empties into the fuge.  The drain releases a lot of bubbles and maybe that would be enough turbulence to mimic the tumbling action?  Thanks for sharing that aspect as I did not know that.  I will let you know how it does.

Dawn,

You have the anchored variety.  No need for turbulence.
 

SARGASSUM HYSTRIX VAR. BUXIFOLIUM

 

Fifty years ago, my first tank was a Galveston Bay theme with normal output florescent.  Hardly enough to highlight tank, nevertheless I collected floating Sargassum.  Even though it didn’t last long,   there were many interesting hitchhikers.  For me, hitchhikers were not pest but something to be studied, understood and appreciated.ecies of the brown algae Sargassum are among the most prolific of all brown algae in the Caribbean. These include both the anchored and free floating varieties. As a group, they are highly variable in shape, size and distribution and can survive in much cooler water than other tropical macro algae. The anchored varieties are of the most interest to the aquarium hobby, as the free floating patches such as S. Fluitans are not easily kept. Species of Sargassum Hystrix feature large, dark brown leaves with a distinctive white mid rib. This particular variation, identified as Buxifolium (pictured) shares the same basic characteristics, but lacks the pronounced mid rib.  It is a shallow water variety, found in depths of about 45 feet, that grows attached to rocks or other hard surfaces by a single holdfast. Most anchored varieties have a very sturdy, thick upright, that is able to securely anchor itself in very turbulent environments. In the aquarium they require bright lighting and moderate to high flow rates for optimal growth.

[Tired]

There's always such good stuff on floating sargassum, if you find the big clumps that haven't been pushed onto the beach yet. Nudibranchs, crabs, shrimp, even the occasional baby frogfish. One of these days I want to set up a small tank with a sargassum-colored macro and some of those really variable little sargassum shrimp, and anything else I can catch that's suitable for a small tank. Or if the clinging sargassum is simple enough to keep, I might get that instead. It's just too bad most of the stuff on the sargassum is either too specialized, too large, or too aggressive for a little tank.

[vlangel]

On 3/19/2021 at 6:06 PM, Subsea said:

Dawn,

You have the anchored variety.  No need for turbulence.
 

SARGASSUM HYSTRIX VAR. BUXIFOLIUM

 

Fifty years ago, my first tank was a Galveston Bay theme with normal output florescent.  Hardly enough to highlight tank, nevertheless I collected floating Sargassum.  Even though it didn’t last long,   there were many interesting hitchhikers.  For me, hitchhikers were not pest but something to be studied, understood and appreciated.ecies of the brown algae Sargassum are among the most prolific of all brown algae in the Caribbean. These include both the anchored and free floating varieties. As a group, they are highly variable in shape, size and distribution and can survive in much cooler water than other tropical macro algae. The anchored varieties are of the most interest to the aquarium hobby, as the free floating patches such as S. Fluitans are not easily kept. Species of Sargassum Hystrix feature large, dark brown leaves with a distinctive white mid rib. This particular variation, identified as Buxifolium (pictured) shares the same basic characteristics, but lacks the pronounced mid rib.  It is a shallow water variety, found in depths of about 45 feet, that grows attached to rocks or other hard surfaces by a single holdfast. Most anchored varieties have a very sturdy, thick upright, that is able to securely anchor itself in very turbulent environments. In the aquarium they require bright lighting and moderate to high flow rates for optimal growth.

Oh, thanks Patrick.  I know so little about Sargassum that I did not know which variety it was.  I did anchor it to a piece of rock up high in the tank.  Do you think the turbulence will bother it?  Its actually not a lot of turbulence but it is the most active area in the fuge.  The drain is about 400 gph and I am not sure of the flow from the Aquaclear 50.  

[Subsea]

9 hours ago, vlangel said:

Oh, thanks Patrick.  I know so little about Sargassum that I did not know which variety it was.  I did anchor it to a piece of rock up high in the tank.  Do you think the turbulence will bother it?  Its actually not a lot of turbulence but it is the most active area in the fuge.  The drain is about 400 gph and I am not sure of the flow from the Aquaclear 50.  

Flow is always good.  If flow flattens out the tree, not so much.

 

I want to revisit a conversation we had about dosing nitrogen to reduce phosphate, Particularly with the use of ChaetoGrow which has neither nitrogen or phosphate.