Billy's Deep Sandbed Experiment

[growsomething]

I find cerinth snails often washed up by the thousands on a particular local beach, next to a grass flat and pass.  When the tide comes back in (12hs on a slow tide) off they go!  But 30 hs is amazing. 

[gena]

11 hours ago, billygoat said:

So, remember how I said I wasn't going to put any fish in this tank? 😅

 

 

This terrified little guy is one of the three blue chromis that have been living in my 40g tank for the past year or so. This poor fish has had some consistent problems, including a recurring popeye (related, I think, to the fact that his shipping bag was deflated when he first arrived) and a bad case of being lowest on the three-chromis totem pole. For the first four months or so all my chromis got on well, but recently things changed and this one has been getting absolutely manhandled by the alpha chromis on the reef. This aggression was bad to the point that the runty fish's chances of survival in my other tank were starting to get pretty slim. When I found him cowering in a corner after receiving a fresh beating today, I decided I'd had enough: I approached on his blind side and netted him right out of the top of the tank, then plonked him down here amongst the seagrasses. He's going to have to take his chances in this lidless aquarium, but I figure a risk of death by jumping is better than a guaranteed death at the hands of his "friends." We'll see what happens I guess. 🤷‍♂️

 

In other news: Cerith snails are amazing. A few days ago I had one crawl out of this tank in the middle of the night (dumb snail) and fall into the space behind the stand. I heard it hit the floor and came over to look for it but could not find it, so I gave up and went back to bed. 30 hours later I discovered the snail jammed into a corner of the room. I assumed it would be super dead after spending more than a day out of the water, but I tossed it back into the tank anyway, just to be sure. Ten minutes later it began to move. How an aquatic animal can survive total desiccation for that amount of time is completely beyond me, but kudos to you, snail. Well done. 🙏

 

Nothing much else to report here, but more to come as things continue to develop and change! 😁

He has his own little sanctuary now.  yay for him!!!!

[billygoat]

On 8/23/2021 at 7:42 AM, gena said:

He has his own little sanctuary now.  yay for him!!!!

Blue chromis are not normally found in this sort of environment, but I figure it's better than being pummeled to death! 😅 Hopefully he will be able to recover from his various problems in here.

 

A few more changes came through recently: I removed the Gracilaria that had been growing towards the rear of the tank and planted a mangrove in its place. The Gracilaria had been steadily melting every since I introduced Caulerpa, so I figured I would just cut to the chase and get rid of it. I had to temporarily drop the water level in the tank by about an inch in order to plant the mangrove (the growing tip must be above the waterline), but I think I'll be able to raise it again within a couple of weeks. 

 

 

A few days ago I also manually removed most of the epiphytic algae from my seagrasses by gently rubbing their blades with my fingertips. I think this will give them a leg up in their battle against the gunk that grows on them.

 

Everything else seems to be doing pretty well. Carbonate consumption has dropped off considerably, which I think indicates that the decomposition of dead stuff that came in on my rocks is largely complete. Nitrifying bacteria are the biggest consumers of KH early on in a tank's life, and a decrease in consumption would make sense if they are in the process of passing the torch to the plants and macroalgae. Film algae and gunk-algae growth is also declining, helped in part by the addition of two large Caribbean star snails that I moved over from my 40g tank.

[seabass]

17 minutes ago, billygoat said:

Blue chromis are not normally found in this sort of environment

I think it looks good in there.  It'll help add some nutrients too.  Plus, being from southern Florida and the Caribbean, I'm not sure that it's that out of place in a tank like this.

[Tired]

Fish get washed around by storms all the time. I'm sure there are some wild chromis out there living in seagrass.

[gena]

I remember reading chromis are found in Florida/Caribbean waters so I think it's a perfect addition!

[billygoat]

On 8/25/2021 at 1:39 PM, gena said:

I remember reading chromis are found in Florida/Caribbean waters so I think it's a perfect addition!

Some are, yeah. But most of the species I know of are reef-associated, at least as adults. You can often find juvenile versions of all sorts of fish in seagrass beds though, so who knows!

 

Nothing much to report this week! Things are still truckin' along. Chad the Crab is a whirlwind of destruction, but it doesn't really seem to matter in this tank. He goes where he pleases and that is okay.

 

 

You can see the lone chromis hunkering down in the middle of those rocks. He's still afraid of my phone, even after all this time. 😂 The Caulerpa racemosa at the bottom there is half melted, but the other half is growing so that's fine I guess. There's a really beautiful aiptasia anemone (lol) at the back there too. I'll try to get a better picture of it sometime.

 

 

The two species of Caulerpa on the other side of the tank seem to be doing pretty well. My Caulerpa prolifera in particular has grown much longer than I expected it to - it has blades that are 4-5" tall. The seagrass is also hanging in there, despite Chad's best efforts. It's kind of a jungle, but I think that was the plan all along. 

[filefishfinatic]

On 8/28/2021 at 9:45 PM, billygoat said:

Some are, yeah. But most of the species I know of are reef-associated, at least as adults. You can often find juvenile versions of all sorts of fish in seagrass beds though, so who knows!

 

Nothing much to report this week! Things are still truckin' along. Chad the Crab is a whirlwind of destruction, but it doesn't really seem to matter in this tank. He goes where he pleases and that is okay.

 

 

You can see the lone chromis hunkering down in the middle of those rocks. He's still afraid of my phone, even after all this time. 😂 The Caulerpa racemosa at the bottom there is half melted, but the other half is growing so that's fine I guess. There's a really beautiful aiptasia anemone (lol) at the back there too. I'll try to get a better picture of it sometime.

 

 

The two species of Caulerpa on the other side of the tank seem to be doing pretty well. My Caulerpa prolifera in particular has grown much longer than I expected it to - it has blades that are 4-5" tall. The seagrass is also hanging in there, despite Chad's best efforts. It's kind of a jungle, but I think that was the plan all along. 

wait, whats the coral in the bottom right of the 1st pic, is it rose coral? or is it a bryzoan?

[A.m.P]

You know, my brain flicked on for a brief moment this morning, why not throw a dwarf molly in there? You basically find them all up and down the gulf coast shores and they'd work wonders cleaning your macros off.

[billygoat]

2 hours ago, filefishfinatic said:

wait, whats the coral in the bottom right of the 1st pic, is it rose coral? or is it a bryzoan?

Those are starlet corals. Not sure of the exact genus but it's probably Siderastrea or Stephanocoenia. They are common hitchhikers on rocks from the Gulf of Mexico.

 

1 hour ago, A.m.P said:

You know, my brain flicked on for a brief moment this morning, why not throw a dwarf molly in there? You basically find them all up and down the gulf coast shores and they'd work wonders cleaning your macros off.

Could be worth a try! The flow is kind of strong though; when the powerhead kicks up to maximum setting it really moves some water. I don't know much about mollies, but don't most of them prefer calmer conditions, like estuaries and riverbanks and such?

[filefishfinatic]

5 minutes ago, billygoat said:

Those are starlet corals. Not sure of the exact genus but it's probably Siderastrea or Stephanocoenia. They are common hitchhikers on rocks from the Gulf of Mexico.

 

Could be worth a try! The flow is kind of strong though; when the powerhead kicks up to maximum setting it really moves some water. I don't know much about mollies, but don't most of them prefer calmer conditions, like estuaries and riverbanks and such?

oh ok cool. if you ever move the chromis, what id do is get a huge colony of dwarf seahorses and pipe fish and they are really easy to feed. all you need is decapsulated shrimp eggs ad throw them in unhatched and they hatch in the tank and you feed the fish very easy 

[A.m.P]

7 minutes ago, billygoat said:

Could be worth a try! The flow is kind of strong though; when the powerhead kicks up to maximum setting it really moves some water. I don't know much about mollies, but don't most of them prefer calmer conditions, like estuaries and riverbanks and such?

IME, provided they have somewhere in the tank that's reasonably calm they'll head there to rest, impressively-strong swimmers.

[Tired]

1 hour ago, filefishfinatic said:

oh ok cool. if you ever move the chromis, what id do is get a huge colony of dwarf seahorses and pipe fish and they are really easy to feed. all you need is decapsulated shrimp eggs ad throw them in unhatched and they hatch in the tank and you feed the fish very easy 

I don't think that's how it works. If it did, loads of people would have dwarf seahorses. What stops the eggs from getting filtered out or winding up above the waterline? If it's that easy, why doesn't everyone do it that way, instead of hatching the eggs separately? 

[seabass]

I have to admit, I fed my Banggai cardinalfish babies decpsulated brine shrimp eggs.  Much of what they didn't eat, hatched, and were eaten by the babies.  This tank didn't have mechanical filtration, so the eggs weren't filtered out.  I also dosed live phyto so that the baby brine shrimp would be enriched.  Still, dwarf seahorses and pipefish aren't the easiest fish to keep; and the conditions of your tank (like flow or stinging corals) might not be ideal for either fish.

[Tired]

I think a bluestripe pipefish would be fine with some amount of flow. I had one in my prior tank, and he was a decently agile little guy. The short body and relatively large tail help. Feeding is still an issue, and of course the jump risk, and I don't think they're a seagrass fish. 

[billygoat]

On 8/30/2021 at 12:47 PM, seabass said:

Still, dwarf seahorses and pipefish aren't the easiest fish to keep; and the conditions of your tank (like flow or stinging corals) might not be ideal for either fish.

Yeah I don't think I will be getting a pipefish, and I certainly won't be getting dwarf seahorses. Those would have a hell of a time with the current in here!

 

A friend of mine asked if I could rehome their sharknose goby, so I think I will probably go ahead and put it in this tank. It's not likely to jump, and I don't think anything in here will eat it. If anything it might help curb the reproduction of the thousands of amphipods that currently live in here. I feel like a sharknose goby would probably be more at home in my 40g reef tank, but it's 100% guaranteed to get eaten by the fish-eating mushroom in there so that's off the table. 😅

 

This seagrass tank saw a few changes over the past couple days. First of all, Chad the Crab is out. He was doing great for awhile there, but a few days ago he decided to go on an absolute rampage and ripped up some of my seagrasses. That won't do of course, so I moved him back into my reef tank. Of course the very first night he was back in there he managed to somehow judo-flip a huge rock covered in zoanthids. What a pest! I'll figure out something to do with him soon, hopefully before he destroys everything in my other aquarium.

 

Second, last night most of my Caulerpa prolifera decided to "go sexual" and made a huge mess of the tank. I think there was a bit too much caulerpa in here anyway, so it's probably for the best that I got a good excuse to pull some out. I removed almost all of the remaining C. prolifera and replaced it with a few new corals that I got today: a small toadstool leather, a frag of Pocillopora, a frag of Porites, and a chunk of Sinularia.

 

 

I attached each coral frag to a separate piece of rock so that I can easily move them around later on if necessary. The toadstool and the Pocillopora are already showing good polyp extension after only about 12 hours in the tank, so I figure that's probably a good sign.

 

Here's the FTS, with the new Sinularia visible all the way at the left:

 

Man, looking at that picture I can't help but remark how Chad the Crab really did a number on my seagrasses. They seem considerably thinner than before. Hopefully they will rebound now that he's out. And even if they don't, I'm confident that the tank will take me in a cool new direction. It's been a lot of fun so far for sure.

 

[Firefish15]

Chad the Mad Crab, more likely.

Looking good!

[seabass]

I'm a little surprised that you were concerned about a native fish to Florida and the Caribbean looking out of place, but are fine with non-native corals.  IDK, I didn't look up all of the corals' origins.

 

8 hours ago, billygoat said:

I'm confident that the tank will take me in a cool new direction. It's been a lot of fun so far for sure.

That's probably more important anyway.  Take it in any direction you like best. 👍

[billygoat]

2 hours ago, Firefish15 said:

Chad the Mad Crab, more likely.

Looking good!

Chad's a Rad Crab, but he's also a mad lad that needs his own pad! 😂 I want to set up a basic Petco tank and plonk him in it, but I can't figure out where in my house to put it. Hopefully I will figure it out sooner rather than later.

 

2 hours ago, seabass said:

I'm a little surprised that you were concerned about a native fish to Florida and the Caribbean looking out of place, but are fine with non-native corals.  IDK, I didn't look up all of the corals' origins.

Unlike my 40g reef aquarium, I never intended for this tank to be a Caribbean-specific system. I tend to source a lot of things from Florida because I think it's more sustainable (the livestock are collected under stricter regulations and have to travel less distance to reach me) and because I just generally like the look of a lot of corals from that area, but I'm totally open to putting anything from anywhere in here! I thought it might be cool to have a few hardy corals that grow in mangrove flats and lagoons mixed in with the seagrasses and/or macroalgae, and leathers in particular are something I've always wanted to keep but have never had a chance to before. The reason I was concerned about the chromis is more because of differences in environment than differences in region - the sort of environment I'm trying to replicate here is a lot more open than the reefs where blue chromis normally dwell, and offers less in the way of hiding places. 

 

2 hours ago, seabass said:

That's probably more important anyway.  Take it in any direction you like best. 👍

I agree for sure. I'm really trying my best to keep an open mind with this tank. If something doesn't work out (like those upside-down jellies, for example) that's totally okay! It's an experiment, and I have no expectations for the final outcome.

[M. Tournesol]

36 minutes ago, billygoat said:

offers less in the way of hiding places. 

you could still add a hiding place for your chromi 

[billygoat]

3 hours ago, M. Tournesol said:

you could still add a hiding place for your chromi 

For sure! I do have quite a few cool shells that I could add, but I think I'll hold off for now. The chromis has found a nice crevice in the rocks where it hides when it feels threatened. I think it is adjusting well to the seagrass aquarium.

 

@gena how's your Antheila doing? Mine has grown tremendously in the ~7 weeks it's been in the tank. Here's a before-and-after:

 

 

[gena]

4 hours ago, billygoat said:

 

 

@gena how's your Antheila doing? Mine has grown tremendously in the ~7 weeks it's been in the tank. Here's a before-and-after:

 

 

It's on the same ridiculously fast exploding growth path as yours LOL.  Love this stuff!!!!!!  I think we got them at about the same time!

 

then:

 

Now:

 

 

[Tired]

Hm, remind me never to put anthelia in a pico, then. Neat stuff, but not neat enough that I'd want a tank dedicated to it. 

[Firefish15]

I’ve got my anthelia isolated on a magnetic rock on the back wall. @NanoRox actually made them. 
That way, whenever they start spreading too much, I just razor them off of the glass.

[billygoat]

Not much going on in here this week. I have been struggling a bit to maintain proper nutrient levels. NO3 came back at 0 ppm this morning, which explains why the growth of my grasses and Caulerpa seems to have leveled off. I'll definitely have to increase my feeding from here on out.

 

The corals I added last week are all doing well and showing polyps.

 

 

All the surviving life that hitchhiked in on my rocks also appears to be doing well, including the large wing oyster and solitary tunicate. I reinstalled the HOB filter (ugh) and have been running it with nothing in it just to increase surface agitation. I tried to replace the HOB with an airstone for a minute there but couldn't handle the salt creep. 

 

 

No photos of the blue chromis right now, but it's looking quite a bit better. Its popeye has receded dramatically since I removed it from my reef tank, although I think the eye itself may be permanently damaged this time around. Even so, the fish seems to take pretty good care of itself. I think it experiences a lot less stress in this system.