Macroalgae Island Scape

[sam_the_reefer]

Added a skimmer to this tank.

 

[sam_the_reefer]

I moved some shrooms from the reef tank here where they can be more appreciated. Still have some cyano, but so far everything's doing well and I'm starting to get some coralline spots on the acrylic.

 

 

[sam_the_reefer]

[sam_the_reefer]

Order in chaos.

 

[banasophia]

14 minutes ago, xellos88 said:

Order in chaos.

 

Looking good!

[WV Reefer]

11 hours ago, xellos88 said:

Order in chaos.

 

Loving all the colors! 

[sam_the_reefer]

Some updates, the macroalgae have grown to a point where I needed to do a major trimming. In the process, I've accidentally dislodged some tentacles, but it's fine. 

A fellow reefer also decommissioned his tank so I adopted his old purple firefish. This guy is significantly bigger than my last firefish and I'm hoping he'll last a while in my tank. 2 of my mollies also disappeared. The 2 that disappeared were the larger and more dominant ones but it seems they didn't transition too well. This was before I added the firefish.

The macroalgae seem to be nutrient limited now because I'm seeing growth but the colors aren't as vivid. Finally, it looks like I'm having a dinoflagellate outbreak with the many small bubbles and brown threads. I've removed the skimmer in this tank and did a water change to replenish it and to clean things up after the big trim.

 

Before trimming

After trimming

Still haven't given up on this sponge

This gracilaria sprouted naturally

Old purple firefish in his bolt hole

The last molly swimming

[sam_the_reefer]

Took some pics with my old starter DSLR while waiting for the typhoon.

 

 

 

[sam_the_reefer]

 

[sam_the_reefer]

 

[sam_the_reefer]

[Snow_Phoenix]

5 hours ago, xellos88 said:

Tiny shoots! Beautiful. 

[DNR88]

Looks very natural, I like it! 😊👍

[sam_the_reefer]

I'm sad to say that the above photos will be the last for this tank. 😞 Shortly after the photos above, I experienced the most devastating typhoon and we've been out of power for a week. Compared to my reef tank, this tank didn't handle the lack of power too well and only one molly is alive now. The macroalgae have already started dying off and are now crumbling. 😞 It was a short lived but enjoyable journey into macroalgae and I hope I'll be able to start another tank like this when we've recovered.

[LazyFish]

I'm so sorry to hear that this was fast becomming one of my favorites.

[A.m.P]

Sorry for your losses, glad the other tank seemed to stick-through-it better. I was thinking about your systems the other day reading about the typhoon, glad you're okay.

[sam_the_reefer]

So instead of making another thread, I've decided to continue using this one since the restart is just the same concept. However, I've decided to use driftwood instead of coconut flowers this time.

Yes, that's a molly. 🙂

 

 

[sam_the_reefer]

And although this tank will still be a macroalgae dominated tank, I'm planning on adding some corals to it but sticking to the easy ones. This will be the "easy" tank.

[Firefish15]

Glad to hear that you’re persevering! The last iteration was beautiful, looking forward to how this new one turns out!

[sam_the_reefer]

I was able to get some fancy balloon mollies and decided that this tank will be a molly tank. I'm not sure what to do with the future babies yet. I'm enjoying them so far though, and they've cleaned up the tank of all the brown algae.

 

 

 

[A.m.P]

Love it

[sam_the_reefer]

Now I'm getting a lot of green hair algae. The mollies seem to be nibbling on them, but there's just so much. This is different from the usual green algae I get, but I do see this kind of algae in the wild. Growing pains, but green is good though.

 

[sam_the_reefer]

"This is the easy tank." He said...First I was wondering about the weird smell coming from it and it turns out a gecko drowned in this tank(Philippine problems). Next few days the surface skimmer went below the surface due to climbing snail and hermit crab and I didn't think much about it. Next day there were 2 less mollies. I checked the floor and found no bodies, and thought maybe the ants got to them first, so I just let it be. Then 1 more molly went missing. I checked the filter and behold, clean Molly parts! Apparently they were not smart enough to avoid and not strong enough to escape a submerged surface skimmer. I had to take out most of the hardscape to brush out all the algae and as a result the scape changed a little.

 

On a good note, I have baby mollies! I also added some oysters to this tank. Someone was selling them for food and I got 2 for the macroalgae on them. The guy looked at me weird. Hopefully the macroalgae will grow and spread.

[sam_the_reefer]

 

 

[sam_the_reefer]

Three months later...