Restarting my seagrass build

Reefkeeping, Coral, Fish and Invertebrates.

Moderator: snoopdog

User avatar
Fishfood
Chromis
Posts: 1831
Joined: Sat Feb 22, 2003 12:41 pm
Are you a Bot ?: No
Location: Mobile

Re: Restarting my seagrass build

Post by Fishfood »

ouch... yea that was pink when you got it. It was mid tank under overdriven T5's.
User avatar
Amphiprion
Astrea snail
Posts: 1472
Joined: Sat Mar 05, 2005 10:41 pm
Location: Mobile, AL

Re: Restarting my seagrass build

Post by Amphiprion »

I wish I had a PAR meter to make sure of these things. I honestly thought that if the fixture was ~26" away from the coral it would've been fine. Apparently not. The XM bulb is just a lot brighter than I expected.
Andrew

25g planted nature aquarium
User avatar
Amphiprion
Astrea snail
Posts: 1472
Joined: Sat Mar 05, 2005 10:41 pm
Location: Mobile, AL

Re: Restarting my seagrass build

Post by Amphiprion »

Well, a little update with good news. It seems that despite the fact that I've been neglecting the tank, I officially have a new Thalassia plantlet as of a few days ago. It sprouted right next to the other two, giving me a whopping total of three. Man, these things are slow. The leaf growth for me is pretty fast, with turnover being every week or so, but actual rhizome growth is at a snail's pace. I'm noticing the Halophila slowing as the Thalassia begins to take off more, so it seems like the species succession is proceeding toward natural maturation of the bed. Kinda cool when something that normally only occurs in the wild is happening right here.
Andrew

25g planted nature aquarium
User avatar
snoopdog
Yellow Tang
Posts: 4258
Joined: Mon Feb 17, 2003 7:37 pm
Are you a Bot ?: No
Location: Mobile, Al
Contact:

Re: Restarting my seagrass build

Post by snoopdog »

How about a new pic ? I love the look of a naturally planted tank.
"When they was no meat we ate fowl, when there was no fowl we ate crawdad. And when there was no crawdad to be found, we ate sand."--Cellmate
"You ate what?"--H.I.
"We ate sand."--Cellmate
"You ate sand?"--H.I.
"That's right."--Cellmate
User avatar
Amphiprion
Astrea snail
Posts: 1472
Joined: Sat Mar 05, 2005 10:41 pm
Location: Mobile, AL

Re: Restarting my seagrass build

Post by Amphiprion »

I'd snap a new one, but the tank is in a blackout to stall the cyanobacteria. The Halophila in one part of the bed reached its life expectancy, so to speak. Individual rhizomes only live so long and this one was older than most at about 8 months. It will grow back, but it creates a sludge of a mess until it completely goes away. The bad thing is that it also amplifies cyanobacteria like mad when it happens, so the whole right side of the tank is a sludge pit, unfortunately. I'm going to do some water changes while the lights are out and siphon as much as I can. Should get back in order afterwards, as it was looking pretty good for a while until the die-off. Because of the massive amount of organic matter flooding the tank, I've also dusted off my skimmer for this tank and fired it up. I will probably run it for a few weeks to get this back under control and then run it intermittently afterward.
Andrew

25g planted nature aquarium
User avatar
Amphiprion
Astrea snail
Posts: 1472
Joined: Sat Mar 05, 2005 10:41 pm
Location: Mobile, AL

Re: Restarting my seagrass build

Post by Amphiprion »

Updates!

Okay, updated pics. This is after a hefty water change, some trimming of leaves (I didn't remove any rhizomes this time) and a die-off on the right side. Makes it look more sparse, but not bad, IMHO:

Image

Image

Image

The cyanobacteria is pretty much gone. There is a green species surfacing from the sand bed a bit, but it stays pretty isolated. I'll be keeping an eye out. I also fired the protein skimmer back up hoping to remove some of the heavy organics from the grasses. I may or may not remove it later. If I decide to start some light kalkwasser dosing again, I'll leave the skimmer running, since it helps with the pH quite a bit. Sorry if it is still cloudy. I rearranged the water motion a bit to optimize it, so it stirred some gunk for a while. Hopefully I can keep the tank looking reasonably close to this.

Also note how long the Thalassia/turtlegrass blades have gotten. They've easily added another 5" and I also have a new plantlet.
Andrew

25g planted nature aquarium
Post Reply