Mobile Bay Reef Keepers

With the 25G being freed up. It's time to make it into the planted I have always thought it should be.

I have always liked the clean look of the Bonsai styled tanks. And I think they lend themselves well to a planted tank, as they tank up minimal floor-space, while offering a decent amount of room for corals and macros. The tank is a standard 25G so, it's a bit narrow which may be interesting how I will do the aquascaping.

The stocking is going to rather minimal. A group of Leander sargassum shrimp, a locally collected goby, pistol shrimp, and a temporary Bluespotted Angelfish. I am planning the majority of seagrass to be Manatee grass, with some Shoal grass mixed in. I will have various macro algaes attached to the rockwork and mixed in with the seagrass. I don't have any specific Macros picked out.

Substrate is going to be a mixture of Aragonite, Dolomite and local sediment/mud. Basic powerheads for flow and HOB filters to run media(s) and floss pads. Lighting is going to be two Flourex 65w fixtures with custom solar tube reflectors, but that's likely due to change as the corals need.

Corals will be limited. Possibly a couple plate corals. But mainly I'll be focusing on People Eater type palythoas.

Sounds like a very cool and interesting tank for sure. I'm about to start my anew, myself, I think.

Amphiprion wrote:Sounds like a very cool and interesting tank for sure.

Should be. Hardest thing is going to be the rock structure and getting it to look half-way decent.

Amphiprion wrote:I'm about to start my anew, myself, I think.

Different aquascaping, seagrass or __ ?

Wish I could tell you. Very much still in the planning stages at the moment. One thing for certain is that I will start with new, quarantined rock so that there are no Aiptasia. Will still have seagrass, though.

Here's the tank as it sits. It was a QT so it's bare. I bought a handful of C. proliferia from PetLand in Pensacola. I'll have some in there, but I definitely have more than I can handle.

I need to build the rock structure asap; I'll need to place it soon, so we can bury the eggcrate base when the sand goes in.

Amphiprion wrote:Wish I could tell you. Very much still in the planning stages at the moment. One thing for certain is that I will start with new, quarantined rock so that there are no Aiptasia. Will still have seagrass, though.

Oh, I figured you wouldn't be cutting loose the seagrass. Just whether you were adding (or changing) species

Glue + Epoxy Stick = Not Quite Enough.

Stacking rocks is much, much harder than others make it out to be. I've got a good base going. I just need to do a piece at a time, and let the epoxy cure. So, rock by rock this SOB will get done!

Alright, time for an update.

The tank is pretty much up and running, albeit in limp mode (still don't have real lights, filtration or stocking). The powerhead was more of a flow check. I really like the amount of flow that the 1300gph provided by that ph (50x), but think it needs to be broken up between 2 different powerheads. Should definitely keep detrius and nusiance algae at bay.



For substrate, I laid down 30lbs of fine aragonite first, then thoroughly mixed in 5lbs of Dolomite, 10lbs of locally collected muddy sand and 1 cup of Latarite clay. Topped it with another 20lbs of fine sand, and 10lbs of a courser, more asthetically pleasing Aragonite. The total depth is closer to 4" than 3.5"



The rock structure is the real let down here. The Haitian live rock I was trying to use for the Bonsai theme was simply too big and heavy for the epoxy/glue. I'm not one for busting rock into small pieces. I still really like the look though, it's got a natural flow to it, much more then the standard stacked boulder look, mostly due to the awesome Haitian live rock.

Looks really good so far and, despite the size, I do like the rock quite a bit. Is the Caulerpa there initially for nutrient control or is it going to be a permanent resident?

Amphiprion wrote:Looks really good so far and, despite the size, I do like the rock quite a bit. Is the Caulerpa there initially for nutrient control or is it going to be a permanent resident?

More of a test algae. I have a few inhabitants acting as proverbial Canaries in the mine-shaft. There's a guppy, a couple hitchhiker crabs, hermits and some Palys in there. Just want to make sure things can live before dumping some real stock into it.

The one lone rock on the right side will be gone when I get some grass. It's got some nice worms/sponges/critters that I wanted to seed the tank with. Should free up 6"x6" of room for the grass.

Idea is Star Grass all around the rock, maybe a smaller long tentacle plate coral (since they are prevalent on tidal grass flats) on the sand bed, and then various Macro algae covering the rock work. Going to skip the Zoas in this tank. I don't see a reason to load it up with $$ in zoas to have them get smoothered by algae..

Was on RC earlier and noticed your avatar there had the sargassum shrimp in it. Did you place them in the system, yet? Really cool little buggers.

I haven't convinced myself it is a sargassum shrimp, just yet. It's a bright green color with whitish-blue spots. Sargassums are usually golden. I went collecting in Florida just for shins and grins last weekend and this was a little shrimp I netted. Picked up a few different Macros, some Shoal grass shoots, a decorator crab, and this guy. Though I haven't seen the shrimp for a while so it might have gotten nabbed.

Speaking of which, I have some H. engelmannii headed this way next week... Pretty excited.

Where did you find the H. engelmannii? I haven't been able to find it anywhere.

Well, whatever the shrimp is, it's pretty cool

Well, I have some good news to report. The best looking clump of Shoal grass that I transplanted, is already putting out new shoots! The others are growing, but still no new shoots.