180g Super Display Refugium/Mangrove Tank

Sounds like things are going well with your grasses!

I liked your pump story. I love it when apparently useless things are revived. Good thinking!

Those clams are beautiful!
 
I am in awe. As somebody in the planning stages of a 40B display (rocks all show up today!!) I am inspired, and am have been speaking with Gulf Coast Ecosystems already about when to be able to put in a substantial order. I never do things halfway, and this is only furthering my drive to put together a GREAT planted tank! :D
 
toothybugs said:
I am in awe. As somebody in the planning stages of a 40B display (rocks all show up today!!) I am inspired, and am have been speaking with Gulf Coast Ecosystems already about when to be able to put in a substantial order. I never do things halfway, and this is only furthering my drive to put together a GREAT planted tank! :D
Click to expand...

I'm glad your as excited as I've been over this aquariums progress. One thing I would recommend when getting your order is to do a detailed placement plan for your macros. I have already noticed that most of the macros will dissolve slightly and break apart. Once you have the plan written down, you can return pieces back to a location for grow out. Plus GCE sends A TON of algae with every order. Unless it is marked as a single specimen you will have lots of algae. Most Caulerpa spreads like wild fire so be prepared for that if they are part of your list.
 
So I really wanted to do an update last week, but got too busy with life. Love how that works out, so I opted today to give a teaser for tomorrows full update with a couple pictures. I also wanted to be more detailed with the update to give some perspective on what I have learned in this short month and a half of having this aquarium up. Since I'm going to update only good news mañana, first I need to fill in some of the lame stuff that has happened. Because you can't have the good without the bad. A week after introducing my first batch of macros, I had a horrendous nutrient overload in the tank. Possibly due to decomposing macro algae, partially due to live sand mini cycle, or partially due to over lighting the aquarium causing the first point to happen. I will not know at this stage. Needless to say, I experienced one of the worst cyanobacteria outbreaks I have ever dealt with! It was stressful... because the 350gal reef and 180gal fuge are tied together I could see system stressors transfer from the display refugium over to my reef. O2 levels in the daytime were slipping causing some gasping in fish which lead to an unexpected ich outbreak(haven't seen ich pop up in this tank over 6mo). I did my emergency water test and found two of my levels(PO4-NO3) most likely reading falsely. Everything else was spot on. So like a good hobbyist i did my water changes and monitored the aquarium inhabitants closely. Luckily I didn't loose any fish due to the excessive amount of oxygen being depleted from the system. Things were beginning to swing back and then all of a sudden in less than twenty-four hours, the tank was crystal clear. I mean not a lick of cyano in sight. This was a lucky outcome because I had recently purchased my calcareous algae to balance the red macros in the tank. I wonder if any of you guys have had this massive 99% coverage of cyano happen, and then all so a sudden have it vanish?

So like promised here are the pictures of the cyano ridden aquarium and todays picture. This change is within a seven day period.

***POST WATER CHANGE***
It was much worse
tumblr_o079jsDlRa1twx0s4o1_1280.jpg


***AS OF TODAY***
tumblr_o079jsDlRa1twx0s4o2_1280.jpg


What a difference!
 
The Red Gracilaria picture on post #29 looks like G. Parvispora. The Hawaiians call it Red Ogo and eat it raw. I enjoy its crispy fresh texture. It grows best in a tumble culture.
 
Dang it has been a long time since I've updated. It has been a crazy end to the year. But here are some more recent updates on the tank

tumblr_o2ofpodc0e1twx0s4o2_1280.jpg


Seagrasses still growing. Not as aggressively as before. Need to look at new potentials for fertilizer. Any suggestions would be great.

tumblr_o2ofpodc0e1twx0s4o1_1280.jpg


This is a little old, most of the brown algae has diminished, but small pieces are still growing nicely. Slowly, but nicely.

tumblr_o2ofpodc0e1twx0s4o3_1280.jpg
 
This has been a great read and has given me tons of Ideas for my upcoming build including a 75 display refugium.

Looking forward to more updates!!
 
I love this idea. I wonder at what point you could (if you could...) make the system work without a protein skimmer?

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk
 
Thank you all that have shown interest in the aquarium! Unfortunately I had to tear this down a few weeks ago to move up to Colorado, and as of now, it will be converted into a different style of aquarium... a little more "fresh". I did learn that algae, seagrass, and other similar organisms require more attention than I was giving them, but hopefully sooner rather than later down the road, I will have another algae tank that I can focus entirely on as a solo setup and cater more toward the needs of the organisms inside. Thanks again to all!
 
Wow, Griffin! I just read through the entire thread because I'm just in the start up stages of a 50g cube display refugium next to my 125g reef. I learned a few things from your thread, thank you. I found it kind of cool that you were buying from Gulf Coast Ecosystems. They are less than a 2 hour drive north of me and Russ comes to our local club Reef Conference every year. I've bought a few odds and ends from him over the years (rock flower anemones, gorgonians, small fish and a display macro algae. But this year I got a lot more macro algae for the refugium and will go up to see him when my tank has matured a bit more (the DT is 2 months old and the display refugium is less than a month old).





Really sorry to hear that your tank had to be torn down for the move. I hope the move brings you a lot of new adventure and happiness. Good luck. I've been to both Tucson and Denver, both are really nice... but being close enough to the Florida Keys to go snorkeling for the weekend is cool too!
 
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