Caribbean Biotope Seagrass Tank

[Michael Hoaster]

Rather than trying to build a sand ramp for my conch, I've just bought another conch to go on the DSB. Maybe they'll bump into each other occasionally, and have wild, nasty conch-sex. I also got four more cerith snails. Another long, drip acclimation.

I think one of the keys to my success (so far) has been to keep the tank nutrient poor. These seagrasses don't need much, which seems counterintuitive to me. I would have thought, the more the merrier! But the more I read, the more I came to realize they prefer more pristine conditions - especially the manatee and shoal grasses, which are pioneering species. The turtle grass needs the sand bed to build up with decomposing leaf litter, and special 'helper bacteria', so they take longer to flourish. If you allow higher nutrient levels, it favors microalgae, which coats and smothers the grasses.

Anyway, I just thought it interesting that maintaining a seagrass tank isn't that different from maintaining a reef tank.

 

[sam.basye]

Lol dirty conchs. They have a weird way of jumping/moving around with their foot. Probably wouldn't be able to climb into the DSB without any help.

What are your thoughts regarding Evolution Aqua PURE marine bacteria bio-balls? Could help with seeding your DSB with bacteria for the grasses.

Saltwateraquarium.com has a promo for a small tub shipped for only $5.99 - expiration date is January 2015.

 

[3D-Reef]

Hey Michael,
Just thought I'd stop by and say I really like how the tank is turning out.The wall and fake roots make it look more inshore rather than having just a grass bed. :inlove:

I think one of the keys to my success (so far) has been to keep the tank nutrient poor. These seagrasses don't need much, which seems counterintuitive to me. I would have thought, the more the merrier! But the more I read, the more I came to realize they prefer more pristine conditions - especially the manatee and shoal grasses, which are pioneering species. The turtle grass needs the sand bed to build up with decomposing leaf litter, and special 'helper bacteria', so they take longer to flourish. If you allow higher nutrient levels, it favors microalgae, which coats and smothers the grasses.

Anyway, I just thought it interesting that maintaining a seagrass tank isn't that different from maintaining a reef tank.

Well said...
Just think if You had used all of the eco-complete, like You had originally planned.:facepalm:J/K

One more thing that might be "counterintuitive" is that...the more algae you have in the tank,the higher the nutrient load will be in the tank.Macro algae will leach nutrients into a tank,from the older part of the algae,in order to sustain its new growth.If that makes sense.:headwallblue:

 

[Michael Hoaster]

Sam, I'm not familiar with those. I'll take a look, thanks!

The new conch I put up on the DSB is now down on the shallow sand bed, suspiciously close to the other one. Maybe they 'encountered' each other under the cover of night. Strangers in the night…

 

[Michael Hoaster]

3D, so nice to hear from you again! I've really missed your insights. Thanks for the compliments on the tank.

It's funny, last night I went to your grass tank thread and read it all. Beautiful! And I was rereading our conversations from earlier in this thread. Thank you for all your kind help! Not to mention patience! You really steered me in the right direction, and I doubt I would have this level of success without your help. That part you quoted from my post was really just me paraphrasing what you said to me earlier!

And so true about the Ecocomplete! I used much less than I originally planned, and most of it is on the bottom.

I'm curious, regarding your tank, how did you get your turtle grass through the earlier, establishing phase? You mentioned carbon dosing. Any other 'tricks' you could recommend? I'm anchoring any dead grass blades I find floating around, into the DSB, to help prepare the 'soil'. Do you have any recommendations for herbivores that eat algae off the grass blades?

And how's your tank doing? Any successes/miscues to report? I remember you said you found the glutamic acid pills and were going to try them out. Results? I pushed one deep into my DSB a while back. I suspect, since my sandbed was so new and loose, that ammonia leached out into the bulk water, kickstarting my nitrogen cycle. I may try adding some again, once the bed gets more rooted and packed down a bit. It seemed to work very well, in my near root-bound, freshwater planted tank.

I suspect my tank is carbon-limited right now. I do have some CO2 injection, but I think dosing with vinegar may be helpful. Thoughts?

Of course, this early in the tank's life (six weeks today), maybe the best thing I can do for it is…nothing! Just keep it stable and let Mother Nature take care of it.

Again, welcome back, and please, don't be a stranger!

 

[sam.basye]

Sam, I'm not familiar with those. I'll take a look, thanks!

Neither am I, but I bought one anyways bc it was free! Haha
It says that its not possible to overdose and good to add regularly. They are little milky-clear, silicone-like jelly balls. Haven't used any yet... Kinda need to fill the tank first

Maybe you'll get lucky and the conchs will go at it and make you some baby conchs. If so, I want one!
It would be neat to see if they 'pair up' and roam together.

 

[Michael Hoaster]

Sam, I checked them out. Looks to be basically, a bacteria seeding media. Could be helpful for you, starting a new tank. I'm not sure it would be helpful for my tank, now that I'm at six weeks. Sure is tempting, free and all…

I'm kind of torn about the conches. I need to keep them on the separate sandbeds, but who am I to stop conch love? And one of my guiding principals for this tank, is to keep more than one of all species, to allow for spawning behavior. The blue tang is probably the only fish I'll keep singly.

So, I'll move one back up to the DSB, and we'll see how strong their attraction is, on the next exciting and titillating episode of "Forbidden Conch Love".

 

[Mpy]

I had several Florida crown conchs, which are different so it may be a whole different situation, but they would crawl up the glass, across the driftwood branches I had. They wouldn't have stayed contained between the lower sand bed and the DSB.

When I collected them, and was collecting hermit crabs, I would often find them on the rocks of a jetty in the IRL (Indian river lagoon). They did stay mostly down in the sand bed, but they would venture out fairly often.

 

[Michael Hoaster]

Thanks, Mpy. I'm not familiar with Florida Crown Conches. Sounds like a very versatile conch! How big do they get?

 

[Michael Hoaster]

"What are your thoughts regarding Evolution Aqua PURE marine bacteria bio-balls? Could help with seeding your DSB with bacteria for the grasses." - Sam.basye

I didn't answer this real well. I think the bacteria, etc. in the balls is just for seeding the sand dwelling bacteria, especially in a new tank. I don't know if they would help with the specific bacteria that help the grasses. If I remember, these specialized bacteria only form when the plants themselves provide the right conditions for them.

Who knows though, it might help. On the other hand, it ain't broke…


"One more thing that might be "counterintuitive" is that...the more algae you have in the tank,the higher the nutrient load will be in the tank.Macro algae will leach nutrients into a tank,from the older part of the algae,in order to sustain its new growth.If that makes sense." - 3D-Reef

Okay, yeah, that's counterintuitive. You're saying that macroalgae leach nutrients into the bulk water, adding nutrients, rather than removing them from the bulk water. I would then suspect they do both. If so, removing (exporting) older plant tissue, rather than the young tissue at the top, would possibly favor nutrient export over increase? Thoughts?

Great to have you back 3D!

 

[sam.basye]

Bacteria is not something I'd think of on my own to introduce because it sounds bad for anything. Lol

I got impatient with the 20 gallons of RO water sitting in my closet so I dumped them in I'll probably wish I hadn't when it comes time to install the brace in the back...

Put a disco ball and play some Rod Stewart in there for your conchs yet??

 

[Michael Hoaster]

Wow 3D, you've really got me thinking. I have a much higher biomass of macros than seagrasses. If they are a net nutrient load, rather than reducer, that could be bad.

I find it hard to believe chaeto and ulva add to the nutrient load. They grow so fast, and the biomass keeps increasing. But some of the others, I can see it, especially in the ones losing biomass. Hmm…

I'm getting my quarantine tank set up soon. I could try moving the macros into it, and see how the grasses react. Might be a bit of a shock to the macros. I have gotten pretty attached to them. Hmm…

Maybe if I put off getting fish, and keep nutrients low, the grasses can catch up and spread, increasing biomass, and nutrient uptake. Allowing me to keep my macros.

But I'm jonesin' hard for some new fish! But giving the ecosystem more time to get more robust would be better for the system overall. We'll see…

 

[Michael Hoaster]

Ah Sam, bacteria wanna be your friend, the good kind I mean…

You dumped the balls into RO water? Before adding salt? Is that how you're supposed to do it? Are you getting this water into your tank soon?

Rod Stewart! Yeah. Gino Vannelli was my go-to guy back in the day. That and a bottle of wine in the fridge!

So, I'm dosing wine now, to my tank… for the conchs of course.

 

[sam.basye]

No balls as of yet.. I got tired of looking at the tank without water so I dumped the RO I had on hand in the tank.... impulsivity! The balls are still in their package. Until I mix the salt in. Stuck a little water pump in it to circulate.

Gonna make the brace and fill it Sunday if I can find any time Let it circulate for a week or so, then add salt and balls and let it do its thing till the end of the first week of January. Then its critter time!

They probably wouldn't mind a little vodka dosing every once in a while... You gotta set the mood! Crank up the heater to 84° and dim the lights

Do inverts have the capacity to pair like fish and roam together?? Would be pretty cool to have a mated pair of conchs!

 

[JLynn]

Lol. I am sure the conches appreciated your donation of wine.

Do you have any recommendations for herbivores that eat algae off the grass blades?

3DReef would know more about it, but for what it is worth, I have read that asterina stars make good epiphyte grazers. That makes sense; they are small enough to easily fit on a blade of grass. I think certain snails also graze on epiphytes.

I don't think any of the fish would be good epiphyte grazers; some of the epiphytes I have seen in pictures online seem to be a sort of coralline algae, and I would think that any fish trying to scrape the algae off the blade of grass would only succeed in breaking it.

According to an article about the invertebrates living in seagrass beds, sea urchins also eat epiphytes. On the other hand, they eat seagrass blades and detritus as well, which is not necessarily a good thing. Interestingly enough, they also claim that small patches of stony corals are common in shallow T. testudinum beds (such as yours), whereas sponges are more common in deeper waters. The corals in the picture they have resemble Acropora.

 

[Michael Hoaster]

Whew, Sam, you scared me for a second! So you're adding a eurobrace to your tank? Why?

I don't think conchs pair-bond. They just use each other for a guey, sticky roll in the sand. I always thought that fighting conchs were named for their wild coupling antics. Of course in the confines of an aquarium, where they gonna go? It would be very special if they 'hooked up' and laid some eggs. They sell a mini conch species that lays eggs, at Indo-Pacific Sea Farms.

 

[Michael Hoaster]

JLynn, I was thinking maybe the mini ceriths and virgin nerites. I'll check out the asterinas. I think the blue tang and cherub angels will also help out.

If I ever get around to getting some live rock, it would cool with me if there are some coral hitchhikers. I'm sure what sponges I get will be confined to the mangrove root, shaded area of the tank. I do plan to put a caribbean anemone or two in there as well as a gornian or two.

 

[3D-Reef]

I'm curious, regarding your tank, how did you get your turtle grass through the earlier, establishing phase? You mentioned carbon dosing. Any other 'tricks' you could recommend? I'm anchoring any dead grass blades I find floating around, into the DSB, to help prepare the 'soil'. Do you have any recommendations for herbivores that eat algae off the grass blades?

Carbon dosing is about the only trick I have found that helps.Getting the associated bacteria started doing their thing is the most important part.IMO

One problem with using dead blades is the amount of lignin,and nutrient-bound cellulose,is high.So high that decomposition is limited and the amount of nutrients released is low.It has been found that decomposition on Tt blades only last a couple of years. In fact they found some blades estimated to be 12,500 years old that looked the same as the ones that had only been in the substrate for 3-4 years.
With this said,a build up of refactory nutrients (nutrients that cannot be broken down into Co2) is likely to start sulfide production.

And how's your tank doing? Any successes/miscues to report? I remember you said you found the glutamic acid pills and were going to try them out. Results? I pushed one deep into my DSB a while back. I suspect, since my sandbed was so new and loose, that ammonia leached out into the bulk water, kickstarting my nitrogen cycle. I may try adding some again, once the bed gets more rooted and packed down a bit. It seemed to work very well, in my near root-bound, freshwater planted tank.

I suspect my tank is carbon-limited right now. I do have some CO2 injection, but I think dosing with vinegar may be helpful. Thoughts?

Well...this year hasn't been a good one.After loosing My job,a couple of deaths in the family,and all of the time away from the tank taking care of business has My tank in need of some TLC.But now,I hope,everything will get back to normal and I can get back to My routine.

After I purchased the pills.I pushed one pill into the substrate up next to the glass so I could watch it.It didn't take long(a week or two) and it went completely anoxic turning the sand black with a little orange halo around it.
I consider it a successful failure.It didn't turn out like I had wanted,but I now know what not too do with an established grass bed.
A side note-After the pill had been in there a while I noticed that My brain coral,and the elegance coral,had started to recede and were unhappy.So I siphoned the sand out and replaced it with new.There may be some type of contaminate in the pill.Just saying.

IMO Co2 is good for autotrophic bacteria and nitrifcation.But it doesn't do much for heterotrophic bacteria,that use organic carbon like vinegar,to break down nitrate into a usable form.

So, I'll move one back up to the DSB, and we'll see how strong their attraction is, on the next exciting and titillating episode of "Forbidden Conch Love".

Make sure you check their ID and that they are of age before filming.

 

[3D-Reef]

"Do you have any recommendations for herbivores that eat algae off the grass blades?"

The mini conchs from IPSF are good little snails and they reproduce like crazy.
The bristle-mouth tangs help in this matter as well.I don't care for the tomini one though.It's too aggressive IMO and will do more damage than good.Although I don't know if they will fit into Your theme of things.

Astraea snails are common among thick seagrass beds because they have so many different places to grab a hold of if they fall over.In a new tank with only a few plants they may not be able to do that.Other than that they are a good snail.

 

[sam.basye]

Michael, I'm making basically a 2x4 extension for the stand the tank is on bc it hangs over the back about an inch. And reinforce the shelving inside to support the load.