Dawn's seahorse garden!

[vlangel]

It sounds like you're feeding them well, so they should fatten up. The challenge is to make sure everyone is getting food. Also if one fish is getting the majority of it, consider moving it to QT, to see if that helps. If you're feeding three times a day, and they're all eating well, you should be good.

I watch pretty closely at feeding time and everyone seems to be getting plenty. With so many crabs, shrimp and micro stars I don't worry about some excess food laying on the sandbed for a little bit. I know the cuc will find it. The Orange spot gets more than plenty and yet remains thin.

All of the original 7 fish are chubs. If the green clown gobies and the orange spot do not fatten up soon I wonder if they may have internal parasites? I have also heard that wild caught fish that were captured using cyanide can look fine but waste away and fail to thrive.

 

[Chasmodes]

Make sure that the orange spot blenny gets plenty of greens to eat. Algae is a good thing, for him.

 

[vlangel]

Make sure that the orange spot blenny gets plenty of greens to eat. Algae is a good thing, for him.

Thanks Kevin, this morning I fed 2 kinds of green pellets, spiralina and omega one kelp pellets because I know he is primarily an herbivore. I think he went after them with gusto and he did look a bit plumper. I was feeding emerald entree and formula two but maybe that was not enough. Anyway I feel encouraged regarding Marmalade.

 

[vlangel]

I had to smile this morning when I fed the 56 gallon tank. I usually feed some flake, pellet and invert coral food early before any lights come on in the seahorse tank. The 56 gallon only has the moonlight leds on but most of the fish are awake. Anyway today I noticed Eve looking into the 56 gallon acting very indignant that she was not being fed as well. Her eyes were almost green with envy and I couldn't help but smile. Her breakfast is coming soon so don't feel too sorry for her.

 

[Michael Hoaster]

That sounds like a lovely moment! I love the morning.

 

[Chasmodes]

Thanks Kevin, this morning I fed 2 kinds of green pellets, spiralina and omega one kelp pellets because I know he is primarily an herbivore. I think he went after them with gusto and he did look a bit plumper. I was feeding emerald entree and formula two but maybe that was not enough. Anyway I feel encouraged regarding Marmalade.

Excellent. Glad Marmalade is getting chunky I can identify! :lolspin:

 

[vlangel]

Excellent. Glad Marmalade is getting chunky I can identify! :lolspin:

Actually Marmalade is downright chubby now, just the way I like my fish. Thanks again!

Slowly the other fish seem to be picking up some weight as well.

 

[vlangel]

Today I reinforced the retaining wall for the DSB. It had a few holes and was bleeding sand. I plugged them best I could and refilled the DSB. Its about 7" deep now.

I also added some rock rubble into the shallow sand. I would really like a jawfish and/or goby-pistol shrimp pair and they would need some rubble rock. There are still lots of hiding places so I don't think the additions will throw a monkey wrench in my tank's bliss.

 

[Subsea]

Today I began changing the HOT5 bulbs in the Coralife fixture. About 10 minutes after the change the tank began to get cloudy, which was puzzling to me. Then I noticed that some of the grape caulerpa was clear. I removed the entire clump into a 5 gallon bucket where I could prune off the dying sprigs. I also rescued the many micro stars and pods that were residing there. I guess the lights coming on probably triggered the spawn.

The seahorse tank must have never been lacking in nutrients, trace elements or magnesium because of the enormous bioload seahorses give off and the huge WCs necessary to keep them healthy. I did prune the caulerpa but it never went sexual on me in all the years I had it before.

I can see keeping it in this easy high nutrient system is going to require me to keep a close eye on its condition. Some of it was turning to mush, I guess from lack of nutrients. I removed 3/4s of it but it recovers quickly. I also dosed magnesium and trace elements.

Dawn,
I doubt it was necessary to dose nutrients. With the sexual sporalation of your macro, you will have added nutrients back into tank water. When I witnessed Caulerpa Paspoidies going sexual, the first indication was the day earlier with clear tips that are normally white. The real indicator before it disintegrated was enlarged stem diameter which gave way to white paste slowly seeping into bulk water. This was during waking hours with lights on and I caught the process in the nick of time by removing offending clump and added ammonia to tank. Everything cleared up that photocycle. That was a 10G experiment tank. However on a 150G display with 1000W MH at 6500K color, I had a differrent experience. The tank had stellar clean water with heavy growth of both Caulerpa Prolifera & Paspoidies, my favorite fern Caulerpa. I went to bed with spectacular water cleanliness and a large meadow of graceful Caulerpa undulating in the water currents, then to wake up to a real nightmare. I couldn't see the back wall of the tank, it was that cloudy. I added extra activated carbon and brought in extra canister filters and left the house to return in 6 hours to sparkling clear water and rotting algae in bottom of tank.

IMO, when fast growing macro is deprived of nutrients, it will self destruct. Your macro was possible close to that same place and in balance with the photosynthesis intensity and available nutrients. When you increased the lighting and photosynthesis demand for the nutrients increased without available nutrients, the Caulerpa went sexual. Indirectly, this will spur new growth as it does in the grass flats on natural reefs. New growth is what the turtles graze on.

 

[vlangel]

Dawn,
I doubt it was necessary to dose nutrients. With the sexual sporalation of your macro, you will have added nutrients back into tank water. When I witnessed Caulerpa Paspoidies going sexual, the first indication was the day earlier with clear tips that are normally white. The real indicator before it disintegrated was enlarged stem diameter which gave way to white paste slowly seeping into bulk water. This was during waking hours with lights on and I caught the process in the nick of time by removing offending clump and added ammonia to tank. Everything cleared up that photocycle. That was a 10G experiment tank. However on a 150G display with 1000W MH at 6500K color, I had a differrent experience. The tank had stellar clean water with heavy growth of both Caulerpa Prolifera & Paspoidies, my favorite fern Caulerpa. I went to bed with spectacular water cleanliness and a large meadow of graceful Caulerpa undulating in the water currents, then to wake up to a real nightmare. I couldn't see the back wall of the tank, it was that cloudy. I added extra activated carbon and brought in extra canister filters and left the house to return in 6 hours to sparkling clear water and rotting algae in bottom of tank.

IMO, when fast growing macro is deprived of nutrients, it will self destruct. Your macro was possible close to that same place and in balance with the photosynthesis intensity and available nutrients. When you increased the lighting and photosynthesis demand for the nutrients increased without available nutrients, the Caulerpa went sexual. Indirectly, this will spur new growth as it does in the grass flats on natural reefs. New growth is what the turtles graze on.

Thanks Patrick, that is the same conclusion I came to. It amazes me that with the amount of food I am feeding the tank that it could ever be lacking in nutrients. My test kits were ancient so I ordered new ones and am anxious to see if my macro algaes and DSB are keeping my nitrates reasonably low.
Its the grape caulerpa, red grape caulerpa and red titan that are growing great guns. None of my calcareous macros are doing much. They may need more calcium but I don't want to dose blindly so again I am waiting on the test kit. Instant Ocean doesn't have much calcium or magnesium. I will learn how much of what I think is going on in my tank is actually going on, ha ha!

 

[vlangel]

Some cute fish pics!
2019-01-23_11-03-14 by Dawn Gilson, on Flickr
The latest FTS
2019-01-23_11-02-50 by Dawn Gilson, on Flickr

A different tank but still a cute fish!
2019-01-23_11-04-46 by Dawn Gilson, on Flickr

2019-01-23_11-04-17 by Dawn Gilson, on Flickr

2019-01-23_11-03-34 by Dawn Gilson, on Flickr

I am not sure why but these pics are not in the order I posted.

 

[Michael Hoaster]

Nice pics Dawn! Looks like a fun aquarium!

 

[vlangel]

My test kits came Thursday but I only got around to testing today. Did I say that I hate testing? I love observing my tank and making adjustment from that but I am not yet experienced or intuitive enough to rely solely on that so hence the testing. I have basically been dosing blind since September when I took the ponies out of this tank and switched from Reef Crystals to regular IO. I just kind of look at the macro algaes for growth and color and guess from that, LOL. Scary!!!

As it turned out things aren't terrible (as in on the verge of disaster) but there is room for impovement. NO3 was 25 ppm, which is a bit high since I want to keep lots of inverts. That being said I haven't notice any of them dying so I need to hold it here or maybe bring it down to 20 ppm. PO4 was 1 ppm. That is pretty high but I am not fighting terrible algae blooms so my macro algaes are no doubt utilizing those phosphates. I can try to get that down to .5 ppm, especially if my nitrates come down. I will use a tiny bit of gfo if I need to. Not much though because I don't want to strip the water of PO4 and end up out of balance.

Mag was 1350 ppm which was amazing. The macros use Mag, especially caulerpa and I have dumped a lot in since I switched to IO salt which doesn't have a lot. CA was 470 ppm which is a bit high, fortunately so is my alk at 12 dkH. I don't plan to dose either of those for quite a while.

So all in all things are not too bad. I will just up the water changes by a little and only dose Mag and see what happens in the a month from now. Testing more than once a month is probably not going to happen with me, ha ha!

 

[Michael Hoaster]

All that sounds great, Dawn! Smart. Glad to hear there were no surprises! I like how you weighed the test results, with your inverts' health, and then decided your course. That sounds to me that you are experienced and intuitive enough to 'make the call'. Testing confirms it.

That's interesting, your magnesium consumption. I've dosed it in the past, but never noticed its effect. Not like iron, which I often do see its effect. I'll have to make more of an effort to see it. Good to know!

 

[vlangel]

All that sounds great, Dawn! Smart. Glad to hear there were no surprises! I like how you weighed the test results, with your inverts' health, and then decided your course. That sounds to me that you are experienced and intuitive enough to 'make the call'. Testing confirms it.

That's interesting, your magnesium consumption. I've dosed it in the past, but never noticed its effect. Not like iron, which I often do see its effect. I'll have to make more of an effort to see it. Good to know!

It will depend on the brand of salt you use too Michael. Some salts have a lot more magnesium than IO. Also I do not know if all macros use a lot of magnesium or if it is primarily caulerpa. My boss always used feather caulerpa in the sumps of the tanks he built and that is when I saw magnesium get consumed.
If I don't dose mag my tanks are always low.

I really don't know about sea grasses but that would be interesting to learn.

 

[Chasmodes]

Lots of good info here everyone, thanks. Dawn, your tank and pics are so cool! A jawfish would be a cool addition. I've kept pearly and dusky jaws in the past, and preferred the duskies over the pearly jaws, because they're much better at building their tunnels and utilizing the rubble, at least in my observations. Pearly jaws tend to move their burrows around a lot, and they will try and jump out of the tank. My dusky jawfish pretty much built one burrow and stayed there the entire time. He had tons of personality.

That said, the reef aquarium in Myrtle Beach had a pair of pearly jawfish that had nice well constructed burrows, one at each end of the tank when I visited three years ago. Two years ago, we returned and they were still in the same spots. So, I've wondered why things went the way that they did in my tank with my pearly jaws, and it could have been that some of the fish were too aggressive for them. They weren't aggressive as far as picking on the jawfish, but, they were constantly swimming by them and that might have been too much. I had a couple angelfish and a bluehead wrasse at the time. The dusky is a bigger jawfish, and that might have been the reason that they were more comfortable.

So, maybe since your tank has much more passive fish, pearly jaws might be more comfortable in there. I guess if one species doesn't work out, you can try a different one.

BTW, blue spotted jawfish are prefer cooler temps, so keep that in mind when shopping.

 

[vlangel]

Lots of good info here everyone, thanks. Dawn, your tank and pics are so cool! A jawfish would be a cool addition. I've kept pearly and dusky jaws in the past, and preferred the duskies over the pearly jaws, because they're much better at building their tunnels and utilizing the rubble, at least in my observations. Pearly jaws tend to move their burrows around a lot, and they will try and jump out of the tank. My dusky jawfish pretty much built one burrow and stayed there the entire time. He had tons of personality.

That said, the reef aquarium in Myrtle Beach had a pair of pearly jawfish that had nice well constructed burrows, one at each end of the tank when I visited three years ago. Two years ago, we returned and they were still in the same spots. So, I've wondered why things went the way that they did in my tank with my pearly jaws, and it could have been that some of the fish were too aggressive for them. They weren't aggressive as far as picking on the jawfish, but, they were constantly swimming by them and that might have been too much. I had a couple angelfish and a bluehead wrasse at the time. The dusky is a bigger jawfish, and that might have been the reason that they were more comfortable.

So, maybe since your tank has much more passive fish, pearly jaws might be more comfortable in there. I guess if one species doesn't work out, you can try a different one.

BTW, blue spotted jawfish are prefer cooler temps, so keep that in mind when shopping.

Thanks Kevin for all the good info on jawfish. I definitely did not know that the blue spot liked cooler temperatures. I love the beautiful colors on a blue spot but the price tag not so much, ha ha!

A dusky or pearly is what I was thinking, or a pair of yellow heads from KPAquatics. I know that I mentioned some more fish but before I get more fish, I think I should monitor my tank a while and see how it responds to the 12 fish I have and their feedings. It seems to be in a sweet spot where the cyano is gone, the macros are growing and coral and fish all look healthy. I think I would like to just enjoy that a while. Ha ha, I do have a birthday coming up soon though so who knows?

 

[Michael Hoaster]

Enjoy the sweet spot, Dawn! I try to savor it when everything is going well. It's not that often when everything is 'just so'.

On the other hand, jawfish make excellent birthday presents!

 

[vlangel]

https://youtu.be/pyUO69Vm60E
The most recent video. There are not a lot of changes but I did add a feather caulerpa rock to the foreground and a corky finger gorg on the left of the tank.

2019-01-28_04-24-07 by Dawn Gilson, on Flickr

 

[Michael Hoaster]

Another great video tour, Dawn! It was cool seeing the barnacle blennies so clearly. Tank looks great too.