Dawn's seahorse garden!

Michael Hoaster said:
Cool! I bet that was fun.

Stability. I look forward to having it.
Click to expand...

I feel like my 56 gallon tank has reached that, (at least as much as a smallish tank can). But then I was shocked to find out the seahorse tank could get dinos, ha ha! So who knows?

I think you are well on your way Michael.
 
Ok, so after the seahorse system got its thorough cleaning, things are still looking pretty good. I turned the par 38 led back on in the sump and things looks clean. I saw a nassarius snail motoring about and some pods on the rock and macros. The macro algaes did not look the worse for having the black out so hopefully they are ready to take off growing and out competing the dinos.
The pagota cup in the DT has been open and its my 'canary in the mine' coral. I will test PO4 and NO3 again at the end of the week.
 
Sounds good, Dawn! Takin' care o' bidnis! Let us know how it goes.

It's nice to find your canary, isn't it? So helpful in figuring out your tank's health.
 
vlangel said:
Ok, so today was water change day for both tanks but the seahorse tank got a little extra love. First I netted and sucked out as much of the dinos in the sump as I could get. Mostly they floated on the water surface which I found weird but there were some on the macros algaes. I had drastically reduced the macro algae in the sump just prior to the dino outbreak. Now I realize that that is probably what tipped the scale in their favor. I actually removed all the caulerpa because when it is too well established then my red algaes do not flourish. There were not a lot of red algae in the sump but I figured with the rich pony manure that the few that were there would quickly take off. I also added some codium from the 56 gallon but for whatever reason it did not do well in the seahorse sump. After removing the dinos however, I did see some very healthy sprigs of red grape caulerpa. I planted a few more since they seem to do well in the sump conditions. My hope is that when they get established that they will out compete the dinos. I turned off the par 38 led over the sump too. The dinos were really only in the fuge compartment, not the drain or return compartments and so the light has to be part of the problem. Hopefully a 3 day black out right after a really good cleaning to get rid of the dinos will weaken the remnants to the point where they can't compete with the red grape. I will let you all know how that goes.

O yeah, for anyone interested, my PO4 is less than .25 and my NO3 is less than 2. I know that both the macros in the display and the dinos in the sump are consuming some of those nutrients. Still, maybe I will cut down my WCs to 7 gallons 2Xs a week instead of 3.
Click to expand...

Love your videos. Up close & personal. When you say red grape Caulerpa, is this what you are referring too?

https://www.marineplantbook.com/marinebookbotryo.htm
 
Subsea said:
Love your videos. Up close & personal. When you say red grape Caulerpa, is this what you are referring too?

https://www.marineplantbook.com/marinebookbotryo.htm
Click to expand...

Yep, I can never remember its more scientific name, so I just refer to it by its common name. Things have grown quite a bit in that tank since the video. It is such a fun reef with so much happening with the fish, the inverts, coral and the macros. Tomorrow Dave and I are driving to Cleveland to the LEAR frag swap. Dave wants me to pick out some coral for my birthday so it should be a fun day.
 
Some pics of the new coral from LEAR
Acid washed bta in foreground, the long polyp toadstool is in the background all closed up. by Dawn Gilson, on Flickr
2019-02-23_06-24-35 by Dawn Gilson, on Flickr

Yellow torch with green tipped hammer in the backround. by Dawn Gilson, on Flickrurl=https://flic.kr/p/24hBZXH]
40225850683_e57c6847af.jpg
[/url]Green pipe organ by Dawn Gilson, on Flickrurl=https://flic.kr/p/2dvhBrv]
46276393155_eba5ca6e15.jpg
[/url]2 new acans by Dawn Gilson, on Flickr
 
Last edited:
Monkeyfish said:
Pardon my ignorance, but what's a LEAR?
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Its ok, I did not know what LEAR was either and I live somewhat close to it. Its a marine aquarium club in the Cleveland area, (Lake Eire Advance Reefers) I think is what the acronym is. They had a frag swap last weekend.
 
I certainly can relate to that...ain't getting any younger here. Birthdays are an excuse to take off work now, that's about it :D
 
Finally my non photosynthetic gorg is beginning to open up about half it's polyps. I have been feeding pretty heavy so I am doing 2 WCs a week now. I need to test my parameters again soon but visually everything is looking very good.
 
Michael Hoaster said:
That's good! You're getting quite the menagerie! What do you feed your gorgs?
Click to expand...
Right now all I have is microvert and phytofeast for small mouths. I feed the blennies and gobies quite a varied diet of mysis, enriched brine shrimp, fish frenzie, marine cuisine, formula two, emerald entree, formula two pellets and crushed reef flakes. I would think that fish wastes would also be utilized by the gorg, (since I read that another reefer who had non photosynthetic gorge only heavily fed his fish and his gorgs flourished).
 
That makes sense. I ask because I've never had long term success with them, and I keep hoping to find the magic bullet. I talked to a guy at my lfs who had a gorgonian tank and he fed them Reef Roids.
 
Michael Hoaster said:
That makes sense. I ask because I've never had long term success with them, and I keep hoping to find the magic bullet. I talked to a guy at my lfs who had a gorgonian tank and he fed them Reef Roids.
Click to expand...

I was also wanting to get reef roids for them but have to make a trip to my lfs for that.
 
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