The damn Damsel is a digging fish and has ruined some of the tank's species. But he's been removed.
Cymopolia is an excellent marine plant. The damsel kept disturbing it and a few others. I might have a few pieces left.
It's getting hot here now and that's when the marine tank goes to crap unless I spend 80$ a month for AC or buy a chiller.
It does great till you crest 79-80F. Then all hell breaks lose.
Lighting is 110W 8800K and a 5000K 55w PC light suspended about 4 inches avbove the water.
Filters are a skilter and a HOT magnum with a micron cartiage.
45lbs of sugar size arag, KNO3, iron, Ca, HCO3, Mg, fish food added. 1-2x a month 70% water change.
Seagrass has started growing well, too well.
I'll post some pics later in May. I've been neglecting things lately on this and have barely gotten my FW planted tanks up and running good. There's several competitions coming up by Apr 30th for the FW so I'll also enter the Marine planted tank as well and see what they do with it
It's a biotope, they are have chloroplast and no assocaited organisms.
In a few months I'll be getting a good job and will be able to afford a nice reef system and a marine plant system finally with a chiller. It's been a very good learning experience and I'm able to duplicate this now. I tried a few things with high growth and PO4 but it was failure even though the system was PO4 limited.
Organic PO4 seems to be easily utilized in marine systems wereas only algae can use organic PO4 in FW systems. Adding inorganic PO4 to FW systems with huigh plant growth amplifies growth wereas it does not nearly as much in marine systems and of the 6 times I tried to do controlled independent dosing of PO4, resulted in a lot of diatoms. I have not thrown the towel in yet on PO4. Making certain the PO4 is the only inpendent variable requires me to know and set a good range for everything else.
NO3, K, Mg, Ca, Fe, traces I'm fine with. I tried CO2 but it did not really do much for growth of health.
Aeration seems to do the same thing.
When I removed heavry aeration, I got poorer growth in all cases. Plants and algae both prefer CO2 vs HCO3.
Aeration alone seems to be able to supply most of the CO2 needed interestingly. I am not done with this but for now it does not seem as necessary as in FW planted tanks.
But the jury is still out on this and I will certainly approach it again with CO2 and inorganic PO4 dosing at lower residual level and see what happens.
Sorry, I've been sparse lately.
Regards,
Tom Barr