Mud from Florida

[Dwarf Seahorses]

Is there any place to get Live Florida Mud from a seagrass bed? I want to do a seagrass bed with Live Mud for best seagrass growth. I see everyone sells livesand, but no Live mud?

The only live mud I have seen available looks sandy-mud from the shore, not like the real brown/black stuff from a seagrass bed.

 

[Samala]

While there are certainly deposits of mud (or muck) in a seagrass zone, the typical substrate does look rather sandy and silty. The available commercial stuff may work well in most situations. Live mud does have a possible advantage of providing microbes to the plants that they may need.

I think Florida Pets was offering mud for a time, check the stickie at the top of this forum on where to get marine plants for a web link.

>Sarah

 

[Dwarf Seahorses]

Doesn't seem like Florida Pets has any LM or even LS anymore. I want to use the live stuff over the commercial stuff because I wanted it to be a fully functioning DSB.

I know obviously it won't be "live" once I place it in my tropical tank, but will the mud around the eelgrass beds in Massachusetts be a good substrate for tropical seagrass? I don't think it would make a difference whether it came from a temperate or a tropical zone but I gotta ask

 

[piercho]

I have used sand from eelgrass beds in Puget Sound to grow manatee grass, shoal grass, and star grass. It was grey with a high silica content, and full of sediment. I've also grown shoal grass and star grass in pretty clean, sugar-fine aragonite. I've also grown star grass in relatively sterile clay gravel.

Not very many macro creature survived the temperature transition from Puget Sound to my tank. Head Shield slugs were one exception. I'd expect that many single cell algae and bacteria survive the transition but I can't demonstrate it. I used boosters from IPSF, IA, Florida Pets, and local reefers to improve the diversity of my sand.

 

[kaptken]

well, I have only gotten some live sand/mud from GARF once, many years ago to seed my tanks, and it was good stuff. they have what they call GRUNDGE, from their mud filters and rock curing tanks. Eight years later most of that live organism sand and muck is still around. maybe time i do a booster shot though.

Give leroy or Sally Jo a call and see if they have something for your needs. They are real nice People!
http://www.garf.org/

Or , another place to order some south pacific live sand or mud to seed your system would be:
http://www.reefermadness.us/Live_Sand_Mud.htm
I havent tried their stuff yet, but everything sure looks good.!!

one more florida place would be one of the divers, here:
http://www.reeftopia.com/

some small quantities of of live/cultured sand from the keys.

It has been my experience, that no matter how clean a fine DSB you start out with, after a while it turns to mud as the plants slow down the water flow and settle detretus out of the water onto the sand bed. and pretty soon you get mud. so you really just need a good microbe/micro-critter starter kit to seed the sand bed.

 

[Samala]

From the experiences posted, and others I've heard from, temperate zone mud can be used in a seagrass setup without missing out on much. I suspect you wont have all the good microbes in the soil you would get with actual bed substrate from a semi-trop zone. However, I would think the potential benefit would make it more than worthwhile.

>Sarah