My 90G planted

[Limbo]

Let me introduce my 90G planted tank which has been running ~4 months.

It is a custom built tank, 36"x24"x24" with euro-bracing.

No overflow, no sump, no skimmer, no claws and run open top

Lighting is provided by 4x96w PC, 2x6500K & 2x10K.

Filtration is liverock, 6" DSB and a 350 magnum running carbon.

Flow is provided by a Seio 620, the 350 magnum and a small ph with a hydro-flo attached. I estimate the flow to be ~1000G/h

The temp stays around 75F, all params stable except nitrates which I keep around 0-5ppm (5 is lowest test kit will test for).

I dose Iron (5ml a week), Coralvite (5ml a week) and Micro Vert (5ml a week).

I did dose KNO3, but have since switched to mysis to encourage critter growth. It gets at least 1 cube a day and I have more worms, pods, stars etc than I know what to do with. If the nitrates drop to 0 I dose what should take the tank to 1ppm.

The only livestock in the tank right now are inverts. I will come onto asking ideas for stocking later. The tank is part of ProjectDIBS and has a species of snail successfully breeding in it and hair worms. This will influence stocking choices.

I had a huge bloom of brown muck. I believe was dino's but has since been tamed and is receding. You will see the remains in some photos.

Here is the tank back in Sept.

The rock was placed directly on the glass then sand added. The sand and rock came from my previous tank which had been running 2 years. ~50% was dead and the rest live from Florida. The sand was 90+% dead and seeded with Florida sand.

The tank isn't looking the nicest, cleanest that it could be, and if ANYONE has ANY ideas how to get Codium to stay somewhere I'm all ears. As you will see in other photos, the Codium has a habit of escaping whatever means I try to use to secure it. Oh and it grows like crazy

 

[Limbo]

You may notice the "feeding station". Horses were considered as a stocking option, but various reasons have since turned me off. The station remains for now because it has become a popular breeding spot for some snails. It currently has approximately 150 snails waiting to hatch.

I pull out a lot of Caulerpa. It grows like mad but I'm happy to get the export.

There is always extra Codium too. This is thrown in the nano to sustain the Turbo that got banished after taking a liking to my red macros.

The sand bed is so deep and open to allow seagrasses to grow. The shoal grass I have was from Samala (Thank you again). Alot died during the dino bloom and others didn't make it due to my poor planting. I lost the stargrass and manatee grass.

Below is a plant which has tripled in size since introduction and you will see in the second photo that it is growing at 90 degrees. Is this normal growth or do I have a freak? :lol:

Because of the DSB I am considering a Blue-spotted Jawfish. Due to the limited territory, it should allow the inverts plenty of space to prosper. Any ideas for tank mates? Something which won't eat the macros, grasses, worms, pods, stars, baby snails etc and won't freak out the Jawfish? Or better ideas than a Jawfish? Oh and nothing which has venomous spines. I put my hand in the tank way too much to be worried about getting tagged.

I could have cleaned up the tank, planted all the Codium etc, but that's not this tank. This is how the tank really is right now. It will get better, it is still young and I want advice, I'm still learning, so here it is

 

[Redstratplayer]

Frog fish look nice in this sort of tank

 

[BrianPlankis]

Owain,

I think the blue spotted jawfish should be fine in your tank, just read up on its diet to make sure you can provide proper food for it. I'm not an expert on fish, but some of the more docile clownfish would go fine with the jawfish. Or you could try to find a fish that is commonly found living in the seagrass you have (Samala should be able to give you some ideas). Stay away from damsels of course.

Why do you keep your temp so low? Is that for the plants?

Brian

 

[Redstratplayer]

Come to think of it and correct me if i am rong but there is a frog fish named the sargasm frog fish wouldnt that species of fish live in a "Alge garden" type tank like this since sargasm is an alge and that is what the sargasm frog fish lives in.

I did not notice you wanted a jaw fish .That is why i recomended a frog fish .

 

[Limbo]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9003681#post9003681 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by BrianPlankis

Why do you keep your temp so low? Is that for the plants?

It was designed for seahorses, hence the lower temp. I've left it low, as everything seems to be doing well.

 

[graveyardworm]

I would look at some of the non sand dwelling gobies. There are some cardinalfishes which dont have inverts on the menu. Dont rule out the damsels altogether. I found my blue tail damsel to be very docile and shy. Many of the dartfish are very colorful and would fit nicely in your tank.

 

[ClamIAm]

Having tried to keep seagrass with a frogfish, I'm not sure this approach worked well. Maybe this would work better in an established tank, but I found that mine would generally trample/uproot the rhizomes from time to time.

 

[ClamIAm]

Edit: sorry double post. not sure why I can't delete it?

 

[graveyardworm]

Only mods can delete posts.

 

[Dave Legacy]

At that temp you should definetly get yourself a hogchoker sole. I absolutely love mine and if you have worms reproducing in your tank you'll never have to feed him. They're great animals and don't get very large.

 

[piercho]

The Hogchoker sole looks interesting but how do West-coasters get them?

 

[Samala]

They are pretty cute.. find lots of them with the kids here in the lagoon. They are ridiculously hard to free from sides of plastic aquaria unfortunately, like little suction cups. I've never seen them offered commercially.

I actually thought they ate more than copepods, but zoobenthos is listed under diet at FishBase.

We had one that survived a whole weekend in two teaspoons of water. Stuck to the side of a specimen container and I didnt even notice (1" or so). Monday morning I see this little dark thing in the corner of the tank, thought it was a leaf. Put some water in to swish it out, little leaf starting skirting around! I dropped the tank I was so surprised.

I thought that was a really freak occurence until we brought two alligator pipefish "back to life" in the same scenario (just a bit more water). Lagoon fish down here are tough!

Thing is.. wouldn't zoobenthos include snail larvae or at least baby snails that have settled out of veliger stage (is it veliger?)?

>Sarah

 

[gemini aquarius(t)]

wow nice tank, i know who im asking for macro!!