Planning my macro algae/ seagrass tank

Chasmodes said:
Very cool tank and thread! How are the blennies doing?
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Thanks! I rarely update. I get very busy with work, kids and I do a lot for an aquarium business on FB. The 20g is down. I took it down to make room for two separate tanks. A 10g macro algae tank and a 20g long mangrove (the 20 long is still in planning. the 10 is up). I'll eventually get to adding pictures.

The gulf gobies are all gone. Not sure what happened to them. I have two blenny. One large one that we get a lot and a smaller one that is rare.

I had 4 pipefish, but it's now down to 2. when I add reef bugs to the tank they get very active.
 
Alright so let's see. The 10g didn't work out to well, but in the beginning of the month I started my 20g mangroves. It's currently cycling, but one has already sprouted a pair of leaves.

My 29g has been ever changing. Keeping pipefish has been fun, and I've lost maybe 3 so far and just have added more. Earlier this month I began dosing Co2 as well in the forum of seachem excel. Hair algae went away but so did some grape. I stopped dosing, but the lost of macro continued. This morning I woke up to almost 80% of grape gone and about 70% of fern gone as well.

In their place a bit of Ulva has been coming in and is very green. I assume this is will be the norm until something else takes over. Though I'm a bit scared of losing all my caulerpa I'm letting the tank figure it out itself, I can always get more from work!

Here is the 29 gallon!













 
Looks very natural! Great pics too!

Losing large portions of your caulerpa would suggest a nutrient limitation for those 'greedy' caulerpas. Since you are letting them fight it out, my bet's on the reds, since they don't need as much.

That ulva you have is pretty! It looks more like ribbons, than the sheets you usually see. I wonder if it's a different species or just a phenotypic variation.
 
Thanks everyone!

@Michael, I think it's a different species. On another forum i was looking for help identifying this in my 20g tank. I thought it was hair, but it started to ribbon off, it's a lighter green, I assume from the higher concentration of light since it's much more shallow.








See how it ribbons? It's currently the main macro in the tank, even prolifera is having a hard time keeping up!
 
The new project

The new project

And here is the project tank.

It's a 20 long. The left side has rocks used to make a 'barrier'. The barrier holds in the sand and mud for the mangroves. However I didn't estimate that the mud and sand would compress when the water was added so the substrate isn't nearly what I want it to be. I'm wondering if I could add more to it...





So far only one mangrove has started to show leaves with two others coming in slowly.



This is a full shot of the Ulva. Not too sure how I feel about it or how to make it color up more.

I think this tank also has a lack of nutrients.... I could probably throw in some mollies to poop and be nasty.



Hermits and my friends company logo he slapped on the stand he built for me.




Most of the rock is dry rock with a few coming from my friend and his company. He's aqua-cultures live rock from his sites in the gulf. So far I have one hitchhiker on the rock, a small goby. The hermits, nassarius snails and whelks I found in the gulf myself, along the shore.
 
That ulva-like stuff is cool! It's almost like a cross of ulva and chaeto. A higher bio load may help.

I like the new mangrove tank. Higher bio load would help here too. I think a deeper mangrove substrate would be good too.
 
Michael Hoaster said:
That ulva-like stuff is cool! It's almost like a cross of ulva and chaeto. A higher bio load may help.

I like the new mangrove tank. Higher bio load would help here too. I think a deeper mangrove substrate would be good too.
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Thanks!

I just added 4 mollies to the tank. It's going to complete the stocking until macro grows in. Then I'll remove them and move on to what I actually want to put in. The 4 of them will move on to my 29g tank.
 
29g update.

A bit of a clean out and some pics. I pulled 90% of my ulva (it was a very large amount) and some prolifera. Of course I pull chaeto out ALL the time.















 
Anymore updates? Did you end up setting up the CO2 and did it make much difference with the growth rate? As I don't live too far from Tampa do you have any clippings that you would be willing to sell as I'm looking to setup a macro tank? All my live rock came from Salty Bottom Reef Company, they are good people.

Thanks Jason
 
redlobstor said:
Anymore updates? Did you end up setting up the CO2 and did it make much difference with the growth rate? As I don't live too far from Tampa do you have any clippings that you would be willing to sell as I'm looking to setup a macro tank? All my live rock came from Salty Bottom Reef Company, they are good people.

Thanks Jason
Click to expand...

Thanks for bringing me back to this thread. I never ended up setting up the Co2.I was using liquid Co2 for a few weeks, at first my macro was doing great, i lost all hair algae; then my macro began to crash and it started thinning out... it never really came back to the lush jungle it was.... However a few months ago I found someone selling a 40g tank and snatched it up quick. My SO and I decided to consolidate our tanks into one making a mixed reef. It's been like that since. It's in the process of being changed again however because she doesn't like my macro as much as I do and I don't like her coral as much as she does... so we are cycling a biocube for her to take all her coral and fish.

I just recently added a few fish to the 40 for when I take it back over. A Dwarf Lionfish and Arc Eye Hawk.

I'm still not back at the macro levels I was at before so I'm unable to share any snips. If you aren't far from tampa and are willing to take a trip we do have macro at SBRC (salty bottom)... i generally get my macro there and back when I was over growing macro that's where all my macro went.

If you have a FB account and are active in groups you can actually find me in the Salty Bottom group on FB. I manage the group for SB and do a bit of work on the side for them.

They are great people and I am happy to be part of their team!
 
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