nawilson89
New member
Blenny seemed to be waning this morning and passed a bit ago...
Losing all your fish is a major bummer. It sounds like you've found a great LFS though.
I haven't had any disease outbreaks for years, so I don't remember all the things you're supposed to do. It varies, depending on the outbreak. You didn't mention what you've done to eradicate it. I know that one of them dies out, after several weeks, if there are no fish hosts, so I'm concerned that you've added another fish so soon.
In my opinion, you shouldn't add new fish until you've cured the problem. You said you did a lot of reading. Are you sure you have correctly diagnosed the problem? If so, are you doing everything to solve it? Curing disease/parasites isn't fun or exciting, but it has its rewards.
A tank wipe out hits you hard in the heart, but it's your brain that'll get you back to where you want to be.
Good to hear! I know it's not easy listening to advice from other hobbyists sometimes. A very healthy attitude!
I'm still using CO2 in my tank, with no plans to stop. Carbon is very important. Most of us add no carbon, except through feeding fish food. This works, but you also get phosphate. And this throws off the C-N-P ratios (carbon-nitrogen-phosphate). The ideal C-N-P ratio for seagrasses is roughly 400-40-1. So I add carbon (CO2) and nitrogen (ammonia or nitrate).
I'm not sure I'm understanding what you're saying. Are you having trouble connecting your CO2 source to your canister filter?
Here's what I do: I have a 5 pound CO2 tank, with a needle valve regulator. I run an air hose up to a matching hole I drilled into the intake of my canister filter. The canister mixes up the CO2 and water and shoots it back into my tank - pretty simple.
I'm not injecting at a very high rate, so I don't turn it off at night, but in theory, that's an ideal practice.
Don't give up too quick on halimeda. Mine took months to do anything except get fuzzy nuisance algae on it and then all at once it began growing and now I have lots of new growth. Some macros take a while to settle in.
That's great you've gotten to the point of pruning back caulerpa. You're right about it outcompeting other plants with its fast growth.
I've had a love-hate relationship with mine. I love the look of it, I love how much export I get when pruning it back. I hate that it sucks up everything I dose the water column, outcompeting my seagrass. That's why I turned to substrate fertilization. If I had to do it over again, I'd plant my tank with lots of manatee grass only. Then, after it was very well established, I'd add macros. But that's only because manatee grass is my pivotal species (priority). When keeping macros and seagrass with equal priority, I think you just have to accept the disparity in growth rates and adapt and work with it.
Mini update:
Nothing really to put here. Haven't worked out adding Co2 yet. Can't wait for the new year where I have a bit of money to start my new tank. That way I can pull back alot of caulerpa and see how much my sea grass has grown.