Planted Marine vs Planted Freshwater

[Lebowski_]

What are the differences?

Can I add supplements like Potassium and Carbon to my water to help out my macro algae?

I want it to grow well because I will have sun corals in the tank, and I need nutrients to be used up, and quickly!

So Im goin to test for Trates and Po4 tonight, if they are low, will dosing help (seachem)?

Cheers.

Danny

 

[Samala]

Differences... well beyond the obvious you are going to most likely be using lots of macroalga species instead of various vascular plants (seagrasses in marine). Also, many of the macro's do not particularly need a large complex substrate as they will attach to the rockwork in the tank. That makes aquascaping and rearranging the tank slightly easier. You also have access to many many red alga that can add a certain flair to the design, as well as a few alga that fluoresce (!) and some that are even heading away from red towards blue or purple (Ochtodes, Distromium, some Chondria).

Dosing N and P seems to be necessary in heavily planted tanks, yes. Dosing C (either through alkalinity or potentially CO2.. which is still in its infancy on this board for marine application) also seems to be helpful as does iron dosing.

No one has established any relationships for K in marine tanks yet, though perhaps some careful reviews of the scientific literature would help us out here. There is a good thread on this lower down on the board.

Check out the Forum favorites, old helpful posts stickie as that will bring up several broad topic threads that should certainly help. The April issue of Reefkeeping also had an article on seagrasses, and that should help you decide if you want an all alga tank, or something with the slightly more needy 'grasses in the tank as well.

>Sarah

 

[Lebowski_]

Thanks!

Will Iron dosing be bad for Sun Corals or inverts? Or is that only copper.

Is there a good sight for Id'ing marine algae?

Cheers Sarah!

Danny

 

[Samala]

We dont know enough about iron dosing to say at what levels you start to get in trouble. I have been running assays on larval invertebrates to try to determine how much iron is bad, but dont have full results yet. Copper is definitely no good for any of the invertebrates.. commonly used as a last resort on some fish parasite related diseases though. Graveyardworm and The_Nexis_One are the best guys to ask about impact of iron on their corals as they were brave enough to try it so far. Check out the CO2 thread and the last few posts from John to see what I mean.

Good site for ID.. I'm in the midst of putting together something for us here on RC but there is Algae ID at saltcorner.

>Sarah

 

[wong BANTEN]

Samala,.....
the photosintesis in Fresh and Salt water is basicly the same?

 

[graveyardworm]

wong BANTEN,

I am not an expert, but I would have to say photosynthesis is the same process for everything which contains photosynthetic cells regardless of freshwater ,saltwater, or terrestrial.

 

[morphriz]

The chemical reaction is the same. Sunlight and CO2 yields sugar and O2.

How plants, algae, zooxanthellae, plankton etc go about building tissue, aquiring and cycling nutrients is radically different. The dividing line has more to do with what type of organism it is rather than where it lives. The same type of organism do it the same way, f.i. seagrass and freshwater plants, no matter where it lives.