Turtle Grass

[Fredfish]

Thanks for the info plantbrain. How deep is yuur substrait (everyone has a different defenition of deep)?

What do you enrich your agar with? I have heard of people using freshwater plant tablets with some success as well.

It is interesting that you dose nitrogen and phosphate. I remember reading somewhere that seagrasses can grow as quickly as turf algaes in some connditions.

Fred.

 

[Plantbrain]

4-5 inches. Some spots are less but I keep the rooted plants in deep substrate. I also collect my own plants and some of the detritus/mulm comes with the plants. This whitish dusty mulm is mainly CaCO3 from the Halimeda beds with some organic matter.

You can enrich agar with about anything. I have KNO3, KH2PO4, K2SO4, Trace mixes(These are WAY cheaper than Marine traces mixes they sell and are pretty much the same thing, some are missing things like B, Sr though but these are not large issues if you do water changes and raise plants/macro's).
You can add sucrose as well if the plant has very little photosynthetic tissue after trimming etc to give it an extra boost to get started. This can help some slow growers. Boron can be bought at a drug store, boric acid. Also good for keeping ants out of the house.

Careful not to compare Reef(critter) sup's vs macro and plant sups.
I've alway held the notion not to worry about the algae I don't like, but rather focus on the plant or macro I do like. If you give the macro or plant good conditions for healthy growth, you don't have other nuisance algae problems.
And growing nice healthy plants/macro's is the goal, not fighting nuisance algae. So I focus on the needs of what I keep. I think this focus works best in the long run.

Plants have always preformed at higher uptakes than algae in all the FW scrubber vs plant scrubber set ups I've done and with less light intensity to do the job. I think the macro algae and refuge's do better than the turf scrubbers watt for watt and then you are left with nice plants rather than a turf. Some feed both or either to their fish but few folks can get $ for turf algae. I have not measured much in my tanks concerning this in SW but I'll get around to it. I use the plants for the tank itself rather some slave for nutrient removal for a reef. A plant can be used for any and every tank type pretty much.

I am surprised that I have little nuisance algae with my dosing routine. But the growth is good and healthy. When the plants/macro's don;'t grow good, the tank gets nuisance algae. Therefore the focus should be on optimizing the plant/macro's needs, not worrying about limiting this or that nutrient. That's my opinion anyway. It works and has for many years. Happy plant= happy fish = happy hobbyist.

Regards,
Tom Barr

 

[skattabrain]

i know full spectrum is optimal... but will they survive (hopefully thrive) under 400 watt 20K Radiums?

 

[Plantbrain]

Well, they are found in shallow, not deep water like the 20K's are for. Some will grow, but they will do better with more 6500K range temps, 10K would be okay, 4000-6500K would be best. But it's not inflexible.

Regards,
Tom Barr

 

[jman785]

Tom,

email me or pm asap, I want to discuss a keys trip for next year possibly :-D maybe sooner...I might head to marathon

- Jared

 

[Plantbrain]

I am certain we will be in Long Key Marine lab over the Thanksgiving holiday.

I also go down during spring break typically(3-4 days).
I'll be in Dallas for an Aquatic plant(Freshwater) to give a presentation Nov 14-16th and in San Francisco Xmas.

Summer: I've been threatening to do a field trip to both the FW planted springs for 3 days and also to the Keys for 3 days if there's enough interest. June perhaps.

If all works out well, I may do a field trip to the FW and SW habitats of Florida. The recent FW trip is outlined here:

http://tom-barr.aquatic-plants.org/
Only algae/seagrass collecting will be allowed in the SW trips, no fish(unless you have a premit). Judicious collecting is mandatory. Wet suit is recommend due to jellies. Most locations are right off shore, if you wish, charter a boat out to the reef, Looe Key Sanctuary etc for some good site seeing etc. We typically go down to Key West for a night. There is no collecting etc of coral/fish/critters but macro's are okay in many locations.
These locations, species found and relative abundances will be logged. Cost is 40$ plus expenses for 3 days. I try to keep folks' cost to a minimum. You can camp out if you want to save over at Long Key state park etc even.

Regards,
Tom Barr

 

[jman785]

Tom,

I'm definently interested...although I'm checking on my permit for fish collecting I'd like to go to Marathon to catch a few crabs...they have plenty of blue legged hermits down there to go around for all of us I also am planning on going to get snails too

- Jared

 

[greenighs]

So far, so good

So far, so good

I just planted some turtlegrass (from FloridaPets) in my 65-gallon seahorse tank. It's only been a week, so I can't really tell if it's made it or not, but the horses are already hitching to it nicely.

I put it in a "planter" I made from acrylic, 4" deep, 10" wide, 8" high, filled with a mix of Kent Marine Biosediment, Kent Marine Mud, and Southdown tropical playsand. The planter has cut-outs on the lower half so sand critters can move from the tanks DSB (4 inches) to the plant substrate.

In the rest of the tank, I have some manatee grass, a couple of shoal grass plants (might have been eaten by inverts, hard to tell), lots of C. prolifera, some red kelp, Penicillus, Halimeda, etc.

The folks at FloridaPets were very helpful. I plan to order more grasses next week, for my refugium.

my tank details

 

[greenighs]

correction

correction

I meant Kent Mineral Mud, not marine mud, sorry!