Weeds

The tank looks fantastic. Thanks for the pics, love 'em. It's funny, you see the work that you need to do for and end goal, and we see a terrific tank as is ;).

I love the dusk pic too!

Sorry for being away for a while. I've been in that same COVID funk for a while now. It's weird that I'm home more, but less motivated than before, and that's not good. I said something to my daughter, and now she's helping me by nagging me to do the things that I want to do that I've procrastinated on. LOL. It's a good thing, she's trying to help me.
 
Thanks Kevin! So true about the covid funk. I'm around more, but way less motivated. Let's call it more hands-off. I'm just sort of steering the tank in a general direction, rather than trying to control it. I think the general direction is good, if a bit sloppy!

I'd love to have more help with algae, but I don't dare spend money on a Herald's Angelfish right now. I do have two mollies that are eating algae, but they are not quite enough. I guess on the plus side, one has turned into a male, so babies should be on the way at some point. A good brood of babies might make a dent in it - little eating machines!
 
I hear ya... My wife was furloughed, so I know what it's like to pinch pennies. That has been a huge part of this covid funk. Kewl that one of your mollies changed sides ;)
 
Yeah, we get paid quarterly, and it's based on what we did a year ago. So we'll have to wait a year to see how bad it gets for us. I'm crossing my fingers and saving cash where I can. Sorry to hear your wife has been furloughed. Hopefully they'll bring her back soon.

This brings up the question of how to go forward with an aquarium in a pandemic/recession. I think I'll just work with what I've got and see how it goes. It'll be less about buying new stuff. With the mollies I at least have the chance to have more algae-eating fish, when they make babies. I love the way baby mollies look in the tank. It's interesting to watch how they get by, at the bottom of the fish totem pole. Try not to get eaten, swim, eat and grow.

Over the weekend I did another water change and algae export. I've gotten more calcium deposits on the grasses! And I had pruned them all down to green, so its all new deposits. I've even gotten some Halimeda plants popping up from the live rock. It's calcium soup! I've still got some ugly algae too. I keep pruning it back, and gradually the Caulerpa overgrows it.

I've heard some encouraging news from the online seller that sent me the wrong plant. He says he's got some of the plant I ordered now. So maybe I'll have it some time in the future. Woo!
 
Well, my month and half long experience with a new online plant vender has ended. After another two weeks of no progress, I emailed them last night and asked them to send me the plant or a refund. I have been refunded, which is the bright spot of an otherwise awful experience.

Probably the most frustrating thing is that the whole debacle could have been avoided if they simply posted on their site that the plant was sold out. Instead, they attempted to deceive me and send another plant, and then delay, while they attempted to grow what I ordered, without success.

Now I'll just put this behind me and look to the future. There are other, great venders out there, that I will continue to work with. Onward!
 
I'm kind of on cruise control lately, with the Seagrass Sandbar Lagoon. I guess a lot of people are, this time of year.

Every few weeks I export yucky algae, and the good algae gradually takes its place. I've halted dosing to get nutrient levels down as well. So no CO2 and no ammonia is being added. These brought explosive growth, but now I have pretty good plant coverage, so now I'm trying to slow things down a bit. It'll be interesting to see what happens. I expect I'll have some caulerpa melt-downs, which are no big deal in this kind of tank. Ideally, lowered nutrients will lead to more rapid decline of the unwanted algae.

The mollies seem to be in the midst of romance. Not sure if she's prego. She's not showing the obvious signs yet. It's just a matter to time. I'm really looking forward to having a new brood of babies. Also I'm curious what colors they will be. She's a solid white Silver, he's a mostly black Dalmation. I've yet to play the breeding fish genetics game, so this should be interesting. Mostly I just want more hungry algae eaters in the tank. Baby mollies eat constantly.

I'm still getting calcium deposits on the grasses. It's not as bad as before though. With my paying less attention to the tank lately, I hardly noticed that the grasses are doing really well! In fact the whole tank looks good. It's a bit shaggy in places but overall I'm happy!

What's next? Probably more cruise control. We're into prime mountain biking season, and I'm finally getting enough fitness to keep up with my buddies. Camping is less appealing lately, with most Americans staying in country these days, so it's been crowded. Once school starts it should get better.

If I can make time to clean the glass, I'll try to get some pics…
 
Nice to hear things are going well. Ever consider adding a carpet anemone or pocillopora colony right in the middle of the grass? I've seen things like that snorkeling in Guam.
 
Thanks ThePurple12! I had a nice purple Condylactis Gigantea anemone in v1. No interest in corals for this tank, though I'd like to do a bommie of Stylophora one day. For this tank I wanted to have a more singular focus - on plants. This way there is less compromise and I can give the plants whatever they want. What you are doing with plants and corals in the same tank is more challenging, and I'm not confident I'm up to that yet. Someday!

Lately, I have been interested in exactly what you described - a coral colony in the middle of a seagrass meadow. Maybe that will be v3!
 
I have no plans to move on to v3. That's just some 'some day maybe' thoughts. But yes, I do think of next tank ideas all the time! However, I do allow my mind to stop quite frequently…
 
If you don't try it, I might! I just bought a 20 long tank to culture mysis shrimp, but if that doesn't work out I might start a natural sunlight seagrass + some kind of Pocilloporid tank.
 
ThePurple12 said:
If you don't try it, I might! I just bought a 20 long tank to culture mysis shrimp, but if that doesn't work out I might start a natural sunlight seagrass + some kind of Pocilloporid tank.
Click to expand...

Let me know how culturing the shrimp go. I always wanted to try it but they cannibalize their young and a solution for that is what always hung me up. I figured I needed some sort of screen that was fine enough to keep the adults from falling through and the larvae shrimp would fall through. Somehow it just seemed like too much work.
 
Michael Hoaster said:
Sounds good. Mysids live in the grasses, so you could do both.
Click to expand...

I have grass/ghost shrimp living in the 30 gallon fuge that is connected to the reef. Samson was too lazy to catch them so I am kind of hoping that they breed some and the feather caulerpa is thick enough that not all the larvae shrimp get eaten by their parents. Hopefully some find their way into the reef to feed the fish.
 
vlangel said:
Let me know how culturing the shrimp go. I always wanted to try it but they cannibalize their young and a solution for that is what always hung me up. I figured I needed some sort of screen that was fine enough to keep the adults from falling through and the larvae shrimp would fall through. Somehow it just seemed like too much work.
Click to expand...

Sure! The shrimp are arriving Saturday. For the screen, I got one from Lowes that was about 1000 microns for like $10.
 
This sounds like an exciting project! I would be very interested to follow your progress. How would the screen be incorporated? Substrate? Plants?

I had thought about adding mysids to my tank, but I missed my window. With six hungry damsels, it seems unlikely they could maintain a sustainable population, though I think they would thrive in my tank without predation.
 
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