cosmicbread
Community Member
- Joined
- Dec 15, 2019
- Messages
- 53
- Reaction score
- 122
Hello everyone. I’ve been fiddling with one of my 40g breeders, and since it is approaching a new stage in its life, I have felt and heeded the sacred siren call of the Forum to begin a journal.
The Premise
This will be a dedicated seagrass bed ("shoal" Halodule wrightii and "manatee" Syringodium filiforme) with perhaps some choice macros. I want to showcase unusual peaceful inverts like Pederson anemone shrimp and their nems, ALL of the tube worms and feather dusters (seriously, I want to keep as many as I possibly can), limpets, conchs, chitons, cowries, porcelain crabs, sponges, small stars, and maybe a cuke and emperor shrimp combo.
I may or may not add a few small fish (maybe pink streaked wrasse or tiny gobies) down the road once the grass has grown in more and there is a substantial pod population. I’ll be depending on pods to help me with cleaning Epiphytic algae off the grass blades.
The Plan
Sea grasses depend on a lot of “dirt” in terms of microbes, bacteria, and what have you, which this gunky old sandbed has in spades. This tank has in fact been established for almost a year and has been run exceedingly dirty. It was once a grow-out tank for a mid-sized snowflake eel; following that, it became a long-term nursery for a batch of fancy ocellaris babies that I raised from eggs. My children spent months in here once they had morphed from the larval stage. I had unlimited access to rotifers at the time, so raising them was relatively easy and very gratifying, but maybe not something I will do again any time soon.
The kids.
Caulerpa prolifera has always been a feature of this system. I’ve thrown in other macros but this stuff triumphed over everything else since I allowed it to take up so much room. It has always done a seriously fine job at keeping nitrates in check and providing shelter for the creatures, but I yearn for something new so I will likely remove it completely from this system.
A close-up of my beautiful orange leviathan, whom I've had the honor of caretaking for two years now.
The macro forest at its peak.
The babies have moved on to other homes and my glorious serpent star is back in my 32g mixed reef tank. Somewhat recently, I began to struggle mightily with aiptasia and ended up throwing most of the rocks outside to reset them…so, for the moment, this tank is sand only with the exception of rubble in the HOB filter.
There is a lot of dense, nutrient-rich mulm in here leftover from the previous inhabitants, which I am leaving as plant food. The sand is teeming with spaghetti worms and some bristle friends. My fighting conch Snorch has been enjoying the open space.
Absolutely staggeringly FILTHY. I've since removed the second heater.
I will be adding several more pounds of live sand (as well as some sparse live rock) from TBS in mid-January, and I will add even MORE bagged store sand and mud in with that.
So, don’t fret at the sand depth
I currently have a small, very upset crop of shoal grass from Aquaticus Plants (it got left out in the cold, so I am not super confident in its longevity) and several healthy sprigs of manatee grass from Rusalty planted.
SeaChem fertilizer tabs have been prodded in evenly throughout.
The beginning.
What's next?
I'm current waiting on:
An order of IPSF Live Sand Activator + "Wondermud" (I've ordered this before in the past and I've been pretty pleased).
An order of 10 lbs TBS Live Sand and a few pounds of live rock.
A couple peppermint shrimp to help me with the remnants of the aiptasia.
Current specs
40 gallon breeder and stand
AquaClear 70 HOB
Heater
Fluval Spec freshwater light
AI Prime freshwater light
A powerhead of some sort
Current animal inhabitants
1 large fighting conch "Snorch"
Several small chitons
Several asterina stars and pieces of asterina stars
The Premise
This will be a dedicated seagrass bed ("shoal" Halodule wrightii and "manatee" Syringodium filiforme) with perhaps some choice macros. I want to showcase unusual peaceful inverts like Pederson anemone shrimp and their nems, ALL of the tube worms and feather dusters (seriously, I want to keep as many as I possibly can), limpets, conchs, chitons, cowries, porcelain crabs, sponges, small stars, and maybe a cuke and emperor shrimp combo.
I may or may not add a few small fish (maybe pink streaked wrasse or tiny gobies) down the road once the grass has grown in more and there is a substantial pod population. I’ll be depending on pods to help me with cleaning Epiphytic algae off the grass blades.
The Plan
Sea grasses depend on a lot of “dirt” in terms of microbes, bacteria, and what have you, which this gunky old sandbed has in spades. This tank has in fact been established for almost a year and has been run exceedingly dirty. It was once a grow-out tank for a mid-sized snowflake eel; following that, it became a long-term nursery for a batch of fancy ocellaris babies that I raised from eggs. My children spent months in here once they had morphed from the larval stage. I had unlimited access to rotifers at the time, so raising them was relatively easy and very gratifying, but maybe not something I will do again any time soon.
The kids.
Caulerpa prolifera has always been a feature of this system. I’ve thrown in other macros but this stuff triumphed over everything else since I allowed it to take up so much room. It has always done a seriously fine job at keeping nitrates in check and providing shelter for the creatures, but I yearn for something new so I will likely remove it completely from this system.
A close-up of my beautiful orange leviathan, whom I've had the honor of caretaking for two years now.
The macro forest at its peak.
The babies have moved on to other homes and my glorious serpent star is back in my 32g mixed reef tank. Somewhat recently, I began to struggle mightily with aiptasia and ended up throwing most of the rocks outside to reset them…so, for the moment, this tank is sand only with the exception of rubble in the HOB filter.
There is a lot of dense, nutrient-rich mulm in here leftover from the previous inhabitants, which I am leaving as plant food. The sand is teeming with spaghetti worms and some bristle friends. My fighting conch Snorch has been enjoying the open space.
Absolutely staggeringly FILTHY. I've since removed the second heater.
I will be adding several more pounds of live sand (as well as some sparse live rock) from TBS in mid-January, and I will add even MORE bagged store sand and mud in with that.
So, don’t fret at the sand depth
I currently have a small, very upset crop of shoal grass from Aquaticus Plants (it got left out in the cold, so I am not super confident in its longevity) and several healthy sprigs of manatee grass from Rusalty planted.
SeaChem fertilizer tabs have been prodded in evenly throughout.
The beginning.
What's next?
I'm current waiting on:
An order of IPSF Live Sand Activator + "Wondermud" (I've ordered this before in the past and I've been pretty pleased).
An order of 10 lbs TBS Live Sand and a few pounds of live rock.
A couple peppermint shrimp to help me with the remnants of the aiptasia.
Current specs
40 gallon breeder and stand
AquaClear 70 HOB
Heater
Fluval Spec freshwater light
AI Prime freshwater light
A powerhead of some sort
Current animal inhabitants
1 large fighting conch "Snorch"
Several small chitons
Several asterina stars and pieces of asterina stars
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