A Macro Tank in a TV Studio

[brandon429]

co2 + sand here = he has built in calcium reactor

 

[acbaldwin]

@acbaldwin

I have always liked how Caulerpa Prolifera displays. It reminds me of Oar Grass. With respect to the group of feather Caulerpa, I especially like Caulerpa Paspoides, but it will go sexual if you limit its nutrients.

You are on track with co2 injection. For a grand slam home run, upgrade to a calcium reactor.

I'm considering the calcium reactor, but for the time 2part is doing the trick.

reviving this because i think it awesome and im about to turn my 40g fuge section in my 125 sump into a planted macro garden. will need to dose nitrate and po4 etc. what are you dosing for phosphate, and what level are you aiming for?

what did you do for substrate? regular aragonite sand? looks like caribsea special?

thanks

Yep, just sand. AFAIK almost no (none?) macros take up nutrients through substrate, unlike seagrasses and FW planted tanks. Last tank I experimented with DIY flourish tabs in the sand, but I think it actually cause issues.
Phosphate I'm dosing a solution of KH2PO4. I'm still trying to dial in the right goal levels for my growout tank - it's plagued with GHA right now so I don't have it correct, that's for sure. I think I read that subsea determined that the best ratio for macros was like 30:1 N (vs. the I think 7:1 N for freshwater). I'm going to try maintaining 15ppm N to .5 ppm P and see how it goes. My old tank was up to 150ppm N and 1-2 ppm P without issues.

Definitely awesome!

Thanks!

co2 + sand here = he has built in calcium reactor

I thought about doing a calcium reactor to automate my calcium dosing and improve efficiency, but for the time being I'll stick with 2part. I did switch over to a co2 reactor to improve my co2 diffusion, but since I added a sump I'm sure it's inefficient as all hell.

 

[User]

Yep, just sand. AFAIK almost no (none?) macros take up nutrients through substrate, unlike seagrasses and FW planted tanks. Last tank I experimented with DIY flourish tabs in the sand, but I think it actually cause issues.
Phosphate I'm dosing a solution of KH2PO4. I'm still trying to dial in the right goal levels for my growout tank - it's plagued with GHA right now so I don't have it correct, that's for sure. I think I read that subsea determined that the best ratio for macros was like 30:1 N (vs. the I think 7:1 N for freshwater). I'm going to try maintaining 15ppm N to .5 ppm P and see how it goes. My old tank was up to 150ppm N and 1-2 ppm P without issues.


Thanks!

Awesome, thanks for the info.

Yeah- I’ve been trying to maintain nitrates at 5 and phosphates at 0.10, so a bit lower than 1:30, but my tank is still pretty new. Battling crysophytes and cyano right now because I bottomed out both nutrients, then they hit super high when I was on vacation due to a feeding mishap.

I have a 40g section of my sump I’m turning into a planted macro garden and this tank is a huge inspiration! Thanks for sharing

 

[acbaldwin]

I changed my growout tank quite a bit, brought it in the house and turned it into a display so my wife could pick some fish - I need to grab some pics of it.

In the meantime here's some quick shots of the studio tank from a month or so ago. I've since added a cleaner shrimp, removed the peppermints (they wiped out my aiptasia, then started systematic genocide of the snail population), added an orange flasher wrasse, a little emerald crab, serpent star, and little pistol shrimp.

Cyano outbreak, handled now - purple deaths and hypnea pannosa growing good.

Rock nem for $8??? NOT BAD!

This looked amazingly promising, but didn't survive the change to my tanks. Bought some more and tried again, still no luck. Might be me, might be sensitive to shipping.

Tank is getting crowded!

Big ole' hairy shroom, traded some macros for it.

Crappy FTS. I'm very happy with the AI prime HD, should've bought those for home and done it right the first time.

 

[acbaldwin]

OH, and I found this little guy in my tank at home... what the heck?

 

[acbaldwin]

Oh, and the last time I did a water change was in... April? Not too shabby on the low maintenance end of things!

 

[User]

How did you deal with the cyano?

And that $8 RFA is a steal

Great looking tank!

 

[siggy]

Too cool! I sure hope they all appreciate the tank

 

[acbaldwin]

Thank you both! The cyano in the studio tank was bad but not unbearable - just stuck with a bit of cleaning a couple times a week and let the tank go through its stages till it wrapped up.
My home tank was absolutely horrible with it, however. I think I tried to go too far too fast regarding lighting and nutrients. I'm not a fan of 'fixes in a bottle', but I went with chemiclean. Totally, totally took care of the issue. I followed directions to a T but I still lost one fish, but it took care of the cyano. Now I just have a nightmare of GHA to deal with.

Difference of three days:

 

[Goodair]

I been dealing with cyano too, sucked it all out, a week later its all back, and did this for 4 weeks straight, its aggrevating! Does the gha tend to steal its spot after? I've read that people use cynao killer and only to get dinos to start populating the rock. Not sure of its a coincidence, or if this is a legitimate concern.

 

[acbaldwin]

I been dealing with cyano too, sucked it all out, a week later its all back, and did this for 4 weeks straight, its aggrevating! Does the gha tend to steal its spot after? I've read that people use cynao killer and only to get dinos to start populating the rock. Not sure of its a coincidence, or if this is a legitimate concern.

I'm not so sure the cyano and GHA are related, however, if you don't fix the issue that caused the cyano then you'll just end up with something else filling the vacuum. You'll need to figure out what's really allowing the your current nuisance to thrive or you'll just get a different nuisance next.

 

[Goodair]

There's so much mixed info, its hard to know for sure. Parameter wise, I'm very low nitrates and very high phosphates. Im assuming this is the cause and been trying to fix it, but again, its kinda of a crap shot.

I've been doing weekly waster changes, lowering photo period, I re-positioned the powerheads. The phosphates are coming from the silverside heavy diet, cant really do much about it since i target feed. Only things I still need to try is to raise nitrates for the macros to balance out and to do some deep cleaning on the substrate with a siphon hose.

Edit: there use to be algae growing on the rocks, but lately the cyano have been stealing territory.

 

[acbaldwin]

There's so much mixed info, its hard to know for sure. Parameter wise, I'm very low nitrates and very high phosphates. Im assuming this is the cause and been trying to fix it, but again, its kinda of a crap shot.

I've been doing weekly waster changes, lowering photo period, I re-positioned the powerheads. The phosphates are coming from the silverside heavy diet, cant really do much about it since i target feed. Only things I still need to try is to raise nitrates for the macros to balance out and to do some deep cleaning on the substrate with a siphon hose.

Edit: there use to be algae growing on the rocks, but lately the cyano have been stealing territory.

Definitely - if you have a good amount of macros bring your nitrates up and your phosphates will drop like a rock. (assuming iron and micros are in good quantity, which they probably are) I do this all the time when I let something get out of balance.

 

[Bret Brinkmann]

OH, and I found this little guy in my tank at home... what the heck?

That looks like Elysia unidentified species #13! If you don't want it, then I'll take it. I love seaslugs.

www.seaslugforum.net

Great site for ID and dietary information.

That tank is amazing! I'd love to learn more about macro care. I am currently struggling with the calcified macros. Is there a book you would recommend on macros?

 

[acbaldwin]

That looks like Elysia unidentified species #13! If you don't want it, then I'll take it. I love seaslugs.

www.seaslugforum.net

Great site for ID and dietary information.

That tank is amazing! I'd love to learn more about macro care. I am currently struggling with the calcified macros. Is there a book you would recommend on macros?

Nice! Looks just like Elysia subornata to me, which lines up with the likelihood of him hitchhiking on stuff collected from the Florida keys.

Calcified macros like Halimeda sp., I'm not sure I'm your guy. I tend to have terrible luck with them, despite my calcium and mag levels being appropriate. One thing I found was that I get pretty great growth on Halimeda sp. under much lower light than I'd expect - the Halimeda in the pics above was dying off (as usual) until I stuck in in a pretty shady corner, then it had spurts of growth. I do water changes extremely infrequently so I'm not sure if there's some trace minerals that are perhaps missing.
Less calcified stuff like G. mammillaris and G. hayi I've found to be super easy to keep - just mid to high light, a bit of calcium, mid to high flow, and NPK has netted me crazy growth.

 

[acbaldwin]

Here's an updated quick FTS of the home display/growout. The C. prolifera and C. paspaloides are growing like crazy. Still having some trouble getting the GHA under control, but spent a couple hours weeding and added two sea hares that will hopefully get it wrapped up. Got a bunch of red macros in the sump trying to grow out too.

 

[AngryMike2016]

What a freaking cool tank concept. I've just gotten into freshwater planted tanks, so to see effectively a saltwater planted is awesome!