Awesome -IPSF. Thanks for the tip. Ive read into them before but lost my bookmarks when i lost my phone .

The black mollies show any presence of ich or velvet extremely well. Ive used them following h2o2 baths combined with TTM for my current QT with great success. In fact, everyone is so healthy my mollies (4 females, two males) have broods pretty much every two weeks.

Im going to keep reading over the next few days. Looking forward to following along


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I'm impressed to hear of someone else taking advantage of mollies' utility. They're great algae eaters too.

Enjoy the read. Let me know if anything else piques your interest. Also, I found some good reading in the sticky: Forum favorites (old helpful posts), here in the macro section.

I will enjoy following your new thread neilp2006. It is similar to my system only much bigger.

I believe setups like yours, Dawn, are bridging the gap between reefers and plant guys. People see these and realize it is possible to keep reefs AND plants. And it doesn't have to be just chaeto in a fuge. It can be something worthy of display and entertaining in its own right.

Being more plant focused makes my setup easier, but it seems most folks aren't quite ready to go whole hog. I'm not exactly seeing a tidal wave of marine planted tanks. So these hybrid setups may help transition more people to the joys of keeping plants.

I really love this 'hybrid' setup. I love the lush diversity plus the nutrient control makes this tank easy to maintain even with a fairly heavy fish load.

Ooh, I love lush diversity too! Well put. I'm glad to hear your new setup is working well for you, Dawn. You transitioned so smoothly, you didn't miss a beat. Not a single hiccup. Pretty slick!

I guess it helped that the former 30 gallon seahorse tank and sump were fully cycled and a mature system already. I did not know if adding the garden soil and new sand was going to cause a setback. I am guessing that it did not because all the rock was mature as well as the sand in the display plus the remote deep sand bed in the center chamber of the sump. This system has a huge bio-filter actually and as the 30 gallon matures as a fuge it will even have more capacity

I'd give you a little more credit than that. Meticulous planning and flawless execution didn't hurt either!

I'll be interested to see how things change and develop, over time. I've seen a few of these type of systems over the years. They've all disappeared from the forum, so I assume things went downhill. I'd guess they must have struggled with the tight rope aspect of nutrient levels. You seem to have overcome this issue years ago, so I think you'll be able to handle any hiccups. With more plant biomass, things should only get easier.

I look forward to seeing more pics of the planted tank, and how it develops over time. Obviously your reef section is the star of the show, but I'm especially interested in how this new plant sections works, as a late addition to your system, rather than if it was there from the start. Again, you are paving the way for other reefers to consider similar additions.

Me too.

Neil, don't forget to check out Michael's original thread, lots of good info in that one too.

I too am curious how the display tank and fuge will develop. Right now the biggest balancing factor is having Samson in the fuge. Seahorses just do not do well if the DOC gets too high and yet a lot of what feeds the macros is just that. Also I am keeping the temperature lower for Samson's benefit and I am not sure if that will slow the growth of macros and seagrass like it does some coral.

Thank you Michael for making me feel at least like a partial pioneer with my hybrid tank. You are the true pioneer but even if I can influence a small portion of folks I will feel like I contributed to the furtherance of the hobby.

I suspect lower temps will slow plant growth a little. No biggie. I've lowered my temps from 80 to 77 for Codium. Hard to tell if anything slowed down or not.

What sets your system apart from others with refugiums, is that your refugium and your reef display are similar sizes, putting them on more equal footing. This is a big difference. That's also why I'm so curious to see how things develop. Who knows? Not me.

I bet your setup is just going to get better and better. People will notice. Pioneer!

Yep- im working through the 'fake mangrove root' and the original planted threads when time permits. Two energetic and precocious under 4s keeping me on my toes!



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I had not thought about my fuge being more close in volume as my display and how that can set my system apart, other than it should allow me to crowd more fish in the display. That will be interesting to see what that does and how it functions overall.

I agree, it should allow you to keep more fish. I'm very curious to see what other benefits come from this new setup. With increased water volume and plant filtration, you may be able to do half as many water changes or even less. As the macros grow, you'll need to export. This is a much more concentrated nutrient export than you'd ever get from water changes.

I'm sure there are many other upsides that will reveal themselves over time. I'll be watching!

Even now I have been exporting the caulerpa every week or 2 so that nutrient uptake is not so great as to deplete the system which would not bode well for the clam and coral. Again a balancing act.

I found two of the three Tuxedo Damsels dead this morning. All five of the Allen's Damsels look fine. Not sure what happened. My first guess is aggression. Brutus, the large male occasionally goes nuts and brutally attacks his conspecifics. Usually, there is a peaceful truce. I'll investigate further.

I'm not positive but pretty sure Brutus is the remaining Tuxedo Damsel, making me think he went all medieval and killed the other two. Now he seems a model citizen. So after my experience with them, I would only recommend one per tank.

I did a simulated manatee grazing event today. Many of my Manatee Grass blades are covered in calcium deposits. I pinched them off below the coating. I've done this before when they've gotten coated with coralline. They seem to respond well to occasional grazing disturbances.

I also removed some less desirable algae. I'm finding micro serpent stars everywhere. Yay! I've still got more algae to remove. As I remove the yucky stuff, I leave the stuff I like alone, so it is gradually taking over. The back wall is getting pretty green.

I went after the grass blades again today. I probably pinched as many today as I did yesterday. Now we're getting back to just green but what a haircut! Almost no tall blades left at all. I'll try to get a pic tonight. Get a 'before' pic. Before they hit the spring growth spurt.

Wow, a lot has happened this weekend. I'm looking forward to the new look. What is causing the calcium deposits on the manatee grass?

Sounds like Brutus is quite the brute, at least to his own kind. I'm glad the Allen's damsels are OK. They're so colorful and cool looking. The tuxedo damsels added a nice contrast though, so at least you still have one of them. Does Brutus look healthy?

I took some pics last night, but none were good enough. It doesn't look all that different - just not as tall and not as dense. A month or two ago, I added some kalkwasser. I guess I added too much. I'm also getting more coralline algae forming on the glass.

I'm not 100% sure Brutus is the survivor. All three were very close in size, so it'd difficult to say for sure. With his (rare) tirades, he seems the most likely. Now that he is solo, he's much more well-behaved. So I think I'll call him Papillon, which was my favorite name of the three. He does look healthy.

I am sorry to hear about Brutus's brutality. When a fish suddenly does that sort of thing it is always upsetting. I worry some times about Marmalade and Linus. They are both combtooth blennies and they skirmish on occasion. Marmalade is bigger and more bullyish. If Samson were not in the fuge I would move Marmalade there but I can not risk him attacking Samson.

I guess you are spring cleaning the manatee grass. Hopefully the spring growth spurt causes the grass to quickly recover all that was pinched off.

I am sorry to hear about Brutus's brutality. When a fish suddenly does that sort of thing it is always upsetting. I worry some times about Marmalade and Linus. They are both combtooth blennies and they skirmish on occasion. Marmalade is bigger and more bullyish. If Samson were not in the fuge I would move Marmalade there but I can not risk him attacking Samson.

I guess you are spring cleaning the manatee grass. Hopefully the spring growth spurt causes the grass to quickly recover all that was pinched off.

Thanks Dawn. Nature can be brutal for sure. Especially if you're a damsel, I guess. Thankfully, the Allen's Damsels are all doing well and have grown to be gorgeous, well-behaved fish. I'd be singing their praises as a fantastic community damsel, if it weren't for their Uronema problem. Getting them QT was a huge challenge. I'd get more, except that their digging isn't ideal. My patch reef rocks are gradually sinking. As I continue to think about next fish, I'm also thinking about getting another ten pounds of live rock to provide more nooks to hide in.

I'm just about ready to pull out some shoal grass. Are you ready for some?

https://photos.app.goo.gl/G6mFbWKJwwvVKkeo7


Thank you Michael! I think I am ready for shoal grass. I have a nice open space on the sand bed to plant the grass under the lighting. Recently the surface of the sand bed and some of the rock got a fair amount of algae. I am not sure if it is dinos, Cyrano or diatomous. It may be a combination. I think some of it is likely to be diatomous
because of all the new sand giving off silica. However the stringy slimy stuff on the rock definitely looked like dinos and there are tiny bubbles on the surface of the sand bed. I am posting a 30 second video for you to see. Do you think I should add a small powerhead to add more flow on the surface of the sand bed? The tank has about 400gph flowing through it which is a bit over 10Xs turnover.

https://youtu.be/9AXEtrsc_rs

OK Dawn, good to know. I should be ready to pull them pretty soon. I guess algae was to be expected with the new tank. As for adding more flow, I don't think its needed. Got any snails in there? Would Samson tolerate a Molly? I'm considering getting a few mollies again for some algae I have growing.