Caribbean Biotope Seagrass Tank

[wilder]

Wonderful info!

[McPuff]

As for CO2 regulators, I'll plug the CO2art regulator. I read all sorts of terrific reviews so I decided to give it a shot. It's quite an amazing piece of equipment, especially for the price. I should receive endorsements for such high praise. Anyway, it seems to be a relatively unknown brand and I'm sure it'll get much more popularity once it arrives in the US (currently just UK but they ship here obviously). Anyway, just wanted to throw it out there... also have some words in my own thread. Don't mean to hijack!

[Michael Hoaster]

Thanks wilder! I hope it is helpful.

Good to hear from you too, McPuff! So, you're happy with your new CO2 regulator? Can you ballpark the price? Hijack anytime! I welcome the discussion.

I bought mine for a calcium reactor as well, when my tank was a reef. Then, when I switched to fresh water planted, I ran the CO2 into my canister filter, just for the plants. It made a huge difference, with new growth daily. Now, with the salt water planted tank, CO2 is still very important.

I was inspired by Samala's thread in the Old Helpful Posts Sticky, "CO2 Magic!", at: http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh...hreadid=778087. She talked about her jump in growth rates, adding CO2 to here seagrass tank. She went the cheap route, and did a yeast, coke bottle setup. This is maybe a good way test the waters with CO2, for folks that want a less expensive entry fee. Then after seeing the benefits, the cost of a regulator setup could be justified.

[Chasmodes]

I haven't any idea about the quality of my well water yet, but one concern many have is the CO2 levels. Maybe that isn't such a bad thing?

[Michael Hoaster]

I've not heard of that. It would certainly not be a bad thing, for planted tanks. Regardless of CO2 amounts in make up water, it will get used up by plants, so supplementing would still be needed, I think.

[Michael Hoaster]

Ok, so I finally got up the gumption to start hypo salinity in my display.

I replaced the water in my QT with tank water, and moved all ten pounds of live rock in. I moved all the snails I could find, and sponges and a few macro frags. I topped the display with fresh water. Salinity went from 25ppt to 21 ppt, so I'm not down to hypo levels yet, but I wanted to give the tank a little time to adjust. I'll give it a few days to a week before I get it down to 12ppt, or 1.009 SG.

Kinda scary! This is definitely one of those grand experiments that could lead to disaster. One thing that gives me hope is, when I was emptying the QT, I caught several pods in there. The QT has been hypo for a couple of months now, so I'll take that as a good sign.

I have thought about best and worst case scenarios. If everything dies that would be a bummer, but it would give me a chance to do some of the re-dos I talked about recently. I don't expect it to happen, but who knows. Most important is eradicating ICH.

Wish me luck!

[Ron Reefman]

Good luck Michael, I hope it all works out well for you. I'm just getting done doing some home improvements and my next job will be redoing the rockscape in both my DT and display refugium.

[Michael Hoaster]

Thanks Ron.

Well, the next day and everything looks good so far. I see a lot of snails I missed. I may go ahead and do another freshwater water change, getting closer, but not all the way to hypo level. Three steps is good I think.

[Chasmodes]

Good luck!

[zachxlutz]

Best of luck with this experiment. I may have missed it, but do you have any hunches on how the dreaded ich got in the display?

[Michael Hoaster]

Thanks Chasmodes and Zachxlutz.

My hunch is that the ich came in on the Lookdowns. They were pretty beat up. I didn't think of them as a likely ich magnet, but here I am.

I'll keep the quarantine tank ready to receive from here on out, so I can properly qt new fish. For now I've got to eradicate the ich, keep the grammas fat and happy, and see how my plants respond to hypo salinity.

[Michael Hoaster]

I waited until today to do another freshwater change. I decided to give it 48, rather 24 hours. The next one, on wednesday, should get me down to hypo salinity. Everything still looks fine, so far.

[Ron Reefman]

Michael, I've pulled macro algae from my tanks and given them long freshwater showers in the kitchen sink while I pull unwanted nuisance algae off the macro algae and it's always done very well after that. But that's quite different than days in hypo salinity. So I'll be interested to see how they do. Thanks for keeping us abreast of your efforts.

[Michael Hoaster]

I checked salinity this morning. I'm at 21ppt, or 1.015 sg. I plan to get it down to 1.009 on wednesday.

The caulerpa racemosa looks a little off. It looks lighter, like it may go sexual. I pruned a bit on the back wall, so it's hard to tell, but it almost looks like it's thinning out a little.

The thought of losing the caulerpa is intriguing. On one hand it's been an excellent export medium, on the other, it's been a pain to keep up with pruning. If I lost it, would I need to replace it with another fast grower? Or would that allow the grasses and other macros to step up? I think the latter. I always felt like the caulerpa was sucking up everything I dosed, before the grasses could get any.

Wouldn't it be great if hypo salinity cured my ich AND rid me of some unwanted stuff? I know, I'm getting greedy…

[JZinCO]

I hope your changes go smoothly. I feel that your hunch about growth in absence of caulerpa is correct, but I've found caulerpa to be pretty hardy. IME about 3 days drying out, it recovered but after 7 it had died off.

[Michael Hoaster]

Thanks JZinCO.

Yes, it's a little hard to believe that caulerpa could be killed, simply with low salinity, but I guess we'll see. Even if it does die out, it could still come back. When I originally added it, when starting up the tank, it gradually disappeared. At least two months later, it came back, and basically took over the tank.

[SantaMonica]

The Macro Mindset takes some time

Yes, but it's how real reefs operate

[Michael Hoaster]

I don't understand what you are saying, SantaMonica.

"Yes, but it's how real reefs operate".

I'm not seeing how your statement relates to what you quoted me on. Can you explain?

[Chasmodes]

We need an update! How are your fish doing? What salinity and sg are you at now? How about the macros and grass, are they doing OK?

[Michael Hoaster]

OK, an update.

So, I wasn't able to do a fresh water change on wednesday, as I had planned. I finally got it done thursday night. I just checked salinity this morning, and I'm still not quite down to hypo levels. Kind of frustrating, but it makes sense. The lower it goes, the more water you have to exchange to affect change. So, I guess it's going to take one more water change to get there. That will make it 4 steps to get there instead of three. I doubt doing it this way is really helpful, but it may be good for the inverts, like snails and spaghetti worms, which still look good. If I had had a formula for doing it in one step, I would have done it that way. But, given my concerns with harming a variety of organisms, I guess this will work.

My initial assessment of the caulerpa, seems to be continuing. It does appear to be dying back. I am OK with that! Having a couple of years experience with C. racemosa, I can say I'm definitely tired of the pruning it. Having it go away would give me the opportunity to try something else, less invasive and less greedy, in terms of nutrient dosing.

I'm also seeing the hypnea pannosa being affected. It is changing from blue to a pale green color. I have a few frags of it in the QT, so I'm not too concerned.

So far, all the red macros seem unaffected, which is a little surprising to me, but what do I know, I've never done this before.

The royal grammas are all great. They don't even scratch that much. I think they would probably live long lives, even if I didn't do the hypo treatment, but I'd like to add more fish, so I HAVE to lose the ich.

The seagrasses look somewhere between unaffected and slightly off. I'll keep an eye on them.

It occurs to me that some good info could come from this endeavor. For example, I may be able to determine that hypo salinity could be a viable way to rid an aquarium of caulerpa racemosa. Or that certain plants can be left in a hypo tank, while others would need to be removed. Anyway, I'm sure I'll learn something from this, and of course I'll pass it along.

[SantaMonica]

I was saying that growing algae on purpose, like real reefs do, is counter-intuitive for most people and takes time to accept.

[Michael Hoaster]

I did another fresh water change saturday. I'm still not down to hypo (1.008 - 1.010) salinity levels! I'm at 1.011 today, so I have to do another water change. Yay. Kind of a pain in the @$$ but whatever.

The caulerpa is still wasting away, but everything else looks good. I suspect that running the tank this way for a month or two, will result in significant changes. Hopefully some will be good, and the rest I can bounce back from.

[HuskerBioProf]

"How many 10% water changes with 0ppm water would it take to drop salinity from a specific gravity to 1.026 to 1.008?" sounds like a great gen chemistry I problem.

[Michael Hoaster]

I'll let you know when I get there!

Maybe in the chemistry forum?

[Dxpert]

Wow - This is quite something. Keep it up, love seeing the pictures.