What I am planning for my seagrass habitat

[ChadTheSpike]

So I was doing some long-term planning/goalsetting for my seagrass habitat and here are my initial thoughts on the residents it will house.

Im a big believer in more of a natural and lightly loaded setup promoting long-term success so here it goes.

A couple of small rock outcroppings (2 or so) that will have several color morphs of pocillipora and a tridacnid clam or two on each. I will leave enough room for adult sized animals because I am looking for maturity and long term success with this setup. I want it to be simple showcasining just a few species.

The sandbed will have Halodule wrightii (shoal grass) growing wherever it wants to (within reason of course ), Ill also have a few (2-4) free living corals in the system (fungii, trachyphyllia, etc.), if things go well I will probably also add a goniopora as well.

Fish wise, I will have a handful of shrimp gobies and pistol shrimp (in one of my previous tanks I had 5 yellow watchman gobies that happily coexisted, I may do the same again), a kole tang and two cardinalfish.

By the way, equipment wise, 600 gph of flow will come from a 5 gallon surge every 35 seconds and a MP40, lighting will be from a 6500k 250W HQI MH.

Except for the clean up crew (crabs, snails, brittle stars etc) that will do it. What do you all think?

[ChadTheSpike]

By the way, $5.99 shipping rocks!!!!!!

This stuff came in the mail

[lordofthereef]

You don't see many of these types of tanks. I am excited to see what you come up with. Did all that sand and the vortech amount to $6 shipped? From where? And am I missing something? Why did you get the MP40 if you are dialing it down to 600gph? Or is that a 600gph return plus an mp40? Looking forward to progress pics

[fishysteve]

This sounds like it's gonna be good. I'm looking forward to seeing your progress. It's refreshing to see something different than the same old pile of rocks packed with as much stuff as possible.

[ChadTheSpike]

Thanks all, I agree. I have done sps and mixed reefs and love them, but this multi habitat system Im doing has me more excited about my tank than ever

Yep, the drs ran a special in Jan, 5.99 shipping for anything... I took advantage of it and ordered 180 lbs of sand!!

The flow is 600gph from the return (runs through all three 'big' tanks) and the vortech.

[stormrider27]

I will definitely be following this thread!

[Soultwater]

Originally Posted by ChadTheSpike

So I was doing some long-term planning/goalsetting for my seagrass habitat

My first thoughts were…. I wasn’t aware if anyone smoking this seagrass stuff and immediately wanted to give it a try. THIS IS TRUE!

Then clicked and read the post
Yep I’ve seen a few setups like this and boy am a huge fan… please post some pics.

[ChadTheSpike]

^lol... yep Chad is smokin the seagrass again!! watch out for that!

I certainly will post pics as I get more of them...

I moved my return hose directly to the return portion of the sump, put the sand in and wired up the mp40 last night (that thing is pretty cool by the way).

When the cloudiness settles (I didnt rinse because I plan on adding a bunch of mangrove mud, I figure whats the point of removing the silt?), Ill add some sand from my fuge, order a pound or two of live sand from a few different places, order my mud, and start working on livestock. Oh, and Ill also take a few pictures

[ChadTheSpike]

Any Saturday morning feedback on my ideas?

The seagrass to be tank is still a little coudy this morning

[MayoBoy]

Did you put your rock in yet? I'm starting a 40 mantis tank and put 20 lbs of crushed coral and 20 lbs of Premium Aquatics "bottom grunge". This is what it looked like:


The next morning I could see about an inch into the tank. Then I put some live rock in and within about 4 hours, this is what it looked like:


Today, 2 days later, it's clear as glass:

[fefo23]

I'm realy looking foward to see more is a good idea and i haven't see anything like this fefore. But the rule is we need some pic.....

[ChadTheSpike]

Mayoboy: I put rock in today (all six pounds!!) and did some aquascaping (pictures to follow). Your tank is coming together nicely It will look nice with a mantis cruising around in there!

This tank will be a second 'refugium' for my seahorse tank when it is done.

fefo23: ok, ok, here are some teasers... It is a little too cloudy at the moment because of all my messing around in there today (water change, removal of ½ 5 gallon bucket of chaeto, and the seagrass tank aquascaping).

Here is what I set up to do my aquascaping, I got four smaller, but interesting pieces of rock to mess around with. I drilled some holes and used a 3/8" acrylic rod (cut swizzle sticks) to hold them together, then used some epoxy putty to hold the acrylic rod in the pvc structure that I made.



After about 30-45 minutes of work, here is what I ended up with. The left structure is more interesting than it appears in the picture:



And here is a picture of the really cloudy tank (at the moment it is not connected to the main system while the 'dust settles.' The left structure from above is what you can see through the clouds on the right in this picture.



By the way, the lighting in this picture is only temporary... I had a standard single bulb T12 that came with the tank.

I will post more pictures when it clears up.

I still havent received any feedback on my stocking list though, anyone have anything?

[Boundless]

Wow that is one deep sand bed!
I wonder what a 5in sand bed looks like.

[ChadTheSpike]

oh about three inches shorter!! I like sand beds, they rock!

Here is a pic of the depth in my (other?) refugium



Since the sand is 'fresh' in there, I expect it will 'settle' a little, maybe 1/2-1 inch or so... Right now its around 7-8" in most places and I am still going to add about 20 lbs of mangrove mud... also I still need to level it out completely.

Also, the tank is mostly cleared up now and it looks like I will need to to slope it some to completely cover the pvc on the rear rock structure (if the mud doesnt cover it up completely).

[ChadTheSpike]

Well, here is a picture of the system (all lights on for pic), its pretty washed out, but the y'all get the idea. The light on the seagrass portion is temporary just so I can see it until my 250W MH and 6500k bulb get here (I think tomorrow or Wednesday).



Here is a closeup of the seagrass tank, empty, anyone else see a blank canvas? The first clean up crew residents get here on Wednesday or Thursday. Already, the sand is starting to get a lot of worms and pods in it (although I did put a lot of them there).



And here is a random picture that I just threw in there because I like it. A vase coral from my fuge

[ChadTheSpike]

The last equipment piece to the puzzle arrived today

Looks like I have a project for the weekend

Its a 250w HQI, a 6500k bulb, with the lowest profile design I could find (its 3.5" tall, which is great for my setup). The light will be about 6" off the water.



and one more, its short, but man, this thing is a lot bigger than I thought it was going to be