Ratvan
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Gorgeous tank and love the fish selection
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Journal The Mermaid’s Rockpool Garden
- Thread starter shangman
- Start date
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- Tags
- liverock macroalgae marine
Those pics looks stunning . . . we need to see more!!!
Absolutely typical... I should rename this journal Trouble in Paradise
Last night while photographing this tank I thought to myself... hmm, some of that caulerpa algae looks a bit dodgy there, must remember to take it all out tonight.
Then I went to upload my photos, and thought... ahh, let's write a blog post, that's a good idea. And the algae was forgot...
So of course, I woke up this morning to a tank of pea soup! All of this one type of caulerpa, which was quite a lot, has gone sexual and melted over night. I’ve added some extra bags of carbon to help soak up some of the stuff (actually took the above photo at lunch time and it’s already much clearer than it was this morning), and added some Seachem Prime in case there’s an ammonia spike.
Right, off to get some RO for a water change... 🙄
Last night while photographing this tank I thought to myself... hmm, some of that caulerpa algae looks a bit dodgy there, must remember to take it all out tonight.
Then I went to upload my photos, and thought... ahh, let's write a blog post, that's a good idea. And the algae was forgot...
So of course, I woke up this morning to a tank of pea soup! All of this one type of caulerpa, which was quite a lot, has gone sexual and melted over night. I’ve added some extra bags of carbon to help soak up some of the stuff (actually took the above photo at lunch time and it’s already much clearer than it was this morning), and added some Seachem Prime in case there’s an ammonia spike.
Right, off to get some RO for a water change... 🙄
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I remember those good old days! 😂
Not sure if I've explained this here before or not, but for those not in the marine-know...
The macroalgae/seaweed that went sideways today is Caulerpa Taxifolia. When in non-ideal conditions, some types of macroalgae - particularly the green caulerpa macroalgaes - decide to "go sexual" - which basically means they disintergrate into a lot of tiny "spores" with the hope that these spores will float away across the sea and find more ideal conditions for growth. When this happens, they also release all the nutrients they've held into the water column, which can be bad for the creatures of the tank - in the sea, nutrients are very low. Thankfully (or rather... practically) I only keep quite robust creatures now.
Today all my other macros are fine - I have two other species of caulerpa in the tank, Caulerpa prolifera and Caulerpa brachypus which haven't melted. They will probably take over now the dominant Taxifolia's current reign has ended. I've never had more than one algae go sexual on me at once, it's just one type almost all at once (maybe 5% survives), and eventually the remaining small tufts regrow well.
Every macroalgae has different conditions in which it thrives. I find my green caulerpas do best in the summer with the higher light from the North-facing window behind the tank, and suffer in the winter. My reds are usually the opposite - they do better in winter with lower light. However some are very tough and just grow well whenever (Halimeda and Red Gracilaria Hayi) There are also variations in growth from the amount of nutrients added to the tank, I used to dose but I’ve found I don't really need to add extra nutrients as the food provides enough, the I do a big waterchange once a month to replenish the micronutrients. Almost all of the macroalgaes seem to have boom and bust cycles beyond my comprehension, and luckily I keep enough types that there's always a few booming and making the tank look great.
I used to have the beautiful bubble-y macroalgae Caulerpa racemosa, which would boom and bust constantly, but thankfully I always caught it and took out the bad stuff. Sadly one day after a glorious boom it had a massive bust and no parts recovered… I can't seem to find it for sale anywhere else any more so I guess that is a common problem.
At some point I'll go through all the different macroalgaes I've kept so far, so if anyone wants to start their own they know which ones to try first.
Anyway, water changed now and looking much more respectable again, if a little bald in places. Think I've got away with it this time!
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Im slightly obsessed with this tank at the moment Rosie and have visions of recreating something similar, then i remember how unforgiving marine can be and settle back into enjoying it vicariously.💙
Great idea to list the macros you have had and your experience with them, could be attached to a how to article of settling up a marine macro algae tank 😛🤓
Great idea to list the macros you have had and your experience with them, could be attached to a how to article of settling up a marine macro algae tank 😛🤓
To be honest I don't make it easy for myself, I have thrown myself into it and can't seem to stop myself (or my dad who I inherited this addiction to natural things from who just loves keeping unusual things) from collecting all the weird little alien plants and creatures of the sea, half of which have very strict requirements and a few of which are rather poisonous. The next part of this journal is where I make a list of catastrophes its been through in the past year and a half since I last updated! On reflection, all of them were totally avoidable ... but I just didn't know and there wasn't much info about it.
Now I've made most of the mistakes, I can say that there's definitely much easier versions of marine/macroalgae tanks to keep, I'll get around to making an article about it some time. I would say its difficulty is around the same as hightech CO2. It's completely worthwhile, the alien beauty of these types of tanks really can't be beaten, and I've learnt so much about how the sea works.
Evolution of the tank so far...
10 | 01 | 2022 - Aquarium set up, rocks added, quarantining for pests has begun.
1 month later... 16 | 10 | 2022 - Pests banished, rockwork cleaned and placement established, sand in. First macroalgae, corals and creatures from bowl tank moved over. No lid.
3.5 months later... 01 | 01 | 2023 - Algae and corals establishing, fish, crustacaens, snails and featuer duster worms added. Discovered need for lid. Changed light from freshwater Twinstar bar to A AI primes, 2 Salt 1 fresh in middle.
3 months later... 25 | 03 | 2023 - Permanent glass lid added, algae and corals continue to grow (and be moved appropriately), more creatures added...
1 year, 8 months later... 01 | 12 | 2024 - Post several tank-crashes for creatures - corals grown, algaes risen and fallen and new ones risen again, new cast of creatures added.
1.5 month later... 21 | 01 | 2025 - Caulerpa macroalgae mostly gone, pipe organ coral knocked off, light rescape and tidy.
10 | 01 | 2022 - Aquarium set up, rocks added, quarantining for pests has begun.
1 month later... 16 | 10 | 2022 - Pests banished, rockwork cleaned and placement established, sand in. First macroalgae, corals and creatures from bowl tank moved over. No lid.
3.5 months later... 01 | 01 | 2023 - Algae and corals establishing, fish, crustacaens, snails and featuer duster worms added. Discovered need for lid. Changed light from freshwater Twinstar bar to A AI primes, 2 Salt 1 fresh in middle.
3 months later... 25 | 03 | 2023 - Permanent glass lid added, algae and corals continue to grow (and be moved appropriately), more creatures added...
1 year, 8 months later... 01 | 12 | 2024 - Post several tank-crashes for creatures - corals grown, algaes risen and fallen and new ones risen again, new cast of creatures added.
1.5 month later... 21 | 01 | 2025 - Caulerpa macroalgae mostly gone, pipe organ coral knocked off, light rescape and tidy.
I last updated in March 2023, and since then...
I had a tank crash in summer 2023 caused by a bubble tip anemone getting sucked into my inlet and dying the day before @Courtneybst and I's aquarium summer event Roots and Shoots Makes a Splash. I found it at 11pm at night, pulled out what I thought was most of the body, read online that it would probably be fine and so I went to bed - organising that event was so incredibly exhausting the weeks before I just didn't have the energy to do the extra stuff. The next morning things seemed fine, so I thought I'd got away with it, phew! The day after the event, I looked in the tank and a LOT of fish were dead and I realised what a massive mistake I'd made in not cleaning the filter and doing a big waterchange the night it happened, thankfully Courtney and my dad helped me do some massive waterchanges which I fully I sobbed through, and some fish and other creatures survived. Note to self... don't buy strange creatures a month before the big event you're planning, and never get an anemone before you've fully proofed all your equipment!!! I had thought my Aquario filter inlet was proofed enough, but these anemones are basically a bag of jelly and the tiny 1mm slit was enough to kill it as it wandered around the tank looking for the right place to settle. The dead bit of anemone released a huge number of tiny tiny stinging cells into the water and stung the creatures to death. 🙁 The corals and macroalgae didn't seem that bothered, my clownfish survived, as did my shrimp+goby pair who live in a cave, a little green clown goby, the red blood shrimp, pompom crabs and mysteriously my possom wrasse which seems to be incredibly tough. Not much else made it, and I fell out of love with the tank and aquariums in general for a while.
Since then I've had a few mini crashes for livestock. For a while my dad got into trying to keep NPS (non-photosynthetic) corals, which are beautifully colourful and require daily feeding like the fish as they can't eat food any other way. However, dad overfed the tank (we didn't have that many creatures at the time to eat the extra) and it caused the nutrient load to skyrocket, and we lost a few fish and cleaner shrimps (if a cleaner shrimp seems to die randomly... you have an ammonia spike). Another time, I let the Caulerpa taxifolia take over for 6 weeks and it ended up covering most of the tank's surface and I think suffocating some of the fish - I've found that macroalgae enmass can starve the tank of oxygen at night (respiration), so I've added an extra powerhead for surface agitation. I also discovered that I absolutely HATE mixing salt water, it is such a tedious process so I wasn't changing the water as much as I probably should in these previous crashes (lots of marine people hardly do waterchanges, but I haven't found this to be a good strategy without £££££ monitoring equipment), and so now I buy my salt water which is delivered by the front door once a month - it's a price worth paying for peace of mind.
Not a crash, but I also now hate one of the macros in my tank... the tiny Caulerpa Brachypus - it has smothered lots of lovely small things like zoas, feather dusters, etc and is impossible to get rid of, it's the only macro I'd recommend never adding. One day when I upgrade I'm going to have to start almost from scratch to avoid adding this macroalgae to the tank, it's on legit every damn rock and it breaks too easily so there's always some little root for it to regrow from. I also really miss my Caulerpa racemosa which all melted on me, and apparently everyone else as it doesn't seem to be for sale anywhere any more - such a shame as its horizontal blobbiness is fabulous.
Now we've been through all these disasters, managing the tank is now all about stability, avoiding catastrophes and making my life easier. I'm doing a hardcore renovation to our home, so I can't fiddle with things all the time. I change 40% of the water each month with seawater delivered to my door (£20 a month), I do a fortnightly maintenance on the algae taking out anything that's overgrown, and my dad does all the feeding so between us it's not too bad. I hardly dose anything at all now, which has really slowed down the macroalgae groth to a steady pace, though it's still nice and thick.
At some point if people are interested I will write a guide on how to set up your own macroalgae/small marine tank, having made all these mistakes I have quite a good idea of what to do, and what not to do (which frankly is mostly just don't get tempted by the weirder cool sea stuff - the sea is full of strange and dangerous and alluring things which you must've let yourself be tempted by too often). Even with all of these problems, it is my favourite tank and it is the most magical dazzling surreal slice of nature.
Some creatures in the tank:
The very illusive mandarin dragonette that @Courtneybst gave me when he moved to Canada. It mostly lives in the back amongst the macroalgae and si a real treat when I see it.
A pair of banggai cardinals - I keep quite a few pairs of creatures now which is fun, hopefully one day they breed.
My pair of clowns, the larger of the pair now bites me when I clean the glass | My yellow clown goby likes to sit on the glass and observe the tank... fish, they're just like us!
One of two azure damsels in the tank. These two are decidedly not a pair, one lives on the left-side of the tank, the other on the right. They are the most incredible shade of blue! Very hard to photograph it well it's so rich and blows the camera out.
One of my pair of bluestriped pipefish | A pair of yellow boxer shrimp, a smaller and more gentle species than the usual boxer shrimp.
A few of legs of the large hairy brittlestar for added creepy factor.
The very illusive mandarin dragonette that @Courtneybst gave me when he moved to Canada. It mostly lives in the back amongst the macroalgae and si a real treat when I see it.
A pair of banggai cardinals - I keep quite a few pairs of creatures now which is fun, hopefully one day they breed.
My pair of clowns, the larger of the pair now bites me when I clean the glass | My yellow clown goby likes to sit on the glass and observe the tank... fish, they're just like us!
One of two azure damsels in the tank. These two are decidedly not a pair, one lives on the left-side of the tank, the other on the right. They are the most incredible shade of blue! Very hard to photograph it well it's so rich and blows the camera out.
One of my pair of bluestriped pipefish | A pair of yellow boxer shrimp, a smaller and more gentle species than the usual boxer shrimp.
A few of legs of the large hairy brittlestar for added creepy factor.
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What a great journal and amazing images!...
Absolutely stunning!
100% yes Rosie this really is a stunner and I'm sure an inspiration to many that might like to try their hand at a salty planted tank.
That dragonette 😲
It certainly making me consider turning over to the dark side at some point. I’ve got waterbox that’s been sitting in storage for some time now that would be perfect. This and @Courtneybst aquarium are absolutely stunning. The colours and variety of life keep drawing me to them.
I honestly think you'd love it. I don't see it as a replacement for freshwater either - the two sides have equal real estate in my brain. Doing macroalgae tanks also let's you blur those lines a bit.
The big tank I have now may have to go in the near future so I’m considering a smaller freshwater and maybe saltwater. Can you keep lps corals under the freshwater lights or do they require specialist marine lighting?
I haven't done so long term but I'm currently keeping Leptastrea under freshwater lights. They seem to be open, fluffy and happy! Was also impressed with how much colour they retained despite not being under blue lights.
