WaterNotes

20: April

Things are slowly moving along in the world of this twenty gallon tank. In the spirit of April being the month for Earth Day, and this week being all about environmental education, I reviewed my systems and decided it was time to rebudget some of the energy it requires to keep me in this hobby.

First things first - this system has got to go on timers!  I’ve been carelessly flicking lights on and off at a whim.  Not something I recommend (obviously).  Call it a product of my busy schedule, or a product of laziness, but in all this time I havent had timers for the lights.  Now I do!

The lights themselves were just recently switched over from 130W of 6700K PC lighting to a lovely 2×24W T5HO system (10,000K flavor bulbs).  Time will tell if this is enough light, but it certainly looks like it to me. 

This has been in the works since January.  I happily plugged the fixture into the wall without a moment’s regret that I didnt attempt a DIY. 

I know, I was going to DIY this, and then I decided I was not quite ready to experience electrocution.  I sent back the original kit that Hellolights shipped to me (they are really champs at that company) and bought something prefabbed.  Fantabulous!

The next item to upgrade will be the water circulation in this tank.  Right now I have three powerheads using up 18W of energy and putting out a measely 370gph or so.  The plants do enormously better in high flow and good water circulation, so its time to upgrade the pumps.  I’m seriously considering either a small Seio or one of those funky looking Hydor pumps.  Both are less wattage and more flow.  More bang for the buck, really. 

In other news, the clownfish continue to endear themselves to me.  They now beg at the water’s surface for food, they greet me when I come home, they fetch the morning paper.  Oh, wait… the female is definitely gaining size on the decided male, so perhaps in a few months we’ll be learning new tricks in raising larvae. 

The algae has definitely grown out some, and once again I’ve made large harvests weekly from this tank.  You are seeing it after its latest hair cut in fact.  With the arrival of the new lights the next step is transplanting Halophila and Halodule to the setup and establishing a safe zone for CO2 supplementation. 

Which brings me to my shockingly amazing new secret for growing seagrasses!!  Read all about in my ebook for just $133.11!!

Hahahaha.. I wouldn’t do that to you.  Not really.  I’m all about the free exchange of information afterall. 

Here’s the secret.  Plain aragonite is okay for growing seagrasses.  Using commercially available muds is marginally better, in my experience.  Using wild collected mud seems to work some magic. 

But the best substrate I’ve discovered so far: seagrass compost. 

Okay, what the heck is seagrass compost?  Here in Florida there are literally tons of seagrass material that washes onshore everyday.  It breaks down on the shoreline, creating some of the enriched zones in the beds and the mud/muck substrate that the mangrove trees enjoy.  Well, if you take a few pounds of dead, rotting, seagrass wrack, and stick it in a sealed container for two to three months, you end up with highly broken down mulm.  I’ve been calling it seagrass compost just for fun, but its really mulm.  It seems to be the best part of the wild collected mud substrate.  The magic in the mud, as it were.

This stuff is like Miracle Grow for seagrass aquariums.  I have layered it underneath aragonite in small experimental pots.  There is a big difference in the growth rates and the size of the plants between this and commercial mud and plain sand. 

I know I know, you want photos.  Sorry to be a tease, but since this is such a cat-out-of-the-bag, I gotta be a heartbreaker and tell you that I’m planning to show all the ground truthing at MACNA in September.  I gotta have something cool to talk about afterall!  It cant all be about iron bioassays with Xenia and other invertebrates. 

Which reminds me, isnt someone going to donate some Xenia for me to work with?  Please.  I’ll trade you seagrass.

Till next month, happy underwater gardening!