New 75G....H. Erectus seahorse tank

[Sea~Horse~Whisperer]

Because of the height requirements of the H.Erectus seahorses, I'm not sure I can have a deep sandbed in this tank. I've never had a tank that didn't have one. This tank is only 20 inches deep Empty. If I add a deep sand bed there won't be enough vertical room for the courting of the seahorses. If I only add a 2'' sand bed that would leave 18" (minimum height required for the pairs of H. Erectus)

What are the down sides of only having a 2" sandbed? What problems will it cause? Tank inhabitants will be 2-3 pairs of H. Erectus, cleaner crew, tons of macros, and I may add my mandarin to this tank in the future.

ALSO....what should I be adding for the macros? Because there will be so many, what can I add to the tank to help hem grow and keep them healthy? They must require a "food" of some sort. The macros will be in the tank LONG before any livestock so there won't be any poop to enrich the sandbed. I will be adding reefmud, but It won't last forever. As the plants consume the nutrients from the reefmud, there won't be anything to replace what they use. The tank is still empty at this point. (Yeah is killing me to have an empty tank, lol But I'm doing this one at a snails pace) I just want to make sure I have everything on hand so the macros don't starve.


Thanks for the help.
Angie

[JustDavidP]

Angie,

Are you going to have a sump? Refugium? If so, just put a DSB there and keep your display as a shallow sand bed.

Now, with that said, the reason for the 3X height "rule of thumb" is to ensure that there is enough head room for their "happy dance" and egg transfer. If you don't much care about breeding, no harm..no foul. EVEN if you do have dreams of baby Erectus in mind, you MAY not be in too much trouble... let me 'splain....

First of all, MOST seahorses in captivity do NOT get as large as those in the wild. There are many theories, many reasons, no matter...it's just as it is.. they tend to be at least an inch or two shorter than their wild cousins. So, keeping that in mind, you may have some "fudge factor" room here.

Second of all...that 3X rule of thumb is just that...rule of thumb. Here's a funny story.... I was TRYING to give one of my males a "break". His mate would deposit eggs just hours after his giving birth. I figured, I'd put him in an offline refugium that I had running (10 gallon). I did this, and he loved the digs, but was a little "crazy" swimming back and forth as if irritated. I also found that his "gurl" was doing the same in the display tank. Okay.. who could blame them... who am I to split up "true love". So, into the fuge momma goes. I said to myself "Self...there's not enough space for them to mate in there.. no worries". Guess what...

Not only were they successful in doing an egg transfer in a fuge with DSB and VERY little water/head room, but they did it in a record 10 minutes.

So... the bottom line is this... we are RESPONSIBLE for creating the BEST environment for our charges. What is "best" is really a matter of interpretation. If you set up the new tank with a couple/few inches short water column and the fish seem happy... then leave well enough alone. I'm sure you'll be putting in young-ish fish. They will have plenty of room for now. If you notice that there is a problem, slowly start removing some of the sand, over a period of time, and reduce it to a better height.

On to macro.... macro will be plenty fed with the nutrients in your water. They DO NOT eat detritus and such from the sand. They absorb waterborne nutrients. They DO NOT need any more supplements than are in a good commercial salt water mix. They thrive on the compounds that you want them to take.. ammonia etc. Should you care for them like you do a fresh water planted tank, and feed them, they will eagerly accept these additives and therefore not be the "filtering machine" they can be as it pertains to the nutrients in your water. Furthermore, by adding ANYTHING in there that may be "good" for the macro, will also benefit any UNDESIREABLE algae in your system.

Your best bet is to let the lighting and the natural nutrients feed your macro. If you don't get expected growth (vigerous for caulerpas, slower for macro like chaeto and gracilaria) then we can talk again. Otherwise, I'm sure you will be pruning the stuff MORE OFTEN than you want to be

Dave

[seahorsedreams]

Here I go again. Yet another tank. (to replace the 47G column I can't reach the bottom on, lol)Angie

Aw man! I've had my eyeball on this 90g tall octogon uniaquarium. It's like 36" tall and I worry about getting to the bottom. It's going to be a pain in the booty, isn't it?!

[Whoyah]

As DavidP mentioned, macros just draw nutrients out of the water column. The base of the plants are not roots but what are called holdfasts. They are used to anchor the plants not draw nutrients and water life their cousins that live on land.

Something to consider, depending on your water source and its contents, you can use just plain tap water for your tanks instead of water filtered by a RO/DI unit. The reason alot of people go with RO/DI filters is to combat hair algae problems caused by things in their tap water. Macro algae feed on the same nutrients as hair algae does. Becareful though as Dave said you might end up with a hair algae outbreak as well as a macro algae forest. Besure to airate any tap water that has chlorine in it for 24 hours prior to use. This will remove the chlorine.

[Sea~Horse~Whisperer]

Much thanks everyone! I will be starting with younger pairs from either seahorsesource (whenever they are back in stock) or Draco Marine. I will not add anything to the water. I will have 4-96w power compacts on the 75. That will give me 5.12 watts per gallon. That should be plenty for the macros.

I will have a sump on this tank. There will be NOTHING in the sump except an ASM G2 skimmer w/ an upgraded sedra 5000 pump and the mag 9.5 return pump. The sump is a 20G Sea Clear acrylic aquarium. There will not be any baffles in the sump. With the upgraded pump on the skimmer and the return pump, there just isn't enough room for a refugium between them. The only reason I even have a sump on this tank is to hold the skimmer. I may add a 6-8 inch wide PVC pipe filled with rock rubble for the overflow from the tank to the sump to eliminate most of the bubbles. I will have plenty of time to make adjustments as needed. Like I said, I don't plan on putting anything but sand, live rock, macros, and cleaners in here for awhile. My birthday is at the end of November and then comes Christmas. I already know I'm getting seahorses for this tank. Depending on how it goes, I may ask for gift certificates for both and then order the seahorses later.

Angie

[JustDavidP]

Angie,

You may end up baffling the sump anyways. Depending on the turnover, the skimmer may end up putting micro bubbles back into the water and up in the display. You really want to keep these bubbles out of a pony tank.

Also, if you have the room in the sump, there is NOTHING wrong with adding Live Rock or Live Rock Rubble to help as part of the bio filtration.

Dave

[Sea~Horse~Whisperer]

Your right David, I may as well just add a center chamber and baffles. It will be easier to do it now then later.

I added 1- 30# bag of agramax sand to the tank. It gave me about 1" of sand on the bottom of the tank. Because I have a cat that thinks all sand is his litter box, I had to cover the sand with 1" of saltwater. Silly cat. I have 60# of live sand arriving Wednesday that I will add to the tank. On top of that I will add some pink sand. It is so pretty.Very light pink sand with Hot pink speckles in it. I will try to get a pic of it to post in the next day or two. I'm not sure if it will show up. It is Natures Ocean "Samoa Pink" . It's a little pricy (the pink stuff) so I will only add it as the top layer. I know it will get mixed in eventually, but I can't afford to do the entire sand bed with it. I'll be ordering the LR next week, along with rubble rock for the sump. Then it will just cycle for a few months. I'm cycling with live rock only. If I don't seem to be getting a decent cycle from the LR alone, I will add the raw shrimp or 2. I have all the time in the world to get this tank going. I don't have any livestock for it yet so there is no hurry. Boy....that's a nice change from my usual tank setups, lol.

I'm wondering about lighting on this tank though. I have 2 lighting fixtures. Both have 192w PC. (384w total) Would 1 fixture be enough for all of the macros or should I put 2 of them on there? So far I don't plan to have any corals in the tank. None, zero, zip, nada. Just macros.

I plan to use a Mag 9.5 for a return pump. That will be roughly 12X the tank volume. I will use 2 spray bars. 1 at the top of the tank and 1 - 3/4 of the way down. I may change that depending on how the flow is in the tank.

Anyone have any suggestions? Ideas?

Angie

[seahorsedreams]

What are the down sides of only having a 2" sandbed? What problems will it cause?

You should never consider a 2" sand bed because that would give you an "intermediate" sand bed. You should shoot for either a shallow sand bed or a deep sand bed. A shallow is less than 1" and a deep is greater than 3". You want to avoid the intermediate sand bed which is between 1" and 3". If you were going for the deep make sure you go a little deeper than 3" so you won't slip into the intermediate stage over time as your sand dissolves. If you are using aragonite I would recommend using between 5 - 6" because it dissolves quite easily in the scheme of things.

Deep sand beds functionally help remove nitrates from your system through denitrification. If you have between 1-3" it will be too shallow to serve this purpose and it too deep to be fully aerobic which can cause an oxygen debt. Basically a deep sand bed can export nitrates when utilized properly where the intermediate depth does nothing but trap nutrients and results in raised nitrates. The <1" neither traps nor denitrifies.

I would always go with a shallow sand bed in a seahorse tank unless you have an extra tall tank.

[JustDavidP]

Your lighting plan is more than adequate to keep macro algae. I have just 2X55W over my 26 Bow and harvest algae at least once a week. I also have Xenia, mushrooms, zoas and other button type polyps in there. For what it's worth, I have caulerpas growing under simple CF lightbulbs I bought at Home Depot.



The pink sand is a nice idea.. yeah it is expensive. It's hard to find because, well.. there just aren't a lot of pink sand beaches..or at least as many as the white sand beaches. Pink sand is pretty interesting. Unless it is "treated" to make it pink, it's a result of the calcium/shells of dead Forams. You may even have some of these neat lil' creatures in your tank. They are quite common on Tonga Branch. Here's some more info on Foraminifera: [ame]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foraminifera[/ame]

I use a Mag7 as a return from a 5 gallon DIY acrylic sump on my 26 Bow. It's not too much flow at all. I point the returns in a way that they chop the water surface and stir the oils and such towards the overflow. I'm just about ready to tie "Sumpzilla" back into my system and to push the water back from the basement to the display upstairs, I bought a Mag18

Dave

[Whoyah]

Saw this article and thought of your tank. I hope it helps.

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-04/sl/index.php