Macroalgae tanks

[macrouk]

Here’s my macroalgae tanks as they were at their best.

a 60l/15g fluval spec with the internal filter section removed, Berlin filtration with just a power head and a heater in terms of equipment. Only the royal gramma in the photo is still with me. It’s been joined by a neon goby and a yellow clown goby, and I hope to get an azure damsel. Also a pistol shrimp, a bi valve, and a scutus which is quite rare

a 22l/5.5g pico with chunks of real wild Australian reef rock housing two eviotas and lots of cool inverts - pom pom crab, urocaridella shrimp, sexy shrimp, hermits, various snails (one of which was a hitchhiker straight from Australia), a feather duster and the mangroves.

Macro species:

• Caulerpa Taxifolia (some believe this to be quite sensitive to going sexual but I’ve not found this to be the case, certainly not when compared to serrulata)
• Caulerpa Prolifera
• Caulerpa peltata dwarf racemosa (a rare one - like a mini green grape which clambers over the rockwork and send up very short little stalks with little grapes on it)
• Caulerpa brachypus (which is like a mini prolifera, and can be grown like a carpet on the sand… something I might have to try at some point)
• Halymenia Maculata (a rare one - reddy browny colouration but with the most amazing flourescence - not like corals per se but a bluey purpley colour that really catches the eye (like it does on some freshwater fish) when the light hits it)
• Gracilaria Mammillaris
• Gracilaria Tikvahiae
• Botryocladia
• Blue Ochtodes (amazing purple colouration but it’s hugely invasive!)
• Cryptonemia Crenulata (which grows crazy fast for me for some reason)
• A red plating corraline algae of some kind

I no longer have the pico tank which I took down to reduce maintenance requirements so the fluval spec is holding all my marine stuff (not everything mentioned above). I’m going through one of those phases where I’m not quite happy with the scape and so I’m posting this as a bit of motivation and a review of when I was happy with things so I can try and get back there again. One positive is that my anemone (which split) is looking better than ever and is growing well.

my Instagram handle is @scapeeasy

 

[blaxsun]

Very nice!

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Interesting tank idea, I like it!!!

 

[macrouk]

Interesting tank idea, I like it!!!

Interesting because of the macros @Gumbies R Us ? Lol I’m interested in why you find it interesting!

 

[Nano_Man]

Tank looks really good something different great tank

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Any updates?

 

[BanZI29]

I actually wanna try something like this. it is really kewl looking.

 

[Northern Flicker]

I love it, nice job

 

[Propane]

Good looking tank.

 

[macrouk]

Wow thanks for the nice comments today folks!!

Tbh there isn’t really much of an update - or no decent photos at least - though saying that I’ve found a video I shot in April and have extracted a snap from that which I’ve included below (though it’s not as good as the view in my first post I’m afraid!) - sorry for the poor quality. My number of species is way down - particularly I’m sad to have lost my Botryocladia (not that rare or anything but I miss it!) and my Caulerpa peltata dwarf racemose. All my macros arnt well exhibited very well in the scape now either.

I’m not feeling all that great about how the tanks looking currently… partly due to the arrival of a new little baby boy… the tank has received less love than I would ideally like recently. This is something I’m hoping to resolve over the next month or so though as I’ve got some time off work coming up so I’ll keep you posted and try and get some better pics up soon.

Recent “lessons learnt” include (and apologies theres nothing new here but it’s perhaps worth reinforcing the point(s) so other can avoid the same mistakes!)
• I do have a fair amount of GSP I now want to remove - it took over as per the warnings I was given when I bought it - and isn’t as easy to remove as I might have hoped - I’m regretting now not sticking to macro only, or at least having corals on separate rockwork I can remove
• I’ve struggled with an unidentified microalgae (or so I thought) on the glass for a long while, requiring lots of maintenance to just keep the tank looking acceptable and got to playing with lighting, nutrients etc etc… and generally just making things worse - my nems arnt happy - I’ve finally identified this as diatoms and linked it to using tap water to evaporation top ups (and recently a few water changes too) which contained silicates these guys thrive on - it was actually being away from the tank for 7 weeks and properly installing my ATO which lead to the correct identification as I had no issue over than time.
• I’m quite sad I lost my scutus to the wavemaker - just one of those things really but a few of you probably haven’t heard of them so worth a quick mention!

Only other big change to the tank is the substrate which I’ve added some larger crushed coral too. This gives a much more natural feel (which I believe is in line with the macroalgae “feel”). It also made my pistol shrimp very happy who has been using it to block up passages through the main rockwork.

A not very macro focussed update - I shall return with one in a few weeks!!!

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Wow thanks for the nice comments today folks!!

Tbh there isn’t really much of an update - or no decent photos at least - though saying that I’ve found a video I shot in April and have extracted a snap from that which I’ve included below (though it’s not as good as the view in my first post I’m afraid!) - sorry for the poor quality. My number of species is way down - particularly I’m sad to have lost my Botryocladia (not that rare or anything but I miss it!) and my Caulerpa peltata dwarf racemose. All my macros arnt well exhibited very well in the scape now either.

I’m not feeling all that great about how the tanks looking currently… partly due to the arrival of a new little baby boy… the tank has received less love than I would ideally like recently. This is something I’m hoping to resolve over the next month or so though as I’ve got some time off work coming up so I’ll keep you posted and try and get some better pics up soon.

Recent “lessons learnt” include (and apologies theres nothing new here but it’s perhaps worth reinforcing the point(s) so other can avoid the same mistakes!)
• I do have a fair amount of GSP I now want to remove - it took over as per the warnings I was given when I bought it - and isn’t as easy to remove as I might have hoped - I’m regretting now not sticking to macro only, or at least having corals on separate rockwork I can remove
• I’ve struggled with an unidentified microalgae (or so I thought) on the glass for a long while, requiring lots of maintenance to just keep the tank looking acceptable and got to playing with lighting, nutrients etc etc… and generally just making things worse - my nems arnt happy - I’ve finally identified this as diatoms and linked it to using tap water to evaporation top ups (and recently a few water changes too) which contained silicates these guys thrive on - it was actually being away from the tank for 7 weeks and properly installing my ATO which lead to the correct identification as I had no issue over than time.
• I’m quite sad I lost my scutus to the wavemaker - just one of those things really but a few of you probably haven’t heard of them so worth a quick mention!

Only other big change to the tank is the substrate which I’ve added some larger crushed coral too. This gives a much more natural feel (which I believe is in line with the macroalgae “feel”). It also made my pistol shrimp very happy who has been using it to block up passages through the main rockwork.

A not very macro focussed update - I shall return with one in a few weeks!!!

Happy to see the tank is still doing great!!