Shaving Brush Plant

About 7 weeks ago I started a 110 gal reef tank with about 100 lbs of
LR.

After two weeks and a good buildup of brown alge, I added a 12 hermit
crabs, 6 snails and a lawnmower blenny.

A week later I added three soft corals.

At the one month point the water test was:
ph: 8.2
Amonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
But the Nitrate was around 5

At the five week point I did my first water change of 25 gal. All the
readings were the same. I kind of expected the Nitrate to drop lower.
But it seemed okay...right?

At six week point I added a green bird wrasse and a yellow tang.

I tested the water last night and everything looked good except the
Nitrate; it was around 10. I tested again tonight and the same.

All the life in the tank looks great to me, except on soft coral that
isn't coming out lately and like four hermit crabs that suffered what I
call "the green bird wrasseth."

I've been reading about Nitrate and it seems that most people agree the
level should be around 5, certainly lower than 10. So, I was thinking
of adding some Shaving Brush Plants, both for decoration and also to
help the Nitrate levels.

Does anyone have any thoughts and/or experience with these plants and
any thoughts on my Nitrate situation. Any help would be greatly
appreaciated.

Craig

"Craig J" wrote in message oups.com...
Does anyone have any thoughts and/or experience with these plants and
any thoughts on my Nitrate situation. Any help would be greatly
appreaciated.

Any plants, in this case macro-algae, will be difficult to keep in good shape
in a tank with tang. If the fish has access to the plant it will nib on it,
or even uproot it trying to munch on it.

Also, consider the fact, these plants grow in deep sand with quite strong
water wave movement... This water movement is constantly cleaning plants
from the debris accumulating on the plant surface. You will probably not
have sand bed deep enought to properly root this plant - you would need to
hold it upright with rocks, but it will be quite tricky...

How deep is your live sand ? 100lb for 110g tank seems too little for DSB.
Is your tank 4 feet long ? What is the surface area of the sand bed ?
The good way to lower nitrates to amost zero is to have DSB (deep sand bed)
with active worms and other micro-fauna/flora living in between sand grains.

My nitrate dropped through the floor when I added some caulerpa
Racemosa (sp?). I had struggled like you to get it below 10 for ages
and wasted loads of water in the process. It now sits at about 2
permanently and as I now have no nuisance algae and all soft corals are
happy I don't worry about it anymore. eBay always seems to have it for
sale.

Look for things that rely on nitrate to feed on. Zenia, Green Star
Polyps, some yellow polyps, any macro algae (chaeto, calurpera (sp?)
etc) are all good at utilizing nitrate. Calurpea ndoe shave a bad
habit of going asexual and also attaching to live rock and taking
over, so it requires a vigil in keeping it trimmed or pruned back.
Chaeto is somewhat less invasive and does a great job, if you do not
mind a wad of what looks like hairy algae in the display tank. Now if
you have a refugium, its easier to place those items in the fuge and
not worry as much about it and allow it to do the nitrate and other
nutrient removal thing out of sight and basically out of mind.


On 2 Jan 2006 21:17:07 -0800, "Craig J" wrote:
About 7 weeks ago I started a 110 gal reef tank with about 100 lbs of
LR.

After two weeks and a good buildup of brown alge, I added a 12 hermit
crabs, 6 snails and a lawnmower blenny.

A week later I added three soft corals.

At the one month point the water test was:
ph: 8.2
Amonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
But the Nitrate was around 5

At the five week point I did my first water change of 25 gal. All the
readings were the same. I kind of expected the Nitrate to drop lower.
But it seemed okay...right?

At six week point I added a green bird wrasse and a yellow tang.

I tested the water last night and everything looked good except the
Nitrate; it was around 10. I tested again tonight and the same.

All the life in the tank looks great to me, except on soft coral that
isn't coming out lately and like four hermit crabs that suffered what I
call "the green bird wrasseth."

I've been reading about Nitrate and it seems that most people agree the
level should be around 5, certainly lower than 10. So, I was thinking
of adding some Shaving Brush Plants, both for decoration and also to
help the Nitrate levels.

Does anyone have any thoughts and/or experience with these plants and
any thoughts on my Nitrate situation. Any help would be greatly
appreaciated.

Craig

--
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(_/
The original frugal ponder! Koi-ahoi mates....

They need *realy good* lighting, not just enouph light for
soft corals. They also need a little higher nutrient level
than I want to keep, but one thing I just now thought of
that might work is spot feeding them at the roots, but
since they don't have the "true roots" that land plants
have, that might not work, but then it might. They
reproduce by sending out runners under the sand.

Wayne Sallee
Wayne's Pets



Craig J wrote on 1/3/2006 12:17 AM:
About 7 weeks ago I started a 110 gal reef tank with about 100 lbs of
LR.

After two weeks and a good buildup of brown alge, I added a 12 hermit
crabs, 6 snails and a lawnmower blenny.

A week later I added three soft corals.

At the one month point the water test was:
ph: 8.2
Amonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
But the Nitrate was around 5

At the five week point I did my first water change of 25 gal. All the
readings were the same. I kind of expected the Nitrate to drop lower.
But it seemed okay...right?

At six week point I added a green bird wrasse and a yellow tang.

I tested the water last night and everything looked good except the
Nitrate; it was around 10. I tested again tonight and the same.

All the life in the tank looks great to me, except on soft coral that
isn't coming out lately and like four hermit crabs that suffered what I
call "the green bird wrasseth."

I've been reading about Nitrate and it seems that most people agree the
level should be around 5, certainly lower than 10. So, I was thinking
of adding some Shaving Brush Plants, both for decoration and also to
help the Nitrate levels.

Does anyone have any thoughts and/or experience with these plants and
any thoughts on my Nitrate situation. Any help would be greatly
appreaciated.

Craig

"Wayne Sallee" wrote in message ...
They need *realy good* lighting, not just enouph light for
soft corals. They also need a little higher nutrient level
than I want to keep, but one thing I just now thought of
that might work is spot feeding them at the roots, but
since they don't have the "true roots" that land plants
have, that might not work, but then it might. They
reproduce by sending out runners under the sand.

And I beliewe they are calcerous, so they "consume"
calcium to build their growing bodies...

Yep they do need good calcium levels, but then so do
corals, so that's not that big of an issue.

Wayne Sallee
Wayne's Pets



Pszemol wrote on 1/4/2006 1:34 AM:
"Wayne Sallee" wrote in message
...

They need *realy good* lighting, not just enouph light for soft
corals. They also need a little higher nutrient level than I want to
keep, but one thing I just now thought of that might work is spot
feeding them at the roots, but since they don't have the "true roots"
that land plants have, that might not work, but then it might. They
reproduce by sending out runners under the sand.


And I beliewe they are calcerous, so they "consume"
calcium to build their growing bodies...

Actualy they can be found in the keys where there is no
wave action. And 2 inches of sand is plenty. I think I'll
put one in my reef display tank again, and try the shrimp
pellet spot feeding experiment. I had them growing in
there like crazy when I first set it up. I didn't have
very much coral in it then, so there was plenty of room
for it. But it was liking the higher nutrient levels, and
as I was cutting back on nutrients it was droping back,
increase nutrients, and it would increas, so finaly I
decided I was not going to keep nutrients high just to
keep it alive and thriving.

And of course, I use 400w mh light bulbs :-)

Wayne Sallee
Wayne's Pets



Pszemol wrote on 1/3/2006 1:48 AM:
"Craig J" wrote in message
oups.com...

Does anyone have any thoughts and/or experience with these plants and
any thoughts on my Nitrate situation. Any help would be greatly
appreaciated.


Any plants, in this case macro-algae, will be difficult to keep in good
shape
in a tank with tang. If the fish has access to the plant it will nib on it,
or even uproot it trying to munch on it.
Also, consider the fact, these plants grow in deep sand with quite strong
water wave movement... This water movement is constantly cleaning plants
from the debris accumulating on the plant surface. You will probably not
have sand bed deep enought to properly root this plant - you would need to
hold it upright with rocks, but it will be quite tricky...

How deep is your live sand ? 100lb for 110g tank seems too little for DSB.
Is your tank 4 feet long ? What is the surface area of the sand bed ?
The good way to lower nitrates to amost zero is to have DSB (deep sand bed)
with active worms and other micro-fauna/flora living in between sand
grains.

"Wayne Sallee" wrote in message ...
And of course, I use 400w mh light bulbs :-)

How deep is your tank and how high your bulbs are from the water surface ?

It's a 120g tank 24 inches high. The bulbs are about 9
inches above the tank, so about 10 inches above the water.

Wayne Sallee
Wayne's Pets



Pszemol wrote on 1/4/2006 12:53 PM:
"Wayne Sallee" wrote in message
...

And of course, I use 400w mh light bulbs :-)


How deep is your tank and how high your bulbs are from the water surface ?