Seagrass Tank
I am going to be breaking down my 45 gallon lagoonal reef in a couple of months and setting up a multi-tank system including a Turtle/Eel Grass tank as a refugium, etc. Any words of wisdom?
Yes indeed-ee!
I will give you tips based on my experience and some based on the Texas Guide to Planting Seagrasses.
Make sure the sediments are fine and silty and rich in organics prior to planting. I used a 1/4 to 1/2 tablet of a freshwater plant fertilizer called Hilena Crypto, by Tetra, to help the roots establish...seemed to help, but I have never re-dosed/fertilized. Once every month or so for about the past six months, I have shut off flow to the seagrass tank for a day or two, and added an iron supplement to the water. I didn't appear to require it, but several studies I had showed a propensity for iron limitation in seagrasses - Thallasia and Zostera. So, I did it for the heck of it. I don't remove the dead leaves.
My sediments are 6-8" deep in that tank, although if you plant them to the bottom of the tank, I am not sure they have to be quite that deep, although I would personally love to see 12" if the tank could accomodate it.
Lots of important commensal (?) bacteria and nitrogen fixers hanging out near the rhizomes of Thallasia, theorized to provide nitrogen and other material to roots. Therefore, keeping some sediments around this area is probably a nice plan. The sediments are so mucky, it sort of just clumps together anyway, although a couple of places apparently ship bare root. Texas Guide says this is very bad for them, especially air exposure, and I would concur as I lost a lot of plugs from ones I received bareroot, and almost none of the ones I collected myself. Plus, the fauna in that sediment is so prolific its hard to not get excited about the carbonate mud. Wish I could add a scoop or two of this to the tank on a regualr basis.
I do 2 x 175 watt 6550K and two 48" grow lights (Home Depot Chroma 50's if I recall?) above the tank...corals present seem to like it fine, and they thrive on the creatures in this area, too. I have quite low flow in this tank, and do get occasional patchy cyano which I leave I know its doing just what it should be doing in this area, and it never spreads to other tanks in line.
I'll bet like other plants there is probably a proper time of the year to do transplanting, but I'll be derned if there's a marine farmer's almanac. I would imagine prior to the fastest growing season, but who knows?
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