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So the reason one has to wait so long for the sand bed to mature before planting seagrasses is to allow sediment to build up for the roots to have something to draw on. The freshwater planted people put down substrate rich in minerals and use various fertilizers to provide adequate nutrients to the plants they grow. Some "low tech" approaches involve ordinary garden dirt.
I wonder if you could lay down a layer of good chemical free dirt mixed with sand then top with sand to keep it contained and bypass the long waiting period for seagrass. Or the manufactured planted tank substrate like flourite or eco-something. I think this might just be crazy enough to work - I'll try it if I can ever find any seagrass.
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Sweet Reefer (5/7/2008)
So the reason one has to wait so long for the sand bed to mature before planting seagrasses is to allow sediment to build up for the roots to have something to draw on.Yes, but you also want the calcium carbonate fine grained sand to adsorb phosphorous as well as to create of pool of nitrogen and available phosphorous in the pore water of the sandbed. Please read or reread the sand nutrient cycle section of this article. I wonder if you could lay down a layer of good chemical free dirt mixed with sand then top with sand to keep it contained and bypass the long waiting period for seagrass. Or the manufactured planted tank substrate like flourite or eco-something. I think this might just be crazy enough to work - I'll try it if I can ever find any seagrass. I would advise against using such dirt as the organic, mineral content of such dirt would most likely be vastly different than the mud that is created in a seagrass meadow. Putting down a layer (an inch or so) of available marine mud is acceptable as long as you put another layer of fine grained calcium carbonate based sand on top of it for stability. Chuck
___________________________________________________________ "My life is free now, my life is dear" - Black Sabbath
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What exactly is this mud? Are the commercial products any good? One article I read said that oolitic sugar fine aragonite is basically mud by virtue of its particle size. I wonder what is the best approach with commonly available (fish store) materials?
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| I have been think along the same lines so will be interested in this thread. I have had no luck with seagrasses but have maintained 0 nitrates/phosphates with macro algaes. I also have heard that some organics helps seagrasses. So I was thinking (should I ever get my new refugium finished) of using Pc select (formerly soil master select) as a bottom layer. With some iron (steel wool) and lotsa crushed oyster shells on to of that with common play sand on top. Then letting the system grow out until ammonia/nitrates/phosphates are unmeasurable and the sea grasses are spreading. Pc select is a clay used on baseball infields and popular with FW planted tanks. The oyster shells to provide the calcium carbonate provided by aragonite sand. Plus I use an oyster shell wet/dry an input into my current sump/refuge. So will probably do that also. Hopefully thriving sea grasses can bio accumulate any bad stuff down to acceptable levels. But I do need to get that refugium finished first. If it doesn't work then I can always revert back to a macro refuge anyway. So waiting to see what the thoughts are on this thread. my .02
55g mixed reef - 2002. 10g planted 2001 years 20-30 fish, 20g planted 2007. all no water changes, tap water, only dose calsium/alk/mag on salt. FW planted no filter, no circulation
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That's cool. I think the main challenge is that seagrasses need an established 6-12 months old sand bed to thrive or even survive from what I've read. The question is would adding a layer of sediment in building the sand bed cut down on that time, I imagine to something more like 6-8 weeks? If so, what would be a good substitution for natural sediment?
I'm thinking kelp meal would be good as it's loaded with trace elements and comes from the ocean. Mixed with live sand it would compost into sediment I think, then maybe a little bit of fine clay like you were saying about the infield dirt. I've also heard cheap cat litter is a really pure clay. And maybe throw some fish food in there and kick start the detritus accumulation basically.
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| I forgot to mention using peat moss for the organics along with the clay. Seems like th kelp meal would work as well. my .02
55g mixed reef - 2002. 10g planted 2001 years 20-30 fish, 20g planted 2007. all no water changes, tap water, only dose calsium/alk/mag on salt. FW planted no filter, no circulation
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| Personaly, I believe trying to short circuit natural processes or using landbased materials of unknown origin and composition is just asking for "it". I think you would also be surprised at how small a grain size is considered to be "mud", I doubt any sand available would ever get close to that description. A fine as you can get calcium carbonate based sand and the time given it takes for such a sandbed to develop is your best bet, in my opinion. A one inch layer of marine mud (super fine sediment particles / detritus combo) an inch below a sugar fine calcium carbonate sand would best replicate a natural bed while most likely providing a shortened wait to plant seagrass. You can also follow the natural course of events by first planting paddle weed (Halophila sp.) if available as it can and will pave the way for other seagrass species. Again, to rush any aspect of this hobby most always has its negative consequences. Chuck
___________________________________________________________ "My life is free now, my life is dear" - Black Sabbath
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I agree, that's what I'm doing in my actual system exactly. I'm just wondering as far as the plants themselves go if they wouldn't be just as inclined to grow in a fine textured substrate fortified with "fertilizer" of some sort similar to any other plants. I have an interest in speeding up the process to try to aquaculture them.
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Mud, by definition, is wet, soft earth, or earthy matter.
Earth: dirt and soil, as distinguished from rock and sand.
Soil is defined as the portion of the earth composed of disintegrated rock and humus.
Humus: the dark, organic matter in soil, produced by the decomposition of vegetable or animal matter that results in the fertility of the earth.
If you look at seagrasses, they is some variation in the substrates, and it has changed some historically due to grazer elimination in many areas. Seagrass meadows, as in my articles and in Chuck's, are described in some detail, and obviously some are more carbonate friendly than others and they are successional in having pioneer and exploitative species. Climax species are the hardest to keep and grow, and they tend...tend... to be most dense and established in highly organically enriched sediments. The water column nutrients are there, but largely irrelevant because these are plants and not algae and derive nutrients from roots. The organic components may come largely from decomposing leaf litter (i.e compost), but are also common near outfalls with lots of organic particulates (coastal and therefore terrestrial material) and near mangroves. Mangroves produce mangrove peat which is much like peat you can buy. But, seagrasses and mangroves are also mainly plants that are based on carbonate sediments, either as recently made sand or deeper down, carbonate bases that include Holocene deposits from lowstand/highstand sea level changes.
How does this relate to the question? Well sugar fine aragonite is present - and often coarser grained carbonate sediments at the upper layers when forming halos around reefs or beyong reefs where Halimeda and other algae are the primary producers of carbonate sands (i.e Carib Sea special grade reef sand - mostly Halimeda type carbonate thalli), but these are highly enriched, again by leaf litter. So, is using a terrestrial organic substrate - like peat - or these many mud-like aquarium products useful? Maybe. Can you use peat moss? Maybe. It is pretty acidic and can even affect the overlying water pH in the field where there is not much water turnover to the point that calcification rates of calcifying algae, some gorgonians and even occasional stony corals is limited as a net since dissolution can meet or exceed (net loss) production. Some corals may be able to grow, but the net loss of carbonate is pretty high, and I wouldn't want to play this game in a closed system if coral growth depended on higher pH in the same closed water volume without significant separation of the systems and some for of natural ecological buffer to get the water closer to levels found on reefs and not within the seagrass bed.
A mix of organic sediments (silt, mainly - fine grained aragonite is much larger than the carbonate muds typical in segrass beds - I am referring to carbonate muds such as are found at the bottom of a calcium reactor when sand is almost totally dissolved) is a good thing for seagrasses that live in this environment. Alternately, you have others that do fine in regular carbonates like Halophila. And, even species like Thalassia can be found in fine grained or mixed grain relatively "clean" carbonates, but they tend to be less dense, shorter, and not form the extensively diverse and complex ecosystems but are rather just areas of plants without the same prominent ecological role as would be found in meadows.
So, depends on your commitment, what you want from keeping them, how well you want them to develop and grow, and how you want them to function. If you love seagrasses and want a seagrass tank, I would suggest a habitat tank and forget the reef tank unless you plan on some complex interconnection. Or, you can have a semi-functional habitat attached where they live but lack the complexity and development, or you can, with effort and species selection, have a few plants growing just fine in a normal reef tank for mainly aesthetics.
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Eric Borneman
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 Posted 5/13/2008 6:03:17 PM |
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