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Hi all
Just a little question from my think-tank!
My original thoughts have been on converting a planted 4'x2' x 2' freshwater tank into reef tank, but have been playing with the idea of a deep sand bed & sea grasses.

Any thoughts, for and against, are greatly appreciated in advance.
Deb

In wildness, nature is not human-hearted!

A lot of people trying to keep sea grasses alive report that they tend to do best with more nutrients in the water than would be best in a reef tank. They also have shown some success with CO2 addition.

For the health of both I'd say try out one or the other. I've wanted to try and do a marine planted tank, it would be a blast, but I don't think it would work out too well as a small part of a reef tank. Very hardy macroalgaes tend to do well in reef tanks though, so there can be some green if you like. Cheatomorpha tends to work real well and doesn't spread all over everything like caulerpa.

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

If you're thinking of the plants known as EelGrasses (Family Zosteraceae) then you could be in for some fun and games.

The Zosteraceae are the only fully submerged marine members of the Angiosperms or flowering plants. Consequently, they have somewhat specialised requirements, and their cultivation in an aquarium alongside fishes could, as already alluded to above, prove challenging to put it mildly. The data I have in my wild flora field guide for Zostera marina, the species that grows native to the UK, says it has leaves that grow to be 200 mm long and around 5 to 10 mm wide, and lives in muddy, sandy and gravelly sea shores around and below the Spring low water mark. The plants produce an unusual inflorescence (the male and female plants are separate, unlike the related Phyllospadix Genus from the same Family, which possess male and female flowers on the same plant) and pollination is, unusually, achieved by distributing the pollen through the sea water to other plants.

Species that would be nominally compatible with tropical aquarium fishes would probably have a requirement for intense lighting, as the tropical sun has a habit of illuminating much more efficiently than in temperate zones (less attenuation by the atmosphere due to the angle of incidence) so chances are you would be looking at raising them under T5s or perhaps even the odd metal halide lamp. Because they possess true roots (unlike the macroalgae, which merely possess a holdfast to anchor themselves with) they would probably need some kind of fertiliser, not least because in a marine aquarium, you would be striving to keep fish wastes to a minimum in the subtrate for the health of the fishes (unless you ran with an active sand bed).

Having said all this, chances are that cultivation of a Zostera species would probably make for an interesting niche aquarium featuring some fishes that are sometimes found away from reefs such as the Pakistani Butterfly Fish, chaetodon collare, though that is a fish I do NOT recommend to beginning marine fishkeepers (for that matter, I advise beginners to steer clear of Butterfly Fishes full stop, but Chaetodon collare is one of the temperamental ones even for an experienced aquarist).

Look up Zostera on Google and see if you can discover more about its requirements. If you think you can meet the resulting challenge, then I wish you luck in what will be very much an experimental venture!

EDIT : Just found this page which goes into a LOT more detail. Have fun!



Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

Thank you Matty and Cal
A very interesting article on that link Cal and I think from reading that the results could be quite extra-ordinary although a little scary.
I think there are quite a wide variety of animals that can be kept with this type of set up, and it seems that a lot of what I'm thinking about would require cooler than the usual temps. This could be quite okay though as I know here in Australia at Hervey Bay they keep their public aquarium at their ocean temp (around 19*C) as that is their water source and the fishes/inverts etc appear to be in excellent health.

I think a lot of thought & research into this first and thank you again for your positive thoughts. Maybe I'll be able to go down this road & try a little experimentation/imagination!!!

Regards, Deb

In wildness, nature is not human-hearted!