So for well over a year I've thought about this, and now it will become a reality. My 75g coral reef is going to become a 75g SW planted tank. The only corals I plan to keep are mshrooms, ricordia and maybe a few zoas. The rest of the tank will be marine plants and a few gorgonians.

First a question about lighting. I run an 8*54w HO T5 Tek Systems setup. Bulbs are four actinic, two aquablue (60/40 ~11000K) and two 6000K daylights. Should I consider changing anything in this arrangement?

Protein skimmer. Is it needed?

Scaping. I suppose it's basically going to loosely follow the rules of aquascaping a FW tank. You know, nothing right in the face, consideration for focal points, etc.

Dosing and water changes. Where's a good place to start?


That's about all I can think of for now, but there will be more Qs I'm sure.

Lighting is fine, Mushrooms are good etc.
Note that many of the weedy noxious reef algae that many do not like, are useful for a planted marine tank also.

Plant the layout good.
Fining good algae is tough.
Everything needs shipped next day, the shortest transit possible etc.

Skimmers and macros really do not go together as the skimmer will not make much foam when you have macro's.

An entire debate exists there between skimmers and macros, but macros are pretty, look better, fish can eat them etc, but skimmate foam?

Skimmer may act as back up in case you kill off the macros.......

With water changes: you can never do too much.
Dosin is not needed that much if you do the water changes other than KNO3, good feeding, Traces/Fe.

PO4 only if you go full out have a lot of growth, then only small pulses.
You'll get diatoms bad if you over dose PO4.

I did weekly 50% water changes.
Not that cheap on larger tanks.

Regards,
Tom Barr

With only mushrooms, ricordia, some gorgo's and some marine plants, you can probably get by on half that lighting, perhaps the two actinics, 1 aquablue and one daylight bulb as a starting point.



Unless you are planning on getting photosynthetic gorgonians (of which there are relatively few), you'll be better off without the skimmer. Most gorgonians are filter feeders and they will benefit for not having a skimmer (or a very undersized skimmer).




Water changes are always good... as for dosing, I would suggest keeping an eye on Ca and Mg just like with a coral tank. Many of the marine plants, especially the macro algae are calcareous and actually need calcium in much the same way that stony corals do.

I would also suggest trying to spot feed or drift feed (using the water current) your gorgonians a couple of times per week. Although survival rates are improving, the overall success rate at keeping a gorgonian alive for more than one year in captive aquaria is pretty small. Photosynthetic gorgonians are an exception to this but as a whole, they are a pretty poor choice of marine animal to keep (the colorful sponges fall into this category too; very poor survival rates)... I'd suggest sticking with the mushrooms and ricordia.

In the wild, gorgonians can live for a very long time (hundreds of years in the absense of catastrophic interference). In captive aquaria, a year or maybe two is considered pretty decent success

-Jimbob

Thanks. Lots of things to think about here.

I've been offered some gorgonians from a friend who has been keeping them for several years with success. Now just because he can keep them doesn't mean I will be so lucky. I'll keep them in the back burner while I get everything else sorted out.

I get the impression that this is going to be similar to keeping a very high light FW but with possibly less leeway on keeping things in order. That's ok since I'm at least more prepared for this than when I first started out in planted tanks. I don't expect everything to fall into place, as if by magic I'd obviously like to make the transition as painless as possible though.

I've been loosely comparing this new setup to the only real high light FW tank I have. A 75g with 6*54w HO T5. I actually find this tank remarkably easy to maintain because I'm so used to it and know it ticks. So this will be interesting to see how they compare. Might be frustrating too, but oh well.

For critters, are snails, shrimp and crabs going to be helpful? I'm asking this because I have been thinking about getting a puffer and it will see those as a food source.

For traces, are we talking about regular Flourish/CSM+B ? I find the thought of adding Fe kind of scary. In my FW tanks, I overload on traces and don't worry about it. This seems kind of different though.

Dang I wished you hadn't mentioned I could possibly half the lighting, Jimbob. Those T5 units are my favorite piece of hardware and it would be a shame to half its potential.

I did a lot of picking off algae to allow the design to start.
It's a whole new ball game there.
But it depends on the macros you have.

Halophila make nice angiosperm plants:

halophila - Google Image Search

I spent about 2 hours a week picking this tank.
1 hour water changing etc:

I've had a bag of Eco Complete sitting in my garage for months. Would it be a good idea to rinse it out and add it to my substrate. At the moment it's all aragonite. Fairly mature though at about a year and a half.

Or how's about Onyx sand? I don't have any but could pick up a bag if it would help.

You do not want EC etc.
Onyx sand is good, if you like the color......

For a marine tank I do not.
Deep is good, 4-6", adding organic matter down there is good ina new tank, you do not need this.

If you plan on rooted angiosperms, a little is fine.
Otherwise no, algae do not have roots.

Regards,
Tom Barr

Well things are happening. Lots of caulerpa mexicana and prolifera in the tank now. Also some other as yet unidentified species. I'm taking a big hit with brown diatoms. I kind of expected this due to the sudden loss of bioload after removing so many corals. I still have too much live rock to really fill up with macros and vasculars.

It seems that a lot of sea grasses are not available this time of year. I found one supplier who has shoal grass. It looks kind of delicate for winter shipping. There's also widgeon grass. This looks quite interesting as it could also have potential in my brackish tank. What kind of water turnover would be a good number to aim for?

Get more in there.
Diatom blooms can be overcome within about 1-3 weeks.
Be careful, they are the scrouge that is the main pest, besides poor macro growth they tend to be the main pest/issue.
Ruppia is fine, it can live at 4x the sea salinity.
Not just brackish.
Add any macro you can get a hold of for now.


Regards,
Tom Barr

Things are coming along nicely. I did have some diatom problems for a few weeks after I started removing the corals but it's settling down now. The tank has a nice plant mass but not much in the way of variety. It's mainly caulerpa species and the growth rate is starting to rival FW plants. Now is about the time to start thinking about how I intend the tank to be scaped.

I've been dosing a scaled down version of EI. KNO3, KH2PO4 and traces. I'm going to add that since I started dosing, the macros are a lot greener and fuller looking. I'm careful with NO3 and PO4. With nitrate, just enough to barely give a reading on a test kit. With PO4 I add the tiniest pinch. I can't get a reding but it must be there.

The coraline is a relic from the reef days. I'm thinking about getting it off the glass for good.