A very corny title indeed but wordpress recommended trying to come up with catchy post titles so that’s my excuse… I was very pleased with the way the tank looked after my first serious session of aquascaping. My satisfaction of course did not last for too long. First, I noticed that the water turned cloudy the next day as the result of a bacterial bloom. I quickly changed two buckets of sea water and turned on the skimmer (the Red Sea Max stock skimmer makes an unholy noise and so is usually only on at night (if I don’t forget)). This seemed to help and the water turned clear again within two days or so. I had not expected a bloom to occur, as I added seaweeds (removing nutrients) rather than animals (adding nutrients), plus I had not been feeding frozen artemia for a while. Anyway, this problem has been solved. It is probably better next time to change the tank in multiple steps rather than making wholesale changes. I next noticed the Harpoon weed starting to whither. This has happened before so it was not a real surprise. A close-up of the Harpoon weed when it was still looking good:

Some Slender-beaded coral weed made it into the aquarium attached to other weeds. As expected, this weed also died and turned white:

I next noticed that the branchlets of the Red grape weed turned from a dark purple-brown into a fresh green. Although pretty, that this was not a change for the better was obvious when upon touching the plant many of the branchlets were shed. I removed this plant before this debris would clog the filter.

The main thing that disappointed me though is that the Bushy rainbow wrack steadily lost its iridescent colors and turned into the brown of the other Bushy wrack species. The fact that I had bright blue, green and purple in my aquarium was the most amazing thing about it. Before and after pics:

I reckon this has to do with the light spectrum not being right. The colors are reminiscent of the Jade vine from the Philippines. Its coloration is the result of two pigments, malvin and saponarin, being present at a specific ratio at a specific alkalinity (wikipedia again). Both Jade vine and Bushy rainbow wrack seem to be fluorescent to my non-expert eye, although a quick search on google did not give me anything on fluorescent plants. Anyway, I will make it my goal in life to find the light conditions that bring back these colors!

To properly experiment with any seaweed it will be desirable to be able to vary the light spectrum and intensity. Probably the best way to go is LED lights, although I am not very knowledgeable about lighting yet and it is all quite complicated (LUX, PAR, micro-Einsteins, Kelvin ratings…) It is also not clear to me if (affordable) LED options are on the market that actually allow you to adjust the light spectrum. I will ask around on some forums. It could also be that the light intensity is not right; I have only used one of the two fluorescent T5 lamps provided with the Red Sea Max 130D as I found the lighting too bright when I started. However, now the tank is full of seaweeds, more of the light will be absorbed and it might not look like I have a tanning bed in the living room. I will pop the other light in and see. The RSM lights are so-called 50/50 lamps that give 50% ‘day light’ and 50% ‘actinic’ (blue) light. Who knows some extra actinic light will help. I need to read up on the subject. There must be other factors as well. For instance room temperature might be too high for some species (this reminds me I need to buy a thermometer!). The Bushy berry wrack, False eyelash weed and Wireweed seem to be doing OK though. Here a picture of Wireweed:

The tank a week after planting: