Planted Marine Tank

[ferret]

Before you start a saltwater plant tank, you need to consider what kind of other inhabitants you're going to keep in the system. You must stay away from fishes like tangs, rabbits, angels etc. for they will finish eating all your algae within a few days ( I experienced introducing 2 angelfish which was an impulse buy around 3" in size into my 120 gal macro algae system which had been running for a few years and was ruined by these little guys just in 2 weeks ). Moreover, you can't keep some of the snails like turbo and any large size of hermit crabs.

You may place a special order for the macro algae and seagrass from your LFS (usually supplied from Philippines & Indonesia, supplier from US is another topic) and J&L is a good choice. An alternative way is to visit your LFS knowing the arrival of new shipment of LRs and corals for some algae are attached as hitchhikes. If you're looking for the macro algae you need the live rocks for the holdfast of the algae while seagrass requires a deep sand bed (min. 4" - 5") and mud is the best.

I set up another small system (40 gal) early this year for seaweed together with 30 nos. + shrimps ( mainly sexy, ghost & long nose ) and just added a few dragon face pipefish once the system is matured. To me, saltwater plant tank is the best for keeping pipefish.