Let the adventure begin redux

[lancer99]

My third attempt at posting this....I guess I should wait until after reefcentral finish their server maintenance

This is my first lagoon/seagrass tank, a 29 gallon, which I just set up on Monday.



The first couple of inches are a mixture of 20 lbs of Seachem's Meridian Oolitic Aragonite and a gallon of Caribsea's Refugium Mineral Mud. On top of that is 90 lbs. of Caribsea's Sugar-Sized sand. It's sloped from front to back, so there's a total of about 5" in the front and 7" in the back.



I hope I'm off to a good start

After the tank cycles, I'm going to add a couple of pieces of cured Florida live rock from an LFS to seed the sandbed. I'm not currently planning on adding any live sand (certainly, not anything from a plastic bag that may have been sitting on a retailer's shelf for months). In the past, I've never added any live sand to any of my tanks, and after a few months, they all developed very active sandbeds.

I have questions....

I'm thinking of adding a detrivore kit, i.e. macroalgae, amphipods, mysis, other wee beasties....I'll only use a skimmer if the nitrates get too high, so this will be a reasonably nutrient-rich tank, but I think I have to keep the water flow up (volume, not necessarily speed) to keep the seagrasses happy. Will that be a good environment for amphipods/mysis etc.?

I'm usually pretty patient when setting up a tank, but not Anthony Calfo-patient. He recommends waiting for a year before planting seagrasses......he's a smart guy, but I think that's a little extreme. However, it will probably be mid-December before I'm ready to order any seagrasses. My understanding is that most of them go through a yearly cycle, dying off in the colder months...is it a bad idea to try ordering/planting them in winter?

Lighting...I'm dithering between using a 150 watt 65K pendant, or a 250 watt 10K HQI fixture...it's a 29 gallon tank, and will be about 14" from the surface of the water to the lowest point in the tank. Recommendations?

Thanks to anyone who has made it this far through my lengthy post...and more thanks to Sarah Lardizabal for inspiring me to set up this tank!

-R