I started this blog mainly to document keeping a temperate marine aquarium; browsing back I see that that was more than four years back already! (see this introduction). Over time, I became more passionate about rock pooling, snorkeling and diving, specifically about seaweeds and photography, and blogged less and less about my aquarium. The aquarium had its ups and downs, as coldwater aquariums tend to be a bit more trial and error (coldwater marine aquariums do not consist of relatively slow growing stony corals as in tropical marine aquariums and house much more (higher order) diversity than tropical or cold freshwater aquariums). Also, I am a lazy man. The last aquarium update was from last November and the aquarium did not look that great, but I have lately spend more time on it and it looks much better now, so here a quick new post.
I bought an upgrade Red Sea Max pump (much better) a while back, and more recently a Tunze 9001 skimmer (MUCH better than the stock skimmer, removed years ago as it was so noisy). The only problem is that the pump is so powerful that the water does not get sucked fast enough in the back compartment and it starts to run dry, I need to think how to fix that. The water is very clear though. I only have Cornish suckers as fish at the moment, and it might not be safe to add other fish as there are quite a few anemones at the moment. I have collected a bunch of Daisy anemones Cereus pedunculatus whilst diving (these are very common here in Flushing). I feed all my anemones small pieces of defrosted prawn by hand, these little ones respond very well to that and I hope they will grow much larger. I also collected some more Redspeckled anemones Anthopleura balli (below).
David Fenwick kindly gave me an oyster with many Jewel anemones Corynactis viridis attached (crappy pic, sorry). These did relatively well for a while when feeding fine dry foods (sold for reef aquariums) but they were bothered by the squat lobster and cushion stars and I put the oyster back in the sea (I was also worried the oyster might die and cause a huge nitrogen spike). As an experiment I removed a few jewel anemones with a scalpel and superglued them to frag plugs but they did not survive. Ah well, that might have been a first, so worth a try. With a smaller, dedicated aquarium with better filtration (to deal with many small food particles) it must be doable to keep these. At the moment there are several species of gastropods, a cute little clam, mussels, Snakelocks- Dahlia-, Beadlet- and Strawberry anemones, a small Hairy crab, Cushion stars, green urchins and a Common starfish. The echinoderms seem easiest to keep of all. I actually put the common starfish back as it was picking of all my snails which I need to keep algae in check (and are interesting in their own right of course). I added a Cushion starfish with six legs though (‘Dave’). Hopefully I can find some more anemones when diving over the summer and who knows experiment with seaweeds again.
Nice to see your tank again 🙂 pity about the Jewels, next time you get rid of some send them over 😉 hahaha. would absolutely love some 😉 How big is the squad lobster now? He is in there since a while now right?
I was in st Petersburg last week during the tropical storm Emily and a lot of things washed up that wouldn’t ordinarily I was able to get some sea whip and other types of seaweed, I’ve started a tank and am wondering if these will survive In the tank or if I should just toss them or dry them out for food, as of right now we only have several species of crabs , a ragged sea hare, a star fish and a few types of prawn or shrimp all of which were living in these blobs of seaweeds that washed in, I had caught an angel fish and was getting these for shade and ended up with all the critters and decided to keep them, the angel fish didn’t make it but I want to eventually replace it I have several stick like things that were clearly attached to the reef or something as well with live barnacles . I have the seaweeds in a bucket of saltwater with a bubbler on them to try to maintain some life if possible. Looking for any advise please and thank you in advance.
Hi, the seaweeds should have a good light (one for freshwater aquariums is fine) and some flow (pump/filter better than an airstone). Frequent water changes are always a good thing. Try not too add too many critters and start with hardy ones such as prawns, hermit crabs, snails and starfish. Talk to other aquariumkeepers in your area, I am sure most are happy to give
advice!