Category Archives: anemones

rock pooling from the comfort of my home

Posted on by under anemones, bryozoans, crustaceans, eggs, molluscs, rock pooling, seaweeds, tunicates

It was too cold and windy to spend a lot of time on the beach, so I took a closer look at my seaweed catch back home. I was amazed at the diversity of organisms growing amidst the weeds. A lot of them are easily overlooked when rock pooling as you need some time (and preferably a comfortable seat) to find them. Below Bushy rainbow wrack with epiphytic False eyelash weed and Pink plates Mesophyllum lichenoides (I will not give the Latin names of species described in preceding posts for brevity). Some bright green sea lettuce Ulva, a grey topshell Gibbula cineraria, a snakelocks anemone Anemonia viridis and in the middle a bright orange colony of the tunicate Botrylloides leachi: IMG_1804I found many large Breadcrumb sponges Halichondria panicea but the picture I took did not turn out to be in focus. I do not know what the organism below is, perhaps a bryozoan (please feel free to comment!). IMG_1816I am not sure what this is either! IMG_1796Dog whelk Nucella lapillus eggs (I now also notice a tiny brittle star in the middle): IMG_1835Egg cases of the thick-lipped dog whelk Hinia incrassata: IMG_1758A small snakelocks anemone; interestingly enough all of these were the green variant (with purple tips) and there were none of the pinkish ones. I have read some interesting notes about aggressive behaviors between the two types, something to look into for a future post. IMG_1807A Marbled Crenella Modiolarca tumida, a tiny bivalve typical of seaweed holdfasts: IMG_1776A tiny White tortoiseshell limpet Tectura virginea: IMG_1782I saw something creeping out of the seaweeds on the floor out of the corner of my eye: a small Long-legged spider crab Macropodia rostrata. This species adorns itself with seaweeds for camouflage: IMG_1870

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first attempts at aquascaping

Posted on by under anemones, aquarium update, planted aquarium, Red Sea Max 130D, seaweeds

I am not sure if I like the term aquascaping much because of it’s connotations with gardening and I like a more natural look. However, aquascaping is the general term for arranging plants in an aquarium nowadays and that is what I attempt to do as well with seaweeds. (Also, I cannot pretend that my tank looks particularly like a real rock pool…). Anyway, I will post some more thoughts on the topic of aquascaping, marine or fresh water, later but for now just wanted to show some of the first attempts at planting my aquarium, It is challenging to make any tank look ‘right’, but I found it particularly hard to recreate a rock pool feel. I soon found out that I did not have enough rock in the tank and so hauled some *heavy* ones from a nearby beach. The bare tank:IMG_0551

Some wrack added (I cannot remember what species and cannot tell from the picture, it did well though). A strawberry anemone Actinia fragacea on the right.IMG_0593

Another version with Serrated wrack Fucus serratus (left), a small mop of Dudresnay’s whorled weed Dudresnaya vertillicata (far left) and some Solier’s red string weed Soliera chordalis (middle and right). A bit messy:IMG_0362

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A worm pipefish, dog whelk and hermit crab in front of the serrated wrack. There is a lot of algal growth and detritus on the wrack. (I have since bought a circulation pump to keep detritus in suspension so it can go into the filter, more about that later).IMG_1285Another go. The nice thing about having an aquarium with native species is that you can collect them yourself, which is half the fun (and free), and when something does not work out you just chuck it back and try something else.  The green seaweed is velvet horn Codium tomentosum, the long brown seaweed is wireweed Sargassum muticum. Both did well, the wireweed grew quite fast, perhaps not a surprise as it is an invasive species in the UK. The red seaweed on the left is dulse Palmaria palmata, on the right harpoonweed Asparagopsis armata. The harpoonweed was not exactly thriving and the dulse was quickly eaten by the prawns:IMG_1319IMG_1701Recently, I noticed the Dudresnay’s whorled weed (love that name) sprouting from the rocks everywhere. This happened some months after removing a pluck of this weed from the aquarium. Up till then I had just planted seaweeds, but having them establish spontaneously I had not seen before. Most of the newly established weeds are only a couple of centimeters and do not seem to grow very fast, but the two weeds pictured above grew to 10 centimeters in a couple of weeks. Perhaps very local conditions in the aquarium matter.

introduction

Posted on by under anemones, aquarium update, fish, iPhone, planted aquarium, Red Sea Max 130D, seaweeds, tunicates

Hello! For the last half year or so, I have been messing with a marine aquarium housing sea weeds and critters collected from local rock pools here in Cornwall. I thought it would be fun to blog about my aquarium project, especially after I discovered that it is quite easy to take nice aquarium pictures using an iPhone (which I found nearly impossible using a standard digital camera). After doing some internet research, I settled on a Red Sea Max 130D ‘plug-and-play’ aquarium (I will post about the actual tank later). I could not find much information on the web on temperate marine tanks, especially ones without a chiller or a sump. and few of those seem to focus on seaweeds. So who knows I may have found a niche. Below I have posted some pictures from when I was setting it up last year:

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Half a bucket of gravel collected from a nearby beach, RO water taken home from the lab where I work (carried back 2×10 L at the time, the tank is 130 L) mixed with a free bucket of sea salt that came with the tank. Few sea weeds and not too many rocks. I have since replaced the rocks with bigger ones; most critters are benthic and you do not want to have too much ‘open water’ around with nothing in it. Although too bare, I do like the purple look of this set-up, which has since disappeared because of inevitable algae taking over from the purple crustose seaweeds.

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A shanny Lipophrys pholis, this is a very common fish around here that can easily be picked up when turning stones at low tide. The branched seaweed on the left is Solier’s red string weed Solieria chordalis; in the back on the right there is a little pluck of Berry wart cress Sphaerococcus coronopifolius.

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A snakelocks anemone Anemonia viridis. Behind it some Slender-beaded coral weed Jania rubens. This weed died off quite quickly; first it turned a bright orange, then white.

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The Star ascidian Botryllus schlosseri, a colony-forming tunicate. It did not survive for too long, but that might just have been because the particular broad-leaved red seaweed they grew on are very popular with prawns and hermit crabs. What animals and sea weeds do well has been trial and error. I might compile a list of ‘easy’ species and ones to avoid at some point.