When it rains it pours: another feature in print! A while back, I was contacted by Chris Sergeant who had a plan to write a piece for Practical Fishkeeping Magazine on rockpool inhabitants, to be accompanied by a short interview with me about my native tank. As coldwater marine tanks represent less than 1% of all aquaria this would be a nice ‘niche’ article that could introduce this part of the hobby to other aquarists. The issue arrived at my doorstep today, and as the blog name is mentioned, I thought I’d better write a quick aquarium post!

I have not been posting much about my aquarium lately (click on the ‘aquarium update‘ tag at the bottom of the page to see relevant older posts). This is in part because the aquarium on the whole has been ticking along nicely and in part because covid meant I have not been diving or visiting different beaches much this last year and so have not introduced many new inhabitants. There are a few changes though: in the photo above you can see a mermaid’s purse of a bull huss (or nursehound) shark that my son found washed ashore, tendrils tied to a suction cup. The gestation period is up to 11 months, so let’s see what happens! I have also reintroduced prawns, as they are active and really pretty when you look up close. I have also added a scallop, but need to relase it sometime soon as it is not able to filterfeed properly. The bit of kelp tied to the pump has been surviving (it would go too far to say thriving) for quite some months now. Although the beadlet anemones have spawned quite a few offspring, I am going through a phase where many are wasting away. I have no idea if this might be a disease or if this batch of anemones has just reached the end of their natural lifespan.

I have posted a bunch of tank pics below. For more info on my tank please have a look at the July issue of Practical Fishkeeping (which also features reminiscences on rockpooling by editor Nathan Hill). I promise to post more regularly about the tank here on the blog though, and also on instagram. Please also see the Links page for other relevant blogs and websites. Anyway, I am very honoured to appear in ‘PFK’; a true institution when it comes to the aquarium hobby in the UK!

It has been a while since I last posted an aquarium update. I have not done too much with the tank and at the moment it is looking so-so. I have introduced some Beadlet anemones which are doing fine and have produced some tiny offspring. I managed to remove a dark red Dahlia anemone from a rock during my last dive which is also doing well. After freeing the Tompot blenny, the two strawberry anemones have come out of hiding and are looking bright and happy again. I have a Plumose anemone that is hardly ever open. All the echinoderm species are doing well. The Spiny starfish have grown a lot: the largest one in the picture from September now is as big as my hand! The Pollock seemed to do well but nevertheless died (without leaving a trace of course). These more pelagic fish are not as hardy as the wrasses, blennies and gobies. The light is at a low level and so the seaweeds are not surviving for long. I had almost no algae, but feeding the anemones and fish with defrosted shrimp has caused thick green algae to start growing. I sometimes drop in some more Grey topshells to fight this but they are probably rapidly eaten by the starfish…It is very tricky to get the balance right! I need more light for seaweeds, more snails to combat algae and so probably need to ditch any large starfish (and maybe some of the fish) that eat the snails. I would like to get more anemone species as most species (not all) seem easy to keep and are beautiful: more Dahlia anemone colour variants, some Red-speckled anemones (which were accidentally buried under the sand, I still regret that!) and Daisy anemones…next year! (Btw, click this Aquarium Update tag if you are interested in previous aquarium-related posts.)