Tag Archives: anemones

Aquarium Update

Posted on by under aquarium update

It has been over 20 months since I last posted about my Cornish native aquarium, so high time for a quick update with a few iPhone pics. In short, everything has ticked along nicely and nothing major has happened. Grey Top shells keep the glass pretty free of algae, I do not think I have ever had to clean the tank myself this year. I tried to keep a small piece of Dead Mans’ Fingers but it unfortunately perished. I think this mainly had to do that I was not able to attached it to the rock (using elastic bands). If I could get my hands on a piece already attached to a rock I think it would work.

My main goals is to keep some new species of anemone, and I will try to find some soon when diving. Currently, I still have the Daisy-, Dahlia-, Beadlet-, Strawberry-, Red Speckled- (see pic above) and Snakelocks Anemones. The Beadlets are producing lots of babies, some of which already have grown up to half the size of adults. I have each of the two Snakelocks colour morphs and both anemones have divided in two and grown quite a bit (see pic below). There are at least ten other species I could collect, and it would be great to have a whole collection. Anemones are generally easy to keep and very pretty! I feed them a few times a week with frozen foods such as artemia and I also handfeed them with bits of defrosted shrimp.

My Cornish Suckers (a species of clingfish) are still in there, but I only see them when feeding. I am reluctant to add more fish, as the tank has become a bit of a death trap with all the anemones! I have a common starfish, a few cushion starfish, some netted dogwhelks and a sea urchin. I will add some small prawns again as well since they are quite beautful and always on the move (and if they end up as anemone food, well, that is fine too). Occasionally, I add a random find to the tank, see below a colonial seasquirt on a shell I found on the beach and a shell with some Seabeard hydroids (Nemertesia antennina) attached that I picked up during a dive.

Hardware-wise, I am very happy with the Red Sea Reefer 170 and my AI Prime LED light. The LEDs are operating at very low capacity though, I use less than 10% of the output I think. I use a skimmer, but do not have biological filtration in the sump and rely solely on the gravel in the tank. I have a separate chiller loop going in and out of the sump. The tank currently is kept at 16C, which is not supercold for a coldwater tank, but it avoids problems with condensation (and saves some energy). My water changes involve a walk to the quay at the end of my street with two 10L jerry cans. I try to do a water change once a week but I do not always succeed. So hopefully I will be able to add some interesting species to the tank soon. Finally, watch this space for some very interesting coldwater aquarium news early next year…..

P.S. click on the ‘Aquarium Update’ tag on top to see all old posts on my aquarium

Macro Practice V

Posted on by under anemones, crustaceans, molluscs, mzuiko60mm, Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark II, rock pooling, snorkeling

It has been a while since exploring the rockpools, as the weather has been pretty horrific. However, I had a good go last week and this weekend. Although quite bleak, there was no wind and no rain. The water is getting down to 11 degrees probably (I have not measured it), so pretty chilly. There are quite some solarpowered seaslugs Elysia viridis on the Codium seaweed but I did not manage to get any good photos. In fact, I am still struggling a lot just getting the strobe to properly light up what I am aiming to photograph. A bit frustrating but that is why I keep practicing. Above a pill isopod, probably Cymodoce truncata (with the fringing hair on the rear uropods indicating it is a male). Below, a tiny Gem anemone Aulactinia verrucosa. There are a lot of small Daisy anemones Cereus pedunculatus amidst the Coral weed, they look brownish but when you zoom in there is some blue as well. Finally, a Netted dogwhelk Tritia reticulata, which are very common and active in the rockpools. Cold but always nice to be in the water. Luckily I emerged right on time when I saw my Sainsbury’s bag with glasses, car keys and phone drifting away due to the incoming tide!

New Aquarium: Red Sea Reefer 170

Posted on by under anemones, aquarium update

I replaced my old Red Sea Max 130D tank last December with a new Red Sea Reefer 170 tank. I was not entirely happy with the design of the old tank (see this old post) and I was thinking of a new aquarium with a sump, and then my retrofitted LEDs stopped working: I was practically forced to buy a new aquarium! It is much better to have a sump to have a large skimmer in, the glass is much clearer and the (separately bought) AI prime LEDs are great (with seven different individually adjustable colours). I had a long day switching tanks and found three clingfish alive and well. I released my ballan wrasse as it was before the christmas break and I did not want to let it go two weeks without food. In the following weeks, I managed to collect some more anemones, I now have Snakelocks, Strawberries, Beadlets, Daisies, Redspeckleds and Dahlias. It is my aim to collect maybe ten or so more species this year when rockpooling and diving and turn it into a proper anemone tank. I probably won’t add any fish or big inverts as they could fall prey to the anemones. I have added some snails to help keep the algae under control, unfortunately after a a superclean first two months some green hues are starting to appear so I will add some more. These are two hasty shots; a proper update is soon to follow!

Carne Beach

Posted on by under anemones, iPhone, molluscs, rock pooling, worms

I have not been tempted to go back snorkeling yet, but had an hour of nice rockpooling last Saturday, at beautiful Carne Beach on the Roseland Peninsula. I had been here only once before, and found my first stalked jellyfish then. The stalked jellies (Haliclystus octoradiatus) where still there, in different colours: brown, yellow and grey (I will keep to my resolution to record my findings from now on, when I find the time). My old trusted iPhone 4S finally gave up the ghost last week so I upgraded to an iPhone SE which proved a real upgrade. (I was too lazy to bring out the Canon G16 in the underwaterhousing, which would not have been much use anyway as the pools here are very shallow.) The pools were teeming with (mating) polychaete worms and there were many juvenile Sea hares about as well. I saw whole mats of pink wriggling tentacles sticking out of the sand, something I had never seen before. These (most likely) belong to the worm Cirriformia tentaculata, quickly identified by David Fenwick, see here for very good photos of the whole animal on his aphotomarine site in addition to the rather bad snap here. I found a hermit crab inhabiting the shell of a (juvenile) pelican’s foot Aporrhais pespelecani, a species that shares the sandy beach with the razor clams that were washed up all around. The highlight for me were the anemones. Snakelocks and strawberries were common, and in addition to red Beadlet anemones, there were green ones as well (I never see these in Falmouth). Some pools at the edge of the rocks and the beach were filled with Daisy-, Gem- and Dahlia anemones. I am ready for some more seaside adventures, but the weather is rarely cooperating these days. More on the blog soon I hope!

Aquarium Update 17

Posted on by under anemones, aquarium update, echinoderms

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.