My attempt at a native tank

Hi Joukeder,

Very nice! Always like pictures from your tank.
Those eggs are from the netted dog whelk which usually lives in the sand and comes out (very cool looking!) when foods is close or at night. Have loads of them too thats how I know

Good Luck

Had loads of them last year too and now again but never actually seen a young one around. But have seen the small corkwing around that area of the egg sacks a lot so he is probably feeding on them once they come out. Would be cool if you see one alive and make some pictures.

Another update folks,
We have some new species and an old problem. The green algae is plaguing us again. Comes and goes but my impression is that its worse in winter. The only serious argue eaters are the sea urchins. They do the quantity. Snails eat too but you would need 200 of them do me a dent. Will be getting some black urchins soon to grow the force.
We have two pinks urchins and they are beautiful. However, the rock cook wrasses eat their suckers and their spines. The black ea urchins are not prone to such attacks. One pink one died with a week in the tank.
Less light in the winter in the tack and lower temperatures (by 2-3 degrees)> Does not make sense why algae are blooming.
Feeding twice a day with food eaten all within two or three minutes. Anybody offer ideas?

All the anemones fare very well. Growing and multiplying.


Will post some pics in separate post.

Best,

Jouke

All pictures taken with iPad.


Is that a Blenny or Scorpion in the background?


The butter fish are well accustomed, show themselves often and are very elegant







Beautiful subtle colours in the
is common shrimp.















Squat lobster

Look at this video of a crab hiding below an anemone :
Which species is this?

Shrimp buggng a hermit crab:

Amazing looking tank, i never realised we had so may great looking fish native . You have done a really great job and the pictures are amazing look forward to seeing more

Hi Jouke,

Great to see such a lovely update! Nice pictures and videos!
The crab is probably a Inachus phalangium, Leach's spider crab. They live around anemones, normally snakelocks and go for the scrabs and discards.

May I ask what temperature you are running at?
I went down to 11degrees over the winter and real lighting times and all my green algea (and I had plenty) nearly completely dissappeared. You also probably (as every long running tank) have a bit of phosphates building up. Seaweeds can take this up but the microalgea is faster in doing so and therefore thrive very well. Its a tricky one but there is some media that you can run in a reactor or external filter that are supposed to remove phosphates.

Other options maybe try and get some wireweed Sargassum muticum grows really fast and will take up excess nutrients and is very easily found. Doesnt need to be attached to a rock to grow. Good thing too is that the snails usually dont eat it.

Also good would be (if you dont have other macro seaweeds) just add 200 periwinkle or other algea eating Snails like you said. No harm, just need to regularly push them back down into the water as they are crazy for out of water suicide missions. They will also be natural food for hermits and anemones etc.
The SeaHare Aplysia punctata is enomously efficient at eating microalgea too. Look deadly and are proper eating machines. You can find them at the moment again in the pools. Looks just like a jelly blob in the net when you run it through the weeds. Only have a 1,5 years lifespan so they will not take over even if they might breed. And they dont go out of the water.
Also my favourite Seaslug the Elysia chlorotica is good at eating green algea but not as fast as they are smaller. Very cool animals read this if interested...
www.newscientist.com/article/dn16124-sol...es.html#.VOI39vmsVvA

Really cool to see the Butterfish, I have one too now. How long do you have it in?
Keep the pictures and updates coming its great to see it!
All the best
Marius

Hi Marinus,
I am always amazed by your knowledge of species and environment. How come you're so learned? Pure hobby or are you a biologist?

I run my tank from 15 degrC in the morning when I switch off cooling to about 18C at midnight when cooling kicks in. This is mainly to avoid the cooling noise during the day and evening. Given your advice I lowered the target from 15 to 12C just now. Will get a good quantity of periwinkles as soon as weather permits. Indeed, I call them Lemming snails for their suicidal tendencies. They also like to sit on my low water alarm float swtich, causing false alarms in the process.

As to phosphates, I will measure them tonight. However we change 70% of the water every four weeks. So the buildup may not be that great. Will post phosphate value asap.

How do these Sargassum muticum seaweeds survive if they are not attached to rocks? Much current in the tank because of the two hydors.

Will look out for some sea hares they look fantastic. How many do you have in your tank? And what colours?

Have five butterfish in the tank. Brown and grey ones. Very sociable untill food time. Then you see their energy. Especially with raw mussles. They fling them around and around tearing out pieces. The one longest in the tank has been in for nine months.
Have a larger pipe fish since a week. Is very lively after a difficult day or two. Have not seen him eating yet. Any sugestions on what they eat/like?
Best,
Jouke

Phosphate is 1.8 or larger our JBL test kit maxes out at 1.8 much to high so. Amonia nitrite and nitrate also elevated.
Filters clog up very quickly and the pre-filters need cleaning every second day because of the floating algea. This deminishes filter efficiency. Need to getrid of this pest ASAP.

Hi Jouke,

Haha thanks for your compliment but I am not a biologist Its all from google, books and from what I have learnt since I started the hobby. Its a steep learning curve but I feel I am missing a lot of things. When I started the project I was single so lots of time for researching the web and reading

Reducing the temp is definitely going to help, as it did me. I tried many things and its only since I have the chiller I seem to have progress. 18 is summer temperature and it would be "normal" (as in nature) for microalgea and epyphites to completely take over. Have you the lighting to the current daylight? Maybe for a trial reduce it a few hours less to speed up the reduction of micros especially if you dont have other macros (that would need the light).

Okay thats some big water changes there. Sounds like a lot of work From what I found out phophates "settle" also in/on rocks and in substrate thats why water changes will never really fix the problem but just delay the build up. 1.8 is serious and can be harmful so would be good to try and fix this. Amonia and nirtite should always be zero. nitrate is okay a bit higher as it will help macros to grow and consume phosphates.

Now again I am not a specialist and all this is just my opinion but here is what happens in my system. Since introducing some live rock (from Shop) in a low flow area (very important) I have zero ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. Phosphate at 0.2. I have not done water any changes from june to november last year and still keeping these values. (was surprised!) But during that time I had lots of microalgea and epyphytes but it is also natural to some extend in summer. Now I have to say I did have only around 4-6 swimming fish and lots of detrivores like cushion stars, hermits, prawns, brittlestar, snails, etc. I do not have a filter running in the system. All I have is a big skimmer and some filter foam just sitting in the sump for harbouring bacteria.

Just some questions as I would love to help solve this problem. What kind of water do you use for topping up? Are you running a skimmer? What type filters/media/flowrates are you running? Whats your cleanup crew?

I just wedge the Sargassum between rocks. You could tie it to rocks with fishing line or use superglue (a friend does that, never tried myself). Best is if you try to scrape the seaweed off the rocks (with a creditcard type thing) so that the holdfast disc is still "intact" makes it easier. Or find one growing on a small enough rock so you could bring the whole thing. The base of this seaweed is fairly rigid which makes it easy to hold in place.

The seahares around here are kind of red/purplish. But I read they change colour to whatever they are eating after a while. So if yours start to feed on that green microalgea they could turn to green which would be amazing! I only have a small one now. Had too big ones last year. They are deadly to watch.

Snails can only help also removing uneating food etc. Lemming snails is very fitting

Really cool to see the butterfish thrive so well. I always thought they dont do well but nine months surely proofs the opposite. Mine is really shy and doesnt really come out in the open during daylight.
I have a great pipefish too, its the one with the blue stripes on the side? I would guess that they would live live mysis but they defninitely go for all the little critters like copepods and stuff but very difficult to add as food. maybe try frozen mysis and kind of spot feed with tweezers and see if he is interested.

Right I better get back to work now
Keep me updated would be great if we could solve this and maybe you will also need to make less water changes in the future if it gets more stable.
BTW how do you collect so much water?

All the best
Marius

This is how we carry 240l of seawater in barrels. We use a 12v bilge pump to pump it into and out of the barrels. Total operation is streamlined to be done in one hour. We live two minutes from the shore...

Thats a deadly setup! Thanks for sharing. Have to look into that when I get a bigger tank. I am still carrying 6 x 20l jerrycans up and down

Thanks Marinus, will write a more elaborate response to your previous generous reply ref algea later today.
Jouke

I have reduced the temp in two days to 12 degrees. Have le ;eave the chiller on to achieve this.
Also planning two or three water changes in quick succession to alleviate the highs.

I must say that we had zero ammonia and nitrite for a long time with this set-up so I know it's possible.
We have three large klusters of mussels in the tank and I suspect these contribute to the problem. In a filtered tank they do not have much to eat and can die off. Difficult to see under the algae... I plan to remove them.
My filter set-up is a JBL external e1501 filter 1500l/h max. Then an EHEIM Interal Filter biopower 240 of 750l/h max
JBL microspheres in all plus one compartment of BioPelletsXL in the biopower. These are supposed to reduce phosphates.....
No skimmers. Not physically possible in my tank. Also, Skimmers are not necessarily recommended with anemones.
I love my anemones.
We do have a fair amount of fish in the tank. 20 two spotted gobies. 9 Rock cooks, Three blennies Three cuckoo wrasse, 5 butterfish, one stickleback, two tiny pipefish and one large one. Three small squat lobsters. One star.
I do very little or no topup.Not usually required if we do monthly water changes as we do. In fact when the water is getting a tad low we do a water change before too long. Not much evaporation given the water temperature always being lower then the room.

Must now go on the Sargassum hunt and plant in tank. Will be nice addition as we have not had plants in this winter.

Clean up crew about 20 periwinkle and about 15 hermits at present. Will increase this asap and try and get a few hares if I can find them that is.
Fingers crossed!

Jouke

Hi Jouke,

Thats a good point with the mussels. I add phytoplankton every week and they still die off eventually as they dont find enough food. If I where you I would still leave them in and just increase the size of your cleanup crew. If some mussels die they can feed on them naturally as long as they have access. I would say definitely adding cushion stars would help too. They are not predators and mainly feed as scavangers and also feed on the algea film which is perfect for us aquarists! To me they are the most vital part of the crew. They can even breed in the tank.

A skimmer would definitely help but your mechanical filtration seems plenty so once the system settles again it should be okay. Interesting, why are skimmers not recommended with anemones?

Okay yes thats handy like that you dont have to do topup.
Plenty of fish in your tank so I think if you massively increase the detrivores (clean up crew) the system will probably settle again on its own. In a tank your size you could easily have 200 periwinkles and 50 cushion stars I think I have about a hundred periwinkles but they die fast as they end up in anemones or are taken by hermits but its all natural food.

Let me know how you get on and good luck finding some sea hares!
All the best
Marius

I think we are slowly turning the corner on the algae problem. Still plenty of them, but I see no new growth on the areas that are clean now. A new army of a hundred or so Periwinkles is starting to clean area's of the tank. Two water changes in short succession and the addition of Iron Hydroxide to one chamber of the small filter has brought the Phosphates down from over 1.8 to 0.6 Also the temperature is kept at 12 degree all day and night and top lights in the tank switched off. We have a very bright room with lots of glass so enough natural light comes in until the problem is cured completely.
I halved feeding from twice to once a day.
Amonia 0.05 Nitrite 0.1 Nitrate 5

Thanks Marinus for your advice.

Had a field day today as we had extremely low water. We went to Garnish, an area we had not surveyed before. Next to a handful of shrimp we harvested a sand goby about 6 brittle stars, an as yet undetermined wrasse like juvenile and two sea cucumbers one of which is GIANT. Its over 45 cm long when it stretches out.
Here are some pics of the monster:








Here some circular eggs that were a by-catch. Anyone knows what they are? Fortunately they are not (yet) eaten by the gobies

I suspect that they are Sea Slug Eggs.
Will you be making fancy cucumber sandwiches ?

Yes crusty, next weekend. Will you be around?

Brillant stuff...some of the best west cork willdlife there I see!!
Gavin

Oh yes, Love the cucumber sandwiches.
How about some roast Seahen ?

Fantstic that sea cucumber! Looks like from an scifi movie Brilliant stuff!
Glad to hear your algea is going back!
Good luck and keep us posted

That looks interesting...... Has the shape of a fish with a great appetite.

We inadvertantly added three scorpions to the tank thinking they were juvenile blennies. Must take them out before they get too big.
I think that will mean a complete removal of all the 'furniture' from the tank as I see no other way to catch them. I think they are too shrewed to be tempted by traps. What do you think Crusty?

Not at all I have a scorpion and all you need to do is but a mit of fish on a tweezers and "lure" them in the net. Their enormous greediness is their downfall Mine even went for more food when he had his face so stuffed that the food is hanging out his mouth

The trap method will work, and Marius's method is great, nearly worthwhile putting a scorpion in, just to catch one that way!!
The Lumpsucker/Seahen is a great fish, but a very big one. It's now in the National Aquarium in Galway.
Looking forward to more collecting and great company on the Beara next week.

Will try that Marinus. maybe Crusty and I can try and make a video of the operation.
Thanks and have fun.

Sounds like a nice subject for a rainy afternoon Crusty.

That it does, i will bring a selection of small traps and nets, and we can go scorpion hunting

Good luck Guys