Hi

Hello out there. Never done anything like this before. I keep a native marine tank with various creatures from rockpools. Had it goin about 3 months now. I have shore crabs,two broad clawed porcleain crabs, Hermit crabs, a Cushion starfish, (the common ones were eaten by someone),Prawns, Green and red beadlet anemones,a plumose anemone, a 5 barbed rockling, 2 worm pipefish (my favourite),Limpets, Perriwinkles, lots of Shanny/Blenny's, a Rock goby,a few Sand Goby's, and I also had a butterfish but he was unfortunately someone's lunch. Just wondering if anyone else is keeping this sort of tank?

Hello out there. Never done anything like this before. I keep a native marine tank with various creatures from rockpools. Had it goin about 3 months now. I have shore crabs,two broad clawed porcleain crabs, Hermit crabs, a Cushion starfish, (the common ones were eaten by someone),Prawns, Green and red beadlet anemones,a plumose anemone, a 5 barbed rockling, 2 worm pipefish (my favourite),Limpets, Perriwinkles, lots of Shanny/Blenny's, a Rock goby,a few Sand Goby's, and I also had a butterfish but he was unfortunately someone's lunch. Just wondering if anyone else is keeping this sort of tank?

Welcome along Fiona Regards Johney

Welcome fiona

That sounds like an interesting tank, what do you feed them all ?

welcome to the forum..

welcome along fiona....you lost me at shore crabs lol

all the best

ger

welcome along a few pics would be great sounds like an awesome setup ya got

Wow that is something completely unique irish fish kept in marine tank and cheap two i take it just go down to rock pool and no waiting to be served.
Thats genius

Welcome and just like was requested before more pics always goes down well with us.

you should get in contact with Peter in Aquapaws Galway, he was doing this years ago and would be a great source of advice for you in the future, best of luck with it

Welcome aboard Fiona. Savage local setup u have there. Well done.

A bit of everything. Earthworms are a favourite. They also get prawns, fish, and sometimes cat fish pellets. The frozen cubes from the pet shop are good but expensive.

Welcome Interesting that you're in Longford and keeping native marines

Ya. Bit of travelling involved. If I can't get sea water I just use marine salts. No problems yet.

welcome to the site

You just answered a request for information asked for a while back, welcome along and well done, please keep everyone updated on your wonderful project.

Kev.

Welcome; your tank is really very nice and interesting; looking forward to more pictures/video.

regards;
andrew

Deadly. Please post loads of pics. I would love to do something like this. I have a 2ft tropical marine and love it but would really love to go native
pics, pics, pics and info

How do you regulate temperature,
how often do you do water changes
what water changes - long way from longford for water -(east or west coast ?) if east will offer you tea next time as near Clogherhead
Do you use a skimmer and what filtration do you use (rock or filter)

Loads more questions

Hi Fiona, welcome to the forum- hopefully you'll find loads of information on here, if you have any questions it's a great place to start. I'm delighted someone is doing a native marine tank, fair play! Keep the pics coming. Rob

Hi. It's great to see so many interested people! So far I've had no problem with regulating temperature as it has remained below 19 all by itself. But now that i'm heating the house it has raised up to 20 so I'm looking into chillers. I know ideally it should be colder but anything I have was taken from very warm rockpools. I use an air pump and a wavemaker to keep everything moving. The wavemaker was the best buy as the tank is so much cleaner now. I do about a third volume water change whenever it looks like it needs it, maybe once a month. I stock up on water whenever I'm near the coast. I'll travel if necessary. Any excuse to pick up new stock. I have 8 15 litre buckets with lids and a large selection of 5 litre water bottles that i fill. They keep well outside and covered to stay dark. I have used marine salt when stuck with no problems. I had been using an external cascade filter with a built in protein skimmer that was very cheap from aquamarket.ie and it was brilliant. I,ve upgraded from a 60L to a 125L and it came with a huge external filter so i'm using both now. I don't understand a whole lot about testing the water except the salinity but since I've started I've had no unexplained fatalaties ( only creatures that were eaten by others!) I'm finding new things all the time. A trip to Ballybunion last weekend yielded loads of new creatures. It's very exciting and the kids love it. My 3 year old can identify 5 different species of anemone not to mention the other creatures!

few pics. not great. I'll update in few days.

Jeez Fiona,

So clear and clean, You really look like you have the knowledge, please give some clear , close shots or a vid on YT would be great, thanks for sharing such neat info.

Kev.

Update pics. The first pic is a very exciting anemone war that's been going on and off for a few days now. The snakelocks anemone (green) divided in two and one section decided to move into the territory of a huge well established beadlet anemone. The beadlet anemone retracts it's tentacles and swells a huge side of blue stinging beads. The poor snakelocks anemone gets blue burns and moves away, only to return again the next day for the same abuse. No-one is gonna shift this beadlet anemone. It's been there from the start and has nearly tripled in size.

Had a look in the rock pools today and wow the life was fantastic. Really want to try this. The anenomae were huge
Couple of questions:
I assume our native rock is not like tropical LR so does not do the fitration bit so how do you filter. Said you had external but what is in it

These creatures must also be hard as nails. Given our weather they either cook ro freeze in the rock pools so temperature changes not an issue
Given the raid and sunshine the salinity must also vary widely
The anemonae were also partly uncovered so must be able to survive perios uncovered

What is the salinity is your tank

welcome to the Forum and well done Fiona
the tank is class
funny how We are all so used to tropical Marine life that a native Set-up seems so exotic...
I'd be tempted in setting up something similar myself after seeing the success Your having
Fairplay to Ya
the white Crab and some the colourful Corals are particularly striking...

thanks for Posting
very interesting indeed
look forward to seeing more pics and hearing more about the Tank...


Des

Hi! You lucky thing. I'd have loved to have been rockpooling today.What part of the country are you in? Was at Ballinasloe horse fair instead. I use an external tetratec EX700 filter. It has all the usual sponges, Ceramic things(!), black balls and more sponges. It works quite well. This is a recent aquisition though. It came with the new tank. When i had the 60L tank I used a regular internal sponge. It took a lot of regular cleaning but functioned well. I always just wash everything in tap water because as you said, these dudes are seriously hardy. The rockpool temp gets really high in summer only to have freezing water come crashing in in an instant when the tide returns. Temp changes aren't a problem but prolonged periods of high temp is. Many of these creatures aren't supposed to survive a long period above 22 degrees. Saying that, my tank is in my living room. Sometimes it gets up to 20 degrees and i fire in 5 or 6 of those blue freezer things for coolboxes. this will omly bring it down a degree. I have had to invest in a chiller and I hope to get it next week cause I'm afraid to light the fire in the front room for fear of killing everyone!Most of the time I use sea water but the few times I've been short I used aquasafe and marine salts and I just went by the salinity levels on the packet.I just tested specific gravity now at 1.019 and the tank only contains sea water at the moment. The anemone are quite happy out of the water for a long time once they don't dry up. All of mine are underwater. These are the most amazing creatures. Although everything happens slowly they still have battles, pop out babies or just slice themselves in half,and plague the prawns by grabbing their tentacles. At the moment I have a Hermit crab trying to reverse himself under a firmly clamped gem anemone. They try to put them on their shells for protection. I have loads of cool photo's but find it impossible to put them on this site!

Hi Fiona
I'd love to see those Pics...

if You load Your Pics on to a Host Site, I use "photobucket.com/"
then just add the Image Link Codes to the post and Your Pics will be viewable...




hope this helps, it's actually very easy...


Des

Hi fiona, thanks for answering. I'm in louth but son playing soccer match im Balbriggan beside sea so while waiting for match to start went warkabout as inspired by you.
Do you wash the sponges, bio balls etc in tap water or tank water or would it kill the good bacteria
Do you use a skimmer. Have 2ft tropical marine and just use a HOB with chaeto - no room for skimmer

I'll give it a go today.

Ya I just wash everything in tap water. It gets very dirty and slimy. It would take a lot of sea water to clean it and being in the midlands I can't spare too much. I allow everything to drain well and then refill the filter with new sea water. I have an external cascade filter also in the tank that I got on aquamarket.ie for just €17 and it,s brilliant. It has a "protein skimmer" in the sense that one of the inlet tubes has a floating funnel that sits just on the surface of the water and sucks water from the top. I never have any floating debris or scum on the surface of the water. This doesn't take any space inside the tank but I had to cut out a piece of the lid to accomodate it. If your lid is raised it just hooks over the side. The "real" fish people are probably cringing!!!! My knowledge is very limited so I have no idea what your HBO and chateo is! All I know is that with my 2 filters, and an air pump for oxygen the tank is crystal clear and everyone is thriving. They're getting very tame now too. They all come to the front when I'm there looking for food, they used to scatter if they saw me! You HAVE TO take a day off and head to silver strand beach in Salthill, Galway, or Ballybunion. Bit of a trek but amazing. Loads of pipe fish, starfish, scorpion fish, snakelocks anemone(ballybunion), butterfish, etc in these places. I often go to the east coast in Wicklow to my mum but there's not half as much there. Oh I nearly forgot, I also have a "biological" filter, (99c on e bay), It just sucks water through 2 super fine sponges and is powered by the air pump. I have never cleaned this so I figure it is full of good bacteria.

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