I'm setting up a cold water marine aquarium and I want to do it right. My mission is to get a wee reef ecosystem going on, with heaps of jewel anemones, seaweed, wee crays and paua and anything I can pick up when I'm diving that is cool! Its 1300x500x800 and the glass isn't even together get! Does anyone know a good glue/silicon that I should use? I don't know too much about filters, is a bio filter going to be best for me? I am thinking that I'll make a sump in the bottom of my stand, I was told that 2 sumps would be best and that each have a tower with bio balls in it. Could someone tell me the best place to drill holes in my tank, I'm planning on using PVC piping to get the water down and back up through the towers to the sumps. As you can see the plan is not so clear in my head and it would be great if you guys could share some experience and maybe even draw a picture if you've got time??

Thanks!

Most of us here are more tropical marine, but I think I remember that Pies had some connections in Wellington who maintain coldwater marine tanks, maybe he'll chime in here and help out.

Layton

Hi Kasey. We had a cold water marine running for almost 2 years and loved it. We had a 3ft tank with an AquaClear filter hanging off one end and nothing else. We went down the Kaikoura coast with large barrels and gathered some sand, rocks and water. We gathered critters from the rockpools including; anemones, shrimps, brittlestars, starfish (7 armed, biscuit, common cushion and comb) rockfish, triplefins, crabs (including different sized shells for the hermit crab), chitons, sea cucumber and an octopus someone caught in their fishing net. Paua did not last as we could not get the tank cool enough and didn't have a chiller - a necessity.

Our only problem was the heat. With the room sitting at 28C it needed to be around 15C or less (pref 10C) for the inhabitants to be comfortable. Although rock pools reach high temperatures, it is for short periods only and they do not handle constant warmth.

All we ever did was top the water up when it evaporated and occasionally added more sea water as a way to introduce microscopic greeblies as food. We also added sea lettuce as food but otherwise didn't feed the inhabitants.

Good luck with the tank, it will attract a lot of interest.