neopole

sunset beach has a lot of fresh water in it, and also contaminates from the river. i remember draging home 100lt of water once that i got straight from the surf beach, when i got it home, i did a "taste test"....mmmmmmm fresh water! so depending on the tide, the salt content and fresh water contamination content will vary widely. after that episode, i only got my water from clarks beach. but the sealife around the rocks at the port is amazing! mmmmmmm might have to start up my tank again!

interesting topic. but to get back on track, i have been experimenting with foam cement. process. get some foam rubber, or sponge, and "wash" it in a cement water mix, shape it to your desired form. when set, take it to the beach for a while. this will cure the cement, and rot out the sponge/foam, leaving a very porous rock structure. good luck.

last year, and gave simple instructions on how to make it. it works great. and cost less than $100 i had a 5ft cold marine tank, sitting in a sunroom. the temp in the sun room hit 40deg in summer but the tank never went over 22 23 deg. find the thread....bathtub chiller in the marine section.

just like the song, i let all my marine animals free today. after a year of having a rock pool tank i decided to stop. and am quite sad. i split up with my partner about 3 months ago, and am running a lifestyle block and work commitments left me little time to maintain the tank. so today i took a day off work and let the little guys go. to my suprise i found lots of baby creatures in the tank. the starfish, the shrimp, and the crabs have all breed in the tank. also the usual snails and limpits and worms etc. when i took them all to the beach today(big job) i put them in a big rock pool, the big fish were that tame after a year that they still swam into my hands looking for food!!, that was real sad.haha how silly is that, being sad that a fish swims into your hand. anyway, the tank is now empty. i also think that a 5ft tank is not big enough for a proper cold marine tank. the fish and creatures seem to need a lot more room, and my tank was understocked i belive. i will have another marine tank in the future, when the house is extended, i will build a wooden tank with glass front that holds at least 3000 lt, as for now, i read a post on the fresh water side about native fresh water tanks. as i have a dam at the back of the farm and a big stream running through the forrest next door, i will give this a go. at least i wont have to spend hours driving to a boatramp to get water, i have a water-ram pumping water from the dam to the house now, so i could set up a trickle feed system that is virtually maintainance free. seen some great looking fish in the stream, sort of like zebra stripped and there is also the crayfish, and little guppy like fish, and and..... yes i think i can still have some fun!! to all of you who have rock pool tanks...enjoy, i'll be back into it soon again. i'll still be around here though, i love this site, i'm not a big poster, but am an avid reader, and have a lot of experience with rock pool tanks, this was my third. see ya around neopole.

that was me who said that. the mussles in my tank have died off. but the pipi's, cockles and oysters are all still alive, so i dont think it is starvation. i spoke to a guy at jansens last year and he said that no one can keep mussles alive in a tank for very long. mine lived for a max of 6 months. the pipi's and cockles are breeding in my tank, so i think anyway. found lots of tiny ones in the sandbed when shifting some rocks.

to my bathtub chiller on wednesday. the temp got to 22deg in the tank tuesday, so added sheets of aluminium to the bathtub, hooked up a 5watt powerhead to spray water on the sheets, and a small table fan to circulate the air. the tub is set up slightly under the house, so as to draw on the cool air there. tank is back to 19deg in the day time and 17deg at night. sunroom temp where tank is, is up to 40deg. total cost now $120. total power consumption of chiller 35watts. cheers

yeah i got a 5ft tank. sitting in a sun room that hits 40degs, the tank goes up to 20deg and cools of to 17deg at night with a bathtub chiller. there is a thread way back called "homemade chiller" there i describe how i made it. they are fantastic tanks i think, there is nothing like a beach in your home. even though the fish arent as colourful, the rest of the creatures are very colourful. and so are the different seaweeds. i collect my wildlife from the rockpools at port waikato. have/had a school of tiny sprats in the tank, awsome to watch but they are disappearing slowly, i think the cat is getting them. my tank is a year old now and is doing very well. just collecting water every couple months is a pain. hope you enjoy your tank as much as i enjoy mine. and dont put mussles in it, they will die. oysters and pipis do well, as do crabs and anenomies,

the chiller is homemade, there is a link further back with instructions. thread is "homemade chiller" i havent got a digital cam yet, but hope to get 1 soon.

hi all, i got a cold saltwater tank, been going 7 or so months now, and decided that i better find out what is happening in the tank. so i bought a saltwater master test kit from jensons last week. the results. PH 8.2 AMMONIA 0ppm NITRITE 0ppm NITRATE 0ppm temp 17deg well, as you can see, perfect results. i am soo happy. the tank 5ft 270lt ( narrow tank) no sump, no skimmer, 1 homemade chiller, and 2 5ft fluro tubes. 1 fluval 403, 1 380lt and 1 700lt per hour powerheads, the 380 has a venturi pumping air into tank. the 700 runs the chiller. 4inch sand bed and lots of rocks with seaweed, the back and side glass has never been cleaned, and is "growing" nicely. inhabitants lots of cockles and pipes, a few oysters. many anenomes of different colours. lots of catseyes and turbo snails 30 odd crabs ranging from hermits to blue filter to orange grazers to yellow hunters. 3 starfish, a handfull of snapping shrimp 3 fish ...rockhopper thingamejigs that change colour. hundreds of worms and other weird things that i have never seen before. most of the above are breeding to. i have had trouble with mussles...they have all died. feeding 1 mussles and bits of frozen shrimp every 4 days. cleaning 100lt waterchange every month or so when i siffon the crap out. last time cleaned about 5 weeks ago. i think i might just recycle the water instead of putting in new seawater, because my parameters a good. budget $350 for tank, stand, lights, main filter. powerheads $ 60 chiller $60 testkit $72 power ..lights 100watts 12 hours, pumps 40watts 24hours = not much live stock and rocks and sand free. enjoyment priceless neopole

1 large mussle shredded, and bits from a mixed seafood pack. ie the stuff you find on a seafood pizza. bought at foodtown, once every 4 days

apreciate your thoughts, we live on a farm, and last summer i noticed that the troughs stayed cool as did our household water tank, obviously the volumes are much greater. but the cooling came from evapouration threw the concrete. as the tub is now, the only cooling effect is threw the base and cool nite air. once the ali cooling panels are on there will be several sqm of evaporation surface, this is what removes the heat. a simple experiement is to wrap the bulb of a thermometer with tissue and wet it and hold it outside in the shade on the hottest day, same principal applies. any way time will tell

do you understand what happens during evaporation?

hi all, been reading a few threads where chillers are mentioned. i made a chiller last week, and have been testing it this week. the results are great. i got the tank down to 14deg the other night by leaving it on too long!!!! fish tank is 5ft long and sits in a sun room, during the day the temp was getting well over 20deg. the chiller. old cast iron bath tub dug slightly into the ground behind my house, ( south side) in the tub is 20m of irrigation tubing and water. from the tank to the tub is another 20m of tubing running under the house. the water is pumped using a small 10watt power head. i run the chiller from 10am to 10pm same as my lights. with chiller running, max temp is now 17deg. i was going to add aluminium plates covered in sacks to the tub to get cooling via evaporation, but as yet no need, maybe next month i'll do that. cost tub free piping + fitting $35 pump $35 labour 4 hours ( 1 hour to move the tub on log rollers) anyone can do this.

hi, just bought some natural rock salt from woollies. it says it is evaporated from NZ sea water with no additives, or processing. is this the same as instant ocean? what is the mix ratio, salt to water? this bag of 500gms cost $1.50 what does IO cost? cheers

thanx a lot putt putt.

thats a great story. i have a 5ft tank full of stuff, but still no fish or shrimp. went out again this weekend, sat and sunday, saw 1 shrimp at takapuna boatramp and couldnt catch it. tried 3 wharfs and no fish, so on sunday drove around all the beaches and wharfs in south auck and spoke to quite a few people, to see if the got any fish, seen any fish, will sell any fish, a resounding "no" is the answer i got all day. so i think i might look for some one who sells live bait. how hard can it be to find little fish! :-? maybe you could tell me where you found your fish? were they all from muriwai? i have stocked my tank from port waikato. thanx neopole

ahhhh but where? the places i used to go to get little fish seem to be bare. or are not allowed. ie at the marina's between the boats. and the couple of wharfs in the manukau where the kids all used to go seem rather bare. also the estury next to the manukau golf coarse, seems bare. so if you know of any places i can go, would be very apreciated.

my beach tank has been running a couple months now, and have removed the sponges from my filters, because it was stealing the food from my filterfeeders.ie mussles, pipis everything in the tank seems to growing better. my tank has dozens of snails and lots of crabs as well, so as to "turn over" the sand floor. all what my tank needs now is some fish, to give it some action. amazing how hard it is to get small fish!

thanks for the replies, i went down to the port again, and still no shrimp. but found a giant purple sea anemome, a bit bigger than a tennis ball. it is sooo beautiful, gave it a feed of pipi and seems happy. i got a lifestyle block, so dont have much time to go to the beach regularly, so the shrimp and sprats are going to have to wait a while, maybe next month. also have started to build a skimmer from pvc pipe, not sure if i will need it. as i have a lot of filter feeders in the tank. ie mussles and oysters, but will keep an eye on things. also got a nice little plan for a DIY chiller, using a table fan and wet irrigation pipe, the evaporation method. should cost less than $100 finished. cheers neopole

i have a 5ft tank and is stocked with red anenomies, seaweed,hermits, starfish, mussels, pipis, oysters, 3 fish that hide 25hr a day and lots of snails. what im after is some shrimp and some small sprats to liven up the tank, any one know where i can find them? i live rural south auck. i have tried port waikato, awesome sealife but no shrimp or sprats. dont want to travel too far. thanx

hi Ballistic, what caryl said is right. i have had beach tanks before and a fairly simple to look after. i am about to build a new tank shortly and will be stocking it with alsorts of things. if your worried about illegal stuff, go to the maf website and check out the page with catch limits and sizes. stuff you will have to be carefull with is commerical stocks ie crayfish, paua, scollops, snapper, etc. these you can buy from breeders like the seahorse farm. but everything else should be ok, just dont strip a rock pool cause if a fisheries officer catches you he wont be happy. but if you collect a bit here and there, they will general be happy, and if your talkative they are full of usefull info. point of note when salt water evaporates, you add fresh water to compensate. salt cant evaporate. but it can be splashed out, and it can "creep" up the sides and out. i always do the taste test to see if the water is ok for salt content. keep it filtered and airated and you should be fine. i used to change 20% water every 6 months or so, but it depends on you tank and the sort of animals you have, and the feeding program. have fun

hi all, i have been reading the forums for quite a while now, and have decided to make myself known. im 37 male, and am a rampant DIY'er. i live in the country on a small block. and i like aquariums, and other things..... my knowledge of fish i thought was quite extensive, till i started reading all the tech stuff here, and the links from here. i have had tanks all my life upto the last 8 years, and am now getting back into it again. most of my tanks have been cold water marine. ie stuff from the local beaches. and am now going to set up a big marine tank. trouble is, reading all the stuff on this site has made my a bit nervous!! because all my other tanks were set up so simply, using simple filters and airpumps, and buckets of saltwater and crushed shells, and add stock... no problem! and just basic maintainance. my tanks lasted for years like this with hardly any deaths. now i read all about protien skimmers, calc reactors, co2 thingies and these massive pumps circulating the volume of a tank 4 to 6 times per hour, to me this seems like overkill. because in my experience my tanks were fine using a fraction of this hardware. basically im just trying to make a rock pool, and keep it airated and clean of waste products. not IMHO build a sterile oceanic hospital. having said all that, i have no experience with tropical marine, which im guessing most of this hardware is for, and am guessing also that its because of the higher temps, making the bad bugs grow faster. but still ....4 to 6 times water turnover per hour!. my new tank that im planning will be aprox 2.4m long by 600mm by 600mm made of braced ply with 10mm front glass. siting on a 6 leg stand with adjustable feet. at this stage im planning on using a pond pump to pump water to an old bathtub or 2 which will be my sump. and will be stocking the tank with crabs, shrimp, anenome's, snails, limpits, shellfish, little sprats, seaweed and maybe a baby cray from the seahorse farm. the tank will be in a sunroom, so fluro lighting only for viewing at night. once set up and running i plan to convert all air and water pumping to alternate power ie wind and solar power. well thats me. comments welcome, so is critisim, also would like an explanation as to why water has to be cycled so often. i havent found an answer yet and am very curious, and hoping that my good fish experience so far hasnt been only luck. neopole