Gannet Posted January 4, 2007 Report Share Posted January 4, 2007 to make a salt water rock pool? i have a tank that is 1.1m long x.85 x wide x .50 high its just sitting in a mates garrage but thourgt i maybe able to turn it into a rock pool one day Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wasp Posted January 4, 2007 Report Share Posted January 4, 2007 As algae may not be such an issue as in a tank, you may be able to get away with just liverock and a quality UV unit to keep the water clear. Although I may be wrong others may have some different ideas. In an out door situation you could have many types of soft corals growing in it with no supplementary lighting. You will also need a pump to provide some water movement, and would need to do about 25% water change monthly, plus top up evaporation with fresh water. BTW the above regimen will not be enough if you want to look at it through the glass there will eventually be too much algae. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gannet Posted January 4, 2007 Author Report Share Posted January 4, 2007 it will have to wait till i get my own house, but it would probly be inside looking through glass, i was thinkn a cross section of a rock pool, with a few shrimps, crabs, shelf fish, small fish etc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wasp Posted January 4, 2007 Report Share Posted January 4, 2007 Oh I see, thought it was going to be buried in the ground or something. In that case, for me anyway, I would go with rocks from a rockpool complete with the various life forms, and some of the porous coral rock that marine tank keepers use, to house the bacteria to do the filtration. The two main issues are keeping it cool and keeping it clean. If you can afford a protein skimmer this will go a long way towards removing nutrients from the water that would eventually lead to algae cluttering up the tank. What lighting you need will be detirmined by what plants you want to grow, some of them are designed for bright sunlight & will need strong lighting. Years ago I had a rock pool tank for, i think, around 2 years. Just about any living creature you find in a rock pool will do well in a rock pool tank, long as you find out what they eat & provide it, keep the tank cool, and keep it clean. There is a myth that because rock pools sometimes warm up in the sun and the occupants survive this, that it must be OK to keep a rock pool tank at warm temperatures. Not so, some of the inhabitants cannot handle high temperatures over long periods of weeks or months. The temperature should be kept below 20 most of the time, and better around 16. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gannet Posted January 4, 2007 Author Report Share Posted January 4, 2007 could you do a tropical rock pool? as a chiller would just be way to much for me Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ira Posted January 4, 2007 Report Share Posted January 4, 2007 I think what you spend on a chiller would be more than saved on the cost of free local livestock. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
evilknieval69 Posted January 4, 2007 Report Share Posted January 4, 2007 a tropical rock pool... WTF?!?!?! lol. what do you mean by that? as in a tropical tnak is the shape/theme of a rockpool? If you cant afford a chiller for a coldwater tank, dont even think about going tropical marine mate. Trust me, been there done that. budget 3K at least for a tropical marine Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cookie extreme Posted January 4, 2007 Report Share Posted January 4, 2007 my 5 year old son has a rockpool under the house. its an old 4 footer with rocks and water in it. he put some local shrimps and snails in a while ago and i figured they would die but i was wrong. they living happly in the tank so we put a local fish which was caught in the rockpools too, even he is alive and growing. the tank gets very little light coming thru a few caps otherwise its pretty dark (and cold) so no algae problem. and my son is very proud and happy that he is able to keep saltwater shrimps and fish alive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joze Posted January 4, 2007 Report Share Posted January 4, 2007 seasonal water temperature is pretty close to sea water temperature in the Auckland region. Currently its somewhere around 18 degrees in the Hauraki gulf (thats an estimation - if you want the actual temp I will get the gulf current temp tomorrow). Over winter it barely drops below 15 degrees. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davidb Posted January 4, 2007 Report Share Posted January 4, 2007 have you seen our rockpool at the museum? its the one with the glass lid you walk over and you can look down into it... at the moment we have two crays and maybe 15 or so crabs. I probarbly wouldn't go for crays or crabs in a tank your size as they are both mean buggers- they allways attack each other at feeding times. um we have ours set up with a trickle filter (wool, bio, wool) and we of course have a chiller so the tank sits at about 19 degrees. we did have a skimmer in there too when the tank was being established, howver all the tanks at the museum are skimmerless now... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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