Lucid Posted July 5, 2004 Report Share Posted July 5, 2004 Am looking at the possibility of a cold water marine tank, but was wondering what sort of equipment i would need, bearing in mind money is a problem as there is not enough of it in my bank account. Also how often would i have to change the water to stop if going off/stagnant? do i need to do anything special. I would look at raiding a rock pool if it is legal and having crabs?, shrimp, anenome and small fish, is it possible. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caryl Posted July 5, 2004 Report Share Posted July 5, 2004 We had a 3ft tank. We visited some rockpools down the Kaikoura coast and filled containers with rocks, water, and critters. Took them home, arranged all in the tank, added an AquaClear and that was it. Didn't do anything else to it. It occasionally got more sea water added to replace microscopic nibbles and we added sea lettuce every so often. We had shrimps, crabs, triplefins, starfishes of various sorts, a sea cucumber, anemones and an octopus (until he played Houdini and was found dried out on the carpet the next morning). We had to dismantle it though after a couple of years as we had trouble keeping it cool in summer. The room sat at 28 - 32C and they need to be 15C or lower. A chiller was required but we didn't have the $1,000 to buy one. All sorts of things were tried from running water through a chillybin type chiller to dropping frozen bottles of water in it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neopole Posted July 6, 2004 Report Share Posted July 6, 2004 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 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[email protected] Posted July 8, 2004 Report Share Posted July 8, 2004 Hi Ballistic We've just started up a cold water marine tank, and we've got no money either. My 6 yr old son and I live very close to rockpools in New Plymouth and recently discovered a wide colour range of sea anemones and thought we'd like set up an invertebrate tank - but only if we could do it on a limited budget. Mum gave us a small 2ft tank and a pump (Shark). We came into a bit of money and bought a second-hand light for the top. Its all set up now, and its really beautiful. We've got tube-worms - you know those royal blue feather-duster things that all pop back into their white curly tubes immediately they get disturbed. We've got anemones in orange, purple, pink, white and brownish. Plus red strawberry anemones. We've got about 4 hermit crabs who are so cute - they have blue knees. We have 2 shrimps. Even a small paua - who the other day swivelled himself around violently and really raced up to the top of his rock (to escape a starfish I think). We have a deep blue cushion star, a reef star, and another kind of starfish. The starfish can really motor around the glass - they're amazing to watch. I don't know how they decide which tentacles to move to go in their intended direction. We also have a chiton, limpets and quite a few sea snails. From what I've read of the replies to your original message, it appears we might be changing our water too often. We change about 20% of it every 2-3 days (the tank has only been set up for about 2 weeks). But its just that we tested it for ammonia and got the highest reading possible - 8 ppm (dark green). But everything seems OK in the tank. We've put some rocks in there directly from rockpools which have various types of sea-weed growing on them. We feed the anemones bits of shrimp on the end of a skewer - its fun watching them get it. And the hermit crabs really snatch. No table manners at all. The tank is quite well filtered I think. The Shark pump is quite strong and is probably intended for a bigger tank. But I've done HEAPS of reading about cold water marine and have read that anemones like well filtered water. So I bought a small cheap pump of Trademe and a new $8 corner filter which uses carbon, and put that in the other corner as well. We just LOVE our aquarium, and still have more inhabitants we watch to add to it. We're on the lookout for a camouflage crab and bristle star - both of which we've seen at Back Beach before. Does anyone know if nudibranches are ever found in rockpools. I don't think anyone would mind us taking these few creatures simply because we only take them once. Its not as if we're eating them or anything. Anyway good luck Ballistic Hope you get some mroe replies so I can read them and learn more too. Frances Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caryl Posted July 8, 2004 Report Share Posted July 8, 2004 They are great aren't they? I hope you realise it is illegal to take undersize paua . It doesn't matter whether you plan to eat them or not. Keep an eye on it in summer as they do not cope with warmer temperatures at all and if it dies out of sight, or you don't notice for a couple of hours, it will foul the tank very quickly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
livebearer_breeder Posted July 18, 2004 Report Share Posted July 18, 2004 how do you keep the water salted? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan Posted July 18, 2004 Report Share Posted July 18, 2004 With a salt-shaker Alan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chimera Posted July 18, 2004 Report Share Posted July 18, 2004 keep water "salted" by doing water changes with real sea water, change evaporated water with freshwater. miss_muffit - if ammonia is 8ppm, everything would be dead or would be starting to die! try another test kit (and make sure you're not testing with a freshwater test kit). if it is actually high, your tank is overstocked - get a bigger tank or send some critters back to the ocean. what filtration do you have? have you tested the water you are actually changing? change about 75% of the water now rather than a little bit if its that high. once you've sussed out the ammonia problem, cure whats causing it (too much feeding perhaps? overstocking?) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[email protected] Posted July 18, 2004 Report Share Posted July 18, 2004 Hi Chimera Thanks for that message. I put some stuff called Ammo Carb in one of the filters, and the instructions said it converts ammonia to something non-toxic, but that I would still get a high Ammonia reading. The tank probably is overstocked though - every time we come back from rockpooling we have a new occupant or two. But I see anemones jam-packed next to each other in their natural environment in the rock pools. Yesterday we discovered heaps and heaps of brittle stars, because the tide was further out than usual and we've never been out that far before. And we do like feeding them - especially the anemones and hermit crabs. I've been replacing about one third of the water with real sea water every 3-4 days. Its no hassle - we live near the sea, and I'm getting a very strong arm from carrying the container up the rocks ! I would LOVE a bigger tank though. We've got heaps of different species in this one. Everything seems to be flourishing though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
livebearer_breeder Posted July 18, 2004 Report Share Posted July 18, 2004 Im Quite interested in haveing my own coldwater marine setup but live no where near a beach or sea water, how would i go about keeping the water salted and what would be involved in looking after the kritters? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ira Posted July 18, 2004 Report Share Posted July 18, 2004 To begin with, there's no such thing as "Keeping the water salted" any more than keeping the water wet with FW. The problem is more keeping the water from getting too salty. If you don't want to drive to get water, everyone I know in the wellington area does, you'll have to buy bags of salt. They're something like $50 for enough salt to make 200 liters. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chimera Posted July 18, 2004 Report Share Posted July 18, 2004 ha ha haaa! thats the hard part, keeping the water wet, nice call. if you want salt water, get something like instant ocean - artificial sea water. you'll probably need a reverse osmosis or deionisation filter (or both) to "purify" your tap water and mix the ASW (artificial sea water) with. Probably not necessary to do as many water changes as something like a reef tank but this obviously depends on what you're keeping in your tank. As Ira says, ASW is not cheap and can add up. Last I looked you could buy a bag of ASW that mixes 120 litres for about $30. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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