andyman98 Posted September 29, 2005 Report Share Posted September 29, 2005 hi all,im thinking about starting a cold water marine tank as i spend most my time on weekends diving and spearfishin(not at same time tho lol) and would love to look after some nudibranchs,leatherjackets blennies for a while because they're cool to look at,what would i need and how much would it cost also what kind of work would i need to do to keep it running etc,also would it be able to be clean enough to store crayfish in for a while?cheers also what species have people kept before if you've done this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anthony Posted September 29, 2005 Report Share Posted September 29, 2005 hey andy i kept a cold water marine really really interesting the main thing you want is a skimmer a decent one i kept anemones small blennies crabs snails allsorts it was so awersom i had to release it back to the sea cos i broke the tank Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Gunner Posted September 29, 2005 Report Share Posted September 29, 2005 Do you need a chiller to do this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anthony Posted September 29, 2005 Report Share Posted September 29, 2005 no i didnt use one Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jacob.belcher Posted October 5, 2005 Report Share Posted October 5, 2005 Hi there Andy, I have a NZ native marine tank setup, I keep Crays, Small Rock Cod, Sprats, etc... my understanding is that the water temp must not exceed 19 degrees. So a chillier during the warmer months is a must, I have been experimenting with DIY chillers with some success. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PENEJANE Posted October 13, 2005 Report Share Posted October 13, 2005 I would like to know what is the basic equipment that would be required to do a basic 2ft tank. Husband seems interested in the idea. Also how much more difficult is it to maintain compared to a freshwater tank? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wasp Posted October 13, 2005 Report Share Posted October 13, 2005 Hi Penejane, you'll need maybe 6 kg liverock, the amount can vary depending what livestock etc. you'll have. It is the bacteria in the liverock, which is porous, that do the filtration. You don't use a cannister or hangon for biological filtration like you do in a fresh water tank. You'll need a skimmer, you can get some small cheaper ones, although the ultimate for you would be something like a Deltec 600 hangon. cost maybe $1,000.00. It will be big enough to handle a bigger tank if you upgrade to a bigger tank ( nearly everybody does ). You need powerheads to create current in the tank, enough to turn over the entire water volume of the tank a minimum of 10 x per hour. Marine grade lighting, 1 watt of light per litre of water is a rough starting point. Something to keep phosphate levels in check, a cannister or hang on filter with some phosphate removing resin in it may be the simplest. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caryl Posted October 13, 2005 Report Share Posted October 13, 2005 We had a cold water marine and it was fascinating. All we did was got a 3ft tank then took containers down the Kaikoura coast and gathered up some rocks, sand and critters, took it all home and arranged it in the tank. We used an AquaClear filter. That's all. No fancy equipment or anything. Hardly ever fed the inhabitants but they all seemed to grow and some reproduced. Every few weeks we would top it up with fresh sea water and add sea lettuce. Lots of edible greeblies came in the top-up water and lettuce. Our tank had anemones, shrimps, chitons, rockfish, triplefins, sea cucumbers, hermit crabs, various sorts of starfishes and, at one point, an octopus - to name but a few. We tried a paua but the water was too warm. The biggest problem we had (and the only one) was keeping it cool. It really needs to be below 15C, preferably 10C, ours did anyway as the water they came from was that cold. We found constant temperatures above 15C not good and the critters would start to die off. Since the room sits at about 28C during summer, we could not keep it cool enough. We have since bought a chiller so might try again, once I have a tank free. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wasp Posted October 13, 2005 Report Share Posted October 13, 2005 True enough. Guess it depends what the aim is. If the tank is just to last a few months, and a few deaths are not important, non of that fancy equipment is needed. In fact I once had a cold water marine aquarium, it was a Muriwai biotope, had none of that fancy equipment, and was an interesting and pretty tank, the visitors used to like it. But after a few months it began growing excess algae, and I had to put a skimmer on it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PENEJANE Posted October 13, 2005 Report Share Posted October 13, 2005 so Caryl all you did was use a normal filter (and heater if I wanted it heated) in a marine tank? How did you create current or did the filter do that? If its that simple then why do you need skimmers and all this other stuff? BTW how does a chiller work and what does one look like? We are not far from the sea either (just on the other side of town really) so I can get sand,rocks and some crabs,snails and maybe the odd starfish from there? If I can do one like caryls with out all the extras then I will seriously give this a go just need to know more about it. cheers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caryl Posted October 13, 2005 Report Share Posted October 13, 2005 Penejane there is a big difference between the requirements for a TROPICAL marine and keeping a small coldwater rockpool marine. I would never attempt a proper tropical marine but a coldwater rockpool is easy, as long as you can keep the temperature down. Rockpool set-ups do not require the skimmers, powerheads, expensive lighting etc that the tropicals do. Wasp: a few deaths are important. If you are going to take live animals from their natural habitat you should provide them with the best conditions possible. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
misnoma Posted October 13, 2005 Report Share Posted October 13, 2005 If its that simple then why do you need skimmers and all this other stuff? BTW how does a chiller work and what does one look like? It's a somewhat different ballgame between keeping corals etc alive, and keeping fish alive. You can run a fish-only tank without a skimmer, and just using a cannister filter/water changes to keep the nitrates down, but corals/invertibrates have much higher demands on water quality. Idea of a skimmer is to remove waste BEFORE it enters the nitrogen cycle. That's a horribly simplistic view, but you get the picture. Chillers look like a small dehumidifier, have two hoses (in and out) and work like a fridge inside. Budget around $700 for a cheap one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ira Posted October 13, 2005 Report Share Posted October 13, 2005 Yup, you could probably get away with running a tropical tank the same way as long as you just wanta few fish, a few hermit crabs, shrimp, snails, etc. It's the corals that make things more complicated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brianemone Posted October 13, 2005 Report Share Posted October 13, 2005 alot of tropical marine fish are difficult to keep. not just the corals Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wasp Posted October 13, 2005 Report Share Posted October 13, 2005 This discussion does come up every so often, wether to spend lots of money on all that fancy equipment, or not. I have seen so many people go down that road ( the not getting any recommended equipment road ), and almost invariably there are only 2 outcomes. At first things seem to be going fine. At this stage we've seen a few of them on this board, telling people that you can do a tank for about five hundred bucks. Then a few problems start. Then the person either leaves the hobby disillusioned, or starts asking questions about how to solve various issues such as excess algae, livestock deaths, etc and ends up buying the right equipment. In my view anyway, it can save heartbreak, money, and the lives of our critters, to do it right, from the start. This applies to cold water tanks also, I ran my one for two years. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PENEJANE Posted October 13, 2005 Report Share Posted October 13, 2005 I wasn't thinking of keeping corals as such. Just some rocks from down at the beach (riverton rocks for thoes that know southland) with some simple crabs,snails,starfish and the normal little anomies or what ever they are that stick to the rocks. If I was to have fish it would be the simple sprats caught in the bait catcher so no hooks required. I wasn't thinking fish and corals for this tank. Just a little chunk of southlands rock beach in a tank I am guessing that lighting would still be required so for this sort of setup what would I be looking at? what kelvin/colour spectrum and how many watts per ltr? cheers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caryl Posted October 13, 2005 Report Share Posted October 13, 2005 I just had a fluoro on my tank so we could see the inhabitants at night. Be careful removing the anemones as they are easily damaged. Try to find some on a rock you can add to the tank rather than try to remove anemones stuck on a large solid immovable piece Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seth Posted October 13, 2005 Report Share Posted October 13, 2005 Ive got a smallish cold water marine tank that is probably the easyest tank I have to look after out of my tropical fresh water tanks or any thing but i spent a bit of money on it in the first place its been running for about 18 months now with no problems at all I have the main tank decorated with coral rock from the pet store then it runs into a sectioned sump with a small airstone skimmer then into another section filled with coral rock (and breeding ghost shrimp) and then is pumped back into main tank the tank also has a small power head for extra filltration I also added some small peices of live rock from a tropical tank to get the good bacteria started in the rock and yeah I feed every night and do a small 10% water change once a mounth and every thing seams to be fine Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ira Posted October 13, 2005 Report Share Posted October 13, 2005 Most tropical anemones also need heaps of light, I'd imagine those red rockpool anemones will be the same. They just usually slowly starve to death over 6+ months instead of quickly dying. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wasp Posted October 13, 2005 Report Share Posted October 13, 2005 Actually many of our local anemones, such as beadlet, are non photosynthetic. However that in fact makes them more easycare, long as you feed them heaps. My ones were the real colorful Muriwai ones from that rock at the south end. They got up to p[erhaps 6 inches across, and used to regularly split a hole open on their sides, and release large numbers of baby ones. I released these at Milford beach, I go and have a look every now and then some of them are still there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wasp Posted October 13, 2005 Report Share Posted October 13, 2005 Seth it sounds like you got that tank set up exactly right. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seth Posted October 13, 2005 Report Share Posted October 13, 2005 I have four seahorses heaps of hermit crabs and about 4 different blennie type fish nothing has dyed in this tank since I have had it I never considerd our anemones because I dont have a light would they harm my fish sea horses etc do you think ?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PENEJANE Posted October 13, 2005 Report Share Posted October 13, 2005 For a test run I have a small 20ltr tank. Would this be ok for a very small test run to see how things will work? For a filter I was going to add the small stingray type. Or would a small sponge filter work just as well as I have a spare pump. As for anemones I was going to find thoes that are already on loose rock that I can pick up and add to the tank and just the small crabs (smaller than 5 cents) and maybe a couple of snails or small shrimpy thingys lol. It all comes down to what I can find at the time I am down there. So yeah thats my goal for now. If the small tank would be fine then I might consider giving it a go this weekend. Gives me something to do and focus on cheers for all the info Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seth Posted October 13, 2005 Report Share Posted October 13, 2005 Thanks wasp :oops: I like to try and do thigs properly Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caryl Posted October 13, 2005 Report Share Posted October 13, 2005 Go for it PeneJane! The shrimps are the best. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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