I recently set up a 5.5g rimless AGA with hand collected flora and fauna from a South Florida tide pool . This is predominantly a macroalgae system with a crap ton of invertebrates (and one little blenny fish).

JBJ Picotope 9w 50/50 Light - Going to upgrade this when money permits.
Cascade 150 Power Filter - was on clearance for $9.99.

Soon to have a NanoMag, Hydor Theo 50w Heater, and a new light.

Macro algaes - will have to get them ID'd as I get better pictures of them.

Goby - Ctenogobius boleosoma

Dozens of snails - limpets, little tiny cerith snails, nerites, a BIG Turbo with awesome macro on his shell, predatory whelks, and probably other sorts in there as well

Dozens of hermit crabs - red and blue legged - various sizes - one big man, probably 1/4 of the size of my big turbo snail

Spotted Sea Hare - little guy - this tank was set up around him

Crabs - little sand crabs, some crazy rock crab thing, crabs covered in macro

Nudibranches - look like hair algae caterpillars - I had at least two. Not sure if they've made it into the tank yet or are still waiting to be sorted in the bucket.

Starfish - little brittle or serpent stars.

Dozens of Micro Sea Urchins

Red compound tunicate with purple dots.

White mass: Sponge? It's smooth

Pods Pods Pods! All sorts - lots of little critters scurrying about. Most life I've ever seen.

taken with my iPhone. Will take better pictures in time.

the anenome thing looks like a thomas mushroom.

TATS awesome u collected all this stuff from a tide pool!!! awesome. i would find a different method of filtration tho, ur prob better off with a hang on back. unless thats what u have

The Cascade is a HOB. Just attached it, so it hasn't had much time to clear the water.

I eventually want to turn this into a 10g SAIO.


Do you have any pictures? It's somewhere between a RBTA and a sponge in appearance.

Overcollected=wrong
Setting up bigger tank or another tank for said items=RIGHT

Going to put them to use, no worries. I could easily put what I have left in my tank, but I didn't want it to be cluttered. Likely going to set up a 2.5 AGA for my bedroom or use some of the macro for my fuge when I drill my picotope.

It's mostly stray macro and hermit crabs that fell out when I was picking the choice pieces.

Red growth on rock appears to be a tunicate, I think.

sooo awesomeeeeeeee

I am completely amazed by this tank. I can't wait to get some high quality photos for you guys

i dig it.

Wow! very nice

Slightly better pictures! Blurry, but the best I can do for now. Click for full size

Tunicate?


Big Turbo (?) Snail with his macro algae hat and urchin friend.


FTS


From above-ish


Butters, the Spotted Sea Hare, munching on some red macro


Smooth, white growth on rock.


Macro in the corner


FTS


The fiber wrapped around the intake is to keep the sea hare from getting injured. It also works as a prefilter and keeps the bits of macro out.

I like the tank....lots of Macro is coooool

Anyone have any resources for identifying macro algae and other critters? I'm trying to figure out exactly what everything is.

this tank is sweet!

and yes, that is some type of compound tunicate.

My reccomendation?

PM johnmaloney. Or Mr.Fosi.

Awesome tank, I do believe the white growth is a sponge.

awesome! 2 thumbs up.

Very nice macroalgae tank.

That is awesome! A little free collection time goes in a big way.

So it turns out my blenny is not a blenny! After digging around fishbase, I've discovered that it's a darter goby.

I really want to set this tank up properly as a Rimless 10g AIO.

The Sea Hare has carved through all of the red macro algae in the tank. It's appetite is insatiable. I hope it starts eating on the other types or he might be going back to the tidepool.

get some florida ricordia

That is a very natural looking aquarium my friend!

Looks good. +1 johnmaloney for help on the macro and most everything else.

The tank is in relative shambles compared to how it looked originally. The sea hare was more insatiable than I thought. It ate all of the pretty red algae I had. The thinner hair looking algae never took hold under the poor lighting. Tank is still running, with only the various Caulerpa sp. growing and spreading. I'm still finding new stuff in there every day. New crabs, starfish, snails, etc.

Going to set this up as a 10g SAIO with DIY 70w MH. Hopefully I can start that project in the next few weeks. Going to either see if a local reefer needs the sea hare or return him back to his tide pool (which should be fine since everything in the tank, including the water, is from the same spot).

Dude, I am sooooooo jealous...

BTW, where did you get the rimless AGA?

Thanks...

Just took off the plastic rim. Took about an hour from start to finish (cleaning all the silicone off).

Hmmm... If only I lived by the ocean so I could just take stuff too...

Did I ever send the ids in that pm sword? Codium, sargassum, laurencia, and dictyota and caulerpa cuspressoides var lycopodium. Spotted sea hare will need another 80 gallons though in the long run, maybe time to trade him in. Get almost to the size of a pee wee league football.

Yeah - he could probably eat a football field of macro in a sitting too. I've got a couple of small ones in my holding tank too. They're tiny - only about 1cm long. Maybe next Sunday I'll travel back down to South FL.

they grow pretty fast. get ready for them, the little guys will be 5 inches by the end of next month. romaine lettuce is cheap...better get on it otherwise they take up too much time to keep them in a nano. They take about 4 months to get full sized though, they will probably fit in the a 40 g tank for 10 weeks at least, then you have to get them in something bigger. Full sized sea hares, probably a 60 gallon dedicated to each of them. or mAybe could keep like 6 in a 150 dedicated to them. Sponge your intakes.

Not really worth all of the effort, at least right now. I love how they look but I don't think I have the time/resources to provide them with the diet they deserve.

Thanks for the help, John!

Anything else, aside from the Seaweed Blenny, that I should look for next time?

A couple of new pictures! Got a new camera yesterday - still trying to figure out some of the settings


Tunicate, which seems to either be dying or shedding?


Biggest hermit crab.

Very, very cool!

BTW, just where did you get that stuff?

My Sea Hare has gone missing!

Still no sign of the Sea Hare. Butters must have climbed out and got lost in my apartment. Bummer.

Here's the carnage. These are the remains of my pretty macro tank.


FTS


What's left of the Tunicate

But there's still plenty of life!

Little bit of macro starting to grow in. A little rock anemone has popped up.


Some sort of little shrimp-like pod. Any idea what he could be? He's walled himself in on the glass. Maybe 3mm in length.

a big amphripod

I made a visit down to the beach again. The recent storms in the area have caused rough seas and the beach and surf was littered with macroalgaes. I picked up a few different varieties that I will take pictures of, once they are in the tank.

My sea hare is still missing and presumed dead. He may have managed to crawl out or was eaten by a herd of hungry crabs. So long, Butters.

I've started working on the upgrade: a 10g SAIO. I cut the teeth into the lexan and will be buying a powerhead tomorrow. I should have it up and running soon enough. I think I'm going to do a DIY 70w MH fixture. It seems to be the cheapest route for the most light. Any other ideas on how to light a 10g macroalgae display tank?

Looking like this is going to end up as a 15g XH (standard 10g footprint, just taller) if I can score a 150w Sunpod. Going to go filterless ala Dapellegrini's 5.5. I hope I can get this up and running soon.

that one larger snail is a whelk. bad guy, you might want to get him.

The big snail is a whelk? I have two or three smaller whelks (of different shape) that have destroyed my limpets. I thought he was a friendly turbo-type snail.

I've painted my 15g and have put water in it. It's going to run two Koralia Nano powerheads on opposing sides. No other form of filtration or water movement. Put in the payment for my 150w Sunpod. Excited to get that soon. In the meantime, I've rigged a 300w Halogen security lamp. Not sure how it's going to work out yet.

Nothing in the tank yet. Will likely move everything over tomorrow.

Moved 95% of my 5.5's inhabitants into the 15g. Hopefully the 300w Halogen will keep my new macroalgae alive until the Sunpod gets here.

The 300w Halogen was putting off a troubling amount of heat (and it was practically orange @ 3000K) so I opted for three 26w (100w equivalent) Spiral CFLs in clamp on fixtures. Looks tacky but should hopefully keep things alive until the Sunpod gets here.

Starting a new thread for my 15g.

View that thread here

Where in florida is the tide pool? What are the laws about collecting thing from the ocean? I live in south florida and would like to do something like this soon.