here are some pictures of my tank


It is a temperate tank, no heater or chiller. All the rock work is made from foam and epoxy.
its a 450mm cube that holds 10ltrs of water in the tank and another 20ltrs in a sump.

here are some pics of the creatures-








they are all collected from the wild, and most have been in there for about 21 months

that's pretty awesome. what's your location?

+1 how did you make that thing dude?! its complete AWESOMENESS.

WOW! Did you make that yourself? Do you have any pictures of it while it was under construction?

ta, location is auckland nz


yeah there is a long drawn out build thread here http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=136377 it goes through a big makeover to get where it is now - near the end of the thread.
I learnt a lot from lano-reef on how to maintain a tiny amount of saltwater.

+1

wow...simply wow.

Your tank is just amazing! Very unique and excellent craftsmanship. Well done.

cool!

thats off the meat rack...how u got them crabs to chill up on the rocks lik dat

This tank is so awesome! i cant even describe its awesomeness!

That is absolutely STUNNING! I attempted to do this with my cracked 10 gal but failed miserably. I really love the rock-work, it is very original GREAT work. Stumbled by the way

I dont know if you tanks would qualify for tank of the month but sure would be nice to see something different.

Neato. Nice shore crabs and porcelain crabs!

TOTM

+10! This has to be one of the most unique and awesome biotopes i have ever ever seen!!!It belongs in an aquarium. Unbelievable job!!!

thanks for the kind words

You definitely deserve it. Superb job, absolutely amazing and I would love to see this a TOTM as well.

to Nano-Reef and on behalf of everyone else here, I demand more pics!!!....please

One of the coolest tanks I've seen. Have you ID'ed all the species of whats in there? You should put up an inventory of livestock and hardware. I know I'm not the only one who wants to know what your using to make that thing rock!

ta, its kind of hard to id the creatures because they are mostly unglamorous little things that live in mangrove forests and rubble.
There are 4 juvie Leptograpsus variegatus, 3 pistol shrimp, 2 glass shrimp, 2 porcelain crabs, 3 hermit crabs, 2 snails, a mud anemone, a cushion star and about 6 shore crabs of unknown id.

as far as hardware goes it is very minimalistic.. and kind of ghetto- there is a small pump from an old water feature in the sump, which is just a big interchangeable bucket that has lumps of diy liverock in it for filtration.

the overflow is made from a juice jug, the plumbing is irrigation pipe and fittings.


the lighting is two cfl's in a diy hood made from mdf and a couple of $8 desk lamps.


it used to look a lot different. it started as a more unusual biotope, but it turned out to be too high maintenance.

top left is the earliest pic. I liked the green mossy look but got sick of the constant misting and cleaning.

I cant get enough of this tank! Awesome JOB!!!

I'm even more impressed now that I see how you MacGyvered it together like that. Not only did you design and build an exceptionally beautiful and interesting tank, but you had so much extra ingenuity laying around that you had no need for something so mudane as money.

As you kiwi's say, "good on you!"

This really needs to be TOTM!! It is one of the coolest tanks ever!

I'm very impressed with your tank. +1 for outstanding aquarium design.

Hot




























Damn

not bad

wow, i like some of the other setups, but they are all nice...very nice...

wow man... thats really creative of you and it looks AWESOME!! i hope all works out well for you

Ta, I put a lot of time into the planning. I even made a little scale model to help figure out how to make it-




thats very kind, but its not in the same league as a tropical reef aquarium, I can only dream of having one of those

this is awesome...I love it.

Amazing! I think I could count on one hand how many saltwater paludariums (cross between terrarium and aquarium) I've known.

Ill trade you info for info

Any new updates?

the crabs are growing fast! they are always hungry and have started waving at me with their claws for food


I'll have to make a bigger tank one day as they grow into monsters as bag as a mans hand
this is still the monster in the tank though...

That is absolutely fantastic! Great work and very inspirational. It is great to see something different like this. Good job on the build!

-Prof

Awesome.... just awesome

Its a good setup for a beginner like me because the creatures are so hardy- hardier than tidepool animals.

Awesome!! I think this is def a TOTM and a very inspirational tank

The first picture of the crab is phenomenal.

Do you have some kind of wave maker, cause that would be awesome.

When I first made the tank I based it off the local inner-harbour shore where the forest hangs over the water and mosses and ferns grow just above the high tide mark. It was pretty challenging keeping the salt water off of the moss even without a wave maker.
I had it about a year like this until I changed the land to a rocky shore.


It would be cool to have a tidal system though, and I the next tank I make will have one for sure..

Your tank is jaw-drop-amazing.
What caused you to decide to convert from moss to rocy shore? Did you just want to change things up to keep from getting bored?

Absolutely brilliant! I loved reading through your build process on Aquaria Central. I hope you'll always keep us updated on its progress!

two reasons- I got tired of changing the water and cleaning the pump every week, and the planted background wasn't suitable for the purple rock crabs(they would of torn it apart)


Ta. I hope it inspires some people to try something similar, and they could learn from all the mistakes I made.
If I built it again knowing what I do now it would probably take a fraction of the time.

I bet that was part of the fun. Experimenting and tinkering. The results
are stunning. Yes I am inspired.

H

Where is the link to the thread on aquaria central?

!!!

http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=136377

Any updates on the biotope? How's it coming along?

Its going good ta
I took some pictures today of a crab molting

the pics arn't very good quality because the crab popped out of its shell so fast!

the nem split in two


the crabs are getting bigger, a few more molts and they will need a bigger tank

Sorry if I missed the post, if any, but do you (anyone) know what type of crabs any of these are? Very interesting in tracking down these specimens without flying out to NZ myself.