Jump to content
Innovative Marine Aquariums

Aqueon 8 Temperate/Coldwater Marine Tank. Got a Fringehead in here now ;)


AquaticEngineer

Recommended Posts

That tank has a very airy, psychedelic and effervescing look to it. I can't explain it. It's incredible though. Love post 40, the full tank shot.

Link to comment
  • Replies 143
  • Created
  • Last Reply
AquaticEngineer

Thanks :D

 

I had a couple of the painted anemones melt on me, so the tank had a bacterial bloom and is clouded up a bit. Once that clears up I'm gonna get some of the new livestock into this tank and get some new pics up.

 

The Navanax is still eating like a pig and laying eggs. I put a couple of Red Moon Snails in today to help with the diatoms and a few more small purple shore crabs to eat up any excess food and such.

 

The Red Rock crab (itty bitty white one) is not so small any more after a couple molts, lol. He's about 1.75" across his carapace and is keeping my sand bed nice and stirred.

 

I did the divided filtration chamber mod on this tank and I've been using filter floss along with carbon and GFO. Water changes every other week, but I'm ordering some chemipure and a surface skimmer box here shortly. Going to also transfer some base rock that has been in my other coldwater tank for several years and drop it in the filter to see if it helps on this small a scale.

Link to comment
Mr. Microscope

Wow! Just found your tank thread. What a beautiful array of livestock you have in there. I'm looking forward to seeing the gobies. With all the livestock in there, how do you keep nutrients down to safe levels. This is eight gallons?

Link to comment
AquaticEngineer

Wow! Just found your tank thread. What a beautiful array of livestock you have in there. I'm looking forward to seeing the gobies. With all the livestock in there, how do you keep nutrients down to safe levels. This is eight gallons?

Mostly just water changes and chemical filtration. Working on increasing the biological a bit by adding some base rock that has been in a 3 year old coldwater tank. I may look into a skimmer, but I'm going to keep it to just a couple fish in the future and focus a lot on the inverts which is what I really love to collect anyways :)

 

Wow, awesome, and unique tank!

Thanks :D With Micro-Reefs going full blast at the coldwater AIO it may not be that unique for very long :lol: Which is quite ok with me :D

Link to comment
Micro-Reefs Aquariums

It's a lot of dedication and hard work and precision to making an affordable beautiful temperate tank designed by both Stu and me.

 

Trust me, it will be nice! Patience is key as I move forward with this build!

 

I just wish I still had my 6 gallon temperate system, I miss it a lot! :(

Link to comment
Blubbernaut

You have a sand dab? How did you get it? Don't be too surprised if the tank mysteriously disappears one night, though.

Link to comment
AquaticEngineer

the peeps at lionfishlair would love these

 

Thats one of the first places I posted them, and honestly the only reason I had been looking for them was because they had me looking for a bunch of temperate water lionfish and scorpionfish already and I found a source for these guys.

 

Luckily I get to cherry pick for my nano first :)

 

I put they tiniest one that was eating into my tank today finally............and he is now well hidden somewhere. So as soon as I see him again I will update with pictures. But until then, heres a couple of the picks I had of the livestock for my own tank prior to going in.

 

c25fec46-455a-4576-b3b5-2fd649ea209e_zps

 

54223191-4874-4228-bd90-add114e9e7fd_zps

Link to comment
AquaticEngineer

Thanks :) Now I just need to convince my neighbor to sell me his 72"x24"x36" tank thats made of 3/4" acrylic he's had for years sitting in his garage and I can really get coldwater crazy again fingerscrossed It needs to be buffed out but I've wanted that tank since I moved out here 3 years ago so I can plumb it into my holding system but through the garage wall.

Link to comment
AquaticEngineer

Brought home a few Mussel / Barnacle clusters that had 3-4 kinds of algae growing on them along with the mussels, gooseneck barnacles and acorn barnacles. The one I put into my tank is a single 3" mussel completely encrusted on both sides of its shell with both kinds of barnacles and then algae on top. Its kinda like a mussel sunday :D

 

Turns out that was what I needed to clear up the tank. Water is getting back to crystal clear again and the algae is starting to take off. Mussels are adhering in place with threads and I brought home a half dozen quarter sized Green Anemones as well.

 

Temps in the house have been close to 75-80 recently and the tank has been up creeping up in temp. Got as high as 71 yesterday in the tank. Right now the tank is at 68 and all inhabitants are looking good :)

 

Navanax is cruising, Fluffy sculpins are chasing eachother, anemones are open, barnacles are open, only thing that shows a decline in the higher temps is the Corynactis (which I expected, since its found much deeper)

 

Still haven't seen the Scorpionfish though since put him in there :(

Link to comment
  • 1 month later...

Do you have any problem with condensation? I would like to set up a temperate tank but 2 gallons is just a little to small and I really don't care for acrylic.

Link to comment
AquaticEngineer

Do you have any problem with condensation? I would like to set up a temperate tank but 2 gallons is just a little to small and I really don't care for acrylic.

No problems with this tank, I try to keep my house around 71F during the summer, and the tank is sitting about65F or so. So in those temp ranges I would need to have humidity inside be over 75% before condensation would develop. I'm specifically only keeping sub-tropical and inter tidal species in this tank now because it fluctuates up as high as 68 sometimes and my deeper water and true temperate species just cant handle it.

 

So right now the tank has

2 Catalina Gobies,

2 Zebra Gobies,

Blackeye Gobie,

2 Saddleback Gunnels,

Beadlet Anemones,

European Strawberry Anemones (Actinia Fragacea),

3 Sand Dollars,

lots of micro hermits,

2 Jeweled Topsnails,

3 Black Turban Snails,

Small Bat Star,

2 Lyre Crabs,

1 Cryptic Decorator crab,

Purple Sea Urchin,

Acorn Barnacles,

and some misc algaes.

Link to comment

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recommended Discussions


×
×
  • Create New...