Rockpool biotope

[dreadfish]

been going allong with my 40 gal for about 2 years or so now , and (probably due to countless display i make at work at lfs) im bored with coral reefs, my true marine love is crabs stuff, thing you find in rockpools, i spend my time at local rockpool areas searching for hidden nudi's and dogwelks, porcelain crabs etc ( the uk species that is) so at first i thought buy a chiller..coldwater marine rockpool brill, but they aint very colourful over here in england, so i was wondering (after that epic waffle) what tropical species originate from rock pool i was thinkin of stocking the tank with, various anenomes, macro algaes, peppermint shrimps, dancing shrimps, emerald crabs, decorators, pom pom crabs arrow crabs, gobies blennies astrea snails and hermits...any other suggestions?

[rev138]

any other suggestions?

 

Sea stars?

[irishtexan]

This is going to be a sweet tank! Yeah do alot of anemones that would be cool. And I agree, a starfish too.

 

 

Good Luck!

-texx

[dreadfish]

aah forget em, how bout some urchins too, i know they aint really rockpool but a shrimp/goby pair might be cool

[irishtexan]

Yeah that would be cool. So is it going to be 40 Gallons?

[dreadfish]

yer i fink its somewhere round there, unfortunatly its gonna still have my purple firefish and black clown, and wheelers goby (dont mind him tho) but ill excuse them on artistic license lol, im plainning on gettin some of those 3d rock background sheets and building em round in a semi circle which means i can hide my protein skimmer and filtr box...but ill have to cut some grills or sumat into the backgorund and hide em in rocks for circulation if that makes sense lol

i get paid on the 27th 28th so ill probs get the backgrounds then and post sum pics....oh and im gonna go with black gravel cos i fick its cool lol

[rackfokus]

What about some sally lightfoot crabs?

[formerly icyuodd/icyoud2]

i saw a really cool aquarium while up north last week.

 

it was 3'x2'x1. all the rock had been cut with a saw so the back was flat and pushed right up to the aquarium walls. alot of the rock work stuck out of the water. the only pain of glass you could see though was the front of the aquarium. the rocks that came up to the front pain where also cut flat and pushed right up to the front pain. it was a fresh water aquarium, but it gave the effect of a cut away tide pool (like somebody chopped the tide pool in 1/2 and threw up a pain of glass.

 

some of the rocks had holes in them, a so there were other little windows to look through. once in a while you'd see fish peering out of the small holes. spectacular.

 

lit with a 400halide a good 4 feet above the aquarium so it could be easily viewed from the top.

 

anyway, your thread made me think of the aquarium. thought it might give you some idea's

[dreadfish]

that sound wicked...thats sort of the effect im going to try n go for but with rock backing rather than rocks...hopefully it will seed with macro's n stuff to make it look more natural

[dreadfish]

right today im gonna siphon all my sand out from my tank...ready for black sand...and organise the frags ready for moving

[ezcompany]

right today im gonna siphon all my sand out from my tank...ready for black sand...and organise the frags ready for moving

 

i think the pleasing things about rockpools is the curiosity of not knowing what you will find in each pool. if you got bored of your coral tank, eventually you will get bored with your contained rockpool tank

[irishtexan]

^^true.

 

Or you could use pond foam too and put that on 3 sides of tank and even the bottom.

[dreadfish]

true , but i think that lots of the the crabs and stuff that arent reef safe hide alot so there allways something different out if you see wat i mean?

[chrisdamage]

check out this book... Reef Secrets Its got an entire section on rockpool biotopes... plus tons of other cool stuff

[dreadfish]

cool thanks

[Raindogg]

I was in Hawaii a few years ago and spent a fair amount of time poking around the rockpools there. Black lava stone substrate...I saw no anemones but there was a fair amount of bright great hair algae, lots of blennies, sally lightfoot crabs, and small snails eating the algae.