My coldwater marine tank

[K]

These are some shots of my tank, they are not the best quality but they should give you an idea.

 

[K]

mullet

 

[K]

I caught these pouting while fishing, and you can see some corkling wrasse and sea urchins in the background

 

[K]

Finally can you spot the flounder

 

[ricky1414]

What temp are you running at? Is it hard to maintaing stable water parameters with the tank out of doors?

 

[keethrax]

Very, very neat. Can you give us more details?

 

[K]

Yeah the temp and the algae are the main problems with having it outdoors, but then there was no chance of getting permission to bring it inside the house. Temperature wise, a stable 12-14 degrees Celsius,( i dont know Fahrenheit) would be ideal. as it is it goes from a low of about 5C in winter to maybe 18/19C in summer. Thankfully most of the fish are adapted to live in rockpools, and so are used to varying temperatures. I was tempted to get a heater last winter but could not face increasing my electricity bill.
Being outside algae is a problem despite using shading and an army of urchins and hermit crabs.
The main tank(6by6by2feet) is filtered by air powered undergravel filters with(coral sand) plus some living rock and a pump for circulation. water is also pumped from it up to the two white containers(4by4by4feet) where the inflowing water is filtered through bioballs in one and layers of coral sand, sponges and pebbles(which provide refuge to a booming population of sandhoppers, which provide a source of Live Food) in the other. As well there is a small Berlin skimmer in one tank.

 

[ricky1414]

Very nice setup K. Have you ever thought about setting up a greenhouse to help deal with some of nature's encroachment on your tank?

 

[K]

Never thought of a greenhouse. Are you talking just generally be cause I reckon it might increase the chance of overheating in the summer. Mind you it would be nice to be able to fit proper lights

 

[Anonymous]

Very nice!!!!!!!

Wouldn't the algae problems be much reduced with macros or marine plants? A simple in-pond refugium shold protect them.

 

[K]

Like the idea beaslbob , when I started the tank, some seaweed grew naturally but then algae over ran it, killing it off. Might give it another go but with a good bit of seaweed, enough to give it time to get working, because the idea definitely makes sense. One thing though is that with other tanks I found that some of the seaweed give off toxic slime , with disastrous results for the fish... will let yis know how it goes

 

[Baianotang]

Very nice use of 1970´s tecnology.

 

[Anonymous]

K:

I know you don't worry about using such old obsolete technology. If you are like me you just continue doing what works.

Besides, the environmental engineers are discovering than macro algaes and plant life are more efficient in cleaning up water that man made filtration devices. So using plant life and letting the system seek it's own level, is 2004 technology.

 

[K]

Have to admit I was a bit worried at first when I heard undergravels getting slagged off, but however they are performing the tank is still fine and Id say that filtration is helped by the amount of algae that grows because of the sunlight.