New Tank Update

The new lights arrived today. 45 x 10W LEDs in an attractive aluminium panel with lots of switches and fans. All very professional and impressive. I went to LedAquaReef in New Milton, I found them on EBay. Jon delivered them this morning and helped me to install them. I advised him of what I was trying to acheive and he designed the layout as follows:

5 no. red LED

10 no. blue LED

30 no. 6500K white LED

The reds offer light most useful for boosting photosynthesis and the blues balance it out a bit, without the blues its too pink. The overall effect is very natural to look at, although it is perhaps more attractive to a tropical reefkeepers eye with the reds off. All the colours are independantly controlled and additionally the whites offer 3 different switching combinations.

The light panel is easily capable of lighting an SPS coral reef and should prove sufficient to keep extreme shallow water native marine plants as found in south coast rockpools.

I've re-landscaped the tank, using about 300kG of purbeck stone originally purchased about 6 years ago for my 1st native marine tank (which burst!) and languishing in the garden for the last 5 years or so. I jetwashed it clean and placed it at the back and bottom of the tank, replacing my planted rocks above. In a couple of places the bright, almost white, 'new' stone can be seen. I'm keeping a photo diary to document the colonisation of the new rock. It will be interesting to see how quickly and in what order new species colonise it.

Purbeck stone is ideal for my reef. Its the natural rock of the area where I collect, consisting of the skeletons of marine organisms that died millions of years ago, permeable and with great buffering potential it should perform in a similar fashion to coral base rock.

Today I added 25 cockles from Poole Harbour, with the 100 or so mussels I already have in the tank they will perform an active role in filtration. I feed a cube of frozen rotifers a day to the sprat fry, it is hoped that the mollucs will benefit from this as well. I still plan to get an overhead refugium up and going to allow a constant supply of phytoplankton but in the meanwhile I have decided to place a regular order with a company called PhytoReef, they supply live phytoplankton and rotifers by mail order.

Today I found a rather attractive bright orange sponge growing on a rock as well as a possible jewel anemone. I'll keep an eye on it.

The snakelocks anemones have gron much larger - probably on a diet of 2 spot gobies. Although these fish are freqently found in the same place as snakelocks it seems that they are a rather hapless prey. Despite many hours of watching I have yet to see one actually get caught they have become fewer in number at the same time as the anemones have grown substantially larger. Perhaps they are more easily captured at night?

The Goldsinny, at about 7" long is easily the king of the tank. It has well-developed teeth and has been seen chomping on a small shore crab, although it will take krill it is most easily tempted by a frozen whole mussel in the shell. Whenever we have Moules Mariniere for tea I keep all the open shells in a bag in the freezer. I use a knife to partly open the shell to allow the fish to get inside. If you cut the shell completely in half it tends to fall flat side down with the shell uppermost, so its important to leave the two halves still attached.

All the other fish gather round whilst the wrasse feed hoping for a scrap, the Montagues Blenny dives straight in and takes a bite in typical blenny fashion.

The spider crab is behaving rather oddly. It has been seen tending its abdomen with the tail flap lifted. No eggs are visible and the larger spider crab was released months ago, but I wonder if it is gravid?

The bladderwrack has survived well under the old makeshift light panel although other seaweeds have changed colour from bright yellow green to reddish brown indicating insufficient lighting levels. The new lights should reverse that change.

I have fitted a 4.5W blue LED over the sump, I'm adding shells and some vertical piling type structure to encourage the settlement of squirts, sponges, soft corals etc. I hope that they maight be present as plankton in the water. It may be worth carrying out plankton collection trips to seed the tank further. The skimmer doubtless has removed much of the original plankton, it is producing an enormous amount of foam!

I added a couple of kilos of sintered glass to the settlement tank,, it used to be in the overhead wet/dry filter in my Amazon biotope tank and should help to trap the sediment collected and provide a more stable habitat for the organisms that feed on the detritus that will settle there.

Why Go Native?

Perhaps, as a successful tropical reefkeeper stumbling across this blog you might wonder why on Earth anyone would want to keep our own humble native fauna and flora when the tropics offer such stunning colours and diversity. As a convert from tropical to native myself I'll try and explain:

Biotope: As a native marine reefkeeper you can choose to collect only specimens, water, substrate and rock from a specific location at a set depth range. You can be sure that everything you collect will interact in some way with everything else as nature intended. For instance I collect from the south west of Britain at no more than 1.5 metres depth. On a single day of collecting I can easily find a dozen plant species and 10 fish species.

When you keep a tropical tank many of the species offered at your LFS are from a huge range of depths, locations and habitats. Soft corals from Indonesia are on sale next to Red Sea fish and Pacific SPS corals. Many will have no natural relationship to each other whatsoever.

Mortality: With the very simplest and most basic precaution it is entirely possible to collect many different animals and transport them to your aquarium with no mortality. Should they not flourish it is equally easy to recapture them and release them back to where you found them. Many of the native species are very easy to keep in any case, feeding is rarely a problem, most fish, for example, feed readily on frozen artemia or rotifer and freshly opened mussels tempt even the most finicky larger fish. It is a sad fact that for every wild tropical marine fish in the LFS many more have died during the process of collection and transit. Too many more will die in the 1st few months of captivity, through their unsuitability for home aquaria through diet or habitat requirement.

'Total Reef': It is simply not possible to aquire a sufficient biodiversity of tropical reef inhabitants unless you live next to one - in which case it will be a 'native' reef anyway! A box of Fijian 'live' rock may have spent over a week wrapped in wet newspaper before you even see it, maybe longer. Obviously many of the original inhabitants encrusting the rock have succombed. Contrast that with a 'live' rock covered in seaweeds, sponges, anemones and coralline algaes collected from your local rockpool and placed in your tank an hour or so afterwards. Almost everything will have survived, if not everything. I never get bored with watching a new rock and seeing how many different creatures show themseleves.

Its entirely possible to collect a complete range of organisms, each performing a vital role in the chain, and get them home and safe with the minimum of fuss. By using live fresh sand/gravel, fresh seawater and fresh live rock you can be confident that the tank has not just fish and seaweed - but plankton, bacteria, microfauna and microflora - everything that a natural reef needs for any kind of realistic biodiversity.

Fun!: A days rockpooling is something that just about every kid (and many wives) loves. Its immensely satisfying to find, capture, identify and then keep successfully any creature found during a days rockpooling.I always found that buying fish and corals in my LFS was an expensive and solitary pursuit - I loved it, dont get me wrong - but it doesnt compare to piling the wife and kids in the car, heading for the bach with a picnic and a wealth of buckets, nets and jars and catching our own.

Expense: Not the most important reason to keep natives, but surely an attractive one nonetheless. Bearing in mind that mortality should be close to zero anyway with native marines, even if we had to pay for them they would represent a considerable advantage over many tropical fish and invertebrates. The fact that they are essentially free, a by-product of a great family day out even, makes them almost irresistable!

The Challenge: There is almost nothing online or in book form to guide the native marine reefkeeper. Its an unwritten book and everyone who keeps natives and writes something about it is a pioneer! A grounding with tropicals is, at the moment, therefore essential to success. However, there are major and significant differences and thses may not be immediately apparent. However, if you have successfully kept a tropical reef you will certainly enjoy success with a native one - just how natural, dynamic and diverse your native reef is will prove endlessly interesting and challenging. You can be sure that few have trod the same path and much remains to be learnt.

Beauty: Whilst no one would deny that tropical reefs offer unrivalled colour and beauty, many of our own native species of fish and invertebrate are nonetheless extremely attractive to look at. Squat lobsters - crimson and electric blue, cuckoo wrasse are rainbow coloured, beadlet and jewel anemones are a match for any tropical species, branching and encrusting coralline algaes are as pink as anything tropical and both red and green macroalgaes can be fabulously lovely.

In short, native marine reefs are well worth a second look. They are inexpensive, enjoyable, interesting, beautiful and ethical to keep. For the amateur naturalist there is a wealth of knowledge to be imparted, little information is available on many of these fascinating creatures and plants, every native reefkeeper has the potential to add, in a meaningful way, valuable knowledge on our own, little known, native marine flora and fauna.

July in Cornwall Collecting Expedition

I have just returned from a week in Cornwall collecting new specimens. I collected from four locations -

Fowey Harbour - approx 50 2 spot gobies, 1 Goldsinny.

Wallace Beach, Looe - 3 mackeral fry, 75 periwinkle, 3 juvenile Ballen Wrasse, 2 brittle star, 1 beadlet anemone.

Porth Mawgan - 14 Sprat (?) fry, 1 Strawberry Anemone, approx 100 mussels, 4 dog whelk. Treyarnon Bay - an amazing beach, fabulous deep rockpools - 1 Lesser Sandeel, 1 Shore Rockling, 3 Golden Mullet, 1 Spiny Starfish, 1 Montagues Blenny, 1 tiny Shanny, 1 Warty Anemone, 2 Sprat (?) fry.

I kept the animals for up to a week in a 60 litre 'really useful box' with an airstone and carried oput daily water changes. I fed them on frozen garlic enriched artemia. All fed well and there were no casualties! It took 3 1/2 hours to get home and there were no motalities during transit.

All are now installed in the aquarium and have settled in well. They are feeding and seem to be behaving naturally. I originally intended to collect about 6 2 Spot Gobies, but wherever I found them they occured in large shoals so I decided to collect 50. Male to female ratio is about 1:2. They were exceedingly numerous, I fished for them in one spot only and I would guess that there were many hundreds along a sea wall only 30 feet long.

I wasnt sure about the Spiny Starfish - but my wife and children loudly convinced me! If it proves too destructive I'll release it. Its about 10" across and according to all literature I could find on it is a voracious predator! I'll offer it frozen mussels and clams, hopefully that will reduce its grazing upon my live mussel beds.

I found a crab net baited with squid to be the most effective way of catching fish, all the gobies and the Goldsinny were caught using this method.

The Shanny was an unintentional catch, we caught many dozens of shanny at all locations, however, I have found them to be too destructive to barnacles, snails, hermit crabs and prawns to be desirable as captive reef inhabitants. I didnt even see it til we got back to Bournemouth, my 6 yr old son proudly claimed to have added it to the bucket! Its about 4mm long and unlikely to be a problem for a while yet.

Lighting Considerations

I am at the design stage of new lighting for the new tank and a number of considerations are becoming apparent. Tropical reef tanks largely utilise light at the blue end of the spectrum, many reefkeepers seem to use lights in the 10000 - 20000K range. Stony corals seem to thrive best under these conditions and undesirable algal growth is inhibited.

However, in a temperate reef, algae is far and away the dominant natural feature. Therefore it seems likely that warmer lights are required. Natural sunlight is in the region of 5600K. This casts a yellowish light within the aquarium that isnt as attractive as the cooler higher ranges.

If we take 'white' light at 5600K and pass it through clear water the red end of the spectrum is effectively filtered out within 15metres. It might follow, therefore that unless we are collecting plants at depths greater than 15m we need to provide full spectrum white light.

I have built a temporary light hood, its a plywood board 1600mm long by 400mm wide. I have fixed 8 no. 3 light spotlight fittings from B&Q and fitted 15 no. 'cool white' LEDs and 9 no. 'warm white' halogen lamps (supplied with the spotlights). I understand that the cool white lamps are in the region of 7500K and the warm white lamps about 4500K.

The overall effect appears very natural with a pleasing 'ripple' effect. Although designed as a temporary measure to get some light into the tank whilst waiting for new lights to be manufactured I am beginning to wonder of these may be adequate for the job. To be honest its primarily down to cost:

new LED light panel - 450 W £1000.00

my own light panel of 24 lamps, 15no. @ 7W and 9no. @ 50W has cost £480 so far. I paid £20 each for the LEDs, double the usual cost because they are dimmable. However, I can return them for double the amount of non-dimmable ones. The cost of a LED GU10 bulb is £9.00. I would need 64 to acheive the same amount of power consumption as the manufactured LED panel. At 50W equivalent output that is 3200 Watts of light into the tank!

There are pro's and cons for both. The manufactured panel has an output of light that I cannot replicate using spotlights, I simply could not fit 22 of the B&Q fittings over the tank. It has built in cooling and uses LEDs of a known fixed colour temperature. A mix of cool white, blue and red lamps of a ratio of 25:10:10 respectively, of 45 10W LEDs should be both aesthetically pleasing as well as giving light at the corect spectrum for macroalgal growth. However, if any LEDs fail I will be unable to replace them easily - each is individually soldered.

My home-made hood allows easy changing of lamps. It is likely that better, higher output lamps will be available over time. GU10 fittings are readily available and available in blue, cool white and warm white.

I could fit another 18 lamps on my hood. An extra 6 spotlights at £9.00 each (each has 3 lamps) would allow a total of 42 LED GU10 lamps at equivalent 50W output giving 2100 W whilst consuming less than 300W. A mix of cool and warm white with maybe 3 or 4 blue should come somewhere close to giving the right result. The cost would be 24 spotlights at £9.00 each and 42 lamps at £9.00 each a total of £594.00, about 60% of the cost of the manufactured panel with 2/3rd of the output, no built in cooling and a bit 'Micky Mouse'!

Obviously the manufactured panel is going to be better. Its just the outlay.

I've added some rocks with macroalgae growth and placed them under the lamps. I'll give it 2 weeks and see how they fare before making a decision.

July 2011 Update

Its been a year since a water change was last carried out and little has changed. I switched off the skimmer a couple of months ago as no foam was being produced. The feeding has been extremely light, one small cube of artmis shrimp every 3 or 4 days.

The lights are over a year old now and the output has decreased significantly. This has caused a slow-down of macro-algal growth. As a new set of flourescent bulbs costs about £160.00 I have been looking into another alternative. I am experimenting with 'white' LEDs, a standard bulb costs about £20 for a dimmable LED in the right sort of spectrum - 5600K, non-dimmable are cheaper. The light is still a little warm and actinic flourescent T5s are needed as well. I havent been able to rig up a permanent new lighting set up on my existing tank due to a lack of time but have built a small prototype of six lamps which does create a very pleasing effect similar to halides without the heat!

So, today I have emptied the aquarium and ordered a new 1.8m L x 0.75 W x 1m wide acrylic aquarium, I'm collecting it on Tuesday from Hampton Court Flower show where it is currently forming part of a garden display. I will drill a 2" hole in the base and fit a weir which will carry the water to my old 3' tank below.

The inmates of the tank are currently in a 100 gallon cold water plastic 'roof tank' in newly collected seawater. I will move them to the sump tomorrow with all rocks but none of the sand substrate currently in a number of buckets. When the new tank is in position and plumbed in, the rocks and substrate will be introduced and a 6" layer of fresh substrate laid on top. New chalk base rock will be collected to add to the existing rock and the whole system will be topped up with further fresh seawater. Finally the inhabitants will be introduced to the new aquarium from the sump by next Thursday (hopefully!).

This weekend I will build a new hood from plywood housing around 60 LED lamps on 3 timers, the dimmable lamps will be at each end and will come on a 'soft start' programme, the centre section of 40 lamps will come on when the dimmable lamps are at full power. Hopefully this will cause less stress to the inhabitants than a sudden full-on switch on of the lamps. The T5 flourescents will come on a seperate timer a few minutes after the central section to hopefully produce something like full daylight power. I believe that strong lighting is essential for keeping shallow native marine reefs.

The existing tank will be the sump, this will house the skimmer and the return pump as well as the pump to the chiller. I will probably lay a coral sand substrate and a number of chalk rocks, this should act as a buffer for maintaining water hardness and also stabilise clacium levels. Usually I would keep this under 24 hour lighting but to avoid blocking up of the fine tubing to the ciller and also the intake of the skimmer, the sump will be dark. No algal growth should prevent the problems that have plagued my original set-up.

However, as I am such a strong advocate of some kind of refugium/algal tank as a way to naturally filter the water I will install a smaller aquarium above the new display tank with 24 hour lighting to encourage algal growth. This will be fed by the sump return pump and will overflow into the display tank. It is hoped that this will be a breeding gound for creatures that will fall into the main tank and provide zooplanton as food for the inhabitants.

Once the system has stabilised I look forward to collecting new inhabitants. Many of the creatures from last year have since outgrown the tank and have been subsequently released. The spider crab grew to a monster that decimated the hermit crabs and snails, he was released back to Kimmeridge in May. Curently only 1 corkwing wrasse reamins and 1 small spider crab that must have came as a hitcher on a rock, at 1 1/4" he is still reef safe, but will probably be sent back to the sea in the autumn. I have many anemones, both the snakelocks and the beadlet have reproduced with numerous offspring.

The addition of a sump and new LED lighting should solve the problems that the original system suffered from - deterioration of lighting strength and clogging of skimmer and chiller intakes. An overhead refugium will be an interesting development, this will probably not be possible in most set-ups but my office has a high ceiling and will allow a further tier.

November observations

Snakelocks anemones have greatly increased in number through fission reproduction and appear very healthy with fully extended tentacles often tipped in purple.

Beadlet anemones have largely remained in their original positions, are usually extended and some budding of young has occurred. The aquarium seems suited to anemones.

There has been no water change for over 3 months now, it appears that the aquarium is largely self-sustaining, glass remains very clear, mortality is very low, apart from some of the mullet being eaten by anemones, the predation of snails by the larger spider crab and the demise of the smaller spider crab, it appears that all inhabitants originally introduced are thriving.

Water temperature remains at 16 C, the lights remain on a 12 hour cycle and skimming remains heavy and constant though the increase in algal growth has resulted in far more frequent cleaning of the inlet filter to keep foam production at a good level.

The aquarium remains attractive in appearance despite the red algal explosion, ideally a grazer would be introduced to keep it down, but I believe that the answer probably lies in much stronger lighting to encourage the growth of green algaes along with mineral supplements to suit the requirements. Wrack growth is very slow although other species seem satisfied.

Long term, when finances allow it appears that a larger, drilled tank with halide lighting and a sump to protect the skimmer from clogging of plant growth is going to be desirable. A deep sand bed would be something I would like to trial. 2" is not enough to allow the growth of populations of organisms that could contribute to the food chain.

I have noticed that the water in the chiller needs regular topping up, if left for too long the chiller becomes far noisier and hotter. I try to keep an eye on this, I have heard of chillers catching fire before - 'Southern Aquatics' in Creekmoor in Poole was set ablaze by an aquarium chiller and I have to wonder if a lack of water in the chiller reservoir may have been a factor?

Red Algae Explosion!

I've been pulling out large amounts of a red, branching, very fine hair algae that appears to have no grazer within my aquarium and is smothering all my other algaes. I've been unable to identify it. When it 1st appeared a month or so ago I thought it was rather attractive, but it has now become a pest!

Macroalgae growth has been pretty good, with Oyster Thief (Colpomenia peregrina) growing up to 7" across and having to be removed, further smaller specimens are being allowed to grow.

Dictyota has sprouted in a couple of places, but suffers from red algal smothering.

Wrack growth is very slow - probably due to mineral defficiency. Cystoseira remains healthy with many attractive bright turquoise shoots.

A probable Calliblepharis has propagated on the glass, an attractive red macroalgae that unfortunately chose to grow next to one of the powerheads.

Coralline algaes suffer from smothering by the red hair algae, but where exposed to light remain healthy.

It is possible that lowering the temperature will have an effect on the red algae, but its my belief that the light levels are too low for the green algaes to out-compete it.