Journal Salty Fingers

[The Miniaturist]

Hi there,
I'm someone who is completely näive regarding marine tanks, I find them very harsh & cold but yours is something else!
Please don't be offended when I say it makes me think of a tidal rock pool, it must be the green algae with the clown fish & hermit crabs.
Love it!

 

[Courtneybst]

Hi there,
I'm someone who is completely näive regarding marine tanks, I find them very harsh & cold but yours is something else!
Please don't be offended when I say it makes me think of a tidal rock pool, it must be the green algae with the clown fish & hermit crabs.
Love it!

Thank you! I'm also not really a fan of the stark blue lighting, I much prefer the natural tones.

I'm glad rockpools already come to mind 😀 when I rescape this tank sometime in the future I plan to try and recreate a rockpool scenery I saw recently.

 

[Courtneybst]

I was down by the coast recently in Pett Level right at low tide and took some photos. Everywhere you turned it looked like a unique mini landscape. It was great to see so much green in and around the rockpools and it's inspired me for the eventual rescape of my saltwater tank (not for now!).


This one in particular was something I thought had been placed by a child maybe. Turns out it was a completely natural formation and rock solid. It made me think about when people say 'you wouldn't find this in nature' in response to some aquascapes. However, nature does create some weird and wonderful structures, 'carpets' do exist and sometimes you can spot scenes within scenes. Maybe our creations are not so far flung after all.

 

[Wookii]

I was down by the coast recently in Pett Level right at low tide and took some photos. Everywhere you turned it looked like a unique mini landscape. It was great to see so much green in and around the rockpools and it's inspired me for the eventual rescape of my saltwater tank (not for now!).

View attachment 187947View attachment 187948View attachment 187950View attachment 187951
This one in particular was something I thought had been placed by a child maybe. Turns out it was a completely natural formation and rock solid. It made me think about when people say 'you wouldn't find this in nature' in response to some aquascapes. However, nature does create some weird and wonderful structures, 'carpets' do exist and sometimes you can spot scenes within scenes. Maybe our creations are not so far flung after all.

View attachment 187949View attachment 187952View attachment 187956
View attachment 187953

Rock pooling was always one of my favourite past times on holidays in Cornwall when I was a kid, and is now a favourite past time with my own kids when we are down there. I've always loved the way that even the smallest of rockpools looks like its own complete miniature world.

 

[Courtneybst]

Current state of affairs! I'm completely in love.

 

[not called Bob]

does that bit of coast happen to have a petrified forest on show? looks rather like it

 

[Courtneybst]

does that bit of coast happen to have a petrified forest on show? looks rather like it

Do you mean the pointy things? 😅

 

[not called Bob]

yes, the bits that are not fucoids or ulvales, look like prehistoric growth

 

[Courtneybst]

yes, the bits that are not fucoids or ulvales, look like prehistoric growth

I have no idea! Would be cool if it was.

 

[Paul Willi]

There’s a prehistoric wood at low tide and a ship, lovely quiet beach 👍

 

[Hufsa]

This is my favorite salt water tank 🤩
Absolutely beautiful! 🐠

 

[Courtneybst]

This is my favorite salt water tank 🤩
Absolutely beautiful! 🐠

Thank you Hufsa! There's something about the pastel colours that really appeal to me.
--------------



Unfortunately this isn't a good update. I've copied this from Instagram because who really wants to write such a thing twice...

In the last two weeks my Clownfish pair came down with something and despite my best efforts they didn't eat or respond to treatment and died. Whilst the illness itself wasn't my fault, I take full responsibility for the method of acquiring the fish. In future I will quarantine/treat all incoming fish as a preventative rather than a cure to minimise the chance of this happening again.

It's sad because I've always wanted to keep Clownfish and they were just staring to host the crevices of the Unzan but they've suffered ill fate, probably unnecessarily. I will keep the tank with only invertebrates whilst I evaluate what I want from this tank, and also to allow any potential disease to die off.

If you're reading this and feeling put off, don't be. There are ways to minimise risk, I just didn't take them. On the flip side, apart from some hair algae (which I'm actively working on) the macroalgae, coral and inverts are doing really well!

I've also added a strawberry lipped conch and 5 cerith snails to help turning over the sand bed and hopefully with the hair algae. Still on the lookout for dove snails!




(Micro) Algae be gone!

 

[Katmanreef]

I love your salt water tank! It really shows that the neon blue glow of most reef tanks is not the only way to go. Do you plan on injecting co2 or is that not a thing in saltwater planted tanks?

 

[Courtneybst]

I love your salt water tank! It really shows that the neon blue glow of most reef tanks is not the only way to go. Do you plan on injecting co2 or is that not a thing in saltwater planted tanks?

Thank you!

I don't plan to inject CO2 and it's not a common practice in saltwater aquariums. However, there is someone on Reef2Reef doing exactly that! I haven't read through the whole journal yet but it's interesting to say the least. We wouldn't get anywhere unless people experimented and pushed boundaries so I'm up for discussion.

This is the journal: Build Thread - Planted Tank with Seahorses

 

[LondonDragon]

That sucks Courtney, sorry to ear about your clown fish 🙁 thought about adding some hermits or fancy shrimp rather than fish?

 

[Courtneybst]

That sucks Courtney, sorry to ear about your clown fish 🙁 thought about adding some hermits or fancy shrimp rather than fish?

Thanks Paulo, I have a Scarlet Reef Hermit in there at the moment which is very cute 🙂

Shrimp wise I haven't ventured there yet because a lot of them are quite big! The small ones I get paranoid that they'll end up in the skimmer 😅 but I'm not opposed them. Maybe some sexy shrimp.

When the tank is more mature I'm thinking of possibly keeping Blue Striped Pipefish as although they eat a lot of pods they are apparently much easier to train on frozen food as opposed to say... Dragonets.


(Not my photo)

 

[LondonDragon]

I'm thinking of possibly keeping Blue Striped Pipefish

WOW those are stunning 🙂 good luck

 

[seedoubleyou]

Get yourself an urchin mate, they’re clean up crew machines and great for producing No3

I definitely recommend adding copepod (not the rubbish ones you buy from the fridge if your local LFS, ask a local reefer for some chaeto, it will have a few hitchhikers in there)

I highly recommend bristle stars and adding in beneficial bacteria whenever you waterchange.

The only way you’re going to beat that unsightly algae is manual labour and helping tilt the scales in favour of the stuff you actually want in there.

 

[seedoubleyou]

Also, you could add in a couple of mollies for the time being and then always rehome or acclimate them back to freshwater (it’s believed the white ones handle the transition best).

They’re good algae eaters. And eat algae most marine fish won’t.

Oh!! And a lawnmower blenny might be cool.

Sorry I’m getting carried away.

 

[Courtneybst]

Get yourself an urchin mate, they’re clean up crew machines

They are! But they also devour desirable macroalgae.

I definitely recommend adding copepod (not the rubbish ones you buy from the fridge if your local LFS, ask a local reefer for some chaeto, it will have a few hitchhikers in there)

That's interesting! I did seed the tank a few times with the fridge ones and noticed the numbers fall off eventually. I only know 2 others with reef tanks in the UK (and one of them doesn't have any chaeto for sure) but maybe they can help me find some!

I highly recommend bristle stars and adding in beneficial bacteria whenever you waterchange.

I've heard they are great at getting in between the nooks and crannies. I actually have about 4 or 5 candy cane brittle stars(I'm dubbing them that lol) who you sometimes see poking out the Gracilaria.

Also, you could add in a couple of mollies for the time being and then always rehome or acclimate them back to freshwater (it’s believed the white ones handle the transition best).

That's actually not a bad idea. I'm planning to setup a biotope very soon which will feature mollies so they could potentially go in there and until it's ready! Do you know anything about the acclimation process from fresh to salt?