Saltwater littoral aquarium ideas-any cririque?

[Godzillaalienfan1979]

Hi, all

I've been designing a ton of aquarium/terrarium ideas for when I get older and actually have experience, time, money, etc. So in case you see a ton of posts like this, then that's why.

I had an idea for a possible saltwater aquarium-one that mimics the littoral zone of a typical ocean-y'know, where the sea meets the shore n' all that. As such, I picked out two of my favorite little littoral dwellers-I used to love catching these guys when I was a little kid. Heh, memories.

Anywho, here's the idea:


Aquarium size: 50 gallons

Temperament: saltwater


Introduction method: none needed


Filtration: Externally located pump


Habitat: littoral


Substrate: Fluker’s beach sand


Heater: under tank heat pad


ANIMALS:

• Mole Crab
  
  
• Ragworms

I'm not sure how many animals of each I will actually put in. I'm thinking 5-7 mole crabs and 2-3 ragworms (to minimize the amount of predation)
DECO: fake plastic plants, rock cave (underwater), none (beach/shoreline. I mean why would you need any. It's a friggin' beach)

In case you're wondering, I find bait animals are always the most fascinating lmao.

Also, like usual, I included a drawing, albeit less cluttered.

Any species or design critique or feedback would be appreciated

Thanks!

*if the picture's too blurry just ask me and i'll reupload. Yeah, my iphone camera is garbage.

 

[Dave Jay]

I had a tidal zone tank in one form or the other for years and years, it's only been the last 5 years that I haven't. The best one was in a 265l tank with shelves across the back. It was a tank I had made to house lizards, so it had ramps each end leading up to shelves along the back so I filled it so that the sand and shell grit on the shelves was just barely covered in water and the rocks and shells emerged from the water. It was temperate, just housing crabs, snails, starfish and a couple of times I had fish , once a wrasse and another time a small vegetarian fish. It all was what I collected from rock pools at beaches I went to. Because I collected seawater for water changes other organisms would be introduced too , for instance when I fed raw fish that led out a milky cloud in the water I would always get a bloom of little jelly fish that disappeared after a few weeks, and a few times it triggered the starfish breeding. All I used for filtration was sponges in air driven corner filters, 4 or 5 of them, the more the merrier. I cycled it well before adding anything more than snails, and stocked and fed very lightly. The only times I had trouble was during heat waves, after a few days of 40c + temperatures no matter how much aeration I added the water would just be too warm to hold enough oxygen for fish but the other stuff would survive, you gotta be tough to live in a rock pool .
The only advice I can give is make sure you understand the nitrogen cycle, and always have the beneficial bacteria in mind when feeding or adding stock , ammonia is much more lethal in seawater.
I've kept my own fish tanks since I was 10 , 38 years ago, and the tidal ones are still my favourites.

 

[Godzillaalienfan1979]

I had a tidal zone tank in one form or the other for years and years, it's only been the last 5 years that I haven't. The best one was in a 265l tank with shelves across the back. It was a tank I had made to house lizards, so it had ramps each end leading up to shelves along the back so I filled it so that the sand and shell grit on the shelves was just barely covered in water and the rocks and shells emerged from the water. It was temperate, just housing crabs, snails, starfish and a couple of times I had fish , once a wrasse and another time a small vegetarian fish. It all was what I collected from rock pools at beaches I went to. Because I collected seawater for water changes other organisms would be introduced too , for instance when I fed raw fish that led out a milky cloud in the water I would always get a bloom of little jelly fish that disappeared after a few weeks, and a few times it triggered the starfish breeding. All I used for filtration was sponges in air driven corner filters, 4 or 5 of them, the more the merrier. I cycled it well before adding anything more than snails, and stocked and fed very lightly. The only times I had trouble was during heat waves, after a few days of 40c + temperatures no matter how much aeration I added the water would just be too warm to hold enough oxygen for fish but the other stuff would survive, you gotta be tough to live in a rock pool .
The only advice I can give is make sure you understand the nitrogen cycle, and always have the beneficial bacteria in mind when feeding or adding stock , ammonia is much more lethal in seawater.
I've kept my own fish tanks since I was 10 , 38 years ago, and the tidal ones are still my favourites.

ok, thanks so much! Any idea what brand the ramp-tank was? And yes, I will definitely research the nitrogen cycle, something I really need to do sometime soon lmao. Do you grow beneficial bacteria or is it already there? Sorry i'm not much of an expert on beneficial bacteria.

 

[Dave Jay]

ok, thanks so much! Any idea what brand the ramp-tank was? And yes, I will definitely research the nitrogen cycle, something I really need to do sometime soon lmao. Do you grow beneficial bacteria or is it already there? Sorry i'm not much of an expert on beneficial bacteria.

The tank was one I had made, I had it made to house lizards, but paid extra to have the glass thick enough to hold water, but it wouldn't be hard to add a platform yourself if you had the glass cut for you.
The nitrogen cycle is THE main thing any aquarist needs to understand or they will surely fail.
You will find it explained in many ways, a search for images will bring up some diagrams that are easy to understand. Very briefly, fish and decaying organic matter produce ammonia which is very toxic, a colony of ammonia eating bacteria establish themselves and their waste is nitrite, toxic , but less toxic than ammonia. A colony of nitrite eating bacteria establish themselves and their waste is nitrate which is the least toxic of all , but still harmful at 40ppm and over so water is changed to keep it as low as possible . A cycled tank will never have ammonia or nitrite present because the bacteria are all in balance and able to deal with the ammonia produced by the fish and food or plant material decaying, which is called the bioload. If the bioload changes suddenly, or bacteria die off the cycle is thrown out and ammonia and nitrite kill the inhabitants. There is a compound effect because as inhabitants die more ammonia is produced which kills more inhabitants and so on until you have a stinky mess. That's when you say a tank crashed.

 

[Dave Jay]

I didn't answer a question I just realised, the bacteria will establish themselves in time, but people speed things up by adding substrate and filter media from established tanks. Sometimes an aquarium store will give people the water that they have washed dirty filters in so they can 'seed' their tanks, yes , putting a bag of poo water into your shiny new tank to introduce bacteria. The bacteria is not found in the actual water though , in an established tank it is on every surface , the largest concentrations are on the filter media and substrate.
And it's 3.59am sat morning here, so I'd better get to sleep, it's my birthday today so I need my strength for drinking and thrashing music!

 

[Myrmeleon]

If you are thinking about saltwater, most of the time most aquarists use sumps with some type of protein skimmer instead of a hang on the back or canister filter. Keep in mind as well that if you are going to potentially get native animal in the future that you might require the use of a chiller if they are from up north. But what Dave Jay said is right. If you are willing to do frequent water changes and have a low bioload as well as feed sparingly, then you could get away potentially without a skimmer and sump.

 

[Dave Jay]

If you are thinking about saltwater, most of the time most aquarists use sumps with some type of protein skimmer instead of a hang on the back or canister filter. Keep in mind as well that if you are going to potentially get native animal in the future that you might require the use of a chiller if they are from up north. But what Dave Jay said is right. If you are willing to do frequent water changes and have a low bioload as well as feed sparingly, then you could get away potentially without a skimmer and sump.

It is certainly desirable to set up a full system with a skimmer, sump, perhaps even live rock, but that takes it all up a notch and is not really needed if you stock lightly. The advantage of using multiple small filters is you can eliminate 'dead spots'. If you keep rock pool / tidal zone inverts and molluscs you won't need a chiller as long as you don't get temperatures over 30c for long periods, if you have air-conditioning you'll be okay. Keeping cold water fish is another matter though, they have high oxygen requirements and once the water reaches a certain temperature it is just incapable of holding enough oxygen no matter how much aeration you provide. I find above 30c to be where they struggle. Deep sea fish always require a chiller and maximum aeration, I wouldn't even consider keeping them in the set-up you are thinking off. The most simple diy chiller is coils of hose in a bar fridge with the aquarium water pumped through .