10000L Coral reef at The Maritime Museum & Aquarium Sweden

[Zack33]

And I would love to get more small fish to put in this tank, but its a budget question. "Hey, why don't we buy these small fish that most of the visitors will never see" But I order some now and then anyway. The Hector gobies I wanted to get to get more fish down at the sand bottom. They actually were hanging a lot at the sand at first but now they are spread around the tank.
We have a Wetmorella sp that I see about five times a year. That's cool I think
/ David

I always found a good argument for this was....well if we put a sign saying the fish are in the exhibit, then the guests will spend more time looking at the exhibit and therefore spend more time in the aquarium which relates to spending more money at the aquarium....I worked for a "for-profit" aquarium, it was a good argument lol!

 

[najer]

I love cryptic fish, I have 2 circus gobies I see in the summer sometimes when sunshine lights up the lower rockwork!

 

[Sallstrom]

I always found a good argument for this was....well if we put a sign saying the fish are in the exhibit, then the guests will spend more time looking at the exhibit and therefore spend more time in the aquarium which relates to spending more money at the aquarium....I worked for a "for-profit" aquarium, it was a good argument lol!

That is true! We saw that when we finally got proper signs(iPads), and finally got all fish in there. The kids went to the iPad first, then there trying to find the fish in the tank. Like a map and a treasure

 

[Lasse]

I love cryptic fish, I have 2 circus gobies I see in the summer sometimes when sunshine lights up the lower rockwork!

Now I understand why I never get my wanted cryptic fish from TMC - when my LFS seen them on the list - he e-mail me - I order - but than the delivery show up - they are always sold out but sometimes I succeed - a fat head is swimming in the tank - but the Caracanthus maculatus I thought I would pick up today - was sold out - as normal.....

We have the same taste of fishes najer .

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Sallstrom]

You two are lucky. I'm mostly looking for fish that supposed to eat things. We need something that eats Aiptasia in that tank, we need something that eats clove polyps in that tank, and hair algae, and Valonia algae, and flatworms, and bubble tip anemone.....

 

[Zack33]

You two are lucky. I'm mostly looking for fish that supposed to eat things. We need something that eats Aiptasia in that tank, we need something that eats clove polyps in that tank, and hair algae, and Valonia algae, and flatworms, and bubble tip anemone.....

What is your places quarantine process like? I always found when I wanted a natural predator that by the time quarantine was over the pest was totally out of control! That was frustrating watching it get out of control as your solution was "close" by, then it would take FOREVER to fix lol. Our quarantine period was 72+ days in a separate building, so we even had to organize a transfer when we would bring in new fish. Inverts were the easiest things though.

 

[wowkingjames]

Enjoyed reading this thread.

 

[Sallstrom]

What is your places quarantine process like? I always found when I wanted a natural predator that by the time quarantine was over the pest was totally out of control! That was frustrating watching it get out of control as your solution was "close" by, then it would take FOREVER to fix lol. Our quarantine period was 72+ days in a separate building, so we even had to organize a transfer when we would bring in new fish. Inverts were the easiest things though.

To be honest, most of the time the fish has gone directly into the display tanks. Sometimes they go for some time in a smaller tank, but those are connected to larger systems(so absolutely not like real quarantine). We have tried longer and more strikt quarantine, but it has not worked out very well. To small tanks and too high mortality.. Basically, we don't have enough room or resources to do real QT precedures right now.

I've seen a couple QT protocols from the US and talked with our vet about it. In Sweden it's not that easy to get medicine to do preventive(?) treatments. Our vet needs to know if the fish needs treatment before we get the medicine. But we are working on new routines which will work for us with our resources. This is one of the things we will work out during the rebuiling of the Aquarium. And in the new Aquarium we will have better chances to do real QT.
Actually, the time from now until 2021 we will kind of quarantine all the corals, to make sure we don't get AEFW or anything like that into the newly built 400m3 coral tank

But, we have been lucky. In the tank is this thread, all fish have gone in directly. And almost every fish still lives after 4 years. But we also worked on our method of handle fish that has been in transport for long(12+ hours). So the mortality has gone down a lot. And when we release fish in this tank, they seems to do very well from the beginning. Lots of space if they want to hide and not very agressive tank mates. The damsels for example started to spawn just a couple of days after they arrived(and layed eggs on a Acropora colony.. )

/ David

 

[Sallstrom]

Enjoyed reading this thread.

Thank you very much!

/ David

 

[Zack33]

To be honest, most of the time the fish has gone directly into the display tanks. Sometimes they go for some time in a smaller tank, but those are connected to larger systems(so absolutely not like real quarantine). We have tried longer and more strikt quarantine, but it has not worked out very well. To small tanks and too high mortality.. Basically, we don't have enough room or resources to do real QT precedures right now.

I've seen a couple QT protocols from the US and talked with our vet about it. In Sweden it's not that easy to get medicine to do preventive(?) treatments. Our vet needs to know if the fish needs treatment before we get the medicine. But we are working on new routines which will work for us with our resources. This is one of the things we will work out during the rebuiling of the Aquarium. And in the new Aquarium we will have better chances to do real QT.
Actually, the time from now until 2021 we will kind of quarantine all the corals, to make sure we don't get AEFW or anything like that into the newly built 400m3 coral tank

But, we have been lucky. In the tank is this thread, all fish have gone in directly. And almost every fish still lives after 4 years. But we also worked on our method of handle fish that has been in transport for long(12+ hours). So the mortality has gone down a lot. And when we release fish in this tank, they seems to do very well from the beginning. Lots of space if they want to hide and not very agressive tank mates. The damsels for example started to spawn just a couple of days after they arrived(and layed eggs on a Acropora colony.. )

/ David

Awesome! Well not official or anything, I'd be happy to offer any help I can as you go! Scary to run an aquarium without quarantine. We had an outbreak of Cryptocarean, in our large shark lagoon once before (not from lack of quarantine), but bad biocontrol between systems on our part unfortunately.....so I know the pain of trying to treat LARGE systems.....NOT FUN! Anyways, I like your thread....being a PhD Candidate now and not a public aquarist I often miss it, so it's nice to be able to chat with people still in the industry! All the best!

 

[Sallstrom]

Awesome! Well not official or anything, I'd be happy to offer any help I can as you go! Scary to run an aquarium without quarantine. We had an outbreak of Cryptocarean, in our large shark lagoon once before (not from lack of quarantine), but bad biocontrol between systems on our part unfortunately.....so I know the pain of trying to treat LARGE systems.....NOT FUN! Anyways, I like your thread....being a PhD Candidate now and not a public aquarist I often miss it, so it's nice to be able to chat with people still in the industry! All the best!

Thanks! I will remember that. We gonna need a lot of new fish in 2020-2021 so by then we have to have a new protocol for quarantine.

Our biggest problem has been with seahorses, a few years back. But I think the problem was more the bacteria in our system, not what they brought in.
So with seahorses we changed and did a 6 month quarantine, I think we did fresh water dips the first weeks. And started a new system in the exhibition just for them, no other fish. That worked out well and now the offspring from our H. kuda is spread around the aquariums in Sweden. So that feels very good, that we manage to turn it around and have surplus now instead.

Nice with more people here that is or has been working at public aquariums!
We are a small and old aquarium so I think we work a bit different compared with the large ones. I know aquariums with "jellyfish teams" and a lot of staff and volunteers. We are 5 marine biologist that do everything from pluming, jellyfish breeding to lectures for school classes
But I like it. It's fun to do many things and to learn new stuff.

/ David

 

[Sallstrom]

This week we replaced a broken metal halide 400w with 2 AI Hydra 52. Since we will close this fall we're in bigger need of small LEDs rather then 400W MH(for shallow propagation tanks during the build of the new Aquarium). We have a couple of Hydra already and I think they are okey. Easy to do schedules and so on.
The tank on the picture is a "room divider", about 1500L. Our first SPS tank actually. Many of the corals in our other tanks comes from this tank. But that's another story
Anyway, I think you'll see where the two LEDs are placed in this tank. The rest is 3 x 400W MH.

I haven't measured PAR under the LEDs(will do next week), the PAR under the replaced MH was about 800 4cm below the surface.
Time will tell if the switch from 400W MH to 2 x 130W LED was a good one

Now I haven't had the opportunity to try that many small LEDs so I won't say whether or not they could replace MH. But it seems to me that you'll need a lot of small ones to cover/get the same spread of light. We have borrowed a couple of large LEDs from the company Heliospectra in Gothenburg, they do 630W LEDs for green houses. They can IMO compete with MH when it comes to spread the light. Right now they don't have "coral spectrum " in this lamp, but maybe in the future

Okey, that was some Sunday thoughts. Hope you all have a good weekend!

/ David

 

[Sallstrom]

I sitting on a train for a while now so I might as well write an update on our plans the coming years
Our little Aquarium has been in the same building since it was built in 1933, but now the plan is to do a new building next to the old one. This new building will be under ground and will be the new Aquarium. The Aquarium will still be a part of the Maritime Museum & Aquarium.
We are still waiting for the last permits, hopefully it will come soon.

Our work now is divided in a couple of different projects. Two of them are the new aquariums and the temporary aquarium(while we build).
The Aquarium will reopen in June 2021 if everything goes according to the plan. And the temporary aquarium will be put together after we close in September this year.

Everything is not set for the aquariums in the new building but we hope to build 3-4 larger tanks. The reef tank will be around 400000 litres. To the same sump it will be around 10 smaller tanks connected.
We want to run this coral system as a reef tank, not like a shark tank.. Which means we want to be able to have Acropora and other stony corals in it, and create a living reef. Maybe there will be reef sharks, maybe not. First of all the corals will have to do well, then we will see.
Here is some pictures from our latest meetings

I don't have better pictures of the drawings right now, we're still working on where all the walls will be and that kind of things together with the architects.

As for the formations in the reef tank, that will be a challenge. We're working with a scale model and will try out different formations. For me it's important that you get the feeling of looking out into the ocean when standing in front of this tank, not looking into an aquarium. So you will not see the other window or any pipes or pumps for example.
Our plan right now is to do the formations in plastic and then cover that with live rock(dry). It will be a lot of work, and I think we will most of if ourselves

The sump and filtration will be the basic stuff. And probably 2 sand pressure filters. And a couple of refugiums with macroalgae.
Sump size around 23m3. The tank will be run with the Triton lab idea, try to mimic NSW as much as possible.

Lights will be a challenge as well. We are working on a large LED lamp with costume spectrum which we will develop together with a company. But maybe it will be a mix between led and MH. Of course we want to make it without MH if it's possible. Anyway, I can't say that much yet, still a lot to test before we can decide.

That was a bit about our ongoing work. I thought it would be good to explain that since I've noticed I write a lot about us closing down

/ David

 

[Sallstrom]

Okey, the pictures didn't end up in that post. Here's another try

 

[Sallstrom]

Good to be back at work and see that the corals are happy and the cuttlefish are hungry

 

[Sallstrom]

Also found a lot of AEFW in a tank which I thought was clear from them
But we have probably AEFW in every tank with Acropora, so I'm not that surprised.
Since I've had some issues with the common dips for AEFW(some Acropora died or stop growing for 6 month), I want to find another way of dealing with it. Some aquarists in Sweden have tried Axilur(Fenbendazol) directly into their display tank, with good, medium and catastrophic results. I would not do that. I'm one of those persons that don't like to use medicine in a working ecosystem, So instead I decided to use a quarantine tank with just the corals I wanted to treat, no live rock, no fish etc. Just circulations, lights, heater and ATO.
Treatment time is set to three days.
The first treatment gave us good and bad results. All Acropora species (about 10) did okey. But I also found live flatworms after the three days when I shaked the corals in a bucket with water. So, not enough Axilur or maybe the skimmer was too effective and removed some of it. I don't know.
Today I started a new treatment with 25% higher dose, and no skimmer. On Saturday I'll check to see if there are any adult flatworms left.
Here's our little set up

 

[najer]

England calling, I dip with "Dettol", everyday cleaning fluid over here, kills flatworms almost instantly BUT it depends on the type of acro and it's health.
I work for a pharmaceutical company, I found the safety data sheets for the "active" ingredient, don't expose fish or motile invertebrates to it.
Just a thought.

 

[Sallstrom]

England calling, I dip with "Dettol", everyday cleaning fluid over here, kills flatworms almost instantly BUT it depends on the type of acro and it's health.
I work for a pharmaceutical company, I found the safety data sheets for the "active" ingredient, don't expose fish or motile invertebrates to it.
Just a thought.

Thanks! I will see first if our treatments with fenbendazol gives any results. But I'm ready to try more dips to find the best way.
Is it short term dip?

Another thing I will try more is very short dips in low salinity. I did some experiment with two different low salinity dips/shakes for 10 and 30 seconds (I think, I need to check my notes tomorrow..). I did the test with brown staghorn Acropora. All corals survived the treatment and I saw some flatworms fall of. So that would be the best if all Acropora would survive that treatment.

/ David

 

[najer]

Thanks! I will see first if our treatments with fenbendazol gives any results. But I'm ready to try more dips to find the best way.
Is it short term dip?

Another thing I will try more is very short dips in low salinity. I did some experiment with two different low salinity dips/shakes for 10 and 30 seconds (I think, I need to check my notes tomorrow..). I did the test with brown staghorn Acropora. All corals survived the treatment and I saw some flatworms fall of. So that would be the best if all Acropora would survive that treatment.

/ David

I have only used it as a dip for known or suspected issues, I can't recommend it as it is a house hold disinfectant!

 

[Sallstrom]

Results from Triton Lab came today!

/ David