Cold temperate tank system in Sweden

[Silver Dollar]

Long time, no see…

I have made some renovation on my house this summer, autumn and Winter. So the poor aquariums has been totaly neglected.
Perhaps some summary can be good. I have seven aquariums in my decorated basement. The two big ones, 540 liter and 200 liter have a common sump.
One aquarium is 50 liters and the last four are 25 liters.

The aquariums looked so bad and were in desperate need of water changes.

I will return with some happy pics later...

 

[Silver Dollar]

The 200 liter tank was in a bad shape. A lot of cyano was covering almost evereything and the macro algae was decimated. After cleaning the front glass I could look into the inferno...

But the fish and animals were thriving. I discovered some eggs under a rock. It was identified coming from a Dog Whelk.

This is the actual dog whelk.

It is a predator and likes barnacles and mussels. Here it is feeding on a living mussel. It uses its tongue to drill a hole in the shell and eat it alive.

You can see the hole:

A goby happy to see things clearly again.

A big hermit crab. The shell is three inches wide.

After a couple of weeks the macro algae looked mush happier.

A few Days ago:

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

Thanks for sharing, comrade

 

[Boops]

How is the cod doing?

 

[Silver Dollar]

He grew to big and got aggressive, so he moved to a friends aquarium.

 

[mattzang]

this is very cool! i love the cold water tanks, so many unusual fish and inverts. a totally different world

 

[Boops]

He grew to big and got aggressive, so he moved to a friends aquarium.

Ok, and what about the wrasses?

 

[00Barracuda00]

This is such a great thread. So very happy to have found it. I've never seen a cold water tank before, and living in Florida, I probably would never have seen any of your wildlife!

Thank you so much for sharing.

 

[Silver Dollar]

Two of the female cuckoo wrasses jumped out through the tiny holes in the cover glass.
The smallest goldsinny wrasses were eaten by the vicious cod.

I have two cuckoo, one ballan, and two goldsinny wrasses left right now. But there are some other fishes as well and I plan to give my wrasses away and have other animals this season.

 

[Mortie31]

Glad to see you back posting, that dog whelk drilling a hole in the mussel is great, never seen that before... thanks for sharing

 

[Pbh-reef]

Wow amazing set up!

 

[Silver Dollar]

Thank you for your kind words! I'm really lucky to live so close to the ocean.

 

[Silver Dollar]

I continue with the largest aquarium, 540 liter. This is right now mostly a wrasse tank, but I want to change that. Wrasses eat tunicates for breakfast, lunch and dinner and I like to have hundreds of tunicates and sponges on the background. So the wrasses have to go, but it is hard to part from these lovely fishes.

An old pic of the ballan wrasse. He or she is very territorial.

Another old pic of the ballan wrasse and a female cuckoo wrasse.

Male cuckoo wrasse about 13 inches, but he is so gentle with the other fishes. Never aggressive.
Isn't he beautiful?

An Eauropean Eelpout. Very shy but has shown himself more lately.

A wonderful European plaice. It was catched a month ago and still not eating, but they tend to do this a long time. So I'm not worried yet.

A sea urchin with no English name. Gracilechinus acutus. I have had this individual for 4 years.

This Frilled Anemone is caught a week ago. It is huge for this spieces. The foot is 4 inches wide. Hopefully in time it will stretch its body.

I dont have up-to-date Pictures of the goldsinny wrasses and a scorpionfish, but you can see them if you look on this full tank pic.
I'm not pleased with this tank yet, but it has potential. Yesterday I started to dose Vodka and silicate to prepare the water for sponges and tunicates, so we will see how it develops.

 

[Thomashtom]

Very cool!!!

 

[Coralreefer1]

Amazing, fascinating and beautiful. You really have captured a diverse and very different biotope than what most of us are accustomed to in warmer waters closer to the equator.
Best of luck to you and keep the photos and updates coming.
SKOL

 

[Silver Dollar]

Thank you! I blush...

The five small aqariums are more specialized then the large ones.
We start with the tank of 50 liter. It is a mud tank, my secret favourite. It doesn't look much, but has a interesting fauna in the mud.

The goby that lived here jumped out in the autumn and now the small animals in the mud are showing themselfs more and more.

The brittlestars in the mud usually hide their body and only shows the arms, but sometimes they come up.

A week ago I found a sea star, Astropecten irregularis, a week ago and it sank into the mud in 30 seconds.

The second tank is 25 liter and holds crustaceans. I have no up-to-date pic right now, but here is a new inhabitant. A porcelain crab.

A Hencricia sp.

I experiment with tunicates, sponges and other filtrating animals in this 25 liter tank. Dosing vodka and waterglass (for silicate) and feed with Brightwell Marine Snow.

 

[Boops]

I continue with the largest aquarium, 540 liter. This is right now mostly a wrasse tank, but I want to change that. Wrasses eat tunicates for breakfast, lunch and dinner and I like to have hundreds of tunicates and sponges on the background. So the wrasses have to go, but it is hard to part from these lovely fishes.

An old pic of the ballan wrasse. He or she is very territorial.

Another old pic of the ballan wrasse and a female cuckoo wrasse.

Male cuckoo wrasse about 13 inches, but he is so gentle with the other fishes. Never aggressive.
Isn't he beautiful?

An Eauropean Eelpout. Very shy but has shown himself more lately.

A wonderful European plaice. It was catched a month ago and still not eating, but they tend to do this a long time. So I'm not worried yet.

A sea urchin with no English name. Gracilechinus acutus. I have had this individual for 4 years.

This Frilled Anemone is caught a week ago. It is huge for this spieces. The foot is 4 inches wide. Hopefully in time it will stretch its body.

I dont have up-to-date Pictures of the goldsinny wrasses and a scorpionfish, but you can see them if you look on this full tank pic.
I'm not pleased with this tank yet, but it has potential. Yesterday I started to dose Vodka and silicate to prepare the water for sponges and tunicates, so we will see how it develops.

You prefer tunicates instead of fish?;Woot

 

[Silver Dollar]

Haha, I will have other spieces of fish instead. Top of my wish list is an atlantic catfish and a lumpsucker.
I can't wait for the fishing season to start.

 

[Boops]

Haha, I will have other spieces of fish instead. Top of my wish list is an atlantic catfish and a lumpsucker.
I can't wait for the fishing season to start.

Yeah, catfish (l assume you mean "havskatt") are great.

 

[Boops]

Yeah, catfish (l assume you mean "havskatt") are great.