Cold tidepool/beachcombing aquarium

[musselman]

Hi all. New to R2R and with a new aquarium as well. I was big into the hobby back in the 80s and 90s, but life made it difficult to have an aquarium in the interim. I realized recently that the obstacles no longer existed and picked up a 55 gallon for a fresh start.

I live a few hundred yards from the beach on the Washington coast and beachcomb every day. Unfortunately, these beaches are pure sand beaches without a tidepool to be seen for many miles. So, I thought I might make my own tidepool using whatever I find cast up on the beach.

About a month ago, I went down and collected 20 gallons of sand at low tide and 40 gallons of water, came home, dumped it all in, and let it settle. I have since started picking up whatever washes up on the beach that looks like it might be interesting. The plan is to have the aquarium about half rock pile and half sandy with eelgrass. I've got a good start on the rock pile and a few pieces of eelgrass that still had some rhizome attached.

Here is the rock pile:

And here is the sandy side:

We had a storm about two weeks ago that washed up a lot of stuff, including a bunch of mussels. I didn't expect them all to be alive, but they were, so I ended up with quite a mussel bed. I also got lucky with strap kelp that had an intact holdfast. I don't know if it will get enough light, although the aquarium is in front of a window and gets natural light part of the day.

I found a leather bryozoan, which is pretty neat and even a sponge. I very rarely see sponges washed up on the beach and those are always dead.

I am now at the exciting point where things are turning up in the tank that I didn't even know I put in there. It is my practice to bring home the holdfast of any piece of kelp that I find and drop it in the tank for a few days to see what might come forth. That has provided a sea anemone, which is something I have never seen on this beach and a brittle star. I also have some neat shrimp that probably came with the sand and are perfectly camouflaged.

Here is the anemone, which I have tentatively ID'd as Anthopleura artemisia

Here is the brittle star, which I think is Ophiopholis aculeata:

And one of the shrimp masters of camouflage:

In terms of equipment, it is pretty bare bones so far. I am not using any filter, although there is seven inches of sand in the tank and a heck of a lot of mussels. So far, the water quality is good, with zeroes across the nitrogen cycle. I am running a 1/3 HP chiller and keeping the temperature at 50 F. The back and sides are insulated with 2 inches of foam board. I plan to add a couple of pumps to circulate. My previous aquarium days are far enough back that I don't recall anyone using in-tank pumps, so that's a nice option.

There are currently no fish and I don't know if I will ever have any. If I do get any they will probably come from plankton netting. I have been going to the beach about once a week to drag a little plankton net around and bring home a jar full of stuff for feeding. I also feed pretty heavily with bottled phytoplankton, given all the mussels.

Anyway, it has been great fun so far and the winter storms are around the corner, which should offer the opportunity to find even more.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Following along! These tanks are really neat to see! @Nano_Man would be interested in this tank as well!

 

[Nano_Man]

Welcome my friend you enjoy the same things I do .
If you go to your round picture press on it and look to your left and press on it then scroll down to rock pool reef keepers you can join are group. Then you can show us your tank and get ideas from other members

 

[musselman]

We've had calm weather and that means clean beaches, so not much has turned up the past few days. I've expanded the rockpile a bit:

It is a bit hard to see, but two anemones became three:

This is a solitary species that is reported to fight when they come in contact. I wonder if the clones fight or if they continue to see each other as the same animal.

And I picked up a very beat up sand dollar above the high tide line. I wasn't sure if it was still alive, but it went to work as soon as I dropped it in. I'm not sure if it will be a long term addition or a short term visitor, as I haven't had much luck with them in the past. I did put in a very deep sand bed though in the hope that it might provide a suitable environment.

 

[musselman]

Not much action the past few days. The sea is starting to churn up a little more, but we haven't had a good storm yet. We should have one this week, and then I expect to find some good stuff. Still, I picked up a few things.

The tiny A. artemisia anemones continue to grow quickly. I have been feeding them chopped razor clam every few days.

And today I picked up a couple of Flustrellidra bryozoans and some kind of encrusting sponge on a stick:

They are a bit beat up, but will hopefully recover. I really enjoy the bryozoans.

I've been picking up holdfasts when I can find them, hoping for hitch hikers, but these tiny ones won't cut it. I'm hoping to find some football sized ones after the storms.

 

[musselman]

Picked up a washed up bladderwrack this morning. I think it is annual, so it will probably be just a brief visitor, but I am not sure about it.

And I noticed a lot of little worm tubes on this piece of wood, which turned out to be a mix of feather dusters and Spionid worms:

 

[musselman]

After a good storm, I was able to fill out my eelgrass bed. The grass is pretty beat up, but these all have intact rhizome, so I expect that they will grow new leaves.

This morning I spotted this tiny nudibranch. Too bad I couldn't get a better picture. It is maybe 1/4 inch long.

And here is what the full tank is looking like now:

I'd say that I am pretty much done building the rock pile and the eelgrass bed, so it is down to looking for algae and livestock now. I might rebuild the rockpile at some point, as I have now found better rocks than I started with.

I've been having the usual new tank algal and bacterial blooms, but nothing too terrible. I am now getting some nitrate readings, so the cycle is going. I've lost a few mussels and gooseneck barnacles. It was too early for those to be in the tank, but I figured I might as well try them since they were washed up anyway. Those deaths caused a minor ammonia increase, but my guess is that the plants and algae took care of most of that. I'm now feeding 80ml per day of mixed zoo and phytoplankton without any increase in parameters, so I'd say the mussels are taking in most of it.

 

[BonnieB]

After a good storm, I was able to fill out my eelgrass bed. The grass is pretty beat up, but these all have intact rhizome, so I expect that they will grow new leaves.

This morning I spotted this tiny nudibranch. Too bad I couldn't get a better picture. It is maybe 1/4 inch long.

And here is what the full tank is looking like now:

I'd say that I am pretty much done building the rock pile and the eelgrass bed, so it is down to looking for algae and livestock now. I might rebuild the rockpile at some point, as I have now found better rocks than I started with.

I've been having the usual new tank algal and bacterial blooms, but nothing too terrible. I am now getting some nitrate readings, so the cycle is going. I've lost a few mussels and gooseneck barnacles. It was too early for those to be in the tank, but I figured I might as well try them since they were washed up anyway. Those deaths caused a minor ammonia increase, but my guess is that the plants and algae took care of most of that. I'm now feeding 80ml per day of mixed zoo and phytoplankton without any increase in parameters, so I'd say the mussels are taking in most of it.

That is so beautiful!

 

[musselman]

I got a better picture of the nudibranch. I think it is probably Hermissenda crassicornis. It is very hard to take a picture of something so small with my camera phone. It is quite a bit more colorful in person. H. crassicornis is not likely to be a long term inhabitant, since its diet consists of too many things that I would like to keep around, like anemones, but I will probably let it hang around until it gets bigger. It is eating something off of the necks of the gooseneck barnacles, which is just a general fuzz, like algae or bacteria. I can see the tracks it makes as it goes. It must be bacteria since I think this species is a carnivore.

 

[musselman]

My wife managed to get a better picture of the nudibranch and also noticed that there is a second one.

 

[musselman]

I like this one too:

 

[BonnieB]

I hope this is a great success for you. I’m loving all your biodiversity and life in there!

 

[musselman]

Thanks! It can't really be a failure, because I have no expectations and a never ending source of new material just down the road. ;)

 

[musselman]

Finally got a few fresh holdfasts today:

They are loaded with these egg spirals. I'm not sure what sort of eggs those are... nudibranch maybe?

We have a different, I think exclusively subtidal, species of gooseneck barnacle:

And tons of hydroids, which will probably not last very long, as most hydroids get eaten pretty quickly:

The most interesting critters usually take a few days to emerge, so hopefully there will be more discoveries to come.

I will leave these in the tank for a week or two, then remove them and cut them into pieces, keeping only the parts of interest.

In other tank news, I had a rockslide, so I ended up rebuilding the rockpile, this time with a base of bricks. It looks better and is much more stable, but pictures will have to wait because of glare. The hair algae situation is also getting a bit ugly, but that is expected at this stage and I don't worry about it. It is just a bit ugly.

 

[BZOFIQ]

Very interesting - keep going!

 

[BristleWormHater]

Wow! This is my dream tank!
Unfortunately im too far away from the coast to make a tank like this. I wish you cool hitchhikers and good luck!
@TangerineSpeedo keeps a similar tank

 

[BristleWormHater]

Also for IDing these species I recommend posting them to inaturalist and set their location to where they were collected and specify in the notes that they are collected form the wild.
This way your IDs will be corroborated. You will also be providing valuable pictures of these species since most of the time they are observed, they are washed up dead on the beach so photos of live organisms are few.

 

[TangerineSpeedo]

Picked up a washed up bladderwrack this morning. I think it is annual, so it will probably be just a brief visitor, but I am not sure about it.

And I noticed a lot of little worm tubes on this piece of wood, which turned out to be a mix of feather dusters and Spionid worms:

This is a great thread! Careful of the Dictyota though, it can take over you tank and become a pest. I am actually thinking of tearing down my temperate tank and starting over because it is so bad. I have not found anything to eat it yet.

 

[musselman]

Thanks - that's good to know! There aren't many places to get advice about this kind of tank.

 

[musselman]

A new inhabitant today. I found him high and dry in an old holdfast. I think this is a sharp nosed crab (Scyra acutifrons). It is less than an inch and apparently might get to double that size. Hopefully tank safe, but we'll see. I also picked up a hermit crab today, but he booked it deep into the eelgrass and out of sight.