Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature may not be available in some browsers.
If you have the ability to go a bit deeper, there is a vast, diverse world below about 30 feet.....like non-photosynthetic anemones, corynactus and grunt sculpin as seen in this video of my Puget Sound biotope......with exception of the boxfish in the video that are temperate Australian boxes from Tasmania mostly. I collected these mostly in the 40-120 foot depth range of Puget Sound. Once you get below the depth that algae dominates, the life changes dramatically as seen in this video of my tank.
Well, that would be some mean special effects! ;VampYou start a neat little biotope and get excited, then Bill Gates comes in with a 400g Hollywood feature film of his tank crushing your soul, smashing the backboard to pieces
Your tank is simply spectacular! What an inspiration!You are off to an interesting world in temperate reef keeping.....especially if you can collect yourself. What you are doing though is quite challenging since algae tends to dominate everything with even medium lighting (just like in Puget Sound). That's why I eventually migrated to the lower depths with non-photosynthetic inhabitants.
That is great to know, thank you. I am hoping to get back in touch with some diving buddies and see how that goes.Grunt sculpin will not be found in the shallows. The best place to find them is off Burrows Island in Anacortes in about 100ft......but you could hit up some of the local dive message boards. You will probably find someone willing to pick up a few things for you. I hooked up with a few of them in the past....especially when I needed a chase boat for high current areas like Deception Pass or Neah Bay. A great shallow depth fish though is the spiny lumpsucker which are bright red and very small....perfect for a nano. They can be found at a dive site called Three-Tree in the Central Sound.
I actually gave much of my stock to those boys back in the day when I broke down that tank....the rest went to the Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium since I know the curator there.LOOOOVVEE this video! Temperate reefs are so beautiful. Too bad they're so uncommon etc.
I used to love checking out Coldwater Aquatics site when they were around just to see all the critters
So sorry to hear that. The reason for starting this biotope partly has to do with missing diving, so this could give me a little window into that world I cannot touch anymore.I actually gave much of my stock to those boys back in the day when I broke down that tank....the rest went to the Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium since I know the curator there.
My dry suit diving days are over too. Back in 2014, I suffered a devastating fall accident that resulted in the amputation of my right leg.....so drysuit diving is no longer an option unless I just wanted to swim in circles.
However, I recently started up that tank again....but I'm going back to my roots in warm water reefkeeping.