Prepare for the most epic tank ever!!!
 

Ok maybe it wont be the "most epic tank ever" buuuuuuut it will be wicked. I just bought a chiller http://www.jlaquatics.com/phpstore/s...t_ID=ch-pc014i
and that will be the final leg of this journey for my "Locals Only" tank. I will probably hook it up next weekend. I have already got some pretty stellar things in it right now but the temperature is slowly climbing. Wish me luck.

Matt

Photo's? Sounds intriguing !! Good luck :) :)
.............Dave

Climb on for the ride.

Yeah, pics would be good :)

I'm curious now! Up with the pics!

these arent great pictures and they may have been seen before but thats to bad. http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c2...att277/me1.jpg

http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c2...tt277/me23.jpg
http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c2...277/me2345.jpg

these are but a few and i am going to have many more interesting things in here.

And these are from the summer in a tank I didnt keep for a long time.

http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c2...zzzz333333.jpg

http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c2.../zzzzz1111.jpg
Thats right I once had a squid called Cthulhu...

http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c2...7/zzzz4444.jpg
...and a dog shark pup (but not at the same time)

http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c2...7/zzz22222.jpg

Matt

wow NICE tank! I want to set up a coldwater tank in the future. How critical is the cold temp to these guys? Is it very detrimental to them if the temp goes up to about 25 deg C?

I've always wanted some grunt sculpins and pacific spiny pumpsuckers. funniest fish ever imo.

or if I had a big enough tank, a giant pacific octopus! :biggrin:

Cool pics :cool:

How big is the tank and how is it lit?

I have discovered in severe circumstances that the fish found in tidal pools and under rocks can and will survive around that temperature but I wouldn't advise running it at that high of a temperature. As for the grunt sculpins and pacific spiny lumpsuckers they are both in my top ten all time favorite fish. I just wish I could find one or two to put in my tank. Maybe when I get my diving license.

The tank is my once tropical 73 gallon. The lighting is a 36" coralife with two 96 watt bulbs. One of the things in the fixture fried though so I am only using on light right now. The fish over here down need much light and I don't plan on keeping any corals in it.

Matt

Nice work! Let me know what you think of the chiller. I am eyeing up the same one for my cold water set-up and I'd like to know how loud it is.
Are you using a glass tank? If so, are you having condensation problems yet?
I highly recommend getting your dive ticket.

whoa! hey that lumpsucker is PINK! hahaha awesome. Ive only seen tan to dark coloured lumps.

I discovered a new fave local species of mine! I saw them at the vancouver aquarium today. hooded nudibranchs. They look like a normal nudi with a dull tan colour (boring) but here's the fun part: it looks like they have a jellyfish fused to their head! they use this "hood" to filter get food. another fun thing is that if you take em out of the water, they smell like WATERMELON! heh, ain't that just retardiculous?

I am using a glass aquarium and will set up the chiller soon. And yes i will for sure be getting my drive ticket. I was supposed to get it the fall but I had a small issue with spending my course money on other stuff...

Wow I really like that pink one eh. I think I may have to go break into the aquarium and "liberate" one of these Hooded Nudibranchs HA. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm watermelon.

Matt

hahaha. apparently they can swim (although awkwardly) too. They are actually quite common. apparently the show up here: God's Pocket Bay, Port Hardy in the Spring

THEY CAN SWIM!!!??? AWESOME!!! I really need to get one now. I have enough algae and other goodies growing in it.

Matt

yeah I know, screwed up isn't it? They sit on eel grass and filter the water for food (plankton) and sometimes are knocked off... then they swim. oh and the "hood" thing sorta goes up and down when they feed. looks like they're praying!

I really want a cold tank for these guys. and grunts and pink lumpsuckers. Ill call it the "nature's rejects tank".

Matt,
okay semi serious question: other than a chiller, do you need anything else on a coldwater tank that a tropical tank doesn't have?

I always figured acrylic tank with skimmer (optional?), canister filter, couple of power heads, maybe a fuge/sump, low lights. maybe a small heater just in case.

do you think a fuge is necessary in this case?

Well then. I dont really think that you need anymore than the chiller. In the case of a heater just unplug the chiller or you could end up turning your tank into a ice cube. As for the fuge I have never used one on any tank and I have never seen anything bad happen. About six years ago I had a 20 gallon tank outside that just had like three air stones and it never quit and nothing died... Sometimes having too much equipment can be overdoing it and unnecessary. Next question...

(ps: I really really really want a hooded nudibranch now:crazyeye: )

Matt

the chiller doesn't regulate temp and shut itself off when it gets low?! bah that sucks the mother don't it. How do you manage to keep the temp relatvely constant then?

if you're getting annoyed at the pestering with questions just let me know! (ill find some one else to bug:mrgreen: )

the nudi: I KNOW EH?! they are amazing! I love the oddball organisms with screwed up biology. like mantis shrimp and hooded nudis for example!

HUH??? I think it does regulate itself I was just responding to the question about a mini heater. I haven't plugged it in yet I have to buy some more plumbing things. I don't mind the questions they keep the thread alive.

Screwed up biology or superior beings? Think about it. Wouldn't you be happy with a fully functional third arm? I know I would. It would make cleaning the tanks easier. HA

Matt

Off topic, but if you had a third arm, where would it be on your body? I think you'd be better off with third and fourth arms. That way, your body would at least be symmetrical. That is if you didn't grow the extra arms on one side of your body :razz: Plus, tank cleaning would be a total breeze :biggrin:

ahhhh, i see what ya meant. my bad, i read it wrong.

which superiority would i take? Oh I know! Id take a page out of the hooded nudi's book. Id smell like watermelon! :mrgreen: oh and Id also fart 100$ bills.

I think after awhile you would really hate watermelon. But now a serious question. I am looking for a cheap small pump/powerhead so I can put water through my chiller. It needs to be between 600gph to 1000gph. Or should I cut into my plumbing and make it run off of my pump used for the main tank?

Matt

some have controllers, some don't. If it has a little panel where you can set the temp, then you're kosher. There are single and dual stage controllers as well, the dual stage controls the chiller and then the heater, to stop the constant flucuations, single stage just turns the chiller on when it gets too warm, and off once it hits the set degree.

hey i was wondering where you got all your cold livestock from. Did you get other diver friends to collect for you? do divers need a permit to collect wild?

do you think more light would be needed if i took in some coldwater corals? I once dove off bowen island and there was an underwater canyon and on both sides were just walls of white plumose anemones. It was the most ethereal experience Ive ever had. I was thinking of plastering my back wall with a patch of these. there are also a few other beautiful cold corals i would love to keep, including one GORGEOUS pink kind of anemone whose name escapes me for the moment.

Wicked my chillers a dual stage.

Ummm... I get all my stuff from the shallow water with a dip net or when snorkeling...:redface: I think that you may just need a fishing license to keep things I have never run into trouble. I remember hearing or reading somewhere that the corals and anemones around here need alot less like than the tropical ones. In fact I think if you have too much light it can be bad. The plumose anemones feed off of phytoplankton and other small goodies. They would probably be quite hard to keep alive like barnacles.

Matt

yeah i just finished reading somewhere... can't find the link... that cold corals are very independent of light. they all depend much more on plankton.

I would think the anemones would be able to stand any light that goes on a cold tank (because they do use low light) if the anemone were from the intertidal. could probably just peel one off the rock in a tidepool.

damn! i want to set up a cold tank so bad! I think may even tear down my 60gal tropical acrylic tank to do it.

edit: ...and i just finished setting up the 60!!

Thats what I practically did. I had my tank running for a short while after many issues then took it all apart and now I have a wicked work of art. *caugh*doit*caugh*

Matt

There are both strawberry coral-a branching softy in bright redish pink and strawberry anmones which are colonys simmilar to zoa's-same unreal colour. Both very common up here in Campbell River. There's also an orange cup coral which is a bright orange polyp similar to a paly. Check out the Van aquarium, they have an beautiful display with strawberrys and red irish lord rockfish. It's downstairs beside that massive west coast display. I am planning on setting up a strawberry tank as soon as my reef is established. I've got a 160 gal with a 1/3hp chiller. Should do the trick. If you want to do easy locals, pick your stock from tide pools as they deal with constant changes in temp and salinity on a daily basis-very hardy. As far as colecting goes, you'll need a tidal licence and a set of reg's to see limits and closed species ect... As far as transporting live fish goes, probably a grey area.
Shaun.

lol don't encourage me! ... actually naw i take that back. i really do wan to do this. and i WILL... eventually. if not this summer, then the next. barnacle are hard to keep alive? huh. didn't know that. I thought they would be very hardy... especially if collected from the intertidal.

well i play by the rules, i guess ill get a permit. lol fishmaster, i work at vanaqua. Yeah i know about the strawberries, and i do plan on having some of them too. they are not what im talking about though. these anemones get quite large and are a darker pink with white speckles on the stalk. not colonial. Ill figure it out on saturday when i go back to work. and then of course there's the giant green anemone which would set a nice contrat to the pink/red.

Too funny, how does a guy get a tour of the back room???nudge, nudge, wink, wink. There's a few amnones like you describe, sounds like the white spotted. Could be the fish eating, but it's foot is solid red with no spots??? The green's are cool too. So many choices.................
As for the barnacles, I bought some used gear off a girl who had a tide pool tank and everything was covered in tiny barnacles. They were doing very well. I think they could be the aptasia of cold water if you wern't carfull. They probably came in as plankton when she introduced fish or spawned in the tank. Who knows?????
Shaun.

I have those tiny barnacles over everything. They wont go away. What I was saying was that some people will go and get giant clumps of them and they usually die and then mess with the tanks healthiness,

Matt

ahhh yeah i can see how a clump of them would quickly mess with water quality if they die from malnutrition or something. In the lab i work at, the giant barnacles sometimes die. WHen you take the shell out of the water, it smells like hell on fire. whoooo. thank god for flow through systems. if not for the constant water changing, im sure we would have already crashed quite a few tanks.

if over fed im sure barnacle could quickly take over a tank... Ill have to be careful about that.

yeahhhh that's the one. white spotted rose anemone. I love those

Holy crap. At the beach by my house there is one of those white spotted rose anemones that has been there for like two and a half years now. I can only get to it when the tide is really low. The thing is sooooo cool.

Matt

You guys are getting me pumped to start my local tank.

This just reminded of a funny story. When I was a kid, I thought I would start a local tank. No chiller or fancy gear. First I packed home aprox 33 gallons of seawater. I lived about 5 blocks from Rocky Point Park. Quite a task. Then I started packing home shiner pearch, staghorn skulpins, crabs, ect...Everything was living for the next day.so I went for some more livestock. I couldn't resist a huge ball of mussels, likely several hundred of them. Next day.....WOW did it stink. Major death. Then my mom made me pack everthing right back where I got it.
Shaun.:mrgreen:

Shaun when you say rocky point park do you mean in Port Moody?! i live about five minutes from there! hehehe tank o death. nice. ah well we all learn. some just choose to do so the hard way :mrgreen:

sounds like there used to be a lot of life there. recetly though i think there's been too much pollution and crap for that much life to thrive. Not much alive in there that ive seen but a few moon jellies, shore crabs and a nice rainbow coloured slick. Nothing i would put in my tank at any rate.

matt, two and a half years? nice! how big is that bad boy?

Port Moody all the way!!!!Lived on Henry Street at the bottom of Gatensbury hill for 20years. There was a fair amount of life down there when I was growing up...not really that long ago. You'll find alot more life around say Balcarrra or even Barnett beach. I used to fish off the all the docks within a good bikeride. Rockypoint fills up with spawning shiner pearch in the summer and we used to catch searun cutthroat, starry flounder, asst skulpins, ect... down there too. I used to catch 3 spined stickle back off the rocky point dock and dump them into a freshwater tank. They'd be spawning within a week! Pretty cool. I think that success may have been what lead to the Tank o death!!!!
Shaun.

ahahahahaa awesome yet sadly true I had my first tank like that. Just without the smell. As for the anemone its about the size of a grapefruit. In like two days I set up the chiller!

Matt

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...umpsuckers.jpg

words.....cant.......express.........awesomeness.. ....YAY

Matt

yay lumpsuckers! my fave fish at the aquarium. actually, my fave bony fish ever lol. I showed my mum one of those to convine her to let me have a coldwater tank and this was her reply "why would you want to keep leeches?" ... wth. took a while to explain that it wasn't a bloodsucking slug.

can we get some pics of the chiller set up and a current fts? what kind of pump do you use for the chiller?