Long last, an update…
So much good and bad has happened and I try to summarize some of the things from the maintank for now…

Pollack

The 10 Pollack fry that I had have all done very well for a good few weeks and have grown and filled up considerably. Very nice to watch them and seemed a very suitable aquarium fish I thought.

All but one accepted dead food and even aquarium flakes food very well.
For some reason though they all stopped feeding from one day to another. This was during a warmer weather period when the water temperature went up from 20 to 21.
However I doubt that this is the sole cause. Water values for Nitrate, Nitrite, Ammonia and Phosphate where instantly checked and all where zero so I was a bit baffled.
Unfortunately they all perished or where caught by anemones due to weakness and poor swimming over the next few days.
Only one remained and slowly started feeding again after about a week.

Power Outage

Unfortunately due to my own fault there was a power outage of my whole apartment for 24h while I was away which of course had catastrophic effects and a clumpy feeling of quilt in my stomach. Surprisingly enough though many animals have survived. I lost three two spotted gobies, a five bearded rockling and the last pollack. The common goby and one two spotted goby looked very dead (on their backs on the sand) however they came back to live after about an hour of water circulation. All crustaceans, Anemones and Starfish have survived which was a bit surprising. Obviously water values where pretty bad with a bit of a milkyness in the water.
I forgot to measure them in all the panic, would have been interesting.
Only good thing was that the annoying green microalgea/cyanobacteria has dyed off quite a bit probably due to the water temperature drop and/or the lack of light for the period.
The system picked up surprisingly well as I wasnt able to do a waterchange for another few days. Skimmer working overtime and the water looked pretty good again the next day with all remaining animals not showing any weird behavior.

Algea problems

Dreadful looking green slimy microalgea or cyanobacteria has pretty much taken over.

I have to say I am not doing my best to try and prevent it. I am not adding any supplements to the water etc which I probably should. The worst thing is that it kind of holds air bubbles and just looks dreadful. Its also on the sand. However the red one I had previously and also the red hairalgea has disappeared. I am quite sure the main reason for this change in leadership is the rising of the temperature which was around near 22degrees. I added about 50 periwinkles and a few more cushionstars that seem to feed on the green film algea but manual removal is still needed to keep it more or less in check.

Chiller

Since this is my first summer as a native marine aquarist I wasnt sure how high the water temperature in the tank will rise during summer in my place. However it was quite obvious that a chiller was needed and given the rise of the temperature up to 22degrees I had to bite the pain of ordering a chiller. I opted for the D&D DC-750 which is slightly oversized but An Bollenessor had good experiences with it so I was confident enough to spend the money on it.

The temperature is now set to 17-18 degrees which is just one degree higher than the local shore. The realistic temperature had a very immediate effect on the green microalgea that is not growing as fast anymore and has completely dissapeared from the sand which is extremely welcome. However the red hairalgea is coming back but its better of the two evils 😉 Makes the tank look so much cleaner straight away. I havent seen any behavioral changes in animals but the ones I have left would be very tolerable to higher temperatures anyway.

Its hard to find nice looking seaweed in the rockpools at the moment as they all seem extremely overgrown with epiphytes. Also didnt really spend much time looking but it would be interesting to give the macros a try again now that the chiller is in place.

Stock updates

Recently I found a lot of tiny Juvenile Fish in the rockpools. Tiny 15 spined Sticklebacks, two spot gobies, Pollack, Grey Mullet (I think), Corkwing Wrasse and Ballan Wrasse.
I wasnt up for any experiments so all I brought home was some tiny two spot gobies, two corkwings and a Ballan.

The Corkwings where so small and unusally colored that I wasnt sure what they where until the grew.
Here how they looked on the day of collection.

After one day they already took on a reddish brownish color and grew about three times in volume in two weeks! They seem very skilled at finding food showing nice big bellies.

The Ballan however was beautifully full green and hasnt change color. It wasnt as skilled in finding food (belly not as full). None of the wrasse accepted any food like mussel, limpet, prawn or pellets. Only the Corkwings started nipping after about four weeks but dont seem to be too interested.

I think they feed on copepods, which are thriving in the tank. Unfortunately the Ballan has dissapeared without a trace.

Also new in store is a Worm pipefish Nerophis lumbriciformis which is housed in the small section of the second tank and doing well for over four weeks now. Again lots of copepods seem to keep it going. Dont have a good picture yet.

Lovely looking five bearded rockling, unfortunately hasnt survived the power outtage.

more to follow soon…