Been a while since I was out in the pools but this weekend was perfect tide wise so I made the journey to Coral beach once more.

The pools looked nice and not as overgrown as the last time in November. The tide was very low at 0.5m so I was hoping for some good booty.

I went straight down to the spot where I found the tiny Anapagurus hyndmanni Hermitcrabs. A picture of one here in an old post. I like to see them grow up in the small tank then bring them over to the big tank. They have nice white claws and striped antennas. I think they dont crow as big as the Common Hermit.

Its amazing how they seem to really like this location given the fact that even after over 6 months they are still very heavily populating the same area. I thought I was just lucky the first time I found them.

Came acrross this very large Edible Sea Urchin Echinus esculentus. Never seen one anywhere near that size! Didnt try eating it though 😉

Was kind of lucky that I saw this fella in a pool. Can you see him?

He was so reliant on his camouflage that I could nearly pick him up with my hands out of the pool only when he was completely lifted off the ground he started to move and gave me this priceless typical grumpy look with a grunt.

Such a deadly design this creature!

Saw about 8 of those cup corals all in very solitary and impossible to get at locations. The base of cup corals that you can see in the dry is completely solid and the tentacles are retracted inside the solid core. Amazing looking. Hope one day I will find an accessible one. Would like to try to chisel away the piece of rocks its sitting on.

As usual you find a lot of crabs (this one is a Velvet) in fissures or under rocks sitting in the dry. First time now that I found the furrowed crab and many of them.

This spiny starfish had an usual strong blue tint which nearly made me bring it home. The colour didnt come out as nice on the picture. But they are too voracious for my setup. There is plenty of options for theme tanks 😉 If I only had the time space and money…

The kind of slimy green algea/bacteria that has plagued me during the summer has never really completely dissappeared  in the split tank (60l/120l). I guess since its not on the chiller the “winter simulation” never really happened. It went back with the reducing daylight but never dissappeared. So I wanted to do a fresh start and took everything bar the sand out and placed new bare rocks from upper tidal areas.

This now is how the 60l section looks like…not too happy with it

…and this the 120l section which has turned out really nice I think, with plenty of hiding places passages between rocks for the Blenny, Corkwing and Sea Scorpion…

I wanted to use bare rocks as I only want seaweed in there that actually grows and likes the conditions. At the moment that is only the Wire Weed Sargassum Muticum, maybe and hopefully new shoots of other weeds will come up this summer.

And here one of the Main tank at the moment…

Kept 6 Two Spotted Gobies, 2 Corkwings and a Great Pipefish from the trip to repopulate the tank with swimming things. More to that in the next post…

And thats the two(three) tanks together…