Time has flewn and I wasnt in writing mood so I finally pulled myself together to write a quick update on the tank and new additions…
Guess who laid that? Looks pretty neat…
…it was this guy, a Sea Lemon.
Tried to do a close-up shot of the retractable gills…
Some more pictures of its Egg ribbons
The Butterfish which was added a month ago is starting to feel comfortable and showing his face even in daylight. It “walks” very weirdly sometimes on his tiny pectoral/pelvic fins and digs itself under rocks through the sand. Very cool animal
Since I rearranged the Dahlia Anemones and upped the flow from powerheads they seem to be happier and all Anemones are really stretching their arms.
This (what I believe is a Chiton) was releasing egg or sperm mass like crazy. Its weirdly fluffy for a normally hard and shelled Chiton.
Everything seems to be in breeding mood. One of the ten Two spotted Gobies is protecting a certain crevice with all it has. He also seems to be digging behind it and carrying sand in his mouth and spitting it out in front of its “nest”. Looks really cool when he is posing around the others. I think there is at least one more male but he is smaller and keeping very quiet when the big one is around.
Very nice colour display.
Here some other random pictures from the last month…
Next post will be some good news about some of the seaweeds.
Irish Rockpool Aquarium Adventures 
Amazingly beautiful.
I’m about to try and set up my own tank (East Scotland). Great to read through your posts! Thanks!
I’m about to try and set up a rockpool tank (east Scotland) so it’s great to read through your posts. Thanks!!
Great to hear Laurence and Thanks. Dont forget to checkout the links on my blog from fellow native aquarists for some more input and ideas. Its a great hobby and I am glad to hear you are taking the step into our beautiful native marine world 🙂 All the Best, Marius
Your tank is quite an inspiration to me, and I’m across the pond from you. I’m building an estuarine tank, a long process, but really love to see how your tank progresses. Hopefully, mine will be as successful as yours. I really love the butterfish and the clingfish. My tank will primarily hold striped blennies, some gobies and also a species of clingfish. Invertebrates to start will include ghost shrimp, hermit crabs and anything else that I can find that has a chance of surviving. Thanks for sharing!
Hej Kevin,
Thanks for your comment, that is nice to hear. Checkout my links on the blog for some other blogs that where the inspiration for me.
Good luck with your setup that would be very interesting to see, please let me know when/if you post anything anywhere on it.
The Clingfish are very entertaining to watch so are the Blennies, such comical creatures too. So its going to be an interesting to see your setup! Where are you based?
Good Luck
I’m in Maryland, USA. I have a thread on Reef Central in the reef discussion board titled, “Oyster Reef Ecosystem Tank” and my user name is Chasmodes. The biotope concept will be critters from the Chesapeake Bay. I’ve stalled a bit on the build, but hope to get rolling on the project again soon.
Thanks for the many helpful links. They are giving me a bunch of ideas.
Very good Kevin, very interesting project. will follow it. All the best and good luck with the system
Looking awesome and nice to see so many species are breeding, best indicator that they are happy! Interesting that your anemones did better with more flow. I only have one powerhead, the two RSM pumps are broken and I just have a little bit of flow from the eheim pump connected to the chiller (the flow through the back compartment is very minimal, and that is not helping water qu\lity, too much detritus. I might look into a second tunze powerhead but probably I need to get a new pump for filtration first….
ah, I only now realize this was a post from last year!
Haha no problem. The Maintank is currently empty as I moved, Struggling to finish my DIY Rockwall then have to wait to cure. The Gobies where breeding constantly but i have never seen any babies, I think the Butterfish and Clingfish picked them off. I got a lovely little chinese Power head called Jebao RW-4 for my other tank. Not always as quiet as the Tunzes and control not as sophisticated but very good value. Anemones definitely prefer higher flow and have arms more stretched. Also flow really important for seaweeds I hear