Foodwise I think everybody is happy enough. The Sandgobies always seem to have a bigger belly as when I caught them, the brown anemone has a big appetite on snails or hermits it seems and also the prawns always seem to have something in their stomachs. Even though I think all animals find enough food at the moment I fed some cooked frozen mussel and prawn yesterday for the second time. Especially after the recent stocking up with the Three-spined sticklebacks and Shanny. The shanny didnt seem very hungry but took a few nibbles. The Sticklebacks didnt seem to be interested in the food at all even very small bits flying around. Maybe they need something else. I’ll keep an eye on them if they dont seem to feed I will return them.

Started hatching artemia eggs on sunday so hopefully harvest tomorrow and see if they like that? Also trying to start a copepod culture. They are feeding on the phytoplankton I added but I am not sure if my place is too cold for this to work properly, needs patience though they only seem to start blooming after around 10days. I am at day 7 now.

The Three-spined sticklebacks really are amazing to watch. Their perfect silver flanks and the way they scoot around gently in their  school is eye glueing. They really seem to like it when I switch up the flow as well.  But they like life on the edge as some of them enjoy hanging around dangerously close to the anemones tentacles as if they where teasing them 😉

Stock update 4/11/13  

15+ Hermit crabs from 10mm to 25mm shell size

25+ Prawns from 10mm to 60mm

15+ Top Shells

10+ Common periwinkles

5+ Limpets

1 Oyster 80mm

1 Cockle

2 Blue Mussels (?)

1 Baby Edible crab (Brown Crab) (10mm)

1 Common Blenny (Shanny) 70mm

1 Rock Goby 60mm

3 Sandgobies 50mm, 40mm, and 30mm

17 Three-spined stickleback  around 25-35mm (I thought they where Mackerel)

1 red and 2 brown Beadlet Anemones

3 Snakelocks Anemones

1 Daisy Anemone

Not sure about the seaweeds but some are I think…

Rainbow Weed

Bushy rainbow wrack

Gut Weed

Sea Oak (beautiful!)

Water test values (API water test kit)

pH 8.0 (should be higher around 8.2-8.4 from what I read)

Ammonia 0ppm

Nitrite 0ppm

Nitrate 0ppm

Specific Gravity 1.023 (added some filtered fresh water to bring it down to 1.022)

Temperature 17.5 degrees (unchilled, well my place is rather chilly but no chiller as such)

So not too bad, I expected worse as I am currently still not operating the skimmer and only filtration is a small internal sponge and ceramic tube filter and occasional water changes until I have the sump and plumbing installed. Maybe the very deep sand bed (10-15cm) is really working that well? Or the few really “alive” rocks? Have to keep an eye on the values and probably retest every other day.

Some more recent pictures…