Cold Water Marine Aquarium

Setting up a cold water marine aquarium is not too complicated, as long as you do not rush things & do it in the correct stages.

Select as large a tank as possible, depending on space & budget. Also remember the weight of an aquarium filled with water, a 250 litre aquarium would weigh well over 350 kilos when filled with water & rocks etc.
If possible locate the aquarium in a cool place, as most species from rock-pools although being very hardy few will be happy with temperatures over 22 centigrade. An aquarium water chiller may be necessary to keep the aquarium below this temperature, preferably at 15 degrees.
Only collect enough specimens to suit your aquarium size; if you have a problem keeping the temperature low in the aquarium then consider the needs of the specimens.

You will need the following:-

1- Good quality filter, we use an external canister which is capable of filtering twice the amount of 
     water in the aquarium. In the past we have used under gravel filters with power-heads, but found
     that the substrate soon became clogged, requiring frequent stirring to break it up & the substrate   
     dwellers did not do very well in it.

2- Protein skimmer, very useful in lowering waste & excess nutrients in the aquarium. 
3- Substrate, gravel from the beach or coral sand. We use coral sand.
4- Sea water, directly taken from the sea if local, or purchase a good quality synthetic sea salt. We use
     synthetic sea salt option. 
5- Lighting, we use Fluval Aquasky LED lamps which can be controlled in colour and strength it
     also has a night light facility so that you can study your specimens in a night time environment.
     The lighting does not have to be as strong as for tropical marines, we find that the seaweeds grow 
     very well with this light; in particular the symbiotic algae in the Snakelock Anemones has really 
     improved.
6- Hydrometer, to measure salinity of your sea water. 
    An SG of 1.025 is correct at 15C or 1.023 at 20C.
7- Sea Water Test kit to measure Ammonia, Nitrite, PH & Nitrate. 
8- Water chiller to keep the temperature at 15 degrees centigrade or lower in warm conditions.

Adding specimens to the Aquarium.

Start with just a few hardy specimens at first, crabs or prawns for example, along with a few natural rocks from the sea. When introducing specimens into the aquarium also add some ammonia/nitrate bacteria solution such as Seachem Stability Aquarium Marine Freshwater Treatment Filter Start into the aquarium, this to introduce friendly bacteria to break down the waste products from your specimens. This is added daily for the first week.

Measure the ammonia & nitrite levels to see that they do not exceed the recommend levels.

The Ammonia levels will increase first followed by Nitrite levels, after a period of a few weeks these should lower to nil, the less harmful Nitrate levels will increase as the bacteria do their work and consume the Ammonia and Nitrite, converting them into Nitrate. Nitrate levels can be reduced by regular water changes and by adding Nitrate removal resins into the filter. We change 10% of the water every week.

After the aquarium has 'cycled', that is when the bacteria in the aquarium and filter have grown enough to reduce the Ammonia and Nitrite levels, then you can add some more specimens to the aquarium.

But only a few at a time to allow the bacteria in the aquarium to adapt to the increased waste products from the new specimens. 

The PH of sea water should be 8.2; this is reduced through waste products in the aquarium, but can be maintained by regular water changes and the addition of marine PH buffer supplement.

We also add trace elements on a weekly basis to replace those elements used by the specimens. 

Feeding your specimens.

Feeding your specimens is the fun bit; this is where you can study the feeding habits of your specimens. There are many frozen foods available such as, Brine Shrimp, Mysis Shrimp, Crushed Mussel, Invertebrate Food, Red Plankton, Rotifers, Fish Eggs, etc. Also you can buy Marine Snow for your filter feeders.

All are readily eaten by my Gobies, Anemones, Prawns, Sea Urchins, Crabs, etc.
In addition we also raise live brine shrimp to feed the specimens, on a regular basis.

Water Chillers 

A water chiller may be necessary if the water temperature regularly exceeds 20 degrees centigrade.
We have installed a Hailea 150 which works very well on our 145 litre aquarium. It was easy to install & has proved to be reliable. It was reasonably priced at £244.