Mediterranean Seawater Tank with Paludarium 10/2021

 It's been a while... During the pandemic not many occasions to head to the seas. But things are going on. I had a short episode of combining a sea water tank with a paludarium. A rock overgrown with mosses and tiny plants on top of a marine tank. This was managed with a fresh water reservoir integrated in the marine tank setup on top of which the rock was set and pieces of rope drove freshwater into the planted rock. So far in theory. In reality salt was "crawling" into the freshwater reservoir and salt water sprays harmed the vegetation on the rock. Still an idea that deserves to be realized some day in a better way, because it combines the two most attractive forms of aquariums in one...

Mediterranean Sea Tank - December 2019 update

This month I had a chance to pick up some stock from the Mediterranean Sea. I want to mention especially the sea cucumber. Some people are still afraid to keep sea cucumbers, but I think this is a perfect inhabitant for seawater tanks. Because they are the vacuum cleaners of the sea. Who doesn't dream of an animal that sucks up all the dirty sand, digests the debris and leaves clean sand behind? Of course the sea cucumber as any other animal produces nitrates and phosphates, but those are consumed by bacteria, anemones, soft corals and plants. I'm happy that I found one just coincidentally in the shallow water by a port. Isn't it cute...?

More mediterranean biotope...

The next successful stage was a 100 l aquarium with mediterranean species. Have a look on your own:

Saltwater Biotope Aquarium pt. 2

After the success with the little experiment I went again to the sea and got more...

Saltwater Biotope Aquarium

My last significant projects were about saltwater aquariums. I always thought: This is too tough for me, very complicated and very expensive!!! But not necessarily. A friend of mine had a short term experiment with saltwater species that caught my interest. He caught them in the wild, took sand, rocks and water from the same place and put altogether in an aquarium.

I tried the same thing with a little 40 liter aquarium and took some 'stuff' from our Black Sea. It's amazing how many creatures had been in the water, plants and sand as larvae and evolved afterwards!!! Later I slowly raised the level of saltiness to normal and added some species from the Mediterranean Sea. During all the time I did just water changes with self prepared saltwater and fed the inhabitants. No problems, no control...

Here are some pictures (Sorry, I had no decent camera then...)