Oyster Reef Ecosystem Tank

[Chasmodes]

Update: I just completed a water change, and afterwards sat down to check on everything. I noticed that my skilletfish laid another batch of eggs, the third batch in two weeks. Also, my blennies laid eggs last night or this morning again. I wondered what happened to the older skilletfish eggs as they seemed to disappear...

...well, a few minutes later, I found out...I found fry swimming around my tank, most likely skilletfish but could be blennies, I guess. They're about 3/16 of an inch long right now. I think that a few went down the drain with the water change, I suspect!

[Michael Hoaster]

So cool. Happy fish!

[Chasmodes]

Thank you Michael! I guess I'm a Grandad now? LOL

They're a bit smaller than I thought, maybe 1/8" long at most. It wasn't easy, but I was able to get a short video of them:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgaPI6Ue-Ug

[Subsea]

Originally Posted by Chasmodes

Thank you Michael! I guess I'm a Grandad now? LOL

They're a bit smaller than I thought, maybe 1/8" long at most. It wasn't easy, but I was able to get a short video of them:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgaPI6Ue-Ug

Kevin,

As always, I enjoy your videos. On your music, what an eclectic mix of jazz and banjo. It for certain woke me up this morning.

The video brought back a memory imprinted from 30 years ago on a Transocean semo-submersible in 100’ of water at the mouth of the Mississippi River. On the surface, the water was fresh, full of nutrients and very muddy with little light penetration. As a semi-submersible, the rig must remain over the wellhead. In a 3-4 knot current, six 30 ton anchors with another with another 500 tons of anchor chain the rig was prone to be moved off location. As a Subsea Engineer, I was responsible for all well control equipment, riser tensioning system including flex joint on wellhead and ball joint at rig floor. To monitor rig offset from wellhead, I would lower underwater camera till slack in cable indicating that camera frame was landed on BOP frame. I would raise winch cable 5’ to look at flex joint angle bullseye. When subsea camera lights were turned on, at max, 5 seconds were available to see flex joint angle indicator before a horde of multicolored squiggly things blocked view.

[Heuristic]

That's awesome! And the free quality fish food is a great added bonus LOL

[Chasmodes]

Thank you Patrick and Heuristic! I'll try and raise them one day, but for now, they're on their own but most likely will become a nutritious meal for someone in the tank!

Wow, Patrick, that must have been a pretty amazing job. What was the weirdest thing you saw on such dives?

[Chasmodes]

Update:

The skilletfish lay eggs weekly now. The blennies lay them about every three weeks that I can tell. The fish fry from either species hang around for a few days and become fish food, I suspect. All of the fish are really fat these days!

I love this picture, male striped blenny, Chasmodes bosquianus, lookin' right at'cha!:

[Michael Hoaster]

That is a great pic! So cool your fish are spawning! Jealous…

[Chasmodes]

Thank you Michael.

Here's a better video of the fish fry that are in my tank. I'm not sure if they are a mix of skilletfish and blennies, or all of one of a species. There are much more than usual. Right now, there are two blennies guarding eggs (and only one female in the tank) and at least one skilletfish guarding eggs. These guys hatched yesterday morning and by last night, had the calmer surface water in my tank covered. The fry are there for a few days and either die or get eaten. Someday, I'll set up grow out tanks and try to raise them. Right now, I don't have room and it's not in my budget. So, they'll be fish food unless a miracle happens and some live longer. I feed my tank Reef Nutrition Oyster Feast and frozen baby artemia for the filter feeders. I hope the fry will eat these foods and live longer, but I doubt it. They oyster eggs are small enough, less than 50 microns, but from what I've heard, the blenny fry like live rotifers. Anyway, for now, it makes for a fun video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEsUdl25SEA&t=44s

I also have another project going on, not a marine tank, rather, a freshwater 75g US native stream tank to house minnows, shiners and darters. I'm almost done building a DIY styrofoam faux rock wall as an in-tank background for the aquarium. I constructded it by carving and gluing styrofoam foam board, filled in the gaps with spray foam and stream rocks to reduce buoyancy, and painted it with Drylok. The first coat was plain Drylok gray, and this coat is a mix of Drylok, charcoal cement dye, and a dab of yellow paint that matches the base color of a rock formation found near my local river (where I will collect my fish). My next steps will be to stipple various lighter shade versions of the same color to bring out the realism of the color and reduce the monotone gray look. I will also add some other colors as well (subtle greens, browns, reds) to bring out the stratification of the rock a bit more. I really am having fun with this project. Although, it's not a marine tank, it is a cool project that perhaps might give you all some ideas for something to build in your reef tanks, so I'll post a couple updates on that now and then along with updates of my oyster reef tank. Hope you all like this short video of that project:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SrmoWCchnw

[Michael Hoaster]

Wow that's a lot of fry! It says a lot that your fish are so well cared for they spawn regularly. Great job Kevin!

Please keep us posted on your fake rock progress. I'd love to see sequences of the color scheme evolving. It looks awesome!

[Chasmodes]

Thank you Michael on all counts.

The rock wall is coming along nicely. I'm curious how it will turn out as well. I was going to paint last night but couldn't get motivated after a longgggg day at work. All I could do was feed and watch my fish. The oyster reef tank needs the front glass cleaned and a water change, but all I could do was sit there and continue to be fascinated by these fish.

The fry are just about gone. I don't know if they starve and die off or are being eaten by the other fish. I have yet to see any fish going for them at the surface. But, there are more eggs in the shells that will hatch in a day or so. I may try and transfer some fry to the other tank that is currently fishless. Maybe they'll have a better chance at survival if they can avoid the three anemones in there. It would be cool to raise a few of these guys. I guess I'd better consider what to do with them though!

[Chasmodes]

Not much has changed with the oyster reef tank. I bought a small fine mesh net and will try and move the fish fry to my other tank so that they don't have as many predators, no powerhead to chop them up or a HOB filter to suck them into oblivion. We will see if there is enough food in the tank already to rear them.

I made progress on my 75 gallon stream build DIY 3D sytrofoam rock wall background though. I stippled a lighter shade of Drylok paint mix with a sponge to give it a more realist effect:

[Michael Hoaster]

That looks amazing! Great technique!

[Chasmodes]

Originally Posted by Michael Hoaster

That looks amazing! Great technique!

Thank you Michael!

[Chasmodes]

I tried moving some of the fish fry to my other tank. The lasted a couple days there. I think that they all became chow for my three anemones, and perhaps eaten by shrimp, crabs and worms. Right after adding them, I saw three go into the large anemone. I thought that might happen. I need to have tanks set up to specifically raise them without predators. They also might be starving, so I'd need to start up a live rotifer culture. I don't have the space to do this yet, but perhaps down the road.

[Chasmodes]

OK, so this isn't my oyster reef, but it's a project that I need to finish before I can move onto my larger oyster reef build. I'm making progress with my faux rock wall 3D sytrofoam background, so I thought that I'd share. In the pics below, my work space is my oyster reef aquarium stand

I painted the last lighter layer of this paint mix. I'm really happy with it so far. It is still a monotone color, although it no longer is the charcoal color of the cement dye, the yellow gives it a greenish gray tint. So for the next layer or two, I plan to add a little brown and maybe green. I don't think that I'll cover the entire wall though, just a dab here and there. I may even focus on a few of the shale layers to add to differentiate some strata, as you might see in nature:




I really like how using Drylok rather than a layer of dried cement allows you to bring out the detail that you carve. That is a good thing unless you carve a mistake! In this case, the faux fossils that I pressed into the foam show up well. I'm happy that i started with the darkest color first and then added the highlighting, because it really makes the cracks and faux fossils pop.



I used springs that I had laying around the house to imitate crinoid stem fossils by bending them and pressing them into the foam. I also pressed in small sea shells to imitate brachiopods and other bivalves. The coral that I pressed into the foam turned out nice too. It is subtle, but was enough to break up the flat shiny surface of new foam board. I don't know how much will show up later after algae builds up, but for now, I'm happy with how it turned out so far.

[saf1]

Originally Posted by Subsea

Kevin,

As always, I enjoy your videos. On your music, what an eclectic mix of jazz and banjo. It for certain woke me up this morning.

The video brought back a memory imprinted from 30 years ago on a Transocean semo-submersible in 100’ of water at the mouth of the Mississippi River. On the surface, the water was fresh, full of nutrients and very muddy with little light penetration. As a semi-submersible, the rig must remain over the wellhead. In a 3-4 knot current, six 30 ton anchors with another with another 500 tons of anchor chain the rig was prone to be moved off location. As a Subsea Engineer, I was responsible for all well control equipment, riser tensioning system including flex joint on wellhead and ball joint at rig floor. To monitor rig offset from wellhead, I would lower underwater camera till slack in cable indicating that camera frame was landed on BOP frame. I would raise winch cable 5’ to look at flex joint angle bullseye. When subsea camera lights were turned on, at max, 5 seconds were available to see flex joint angle indicator before a horde of multicolored squiggly things blocked view.

Didn't I just read a article this morning that Subsea introduced a new camera using Sony's low light sensors pulling in 8k resolution?

[Michael Hoaster]

Your faux fossils are so cool!

[Chasmodes]

Thank you Michael!

I sponged on a little brown last night on a few layers to break up the monotone color and display a more stratified effect. I will touch it up a little more perhaps before installing it into the tank this weekend.

[McPuff]

That looks really cool! Any plan for sinking it?

[Chasmodes]

Originally Posted by McPuff

That looks really cool! Any plan for sinking it?

Thank you! Yeah, the structure is filled with river rocks and sealed with spray foam inside, so that might mitigate the tendency to float a little bit. I will use a lot of silicone to glue it to the tank glass, sides, back and bottom. It fits tightly in the tank which I think will help keep it in place. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it will work. If it doesn't, I guess the next step after that will be to carve out as much foam from the back as I can. I hope it doesn't come to that though.

[Michael Hoaster]

Oh yeah! I like the color variation. You're an artist!

[Chasmodes]

Thank you Michael. I'm probably being too picky about it because it is all going to be covered in algae some day, LOL.

[Michael Hoaster]

Algae will complete the picture for sure.

Also, I want you to get it done, so you can make progress on: "Current Tank Info: 101g 3'X3'X18" Cubish Oyster Reef Blenny tank, 36"X17"X18" sump"!

[Chasmodes]

Originally Posted by Michael Hoaster

Also, I want you to get it done, so you can make progress on: "Current Tank Info: 101g 3'X3'X18" Cubish Oyster Reef Blenny tank, 36"X17"X18" sump"!

Exactly! Hence my sense of urgency. I want to finish my stand and get that tank set up! My fish need it too.