Native Marine Tank Thread

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Cu455

Cu455

Fire Eel
MFK Member
Mar 8, 2011
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Anyone else keeping native marine fish. Post some pictures or videos.

Here is my native tank, I need to work on it's asthetics. It has a windowpane flounder, 2 banded killies, hermits, sand crabs, snails, beard sponge, clams, mussels and a few skate eggs, most are empty.

 
Very cool tank, room temp I assume? Didn't think banded killies could go in full salt, I keep my 6 in a riffle biotope with no degree of salinity. I'd love to keep native SW but living in western PA it's very difficult, NANFA con is coastal NJ next year though so maybe I'll grab a Tomcod and some Shad then.
 
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It's in a unheated basement. Right now the temperature is at ~63F. Once it gets warmer I run a fan over the top and it never gets above 70F. Room temperature should be fine.

I know this is going to sound bad but I am not sure of the salinity of the tank. My refractors broke and I am getting two different readings on my two hydrometers. The tank water is the same water that they live in. I live 2 minutes from the ocean and it is easier to fill a 5 gallon bucket up then to mix the salt. I caught them in the bay so they might be in a slightly lower salinity but not by much.

When I had my saltwater pond I used them as feeders. I would keep them in freshwater for about a week then dump them into my pond which was kept at 1.024 and they will survive for about a week but then they would get eaten. They are very flexible fish.
 
That's really cool. I always dreamt of a native SW tank but then I moved about 500 miles away from the sea so I can forget it for the time being.
How does the flounder do?
 
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The flounder is great. Has been eating pellets since day 1. The only thing that sucks is it takes me 20 mins to find it.
 
Nice tank. Glad the flounder is eating. The clams, mussels, and sponges may not do well as they are filter feeders. The killifish actually look like mummichogs.
 
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spotfin said:
Nice tank. Glad the flounder is eating. The clams, mussels, and sponges may not do well as they are filter feeders. The killifish actually look like mummichogs.
Click to expand...

Thanks I think you are right about them being mummichogs. I feed my tank coral food like coral smoothie and LRS reef frenzy, I hope it's enough. I had the mussles and clams for a few years. My fuge and tank was a lot larger though. Plus I had guppies breeding like crazy in there so I am sure some of the filter feeders at them. Here is my old fuge.

 
My first salter tank was a native tank, I had everything. Weakfish, bluefish, flounder, mullet, killies, kingfish, sea robins, croakers. Pretty much anything you could catch off NJ and take home in a big cooler.
 
native salt tank is best salt tank
 
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