Cold water aquarium

[Bry17nyc]

Ive been going to a couple of beaches lately and as usual I start looking for creature in the sand etc.. I've found crabs, hermits, a variety of fish, even what seems to be ghost shrimps, also some type of macro algae. Pretty cool stuff.

So I now I'm planning on building a ten gallon tank with all of the above.

But I have a few questions...I know that the waters up here are cold so do I even need a heater?
Do I need a really good filtration system same as a reef tank? (skimmer,sump/Refugium)
Or Can I just plumb it to my reef tank and make one system with two diff tanks?

Any advice will be appreciate it

 

[Chiefmcfuz]

You would need a separate system as not to introduce any parasites into your reef tank. You may or may not need a heater but also you may or may not also need a chiller depending on if you can keep the water in the local system the proper temp. You might want to try and search the forum for more on this subject before setting up a system like this.

 

[Bry17nyc]

Thanks
I'll keep that in mind
Anybody had any other input

 

[Paul B]

I am also in NY and have been keeping a local tank for decades. You don't need anything, no light, heat nothing but a little circulation. I usually use the used water from my reef i there or I just collect it in the Sound or at the ocean.
You can keep all of the animals you find. Those grass shrimp will live for years as will the snails and shore crabs. The hermits don't do as well and if you want to keep the fiddler crabs you need to make a place for them to climb out of the water as that is where they usually stay.
Shrimp

Rock crab

Burrfish

Fiddler crab

Hermits

Butterflies

Seahorses

All of these animals were collected here in NY

 

[Bry17nyc]

I am also in NY and have been keeping a local tank for decades. You don't need anything, no light, heat nothing but a little circulation. I usually use the used water from my reef i there or I just collect it in the Sound or at the ocean.
You can keep all of the animals you find. Those grass shrimp will live for years as will the snails and shore crabs. The hermits don't do as well and if you want to keep the fiddler crabs you need to make a place for them to climb out of the water as that is where they usually stay.
Shrimp

Rock crab

Burrfish

Fiddler crab

Hermits

Butterflies

Seahorses

All of these animals were collected here in NY

Oh really!
I didn't know you can collect seahorses and butterflies up here!
Now I really want to make it happen..
Where you go to collect those?
You need to take me with you Paul !lol

 

[KathyC]

Do you still have those butterflies Paul? I don't know of anyone who has ever manged to keep them alive for any decent period of time.

------

To the OP - if you house gets warm in the winter, you will probably require a chiller to keep the tank cool in the winter.
IMO - the local animals are best left where they are for a number of reasons:
1- the issue with keeping the tank cool
2- they cannot reproduce in your tank as they should be doing in their usual environment
3- too many folks chose creatures that will outgrow their tank - or don't bother to research them before collecting them and find they devour each other in such close confines as a glass box.
4- They CANNOT be returned to the ocean once you have decided not to keep the tank any longer and they cannot be re-homed to a reef tank due to the temperature they require to thrive

 

[Jhoehlein]

Until just recently I was working at a nature center with several local temperate marine tanks, and for your purposes I don't think a high-tech setup is necessary. Mechanical and biological filtration should be solid, like just any other aquarium, but our waters are naturally high in nutrients so a skimmer would probably be unnecessary. A hangover filter is probably fine. As long as you don't put any large critters in there a sump for additional volume is unnecessary. Anything you find beachcombing should be fine with your home's temperature control, though if you want to keep fish at some point a chiller would help keep them comfortable, say around 65-70. In my experience small rock and hermit crabs should fair pretty well, while anything that filterfeeds will die off pretty quick. If you want fish, good options would be our local killies, striped killies and mummichogs, cunner, and sand gobies. Most other fish either get too large, are too fragile (silversides are a great example of this), or are tropical migrants who would be more at home in your reef.

 

[Paul B]

Kathy I gave away most of those butterflies and put two of them in my reef where they did not last more than a few months. The seahorses are shown transfering eggs, I got them near Oak Beach where I got the butterflies and burrfish. The shrimp and crabs you can get anywhere but I got them in a tide pool near my marina in Port Washington. I am going there today.
I am also going next week during the week if it is low tide if anyone wants to come by boat.
But in that tidepool is only shrimp, amphipods, snails, horseshoe crabs, eels, fidler crabs, and hermit crabs. There are no tropical fish there. For those you need to go to the south shore and it is a little early in the season.
There are also tiny rock anemones.

Pipefish from south shore and some blowfish

This is where I anchor for the tide pool which is behind me here

 

[Bry17nyc]

I see that tank doesn't have any sand
Is it a good idea to take sand from the beach ?

 

[Paul B]

That tank never had any sand because it is not really usually filtered and I needed it easy to maintain. It is not for show (obviousely) and just a place to keep things that I collect and don't know where to put them. Much of that stuff I give away like the blowfish which get too large as do flounders and searobins.
It's only a 5 gallon tank as you can see here

 

[e.muehlbauer]

I used to keep a 10 gal local tank, for many years until it sprung a leak. Over the years I tried fish...mummichogs and sheepshead killies did well. Blowfish necessitated very frequent 50% water changes. In the long run, I stuck to inverts. As Paul said, the hermits were very entertaining, but not long lived. On the other hand, mud crabs and spider crabs lasted for years. I did not have any long term luck with grass shrimp. Over the years I kept, in addition to the above, ribbed and blue mussels, oysters, Ilyanassa snails, periwinkles, slipper limpets, small anemones, barnacles, and a sea cucumber named Bob. aside from the shrimp and hermits, most lasted for years. Never kept sea horses, but I did try pipefish, but they jumped out.