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Northeast Pacific Bay Pipefish Tank

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Northeast Pacific Bay Pipefish Tank Empty Northeast Pacific Bay Pipefish Tank

Post by AquaticEngineer January 31st 2012, 1:11 am

I'm setting up a tank specifically for green pipefish native to the northeast pacific.

I tried keeping them in my other coldwater tanks but either the flow was too much for them, or the tank occupants where too agressive for them. So I'm going to dedicate a tank for inside my house instead of my garage just for pipefish and other more delicate coldwater animals.

Here's some pics of the ones I've had in the past:
Northeast Pacific Bay Pipefish Tank IMG_20111030_121413

Northeast Pacific Bay Pipefish Tank IMG_20111030_121300

Northeast Pacific Bay Pipefish Tank IMG_20111030_121348

The tank I'm using is a 1" thick acrylic tank about 30 gallons, with a coast to coast overflow. It will have a closed loop going to a chiller and a mini fridge auto feeder I built. I'll run it right around 55 degrees and use the auto feeder to feed them with Reef Nutrition Mysis Feast. I'll also keep a good amount of live shrimp in the tank that will eventually become food I'm sure.

Best part about all the rock being on the two sides is that I have a place to adhere bivalves without having any rock in the sand to take away from the seagrass bed Very Happy

Here's pics of the tank so far:

Northeast Pacific Bay Pipefish Tank IMG_20120130_201604
Northeast Pacific Bay Pipefish Tank IMG_20120130_201616
Northeast Pacific Bay Pipefish Tank IMG_20120130_201450
Northeast Pacific Bay Pipefish Tank IMG_20120130_201516
Northeast Pacific Bay Pipefish Tank IMG_20120130_201540[/QUOTE]
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Post by 4PacNW February 6th 2012, 10:45 pm

I guess that means you'll be making a tank with Zostera marina because that is their natural habitat obviously. Which means for a substrate I'd go with "bay mud" as it's called.
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Post by AquaticEngineer February 7th 2012, 1:08 pm

I was just talking about this last night with my friend.

He thinks I should go with miracle mud and sand.

I want to try taking mud and sand from where the grass is already growing.

His thoughts are that its a tried and true method of keeping tropical seagrass and that it wont have the decay and detritus that would be in natural substrate.

I think most people use the miracle mud because they cant get the natural substrate that the seagrass is growing in anyways, I'm also not a big believer in miracle mud.


What do you guys think?
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Post by 4PacNW February 9th 2012, 12:50 am

I think that if you can get the right grass you can get the right mud.
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Post by AquaticEngineer March 6th 2012, 5:02 am

I decided I'm going to go with a different type of seagrass. Instead of the native species that grows in sand flats and seems to die off during the winter months, I'm going to go with another native seagrass commonly referred to as "surf grass". It grows attached to large rocks, requires no substrate at all, and apparently doesn't die back like the other grass I was looking at during the winter.

Should be pretty cooling since I can attach the surf grass to the fake rocks and keep the sand bed open for burrowing animals Very Happy

Also picked up my stand today, still need to get the black acrylic cut to cover the two visible sides and the cover pieces for the filtration area of the tank. Stand was a custom job by a local guy who came out and took measurements for me to make sure the mini fridge and chiller would fit underneath in the stand inside of the footprint of the tank. It had to be open on the two wall facing sides to allow for ventilation of the fridge and chiller, and I still may get the acrylic side pieces for the stand done with louvers cut in them for vents.
Northeast Pacific Bay Pipefish Tank 2012-03-049511-53-2995546
Northeast Pacific Bay Pipefish Tank 2012-03-049511-53-1895612

Did some test fits and checked the routes for the plumbing. Still needs to be skinned in acrylic, but you get the idea Wink

Northeast Pacific Bay Pipefish Tank IMG_20120306_001730

Northeast Pacific Bay Pipefish Tank IMG_20120306_001745

Northeast Pacific Bay Pipefish Tank IMG_20120306_001809

Northeast Pacific Bay Pipefish Tank IMG_20120306_001828
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Post by Hero April 3rd 2012, 7:34 pm

I've never heard of surfgrass, but it sounds like the better choice. The tank looks great. Maybe I missed this, but what kind of circulation is going to be present in the tank?
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Post by AquaticEngineer April 3rd 2012, 8:14 pm

I think I'm going to drill the return in lower in the back through the over flow wall so I get an upwelling effect.
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Post by Hero April 3rd 2012, 11:03 pm

Ah I see. I was wondering how you would get the surfgrass to rise to the surface. Then again it probably naturally orients itself towards the surface.
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Post by AquaticEngineer April 4th 2012, 12:27 am

It trys to, but I've been having that problem with it in the tank I'm holding it in right now which is why I thought about an upwelling. I have an upwill current my my main display tank with closed loop.
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Post by snapperhead May 3rd 2012, 10:08 am

How are the pipes going ? ..The sea grass that dies off ,might not under summer light settings ,just run it under 16-18 hour days and it should be fine ,worth a test if you want to run natural habitat..
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Post by AquaticEngineer May 3rd 2012, 3:00 pm

Tank is sitting in my garage still Sad

Gotta finishe drilling the return and skin the stand before I can bring it inside.

Pipefish should start showing up pretty regularly now in the areas I collect in. So if I get some this weekend I bet that will kick me into gear to finish it, lol.
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Post by Rapide May 6th 2013, 3:13 am

Our pipes, Syngnathus typhle and Nerophis ophidion have not shown their snouts yet, but I'm waiting for them to show up any day now...
I'm just worried that my anemones will eat them up, like they did my stickle backs!!
The 2" Actinias ate some 3,5" fishes as lunch!! All of them...
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