My 60 Gallon Anemone and Clownfish Tank Build

[mn jeff]

I've been hanging out in the background of the forums for a while now, just reading and trying to take in as much information as I can. I have wanted a saltwater tank for a while and I'm finally able to get one up and running. This thread maybe should belong in the DIY forum because I'm building basically everything, but it will be an anemone tank in the end, so I'm posting this here.

I started accumulating equipment a few months ago and I have almost everything I need now to get the tank started on the cycle. I started building last weekend and decided to share the progress with everyone here.

First, a look at the MarcoRocks I got last week. This is 100 lbs of the Key Largo base rock...

Here is one configuration that I'm thinking about for the tank...

Here is the 60 gallon tank I'm going to use as a display. Some of the equipment is stacked around. A Mag 7 and Mag 5, an Aqua Medic Turboflotor skimmer, an Icecap 660 ballast, some reflectors and some sand...

 

[mn jeff]

I started building the stand over the weekend and the framing is complete. I'm pretty sure it is overbuilt, but better safe than sorry. I'm going to set it up as a peninsula and the stand is wider than the tank so I put ran beams along the length for more support. Here is a couple pictures...

Here is the DT on the stand in basically the place it is going to go...

I'm going to use three 20 gallon tanks as sumps, so I needed to drill them. The first one went just fine when I did it a few days ago. It is going to be in the middle of the other two, so I put a hole in each side. Here's a picture...

 

[mn jeff]

Tonight I started by working in the canopy. I still have to put the box frame on the top, but here's what I have so far.

Everything was going well, so I decided to drill another one of the tanks for my sump. I was about a quarter of the way through the glass and everything was going great until, bang. This happened...

Those pictures were after I broke out most of the glass, but you get the idea. It must have been tempered, but I've never heard of a 20 gallon tank with tempered glass. So now I decided to take a break and tell everyone about my progress so far. Let me know what you think.

 

[mn jeff]

I suppose I should fill you in on what the tank is going to be like when everything is finished. As you've read, it will be a 60 gallon display with 3 20 gallon tanks as a sump. One of the 20s will be a refugium with probably chaeto or something like that. Another is going to have a deep sand bed (12 inches) in half and a bunch of live rock on the other. The last will house my skimmer (Aqua Medic), heaters (Rena Smartheaters), and return pump (Mag 5). The display will be on a closed loop with 6 or 8 outlets powered by a Mag 7. For lighting, I'm going to be running 2 Icecap 660s with 6 34" (39w) T5s.

For livestock, I'm going to have 2 Banggai Cardinals, 2 Clownfish, a Canary Blenny, a GBTA, a RBTA, a longspine urchin, and snails. Obviously the BTAs won't be in the tank until probably 2011, maybe this fall if everything is going well.

I'm undecided about what clownfish I want. I was thinking about doing B & W Ocellaris, but I heard that Onyx Percs lose their black with BTAs and I don't know if that will happen to the Ocs. I'll probably just end up with two regular orange Ocs or some true Percs.

Any comments or suggestions are welcome.

 

[rastarainy]

amazing. i love all anemone tanks, cause you can't go wrong with them..unless you put maxi jets in there and all the anemone's get shredded, but you obviously know what you're doing haha. im likin the idea of havin bangaai cardinals in there too, especially if they breed-the offspring will chill in the urchin or nem. either way, this is gonna be a sick build!!

 

[mn jeff]

I can't believe it has been a month since I last posted. Hopefully I'll get some new pics up later today. Just started the cycle.

 

[garygb]

Looks like a great future home for a BTA or a few. I would suggest you go with a natural symbiont such as tomato, maroon, clarkii, etc. Also, I would have only two sump tanks, chaeto and then the tank with the equipment. If you're doing the deep sand for nitrate control, I think all the liverock in the tank combined with the chaeto should serve that purpose. Deep sand can have problems crashing in a couple of years.

 

[mn jeff]

Updates

Updates

So sadly my memory card was formatted somewhere along the line and I only have one picture of drilling holes in the DT and then the pictures I took today now that it is closer to being finished. I'll give a little update of what I've done.

I completed the frame of the canopy and wired the lights. As I think I said in an earlier post, I have 2 Icecap 660 ballasts running 6 34" T5s. I'm using Icecap bulbs and a mix of Icecap and ReefGeek reflectors. I have one ballast running 2 Actinics and 2 Reef Crest 10,000Ks and the other ballast running 2 Twilights. The Twilights turn on 2 hours before and shut off 2 hours after the other 4 bulbs.

Then I drilled the holes for the closed loop and cut the notch for the overflow out of the DT. I used a Dremel with a diamond bit for the overflow and I think I was just going too fast, because I burnt out the bit and had to get a new one. When it was all done, it looked like this...

 

[mn jeff]

Update 2

Update 2

Once the tank was drilled, I put in the bulkheads and started working on the overflow box. I used 1/4" glass plate glass for the box and siliconed everything together. The box is roughly 8"x8"x4" and has two 1" bulkheads in the bottom. Since I couldn't find any black acrylic I decided to just paint the end of the tank and the box black.

Then I started the plumbing; I used 1" PVC for everything. The two pipes coming from the overflow combine into one before they go to the sumps. The two pipes for the closed loop go into one before they go to the pump. At the moment, I still don't have the pump for the closed loop, but you'll be able to see where it will go. Here is a picture of what it looks like now. The closed loop pump will be connected to the hard plumbing by vinyl tubing so there is a little flexibility in the system.

The return pump from the sumps and the closed loop both feed into one PVC manifold I built with a bunch of reducing Ts for outlets into the tank. I built the manifold with a bunch of outlets and I've since had to cap some. I'm still trying to figure out what to do from the Ts to the tank because I'm getting a lot of bubbles in the DT right now.

 

[mn jeff]

After the plumbing was done I checked for leaks and only ended up with one small leak that was easy to fix. Then I drained everything and added the sand and rocks. I used AquaMend on the rocks and I'm pretty happy with how they ended up. I'm probably going to add a little more for some added support, but I went through the 2 tubes I had then ran out.

Since I didn't have anything to mix my saltwater in, I sadly made the decision to add the RO/DI water to the tank and then mix the salt within the system. It took forever to get everything settled, but the cycle is now started.

I'm still not finished covering the stand, but that is almost done. I decided to do 1" blue glass tiles around the rim of the tank and I got some pine bead board for the sheath. I've got the squares cut out for the doors and all the ply has been primed on the front and sealed on the back but nothing is attached to the stand yet. I still need to prime the trim and get hinges for the doors, but you'll be able to get the idea in these pictures.

Here are the tiles, they are just laying loose at the moment.

Here is the rockwork from both sides. There are a lot of caves and good hiding places. It looks better from one side than the other, but I think there are some great places for the nems, clowns, and cardinals.

Here are the sumps. The water from the DT flows down into the tank on the left with the extra rock and then it flows to the right. The middle tank will eventually have chaeto, but that is going to wait until I actually have nutrients for it. All the equipment and the return pump is in the tank on the right.

 

[mn jeff]

So, what have I left out...

Here is a picture of the lights.

Actinic - 10,000K - Twilight - Twilight - 10,000K - Actinic

The cycle is started now and the ammonia readings are on the way up. Still no nitrites or nitrates so I still have some time to wait.

My wife really wants a Blue Tang, but I told her that she needed to wait until I upgraded before we could get one. Then we were at the LFS and she saw a Yellowtail Blue Damsel and decided that it looked enough like a Blue Tang for her. I mentioned that people sometimes us them to cycle their tanks and that was all she needed to hear. I figured that since she's let me spend so much getting this set up already, I should really let her pick out a fish. That's how we ended up with a Damsel in the tank.

We added the Damsel earlier today and that's when I realized how good the hiding places are in the rockwork. After acclimating it for 45 minutes in a bucket, I added it to the tank and it immediately went into one of the caves and we haven't seen it since; that was 10 hours ago. I'm dreading having to catch it if it gets too aggressive with the other fish. I don't have high hopes.

I'll try to keep this updated a little better going forward. I'll let you know when the Damsel finally shows its face again.

Does anybody have any opinions about what color I should paint the canopy and stand? I was originally thinking white, but now I'm starting to second guess myself.

 

[monkeybiz]

cool project. cant wait to see it in full swing

 

[stancfii]

Looks great! Have you decided what kind of clown/anemone pairing you want to go with?

 

[mn jeff]

The damsel was out this morning for feeding. It's hanging out just off the sand, but at least it is out of the rocks. I am probably going to do a couple BTA and true percs. I was thinking of doing some B & Ws, but I am also going to have some Banggai Cardinals and I want to have some more color in the tank.

 

[garygb]

Often percs will be hosted by BTAs and although they often aren't as well. You can count on natural symbionts such as maroon, tomato, and clarkii to be hosted by BTAs.

 

[davocean]

Looks like a great future home for a BTA or a few. I would suggest you go with a natural symbiont such as tomato, maroon, clarkii, etc. Also, I would have only two sump tanks, chaeto and then the tank with the equipment. If you're doing the deep sand for nitrate control, I think all the liverock in the tank combined with the chaeto should serve that purpose. Deep sand can have problems crashing in a couple of years.

The whole purpose of doing a remote DSB is so you can remove it/change it down the road.
Personally, I don't know anyone that ever had a crash due to sand bed, and I've always had a sand bed, never had a crash.
If anything I would have made that remote even deeper.
I've seen many percs in BTAs, maybe not natural host, but seems to be no issue other than possible lack of black/darker colors.
I like the tile top.
I like the scape, but I would peg it w/ acrylic rods for stability.
Make sure that top has good access for cleaning tank.
I like those marco rocks alot, but I would maybe add a couple pieces of established rock to help seed it.
Make sure to screen off or block that intake, that is nem keepers biggest enemy.

 

[garygb]

Dave, after a few years I've had tanks with deep sand beds develop nitrate problems--this has occurred on three different tanks. I assume I may not have been stirring the sand enough, not sure. I've done some research and found that others have had similar problems. I used fine aragonite sand, not sure if that could be part of the issue. I also didn't have a plenum, so I suppose that could also be the problem. Whatever the case, I decided to switch to shallow sand beds, as in less than one inch of sand (I have magnificas, RBTAs, and rock anemones, so I don't need deep sand for any of those species). I also have chaeto and fortunately no detectable nitrates.

 

[davocean]

Well, for DSB, you should never disturb sand bed, that could be an issue.
Also, many don't go deep enough to make a true DSB, should be 4-6"
There are many possibilities for high nitrates.
My opinion is 1" or less, vac'd/cleaned, or 4"+ and untouched.
A remote makes it easy to swap all this out, and reason for remote.
I don't know anyone doing plenums, not calling that wrong, but just don't know anyone, was more popular way back.
I do agree it should depend on what you keep, I like sand dwellars, easier for me to control since I have mixed w/ sps towards top.

 

[garygb]

Yeah, I never understood what happened with my DSBs. It's still a mystery to me. They were great at keeping nitrates down, then around 3 years I began to get algae, would test the nitrates and it would be high. I had the right depth (5-6 inches). Perhaps I did disturb the sand and that got things out of kilter. I'm liking the shallow sand bed these days. I use protein skimmers, grow chaeto and make regular water changes (I skimmed and made water changes w the DSB too, but no chaeto) and the nitrates have been undetectable lately. Whatever works, right?

 

[mn jeff]

I think the damsel is adjusting to the lighting. It was out this morning before any of the lights were on and then went into a cave shortly after the Twilights came on. It has been hiding ever since. Anyone have any similar experiences with fish? I have heard of it with nems, but not fish.