Reefer 170 Setup for Anemones / Clowns!
- Thread starter Kinetic
- Start date
RottoInspired24
New member
Any update now? A month later [emoji16]?
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Kinetic
Active member
Nothing drastic to report. I'll take photos and do a full update soon =) Everything is alive and happy.
RottoInspired24
New member
Kinetic
Active member
A few updates:
Orchid dottybacks now have separate established burrows, but like to swim around together quite a bit. They seem to really like swimming next to snails for some reason. Anyone else notice this? Especially my big turbos.
My magnifica decided to walk around quite a bit recently. On Sunday it did a full walk around on the top of the pedestal, getting really close to my Gyre intake. I was worried (though the gyre has a mesh guard on it). Yesterday night, it fully got off the pedestal and walked down to where the BTA's are. Early morning it got back on the pedestal. Around lunch it came down to the front of the rockwork. And finally late afternoon it's back on the pedestal and has stayed there since. It inflated bigger than I've ever seen it. Probably 10" across (normally 6-7"). I'm not sure exactly what's going on. I didn't change the flow or lighting for awhile now. I don't really feed it, but I tried anyway to make sure it was OK, and it ate right away and has a tight mouth and is well inflated. I guess she just wanted a look around. Nothing died in her wake, so we're good. I hope she still likes the pedestal.
I've been feeding APBreed TDO Chroma Boost to the fish with the Neptune AFS for two weeks now. The fancy white extreme clownfish is a lot redder now, and the orange parts of the mocha davincis are really intense as well. They're all looking healthy. I think I'll continue feeding. I noticed the orchid dottybacks look a bit pinker than purple now (but that might just be my imagination). But the clowns are absolutely redder.
Sailfin blenny is still alive. I haven't seen him eat or chomp on anything. He's still small. I'm thinking of letting him out of the isolation box into the rest of the DT. I'm not sure he'll survive. He'll most likely get eaten by the Pygmy Hawkfish. I wonder if anyone has a pico/nano tank that'll take him nearby. Also, my tank doesn't have much algae these days. Might not survive if he won't eat any prepared foods.
Phosphates are still around, but low (7ppb). Nitrates aren't detectable. My chaeto has all melted away, and my nice DIY reactor is empty. I tried dosing iron, but nothing happened. I'm pretty sure my chaeto didn't make it because there's not enough nitrate. Overall, there's very little nuisance algae (just some film on the glass that I clean every 2 days), and there's no nitrates to speak of. So I guess I'll just leave things be. I was thinking of pulling my marinepure plate, but I'm scared that'll throw off the balance of everything else in my tank. It's a bit too much of a UNLS now. Not sure what to do next. Just leave it?
I've been hand dosing daily about 24mm of Alk/Ca using Aquaforest's Components. Mg has always been high, so I've been leaving that out. I'm keeping Alk at about 7.5-8.5dKH. I bought an Apex DOS that I need to pickup from a local reefer to help dose throughout the day instead of spiking it every night. I'll use that to dose the Alk/CA daily. I might pickup a BRS dosing pump and run it on a timer to dose some nitrates.
It's been cold. My 125watt heater isn't keeping up, and I have to run my house heater up to 66* so that my tank can keep up the heat when I'm away from home. I'm probably going to add another heater somehow (need to free up an outlet on the Neptune EB4).
Now for the photos:
Need to hide the plugs somehow. My Icecap Gyre batt backup is sticking out, boo:
The little isolation box on the top left is where the sailfin blenny lives for now. It's covered in algae. Check out how red my fancy white ext. is now after TDO Chromaboost.
The Rainbow BTA is getting bigger?
Mocha Davinci clowns are still drunk/high off of this mag:
Orchid dottybacks now have separate established burrows, but like to swim around together quite a bit. They seem to really like swimming next to snails for some reason. Anyone else notice this? Especially my big turbos.
My magnifica decided to walk around quite a bit recently. On Sunday it did a full walk around on the top of the pedestal, getting really close to my Gyre intake. I was worried (though the gyre has a mesh guard on it). Yesterday night, it fully got off the pedestal and walked down to where the BTA's are. Early morning it got back on the pedestal. Around lunch it came down to the front of the rockwork. And finally late afternoon it's back on the pedestal and has stayed there since. It inflated bigger than I've ever seen it. Probably 10" across (normally 6-7"). I'm not sure exactly what's going on. I didn't change the flow or lighting for awhile now. I don't really feed it, but I tried anyway to make sure it was OK, and it ate right away and has a tight mouth and is well inflated. I guess she just wanted a look around. Nothing died in her wake, so we're good. I hope she still likes the pedestal.
I've been feeding APBreed TDO Chroma Boost to the fish with the Neptune AFS for two weeks now. The fancy white extreme clownfish is a lot redder now, and the orange parts of the mocha davincis are really intense as well. They're all looking healthy. I think I'll continue feeding. I noticed the orchid dottybacks look a bit pinker than purple now (but that might just be my imagination). But the clowns are absolutely redder.
Sailfin blenny is still alive. I haven't seen him eat or chomp on anything. He's still small. I'm thinking of letting him out of the isolation box into the rest of the DT. I'm not sure he'll survive. He'll most likely get eaten by the Pygmy Hawkfish. I wonder if anyone has a pico/nano tank that'll take him nearby. Also, my tank doesn't have much algae these days. Might not survive if he won't eat any prepared foods.
Phosphates are still around, but low (7ppb). Nitrates aren't detectable. My chaeto has all melted away, and my nice DIY reactor is empty. I tried dosing iron, but nothing happened. I'm pretty sure my chaeto didn't make it because there's not enough nitrate. Overall, there's very little nuisance algae (just some film on the glass that I clean every 2 days), and there's no nitrates to speak of. So I guess I'll just leave things be. I was thinking of pulling my marinepure plate, but I'm scared that'll throw off the balance of everything else in my tank. It's a bit too much of a UNLS now. Not sure what to do next. Just leave it?
I've been hand dosing daily about 24mm of Alk/Ca using Aquaforest's Components. Mg has always been high, so I've been leaving that out. I'm keeping Alk at about 7.5-8.5dKH. I bought an Apex DOS that I need to pickup from a local reefer to help dose throughout the day instead of spiking it every night. I'll use that to dose the Alk/CA daily. I might pickup a BRS dosing pump and run it on a timer to dose some nitrates.
It's been cold. My 125watt heater isn't keeping up, and I have to run my house heater up to 66* so that my tank can keep up the heat when I'm away from home. I'm probably going to add another heater somehow (need to free up an outlet on the Neptune EB4).
Now for the photos:
Need to hide the plugs somehow. My Icecap Gyre batt backup is sticking out, boo:
The little isolation box on the top left is where the sailfin blenny lives for now. It's covered in algae. Check out how red my fancy white ext. is now after TDO Chromaboost.
The Rainbow BTA is getting bigger?
Mocha Davinci clowns are still drunk/high off of this mag:
Jsilverman18
New member
That’s an awesome tank. I would love to do an anemone tank one day
Kinetic
Active member
Still looking good!
You know what be a nice addition? A gorgonian would look great over on the left - just a thought...
That would be nice! But not sure if I can keep a gorgonian alive in such a small tank that is a fairly ULNS. I could barely keep them alive in my previous 100g anthias tank. But that was over 5 years ago, maybe I should research on them and see if there's better success with those these days.
Jamie1210
Active member
You'd be surprised! There are a lot of photosynthetic gorgs to choose from that are super easy
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Kinetic
Active member
zooman72
New member
Yeah, if you want to keep it an "authentic" Indo-Pacific biotope, take a look at Grube's gorgonian (Pinnagorgia flava), which is cultured by ORA, and pretty common. Looks really good when it "grows up", and is very easy to keep.
You could also look at one of the Caribbean species that are photosynthetic, but take care as not all are considered easy to keep. There are a few species I would recommend though - corky sea fingers (Briareum asbestinum) and knobby sea rod (Eunicea sp.) are really easy, and orange spiny (Muricea elongata) or yellow/ purple sea feathers (Pseudopterogorgia sp.) aren't too difficult either.
There are a few others I have kept relatively easily, but take a look at KP Aquatics as they have a great selection (although this is a bad time of year for them to collect) and are great to work with. It should be easy to find a Grube's, either online or ordered through a LFS.
You could also look at one of the Caribbean species that are photosynthetic, but take care as not all are considered easy to keep. There are a few species I would recommend though - corky sea fingers (Briareum asbestinum) and knobby sea rod (Eunicea sp.) are really easy, and orange spiny (Muricea elongata) or yellow/ purple sea feathers (Pseudopterogorgia sp.) aren't too difficult either.
There are a few others I have kept relatively easily, but take a look at KP Aquatics as they have a great selection (although this is a bad time of year for them to collect) and are great to work with. It should be easy to find a Grube's, either online or ordered through a LFS.
Kinetic
Active member
In an effort to automate dosing, I picked up a Neptune DOS and will be using a dosing container I found on BRS that fits perfectly next to my Reefer 170 sump. I modified the DOS to use RO Polyethylene tubing instead of the soft tubing, and had to drill the reservoir to push the tubing through instead of using the barbed end.
Materials:
Neptune DOS: https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/dos-dosing-and-fluid-metering-system-neptune-systems.html
Reservoir: https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/triple-liquid-dosing-storage-reservoir.html
John Guest 1/4 OD by 1/8 NPTF Adapter: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003YKF256/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Clear 1/4” Polyethylene Tubing: https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/1-4-mur-lok-polyethylene-ro-tubing.html
RectorSeal Pipe Thread Sealant
Why the Neptune DOS?
I’ve been looking high and low for the perfect dosing pump. All had their pros and cons, but the biggest thing for me was the price. Overall, the Neptune DOS had the best results, as long as you were in the Apex controller world. Unfortunately the pump only has two heads, at quite the premium price. I decided to take the dive and just get the pump for Alk and Ca dosing. My mg never seems to fall much, and water changes have kept the levels high enough. If I end up needing to dose other things, I’ll buy another DOS.
Other pumps I considered: GHL Doser 2.1, CoralBox WiFi, Kamoer X4 WiFi, and Bubble Magus. GHL Doser seemed nice and could run on its own. For the same price as the DOS, I could get 3 heads. CoralBox and Bubble Magus were super affordable, but I didn’t like the setup problems and failures I’ve heard with Bubble Magus. Kamoer was a good price point with 4 heads, but I also heard that it was hard to setup. That was probably the dosing pump I was going to go for, but being heavily committed to my Apex Jr, I decided against it.
Why modify with RO Tubing?
I didn’t really like the idea of limp tubing being strung through my cabinet. I have clear RO tubing left over, so I decided to go that direction. I’ve also heard that the Neptune lines are hard to straighten out and remove the kinks. I did order 16 meters just to see, and it seems to be OK and kink-free.
How did I modify?
It was pretty easy to modify the DOS. I used RectorSeal Pipe Thread Sealant on the threads and screwed on John Guest adapters that have 1/8 NPTF thread that I could push my 1/4” RO tubing into. I realized that the reservoir I bought actually uses the small 1/8” airline tubing. I decided to use a hacksaw to chop that off the barbs, then used a 1/4” drill bit to widen the hole. The clear RO tubing was an extremely snug fit through the hole, enough where I wouldn’t need to use silicon or anything.
Kinetic
Active member
What’s next?
I need to get the 24v power adapter (oops) and then calibrate it. Then I’ll set it up to dose daily 17ml of Alk and Ca from my Aquaforest Components 1+, 2+. I’m thinking of just spreading it evenly out throughout the day. I know some people prefer to dose at night for pH swing reasons. I literally have never tested for pH, and don’t have a probe for it, so I’m just going to leave it.
Current cabinet mess:
OrionN
Moved on
Nice looking tank. I think the empty space there looks great. I would not add anything there. Let the anemone grow a bit and your tank will be very full (and beautiful).Still looking good!
You know what be a nice addition? A gorgonian would look great over on the left - just a thought...
Kinetic
Active member
I have three tiny 3/4" SPS frags in there. Traded / given to by friends. They're mostly brown pieces right now, hoping they color up eventually. Even so, I'm needing to hand dose 17ml of Alk/Ca a day. So either they're using it up, or something else is.
Oh, and I have 3 anemones
Kinetic
Active member
Yeah, I'm thinking the same. I'm pretty happy with how the tank is now. I have some SPS that I'll let grow out. I'm only going to have 2 or 3 SPS so that I can let them grow out as much as possible, but it'll still maintain the nice negative space in the tank.
Kinetic
Active member
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