Anemone/clownfish room build

Colorado reefer · Dec 30, 2020

I decided awhile ago I would like to build an anemone/clownfish room in our basement. The focus will be btas and carpets...with different type of clownfish, and one or two harems. A lot of the anemones and clowns I have purchased already over the last several months...and have been quarantined. They are currently in several 50g Rubbermaid tubs...and will be setting up and transferring them to their final homes over the few months.
I did pick up a 10g and 20g Waterbox already and decided the 20g will be perfect for the build...so I ordered 4 more (arriving January 5th)

count krunk · Dec 30, 2020

Can't really put a harem of clowns in a 20g.

That also sounds small for a carpet anemone.

Colorado reefer · Dec 30, 2020

count krunk said:
Can't really put a harem of clowns in a 20g.

That also sounds small for a carpet anemone.

The harem (16 black snowflakes) is currently in a 50g Rubbermaid with carpets and rainbows...and will be moved to a 65g AIO Waterbox with 40 or so rainbows.
I also have a 25g lagoon aio and I was thinking of putting the 3 haddoni carpets in...possibly with 5 of the top clowns (they currently run the harem and own the carpets) but know they both will eventually outgrow that.

Poseidon's snail · Dec 30, 2020

I’ll follow

Colorado reefer · Dec 30, 2020

The build breakdown plan

65g aio -starting with 30-40 rainbows and 12-16 black snowflake clowns

25g lagoon- 3 carpet haddonis (2-5 clowns)

20g cube with 5 cbs (clown pair)

20g cube with 4 Chicago’s (clown pair)

20g cube with 3 Black Widows (clown pair)

20g cube with possibly Rasta btas? (clown pair)

20g cube with possibly Shermans? (clown pair)

Colorado reefer · Dec 30, 2020

So the first 20g I set up already. I found a local guy on our Colorado Facebook page selling 3 of his Chicagos (he had 4 and wanted to keep the largest )
I drove over to his house for pick up and on my way he text me saying we have a problem. One of the medium Chicagos tried to escape through the basket and is mangled in 2 now.
When I arrived they looked pretty bad...but I was willing to take the risk.
We now have 4 healthy chbs!

Poseidon's snail · Dec 30, 2020

Nice!

Colorado reefer · Dec 30, 2020

We also set up a 10g Waterbox cube already in our kitchen with zoas under a kessil a80. I really like the kessils with the cubes so far (have radions/T5s on the main 180)
A good friend that also lives in Colorado and has a bunch of csb...so I traded/purchased 5 from him.
Although we have enjoyed having them on the kitchen table, eventually we (wife lol) wants them moved to the basement when the new 20s arrive.

TriggersAmuck · Dec 30, 2020

What are you going to name your fish shop when you open it?

All joking aside, this sounds really cool, but I will definitely be following to see what tricks you develop for keeping the maintenance time sane. I have a hard enough time with just one 14 gallon 'nem tank!

TriggersAmuck · Dec 30, 2020

PS: Love the Zoad tank!

Colorado reefer · Dec 30, 2020

TriggersAmuck said:
What are you going to name your fish shop when you open it? All joking aside, this sounds really cool, but I will definitely be following to see what tricks you develop for keeping the maintenance time sane. I have a hard enough time with just one 14 gallon 'nem tank!

Yes I’m a little worried about the maintenance part
So far the 10g and 20g have been very low maintenance (once the anemones were happy) I’m going bare bottom, and have Flipper magnets for each tank to easily clean the algae twice a week. Snails have been doing a great job cleaning off algae on the rocks. I’ll have to hand top of with ro every morning...but that only takes a minute.
I really enjoy large water changes (30g) on the Acro dominant 180 every Friday. Makes the corals really pop over the weekend when I’m home. I’ll be reusing that water for the anemone tanks to cut down on cost (so far they have been thriving the way)
I currently spend about 20 minutes or so every morning messing with all the tanks. Plus a few hours Saturday or Sunday. I plan on only adding 10 minutes daily , and a hour or two during the weekend to keep up with this new build.
We shall see

TriggersAmuck · Dec 30, 2020

I can see that if you have the equipment and process in place to handle large volumes of new sea water (and recycling water as you mentioned, awesome idea) that it could be quite doable. I also do really sizable changes (80% or 10 gallons of my 14 gallon / 12 gallon by volume nano) weekly, and so that is the vast majority of my time. Before I discovered the chestnut turbos and the purple pincushion urchin I was spending a LOT more time pulling hair algae out. Now I worry about the inverts starving, and so they get fed my wife's expensive nori!

If your inverts wouldn't mess with the ATOs (probably not a problem in AIO tanks), I would say running ATOs to the same freshwater source (only one to fill then) could be a time saver. And if you had a drain right in the fish room to make it easy to dispose of waste water, that would save a lot of carting water around (a bit of my time consumption with my small nano even).

Colorado reefer · Dec 30, 2020

Yes those snails and urchins make quick work of algae...esp in small tanks! In this pic you can see how clean the rock is.
We also have a pincushion purple/blue that I pull/place anywhere that the snails are behind. Might look into ato for all. We currently have one on the 180...which I try to keep stable for the Acros. The anemones don’t seem to mind the fluctuation with salinity.
There is drain near all the tanks in the basement (180 on the main floor drains to a 50g sump also in the basement)...huge time saver!
Probably wouldn’t do this build if I didn’t have one.

chizerbunoi · Dec 31, 2020

Looking good so far.

Colorado reefer · Dec 31, 2020

Some rainbow shots on the Rubbermaid. These were the first btas I started collecting...kinda what kicked it all off.

Colorado reefer · Jan 4, 2021

Waterboxes came early!

Colorado reefer · Jan 17, 2021

Top view of the Lemon Drops
Can you find the clowns?

Colorado reefer · Jan 17, 2021

I did get 2 Waterboxes set up (Colorado’s, Black Widows)
A friend down the street had 4 Kessil 360X so that is what I will be using on all the 20 gallons. Should be lots of intense lighting to play with and see what colors I can pull. It has changed the Chicago’s (lemon drops) from red to the yellow phase in just a few weeks.