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DaJMasta's Carpet Anemone Tank


DaJMasta

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Current fts (Feb. 9, 2012):

fts2.25.12.jpg

 

Earliest FTS:

dts8.26.11.jpg

 

(Original post)

August 18th, 2011

fts8.18.11.jpg

 

 

The tank was months in planning but has been wet about 3 weeks. Got some live rock, had a cycle in four days, added a CUC after a week, and it has been growing ever since. Once I get some money I'll get some basic livestock, but it's all building up to the november/december timeframe when it's mature enough for a carpet anemone - the creature the tank is designed around. I'll keep some tabs on livestock and growth and such here, as well as ask any questions I can't figure out on my own or with the local guys' help, but my thread on the Kansas City Reef Association's site has some more detailed info about setup and plans and such: http://www.kcreef.com/forums/showthread.ph...-the-Beginning/

 

Equipment breakdown:

24G custom open top tank with external overflow

10G custom sump

5G ATO reservoir

Custom built steel stand

3x Evil PAR38s (1x 20k, 2x 12k) in a custom wall-mount light fixture

Tunze 9002 skimmer

Maxijet 1200 return pump

Koralia 1

JBJ ATO with Minijet 400

100W Jager heater

Finnex nano clip light

1000VA APC UPS battery back up

 

Livestock (as of Feb 9):

Rock and CUC:

20 lbs Premium Aquatics live rock

3 lbs Sea Life Inc live rock

Nassarius, Ceriths, Periwinkles, and Limpets

1 Fuzzy Chiton

2 Turbo Snails

1 Emerald crab (refugium)

 

Corals:

Green ricordea

Orange Ricordea

Blue Ricordea

Blue zoanthids

Armor of God Zoas

Eclipse Palys

Radioactive Zoas

Devilish Zoas

Sunflower Zoas (they look like Whammin' Watermelons to me)

Orange Montipora Digiata

Orange ball sponges (fine, not a coral)

Superman Montipora

Orange Plate Coral

Galaxia Coral

 

Other Inverts:

Green stichodactyla haddoni Carpet Anemone

Harlequin serpent starfish

Decorator crab

2 Blood shrimp

Porcelain crab

 

Fish:

1 Benggai Cardinal

2 Ocellaris clowns

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  • 2 weeks later...

Livestock++! Two corals, three small sponges, a starfish, and some extra livestock make for a more colorful tank. Let's get to the goods:

 

fts8.26.11.jpg

 

Display:

dts8.26.11.jpg

 

Fuge:

fuge.jpg

 

 

Decorator crab with a crazy haircut:

crabtree.jpg

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  • 2 months later...

Long time no see. Whelp, I've got some corals, some fish, a shrimp, and a good bit of age on the tank. Looks fairly similar... but up and coming I'll have a fancy setup (involving an IP security camera and ATO capacity extensions) for when I go away on vacation and hopefully sometime in january comes the actual nem.

 

Here's some pics:

fts11.25.11.jpg

fss11.25.11.jpg

 

platecoral.jpg

supermanmonti.jpg

 

hermit.jpg

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I think haddoni is the best fit, since it's the smallest of the 3 carpet nems. A larger ritteri could also work though, I think some of it will come down to what sort of specimen I can get when the time comes.

 

Honestly red or purple would be awesome - but I don't have that kind of money. If I can get a blue one then I may, but if I can get a green one or mixed one I really like the look of, that will be it. It's sort of the centerpiece for the tank, so I won't be getting just any old anemone.

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Kind of an interesting idea that turned out alright... basically I needed about 4" of sand to properly house a haddoni, and with such a shallow tank I new I couldn't have 4" throughout... so I built this plastic tiered thing to hold the sand in place, with some steps to make it a bit more natural looking. So I got a 5G bucket and cut it up, until it looked like this:

sandtierer.jpg

 

Then I roughed up the surface with sand paper, took some epoxy, and glued some sand to it to texture and cover it. I wanted to use fiberglass resin like you would use to texture a foam wall, but it only came in huge quantities... Anyways a lot of that has peeled off somewhat, but as the tank ages it becomes less noticeable.

 

Hiding the edges with rocks helps a lot, and with age it has become mostly the color of the rest of the tank. I look forward to when it's more covered in coralline and such, but the nem will cover a fair bit of it too.

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Love the tiering sytem! Tank looks great.

 

So going for about 4 months from set up to nem? What kind of indicators are there that it will be ready for one?

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Well to be honest, I was hoping for about 6 months but I'm getting impatient (I was looking at this timeframe initially, but then the build got pushed back a bit)

 

However, this has been my most stable tank so far, in terms of almost every parameter. I feel like I've found a good balance between the main lights and the fuge lights, the combo of a refugium, skimmer, and GFO keep my nutrient levels at zero (and subsequently very little algae growth in the display). My salt has mixed consistently and my params have been good and level when randomly checked (though I don't do that often). Things seem to be generally set-and-forget, even sometimes missing a weekly water change and it's been real nice.

 

My current theory is that if the tank stays stable over the 2-3 weeks I'll be gone (I've got plans for an autofeeding system, an ATO capacity extension, large readout thermometer, and a IP security camera monitor with giving a friend the keys in case of an emergency), then it should certainly be able to stay stable with regular water changes and a better (slightly less) feeding schedule. By the time I get back it will have been just a bit over 4 months, and mid to late january would be 5 months from the end of the cycle (this thread was a few weeks late to the party). If there's a ton of algae or something is dead or anything, I suspect I will get it to return to normal then wait a bit longer, but my overall impressions are good of this tank. My first tank felt somewhat less consistent, but also somewhat tolerant of parameter swings (no really sensitive corals, for example), and my second tank seemed better in terms of overall parameters, but still had a little trouble with pH and alkalinity sometimes. This time around I got the nutrient removal systems in place as soon as the rock went in (fuge, GFO, skimmer) and it took very little time to get the kalk dosing to a good place, so it's been way more consistent than previous tanks from the beginning. Also none of the added stock has stressed things or made big shifts in the system, so even though the nem is huge I don't think it will make a huge impact on stability.

 

I can't say it's exactly kosher - most guides and things say to wait longer and that this size tank is at the absolute minimum acceptable amount... if it's even close, but I've designed the system around the anemone and I think I've done a reasonably good job. Things are maturing about at the rate I was expecting and there have been literally no sudden shifts in any parameter from the beginning, some adjustments to the stride - sure - but nothing even that significantly impacted polyp extension or made a big algae bloom. It still has to pass the vacation stability test, but I think if it does and things progress as they have been, at least I won't be being irresponsible by adding one, even if it's not a recommended action at this point.

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  • 1 month later...

Been a while, chaps and chapettes. I've gone and returned... and my automation system worked! I had the ATO reservoir extended (and it burned through about 15G of water in 3 weeks), the auto feeder did it's thang, and the IP camera let me watch (and listen to) all of the fast paced action that is a 4-6fps video feed of a fish tank with little external stimulus. I will fess up, I thought I heard the ATO reservoir pump slurping and thought the water level was low only a few days before I returned and called in the friend with the key... but I ended up apologizing and he ended up just looking at the tank for a while because it was in no distress. The method I used to link the normal reservoir to the external one was much hardier than I understood. I even had good growth.

 

I don't really care to recount too many of the details now, but there's a bunch more in my local reef club's thread about it. http://www.kcreef.com/forums/showthread.ph...p=4459#post4459 I figure you are mostly here for the pics anyways, and I won't disappoint.

FTS1.5.12.jpg

RTS1.5.12.jpg

LTS1.5.12.jpg

 

The tank is stable even in my absence and the params are still good. I am officially in the market for a Haddoni. If you have any recommendations on where to look, I'd be happy to hear them. I'm checking BZA and the Diver's Den daily already, hitting a few other sites that I like but which never seem to have much in terms of anemones in stock.

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  • 1 month later...

Yesterday I received the shipment I've been waiting for, including a bright green haddoni anemone. I bought it sight unseen (non-WYSIWYG) from a place I hadn't heard much of - Marine Gardens Inc (marinesgardens.com), and everything came healthy and with some nice color. Anyways, today it got fed and it finally dug in properly, tentacles are reasonably sticky (some very, some minimally), and the mouth is gaping just a bit, but I'm betting its still a day or two off from full recovery from shipping. Still, it's bright enough that it makes all of the other bright colors in the tank look pale and bland.

 

haddoniday2.jpg

 

 

The tank has been up for 6 months, so it actually worked out pretty close to on schedule.

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Indeed. I'm really impressed with how vivid the color is. It's dug in all the way now, but the folds of the top area still stick up about as much. The decorator crab has been poking around a bit near its base, but I think it's interested in the sort of mucusey sand that the nem pushed out when it dug in. Neither creature seems to be bothering the other at the very least.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Ample new pictures. Added a couple of ocellaris clowns, they haven't hosted yet but they seem to be getting along with everything and they add some nice color, movement, and personality to the tank.

 

Anyways, this update is really just about pics (as it should be):

FTS:

fts2.25.12.jpg

 

From the left:

ftsl2.25.12.jpg

 

From the right:

ftsr2.25.12.jpg

 

The glorious anemone:

anemone.jpg

 

Some ricordea and zoas on the corner:

ricordea.jpg

 

And a little fuzzy shot of the growth on the monti frag (it was encrusted over the plug but not the underside or rock when I got it). The white portion is actually better looking in person, just it hasn't fully colored up yet.

montiplug.jpg

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I had forgotten about this tank! Glad its still there!!! What a great concept tank and I still love your scape. You nem looks like its sitting on a throne! Hopefully it stays right there.

 

Beautiful.

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Thanks! I'm certainly hoping so too, but he seems to be pretty settled in. He's dug in farther in the last week or two so that the mouth is actually close to an inch below the level of the surrounding sand. Seems like the light isn't too intense, the only thing I would worry about is that the flow doesn't get to him very strongly - so sometimes the... excrement... stays on him for a bit, but it seems like if it actively puffs up a little it can clean itself properly. (he or it, I can't decide... maybe it's a shenemone)

 

Anyways, after some reading I decided I would give the pictures of a clown hosting trick a try... then half a dozen pages later I found out my printer no longer prints in red... so I have off-color pictures of clowns hosting in green haddonis all around the tank now. It looks rather silly.

 

hostdangit.jpg

 

The initial results were good, thanks to the new things on the side they stayed in the middle over the nem much more, but I'm about 24 hours in and they haven't hosted yet. They have changed their behaviors though and don't spend nearly as much time near the glass - which I will count as limited success - so they're no longer scared of the pictures, but at least there's a change. Maybe I'll borrow someone's printer for clownfish in pics that aren't yellow....

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  • 2 months later...
  • 3 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...
  • 10 months later...

What ever happened to this tank? I just got an identical nem for Mother's Day and I'd like to know how things turned out for this person.

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  • 2 years later...

Serious necro, but I was reminded of the tank when selling the fixture that was above it (several years after it was taken down and the fixture replaced the ones in these pictures) and I found the thread when looking for pictures of it. I had a thread about it on my local reef club's forum, but they've since closed the site and moved back into another online community.

Here's the happy (mostly) story:

The tank continued after a move in the summer of 2012 to a new location. I built a custom tank controller based of an Arduino Mega2560 board. After several part upgrades and swaps I got everything humming along well, with automated carbon and kalkwasser dosing on a timer and all was well. The anemone took a liking to marching all over the tank on a whim, but rarely damaged any corals in the process (the most damage was when it parked over one for so long it started bleaching) and things went well. There was a time when the anemone was sick - it was being regularly fed, but the clowns were taking the pieces of food and dragging them out of the anemone, so it wasn't actually eating the food. It got to the point of being only minimally sticky on the tentacles, but I managed to figure out what was going on and then spot fed it in time (keeping the clowns preoccupied with their own food) and nursed it back to health.

 

Early in 2013 I upgraded to a reefbreeders photon 16 fixture after the PAR38s burned themselves out (turns out overdriven LED drivers burn out at surprisingly predictable times). About two months after installation, the fixture fell after ripping off the wall mount it was using straight into the tank. After cleaning, drying, and replacement drivers - the fixture was back to work.... surprisingly neither crushing anything or cracking its own glass. Some months after that, late in the summer, I moved out of the KC area and sold the livestock and tank. The anemone and clowns went to a local reefer with a 90G tank and I got some pics of them doing very well in his tank about a month after the fact. Some of the frags and other critters went to other local people and then the tank and the remainder of the rock and things went to a man and his son who were setting up a tank.

 

While I haven't kept a tank since (my living arrangements, not my choice :) ), the experiment was quite a success! It was a lot of fun to take care of such an animal and it was an interesting format for a tank. I already have plans for my next tank, though I'm going to have to move again before it happens. Here's some pics from the months before it was finally taken down:

tankactinics.jpg

 

tanklateevening.jpg

From late march, 2013:

tanklatelifetime.jpg

 

And the custom tank controller with all of its riggings:

tankbotrigging.jpg

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