Well, here goes nothing...



Forgive the Ice Probe, it will be replaced with a 1/10hp chiller in the next week or so. The tank will stay at 60 degrees, and will eventually be home to algae and anemones from Washington and Maine, and perhaps a small Australian anemone or two.

The tank is 1/4" acrylic on the sides, back and bottom, and 1/2" in the front. It is surrounded in 3/4" plywood. These measures were taken to insulate the tank - I do live in Las Vegas, after all. There is a top to it, so it looks like one sleek, all-in-one unit.

There is a Tom Aquatics mini canister filter for filtration, black sand, and funky rocks - more photos to come. A 32w PC retro provides lighting; still deciding on a 50/50 bulb, or all white.

Now, if only I had adinsxq's anemones, I'd be set!

O RLY?

how about those strawberry anemone's? didn't I hear that some of the coolest deep water corals and inverts are illegal to collect?

This will be exciting!!! any fish planned?

Perhaps a Catalina goby in the beginning, just to see how long it would take for it to become a tasty snack.

I think I may have a lead on getting Corynactis californicus (strawberry anemones), still working out the kinks. If you wanna google, start here: Urticina felina, Metridium dianthus, Tubularia crocea and Cerianthis borealis - those are what I'm planning right now. For reference, that was two 'regular' anemones, a hydroid and a tube anemone.

Wow.

There's nothing in it and it already looks cool.

omg i need a lead on those strawberries too. let me know!

Hehe, it's kind of a personal lead... you know...

But if I can get them for sure, you and adin are at the top of my list. They won't be wild, they will have come from a public aquarium; but beggars can't be choosers, eh?

oh one of the lfs here has a connection to the monterey bay aquarium. They got this open system with tons of anemones, I bet I can steal one! Or dive for one. I need to do more research though, ie photosynth, reasonable temp range, what kinda feeding. I hear theyre very popular with beginner bio labs cause their stinging cells are larger or something to that effect. I will update you guys if I can get lead on them as well

Nonphotosynthetic, feed on plankton type stuff - I think mysis will be my main food for this tank. Yup, strawberries have friggin huge nematacysts, very easy to see with a low-powered microscope.

AWESOME! AWESOME! AWESOME! AWESOME! im glad to finally see a coldwater tank that is a nano.. the tank looks great....
i have only really seen one coldwater tank and that was steveweasts... it will be interesting to see this thing go up..

That canister from toms aquatics, does it perform pretty good? Looking at getting one for my AP.

I like it, definitely handy. I took out all the media that came with it and put in regular old filter floss, does the job. I don't think it's worth $40, but since I'm not running a skimmer, I'm glad I have it.

wow, this tank has some awesome potential....... if you interested i could look from leads on getting some anemones from the washington area (i live like 30 min from the ocean and 5 min from the sound) either way, way to be brave and go cold water!

Hey, if you're willing to go tidepooling, I'll take a few small anemones, maybe some smaller macros, perhaps a whelk... PM me, let's talk.

Adin and Nips are at the top of your list??????
That's grattitude for ya.

This tank is looking great so far! I will definently be following along.



GL in the Contest!
texx

Sure, Mr. Super-secret-don't-tell-anyone nano. I thought it was going to be tropical, but if you're setting up a cold system, I'll bump you straight to the top.

LOL!
Yeah, it's gonna be tropical... I'm just yankin yer chain!

I decided not to enter.... It just wouldn't be fair. Besides that, I've dumped enough money into this one, and still haven't added any water. I really can't afford another big bucker. Now to decide where to post my up coming thread on this tank.... All in one forums, or Members aquariums... Which would be more appropriate?????

Members Aquarium
why not just enter it? you have nothing to loose but the contest...
worst comes to worst and you drop out

Actually, Ray's tank does make me nervous - stay out of the contest! PLEASE!

Your tank looks sick Jeremai. Good luck in the contest, I am sure your tank will be amazing.

WOW! What a neat idea. I am so excited to see this come out-- i've been scuba diving in the anemone flats in Bonaire and it was amazing looking, if you come within 10% of replicating that this will be awesome.

Good Luck!

Wow, thanks. I don't know about replicating a scene like that, since they are usually dominated by a climax species and I'm going for more of a conglomeration - but I'll try and make it look nice.

Ok, fishfreak218 is on page four already, I better get cracking.

I set up the chiller last night - pulled the tank down 30 degrees from ambient in less than four hours. Hot damn. Only trouble is, I'm not sure if anything can survive in there with the flow from a Mag5 pushing the water around... like a friggin hurricane, hence the spraybar.





Yes, it does say 51 degrees. Woop! I put a piece of live rock from my other tank in there, but I doubt it's still very alive, with the temp drop so sudden like that. Guess I'll buy a catalina goby and see what happens - they're cheaper than the rest of the livestock I'm intending on buying.

This is a really nice tank. I like how you built around the tank.

What are you planning on adding to this tank?



texx

wow i didn't know that little chiller could pull down that low... what's the ambient around?

lol, looks interesting.. cant wait to see this tank start up!!

well.. he said it droped 30 from the ambient.. and he said it is at 51.. so
51+30= 81 degrees!

Yup, it's 81 in the room my tanks are in, mostly because of my tanks, hehe.

irishtexan, see post #5, first page.

Interesting tank....Id like to see if you can get your hands on all these cold water species....Id do it but I dont want the thousands of dollars in fines and jail time!

Do u have a backup plan if u are not able to get the anemonies?

I will be able to get at least four types of cnidarians for this tank - the only ones I am unsure about are the strawberries. The others are coming from educational outlets.

Holy crap, I think I may pee myself. Seriously.

There are very few (five, maybe) articles on temperate tanks written for hobbyists. After months of searching, I finally tracked down two of them: The Temperate Reef Aquarium Parts I and II, by David Wrobel.

Part One
Part Two

Crazy... found them both in one night! Woop! Probably not a big deal to most, and all the info I already deduced from reading scientific papers - but still!

i'm 15 minutes from little corona and the corona del mar tide pools and 30-45 minutes from dana point. let me know if you want me to go and get you some livestock...

jeremai, fantastic work! tank looks amazing. i'm scuurrrred.

Hehe, thanks.

See Jeremai? Didn't I tell ya "to get some hard hittin nano reefers"... Go collect them yourself... And beat up any rangers....

I already have two ready to go! Woop!

That, coupled with my contact at SIO, should make stocking this tank relatively inexpensive.

Holy crap, the guys over at the Yahoo! Group [coldwaterfish] are already offering me livestock.

That was easy...

anemones, of the strawberry variety?

Nah, those are so hard to find, even for divers, that no one is willing to give them up. They were offering mostly the easy-to-find tidepool varieties.

Go Jeramai.

If you need help getting some of the Strawberry Anemones, i'll see if I can get some help from the Coldwater Exhibit at the Georgia Aquarium.

My stepmom works there so....

Woop! Definitely!

they actually have strawberries in the coldwater touchpool there, so if you can just figure out some diversion...

Well I'm not no fancy schmancy, big city lawyer... But wouldn't all these diff species of anemones in one tank start nuking eachother? Seems I read somewhere that diff species will release chemicals to keep other species away. I could be way off, but I thought I did read it somewhere.... Could it be, that this action is restricted to tropical species???? I don't know.

i think your right^ but that might be able to be controlled with a protein skimmer and some Carbon

I believe the allelopathy is restricted to tropical species. I know that colonies of Corynactis will fight if they meet, but individual anemones are fine - take a look at Steve Weast's tank, for instance.

Coldwater species are much more tolerant of adverse conditions than tropical species - just feed them, change a little water every few weeks, and you're good to go.

PS - when I was building this thing, I forgot to leave room for a skimmer.

good luck on your entry...I'll be following this one closely as it seems like a cool type of system to set up one day.

Thanks. Hehe, that was 'punny'.