cold water reef ?

[buckeyereefer]

I am thinking about these. anybody know of good place for info ?? or anyone with experience ?? looking at the 7.2G AIO tanks that Micro-reefs has on sale now. but wondering what other equip is needed an of course prices of equip ??

 

thanks

Larry

[jestep]

Do some searching for temperate reef tanks. I'm assuming you are looking at a temperate environment and not a true cold water reef. There's some information available out there, but it is still limited as not many people keep non-tropical reef tanks.

 

Must keep the water temp down which almost always requires a chiller and usually a backup as the tank will crash if it heats up too much. This can also get interesting if you have problems with condensation on the tank itself.

 

Stocking can be very limited because it's difficult to find stock and it's difficult to stock a nano or pico tank. I would definitely do catalina goby's in one of these. Many people do pacific native livestock such as anemones and other stuff you would find in pacific tidal pools.

[Tamberav]

I am thinking about these. anybody know of good place for info ?? or anyone with experience ?? looking at the 7.2G AIO tanks that Micro-reefs has on sale now. but wondering what other equip is needed an of course prices of equip ??

 

thanks

Larry

 

A chiller mostly is the one other thing you absolutely need that can be costly. Lighting of course but most temperate critters does not need strong lighting so a cheap light will work fine. I use a par38 I got used.

 

Otherwise just a small powerhead to move water. I personally use a mp10 since the motor is on the outside. It depends on your chiller though. If you have something powerful, heat from a powerhead won't be an issue. I went with a more affordable chiller so I choose my components wisely to keep heat out.

 

If something goes wrong with the chiller, I have found rotating frozen bottles of ice twice a day will keep the tank below 60 for emergencies.

 

Here is where you can buy livestock, he should be re-stocking soon. Sold most of it at MACNA last weekend: http://www.coldwatermarineaquatics.com/

 

Anything else you want to add for filtration is up to you, like skimmers, ect.

[buckeyereefer]

I have discovered the Biotopes in the special interest section an will be looking thru several threads.

[AquaticEngineer]

Looks like Tamberav covered it all

 

Hit me up if you have any othe questions, and if you are on Facebook checkout the coldwater owners discussion group I set up here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ColdwaterOwners/

 

Both Tamberav and myself own the Micro-Reefs 7.2 gallon AIO, so hit us up with tank specific questions on setup or maintenance. I've been running mine now for 9 months with varying degrees of bioload and 100's of different coldwater species go through it (since I collect and sell the livestock)

 

I definitely recommend going with a small compressor based chiller like a 1/15th HP or a 1/13 HP. The new JBJ chillers are great, I'm using an older 1/13th HP Resun Mini 200 chiller and haven't regretted it

 

Cheers!