Hilary's 5.5g Temperate

[Hilary]

Okay, so as promised I'm going to share my improvement project for my poor little 5.5 gallon temperate tank. It was originally a DIY by Jason (jason the filter freak) with a 5 gallon display, a 1/2 gallon fuge/overflow, 3 returns hooked up to a Maxijet 900, and a diffuser bar (meant to be hooked up to an emergency battery-operated air pump). I also currently have an Azoo HOB and lighting is a simple gooseneck desk lamp. ATO is a Tsunami. It's been up and running now for 2-3 years with a sandbed, two nice coraline-covered rocks, two catalina gobies, an anemone sold to me by Live Aquaria as a beadlet, and a couple of margarita snails. Cooling has been a double-fan made by Azoo, which keeps it in the 50s in the winter and up to 70 in the summer. I've been battling cyano but recently cut way down on the lighting and it's helping. So here is the before ugly pic (WOW that's ugly):

 

 

So Sam (L8 2 Rise) recently posted about a new vendor who was offering cold water livestock. The vendor is Coldwater Marine Aquatics. I contacted Stu, and after a lot of emails with helpful advice placed an order. Woot woot!

 

To prepare for the new livestock I made a couple of changes. I added a small bag of carbon/GFO to the HOB, replaced the Azoo double-fan with a JBJ Cbreeze fan, and added some black aquarium backing to cover the back of the tank and the overflow area (to be painted in the future). I've also ordered a microchiller (an AquaClear 20 drilled with a CoolWorks micro-chiller) from Micro-Reefs LLC, but until that arrives hope the JBJ will keep the temps down.

 

So the goodies arrived today! Stu outdid himself - where I ordered two strawberry anemonies (corynactis californica) I probably got 15, and lots of surprises/extras (including an entire colony of aggregating anemonies and several types of algae) were included. I added a little fluffy sculpin, hermits, porcelain crabs, a sitka shrimp, goose neck barnacles, several types of anemonies, and more. Here are a couple of early pics (excuse my bad pictures - they don't do it justice, though see if you can find the sculpin hiding among the barnacles):

 

 

 

 

 

It's a lot to add at once, but I'm hoping that since the tank has been running so long it won't trigger a cycle.

 

Next steps? I'll install the micro-chiller when it arrives in about a week. I've also ordered a little handmade glass air-stone skimmer from Gnome Glass to help filter. The trick will be not filtering out all of the food (phyto, Coral Smoothie, mysis, etc) that I'll be feeding the critters.

[Hilary]

Here's an out-of-focus quick video to show the entire tank.

 

[Origami]

Cute little sculpin (center right, third photo), Hilary! A cold-water tank. How novel! Keep us posted.

[Hilary]

So the C-breeze fan is keeping the water around 66-68. Once I get the microchiller I hope it'll get the water down to around 60. So far all of the livestock is doing well - the challenge will be keeping the water quality up while keeping the filter feeders happy. Livestock list includes the following:

 

Catalina gobies (who seem to love the new setup)

"Beadlet" anemone (maybe actually an aggregating anemone?)

Colony of strawberry anemonies (corynactis californica)

Colony of aggregating anemonies

Sitka shrimp

Cluster of goose neck barnacles with mussels

Porcelain crabs

Plumose anemone

Fringed tubeworm colony (I can see them in their holes but they haven't really peeked out much yet)

Northern feather dusters (again, haven't really peeked out yet - hope they made it)

Scarlet sponge

Fluffy sculpin

Hermit crabs

Margarita snails

Several different types of microalgae

 

I wish I could take a pic that shows just how lovely the tank is. Fingers crossed that my plan for husbandry ensures it stays healthy and happy.

[smallreef]

I LOVE cold water tanks! I just moved from Seattle and that is our coast line up there! so many colorful choices and you have done such a great job with your fish and inverts!

[Hilary]

I LOVE cold water tanks! I just moved from Seattle and that is our coast line up there! so many colorful choices and you have done such a great job with your fish and inverts!

Yea - a devotee! And thank you. I'm also an ex-Pacific Northwest girl (Poulsbo and Tacoma) - I just wish that I had been into diving and keeping tanks when I was there! Welcome to Virginia!

 

What is amazing is that before now here in Virginia I really didn't have access to anything except catalina gobies, and those were always a special order with a wait. There is now a source in Oregon that says "hey, tell me what you want and I'll find it (legally) on my next collection trip and ship it to you." How cool is that? I'm just glad that the tank has been up and running for so long before I found the livestock.

[smallreef]

HA we actually moved from Poulsbo via Silverdale, lol.. we still have houses in both :( lol I just say Seattle cuz no one knows where the heck the Kitsap Peninsula is...

[extreme_tooth_decay]

This is very interesting...and tempting...

[AquaticEngineer]

Looking good :D Any updated pics? Hows the tunicate doing?

[Hilary]

Hey Stu! Tunicate seems to be doing well (though how do you really tell with a tunicate? ). Still waiting for the microchiller, but temp is now around 64 with the cooler weather and everything seems happy. I've got detectable nitrites, though, so am doing water changes every 2-3 days (easy enough when a 'water change' is 12 cups of water). I installed the Gnome Glass skimmer and it's definitely pulling stuff out but obviously is not enough on its own given the way I'm feeding the tank. The little shrimp you sent me pop out every so often to say hi. I'll see if I can get some new pics tonight!

 

BTW I pulled the "beadlet" (which really isn't a beadlet and isn't an aggregating) - it did NOT like the colder water.

[smallreef]

hey.. do you have a cold water coral book ? or are you doing research online about alot of these?

[Hilary]

I'm researching online:

 

- Steve Weast has a wonderful website at OregonReef

- There is a temperate forum at Temperate Reef

- MSAP has great info on critters

 

Basically I've been looking at what Coldwater Marine Aquatics has available (they also do a good job of describing the critters), then researching to see how they'll do in my small tank. (No use getting a fish that'll grow to be 8 inches, or a starfish that will eat everything else.) As I better understand what works and what doesn't I may try requesting livestock not currently on the stocklist, but with only 5.5 gallons to play with I need to be thoughtful about what I add.

 

As an update, I'm doing frequent water changes (2 or so a week) and the skimmer is working great (I'll probably get some more to try on the other small tanks), but I'm still registering low nitrites and have lost the larger barnacles. The smaller ones are doing well, though, and the little mussels that came with them are also doing okay. I suspect that I just couldn't feed enough to keep the big ones going without killing such a small tank. I also haven't seen the sculpin in the last week. Everything else seems to be doing well, though, and the gobies are loving their new tankmates.

[davelin315]

Hilary, put a clam or two in there and they'll help filter that stuff out of the system and keep the ammonia and nitrites down. You can pop them into the HOB filter.

 

Also, if you didn't get your chiller yet let me know and you can borrow my ice probe.

[Hilary]

Thanks Dave! If I remember correctly you can get live clams at some of the local Asian markets?

 

I'll definitely take you up on the iceprobe if I don't see the chiller in the next couple of days (it is now supposed to ship this week).

[AquaticEngineer]

Hey Hilary, don't hesitate to ask for stuff thats not up on the website. There is a lot of other stuff that would go well in a small tank, I just havn't had time to get everything up on there yet. Also, check out this book on amazon. It is like the holy grail of identifying stuff out here.

 

Marine Life of the Pacific Northwest: A Photographic Encyclopedia of Invertebrates, Seaweeds And Selected Fishes

 

 

Check out these Corynactic Viridis

 

 

[smallreef]

Thats the book I was talking about... its awesome! (its also the only one I know on cooler water species, lol)

[Hilary]

Thanks for the tip about the book! And I saw those little gems the other day and fell absolutely in love!

[jawfish]

I've always wanted to do a temperate tank! Really cool.

[Hilary]

Come on, Jawfish - go for it! I got in on a group buy on those gorgeous jewel-like anemonies (Corynactic Viridis) - couldn't resist. You could start with those! I'm finding that to keep a temperate (rather than cold-water) tank really isn't that complicated at this size. I may not be able to keep up with the filter-feeders, but the fan, HOB and skimmer should be enough to be successful with fish, macros and a variety of funky little anemonies.

[AquaticEngineer]

Hey Hilary, wanted to let you know that your Clingfish and Beadlets are here along with the Jewel Anemones

 

Did you want a Red Beadlet or one of the Aqua Blue/Green ones?