BTA only tank

[Sneeze]

Hi.

I’m Max.

I’ve built a dedicated BTA tank.

 

It’s not much yet, but here’s what I’m running so far:

 

Equipment:

Deep blue 30 gallon frag tank

AI Vega set to 100%

Sicce syncra 2.0 return

Bubble Magus curve 5 skimmer

Turbo twist UV sterilizer

DIY carbon/gfo reactor

 

Livestock:

Pair of Gold Stripe Maroon clowns

Chocolate chip starfish

Orange linkia starfish

9 BTAs from six different strains including 3 black widows, 1 acid rain, rose BTAs and green BTAs.

 

Spot fees the nems every other day.

 

50% water change every two weeks done by setting up a 30 gallon barrel with and overflow next to the sump and running a mag 3.5 from the sump to the barrel run 12-18 hours.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[YHSublime]

Looking good! Where did you source your anemones?


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[AlanM]

That's really cool.  I like it a lot.  Clownfish heaven.

[Sneeze]

Looking good! Where did you source your anemones?


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All over the place.

First one was a “test” that I picked up from Petco after the tank had been running 2 months.

Next came the acid rain and a tiny light green guy from capital aquarium.

Then I got the huge green (18+ inches!) and a large rose from members here on the boards. Rose split two days after I dropped him in the tank.

Black widows came two weeks ago. Ordered them from a guy on R2R.


I’m still looking for more.

Now I want an orange one and a yellow one. Unfortunately CSB and lemon drop are WAY too expensive these days. I was selling CSB’s for $500 bucks four years ago. Now they’re around $1500-$2000!!!!!!!


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[Sneeze]

That's really cool.  I like it a lot.  Clownfish heaven.

Thanks! I like it a lot too!


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[YHSublime]

41 minutes ago, Sneeze said:

Black widows came two weeks ago. Ordered them from a guy on R2R.
I’m still looking for more.

 

 

 

I feel ya'. I had a bunch of BW I sold local for dirt cheap and then handed some off to a friend. They had a tank melt down, and I'm having a hard time finding someone who will sell me splits back.

 

43 minutes ago, Sneeze said:

Now I want an orange one and a yellow one. Unfortunately CSB and lemon drop are WAY too expensive these days. I was selling CSB’s for $500 bucks four years ago. Now they’re around $1500-$2000!!!!!!!

 

 

 

Don't I know it. There's a local guy that sells some really nice anemones that have some nice orange in them (not CSB) but for the price point beautiful and pretty dang close enough IMO! 

 

Looking forward to watching this one grow out!

[flooddc]

Nice looking mens!

CSB and LD are nice, but not in the thousand dollars nice. Once they fully opened, they are just slightly brighter than the standard Rose bubble. 

[Sneeze]

 
Don't I know it. There's a local guy that sells some really nice anemones that have some nice orange in them (not CSB) but for the price point beautiful and pretty dang close enough IMO! 
 

I’ll keep an eye out! Thanks!


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[Sneeze]

Nice looking mens!
CSB and LD are nice, but not in the thousand dollars nice. Once they fully opened, they are just slightly brighter than the standard Rose bubble. 

Agreed. Too expensive.

I keep meaning to email Bob with iBluewater to see if he still has his supernova BTA. That thing is amazing. Dark blue base and tentacles with red tips. His website has it listed at $350, I think.


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[Sneeze]

Got a few more nems. Another BIG rose and a couple rainbows.

I’m eyeballing a dayglo and a CB inferno rainbow on R2R... I’ve got too much red now!

Picking up a pair of icecap gyre 1k’s tomorrow. Plan is to run them with only one impeller, vertical, with opposite flow on either side of the corner overflow.

I’m guessing there’s gonna be a sandstorm (oolite is the devil. Never again). When that happens, I’m gonna pull the sand bed and replace with rubble Tonga.

Anyone have a bucket of rubble collecting dust?




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[lynn.reef.nerd]

I have some smaller rocks... but they aren't dry.

[Reefoholic]

I wanna be a clown fish in that tank! Looks awesome!

[Sneeze]

I have some smaller rocks... but they aren't dry.

Thanks! I’ll keep that in mind when I pull the sand.


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[Sneeze]

I wanna be a clown fish in that tank! Looks awesome!

Thanks!

I’ve actually been contemplating an experiment. I can seldom find my two, giant maroons amongst the tentacles. I never see them, unless I’m feeding or looking really, really hard.

What if I were to add 5-7 baby Lightning’s in there? (I know, loaded question. We only seem to see large harem tanks or single pairs. Harems in the wild aren’t always 20-50 fish.)

I suppose, I would just have to monitor closely. There will definitely be aggression, and I can pull them if it gets out of hand.

Great. Now I need to find a clownfish breeder. Thanks guys...


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[YHSublime]

If you got rid of the maroons maybe? I've contemplated doing something like this in my 22, but there's enough to worry about besides trying to pull 10 or so clownfish. It would be cool! 

[Sneeze]

Added one of the gyres this week. It works well, vertically, but I couldn’t raise it above 10 %, so the sand had to go.

Large water change yesterday.

Siphoned out 3/4 of the sand.

I’ve been intentionally over feeding the gargantuan green BTA (18”) in hopes of a split with no success. So while I was doing the water change, I picked him up, rock and all, and set him on a wood plank outside the tank for about 30 min.

Success! I stressed it enough to split last night. Now I have two green beasties.

Tank looks so much more blue with parts of the bottom glass showing. Far less white reflection. I’m curious to see how the nems respond to the diminished light. Granted, I’m still pushing the vega at 100%, 12 hours a day.

I found someone on R2R that’s selling me a director for $75. I’m gonna dim the whites on the Vega a bit in the evening for some more blue pop.

Gonna give it another week before I siphon out the rest of the sand, but the single gyre is pulsing at 30% now. I probably won’t need more then that once I add the second gyre.

My biggest complaint with the gyres is that I can’t sync them without a controller. I’m thinking about building an arduino board to control their power, alternating between the two every 3-4 minutes. What I really want to do is have them on an “off” sync where one is on/off every 2-3(or ???) min and the other is on/of every 3-4 (or ??? Greater than the other) min with a direct overlap every 18 hours, to match tide cycles.

Pics for your time:












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[YHSublime]

So no more sand?

 

I'm betting you don't need a ton of flow for the BTA's, I'd save your money!

[Sneeze]

So no more sand?
 
I'm betting you don't need a ton of flow for the BTA's, I'd save your money!

I’ve kinda intentionally not answered this yet. Lol.

Now that “most” of the sand is out, I don’t have sandstorms but the bottom is still 80% covered.

Single gyre is set up vertically with only one propeller. Switching between 100% and 10% every 4 seconds.

No sandstorms and the water is moving pretty good. I still have dead spots though, with detritus piling up on the intake side of the pump. Seems to have taken care of my cat I problem though. I’ll give it another week to see.


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[Sneeze]

Got a director for the Vega today.

I wanted to dim the whites, two hours before sunset and it’s great.

I couldn’t resist taking a few blue pics. I love how the colors pop with the whites off.














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[KingOfAll_Tyrants]

Neat tank!  I've subscribed.  I like the 30 gallon frag tank, in general, and this is a good way to populate it.   

 

As far as other fish in the tank, assuming you keep the maroon pair, you maybe could try a pair of melanopsus or similar clowns, assuming that the maroons feel they have enough anemone to live in.   (I'm told they can be aggressive, of course, so I'm not so sure about this).   You also could maybe keep a pair of Banggai cardinals; they are supposed to sometimes live in BTAs, though not anywhere near the degree of a clownfish.  It seems to me you don't have enough space for a "real" harem tank (20+ ocellaris), if you had say 7 it might be hard to diffuse aggression among them (which accoding to what I've seen with harem tanks is one of the big long term problems with them).  One fish would eventually become the scapegoat and die.  Notwithstanding the fact that many fish school when they're small and seperate into breeding pairs after a few years when they mature.

 

Anyway, I'll be interested to see how this tank grows!

 

 

[moga]

wow, one of the best tank ... you need some clowns for garden duty~

[moga]

Any updates?.. this is the tank that i keep coming back to see..