Cali Kid Corals

Keith's anemone tank

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keithschon

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I'm rebooting my Red Sea Reefer 250 (previous incarnation here). I'm going for an anemone / clownfish "harem" tank. People online say either that harem tanks are extremely low-maintenance, or that they are time bombs. I'm going to risk giving it a shot.

EDIT: I meant to link to my old tank journal here. The above link is for my equipment cabinet.

For the first time, I've built my own aquascape by breaking apart my old rocks (after sanitizing them), and putting them back together with superglue and E-macro 500 cement. I don't think that the result is an aesthetic masterpiece, but I checked all of the boxes that I wanted to try (e.g. arches, platforms, an unsupported overhang). And the result is growing on me. For sand I'm using CaribSea Hawaiian black AragAlive. I've wanted to try black sand for a while. I know that it contains magnetic particles to I have to be careful cleaning the glass. On the other hand, cleaning should be easier this time because I was careful to leave enough room around all of the rockwork.

My plan is to go with bubble-tip anemones for the clowns, and rock-flower anemones that I'll encourage to live on the smaller rock, just because I love looking at them. Somewhere between 7-15 clownfish from the same brood. I'm actually not sure what the right number is for a 55 gallon tank--if anybody has done a harem tank before and has advice, I'd love to hear it. And maybe some other tankmates like anemone crabs, and a lawnmower blenny for algae control.

I wanted to do a full reboot, so at the same time I sanitized the sump and the 11 gallon Fiji Cube that I have plumbed into it. For the latter, I'm using my old (sanitized) fine white sand, and some new aquascape. I've kept my mangrove, some star polyps, some mushroom corals, and some xenia. I haven't decided where to put all of these yet, but I do want to get rid or the rocks that they are currently on. I haven't decided whether to throw out the xenia, or keep it for nutrient control.

I'm not far along yet, but here are some pics showing my figuring out how I wanted the rocks to look.

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Ran a harem tank with my dad, however it always functioned better when the anemones didn't cover the entire rock areas. It's a super low maintenance tank at least. Kept similar livestock, however the blenny will just eat fish food eventually.

The black sand I always steer people away from since it will show every piece of rock that sheds from your structure along with every little bit of coralline algae that forms and is scraped later. I honestly think the black bottom of the bare tank would look better since you can scrape it as needed for photos.

You will see the largest clowns start to pick off the smaller pre males over time. We started with about 12 and ended with 2 after about 15 years.
 
Darkxerox said:
Ran a harem tank with my dad, however it always functioned better when the anemones didn't cover the entire rock areas. It's a super low maintenance tank at least. Kept similar livestock, however the blenny will just eat fish food eventually.

The black sand I always steer people away from since it will show every piece of rock that sheds from your structure along with every little bit of coralline algae that forms and is scraped later. I honestly think the black bottom of the bare tank would look better since you can scrape it as needed for photos.

You will see the largest clowns start to pick off the smaller pre males over time. We started with about 12 and ended with 2 after about 15 years.
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Interesting—the only advise that I’ve seen online so far was to have as many men’s as possible. I’ll keep in mind the advice about having some uncovered rock.
 
keithschon said:
Interesting—the only advise that I’ve seen online so far was to have as many men’s as possible. I’ll keep in mind the advice about having some uncovered rock.
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Yeah there were more nems than fish but the female still will fight/chase. Note this was a 90 gallon too.
 
I saw a video about a clown harem tank. They made sure to keep feeding it in excess so that they do not start fighting, then ganging up and then eventually killing the loners, then the weak ones, etc.

If there is enough food all the time, was their motto.
 
I've added my first tank inhabitants. Two rock anemones and a blenny, who is still in the hiding-from-me phase.
 

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@keithschon
Glad to see you this evening.
Glad we could get this done between the rains
Please enjoy the nems.

A lil background on them
They were gifted to me by a previous member Felicia
She had predator reef tank several years back (it was featured in Reef Hobbyist Magazine)
She told me that she received hers from a member of another reefing club.
 
I had a clownfish harem tank back in 2018 in my Red Sea Reefer 250 as well. 20 Clownfish with 12 anemones. IIRC, 16 of them were from the same clutch from Kimmie's Clownfish Factory and 4 from @fingerwrinkles. Tank did great for a few years, but slowly as the hierarchy was established the smallest clowns got picked off and disappeared. I noticed I got down to 16 then 12 clowns so I then decided to rehome them. Maybe 20 was too many, I think 8-10 clowns would be ideal for a Reefer 250. Good luck!

 
SupraSaltyReefer said:
I had a clownfish harem tank back in 2018 in my Red Sea Reefer 250 as well. 20 Clownfish with 12 anemones. IIRC, 16 of them were from the same clutch from Kimmie's Clownfish Factory and 4 from @fingerwrinkles. Tank did great for a few years, but slowly as the hierarchy was established the smallest clowns got picked off and disappeared. I noticed I got down to 16 then 12 clowns so I then decided to rehome them. Maybe 20 was too many, I think 8-10 clowns would be ideal for a Reefer 250. Good luck!

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I think if you had kept it longer it would dwindle even further from what I've seen. @CharlesJohns58 when you kept the Waikiki clownfish tank with the Stichodactyla mertensii, did the team have to keep adding back fish or was the population pretty stable?
 
Thought I'd post an update. Tank is doing well.
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I'm trying to stock it slowly. Current inhabitants include:
- 3 RBTAs
- 1 rock-flower anemone
- lawnmower blenny--it's name goes back and forth between Lenny (the Blenny) and Blenda (the Good Fish).
- 6-line wrasse
- gorgonian
- tiger conch

So far I've had one rockflower anemone die, but nothing else. The tank is obviously in the "uglies" phase, but past the worst of it (I hope). I just added pods and purple coraline algae from AlgaeBarn, and I'm hoping that both will help promote healthy surface flora/fauna, albeit over a couple months.

I had a lot of trouble getting the BTAs off of the rock they came on--they were really dug in! But I learned a cool trick: get a length of PVC with a big enough diameter to fit around the nem when it's closed up at night, attach it to the rock over the nem using a sponge and rubber bands, and face the pipe so the lights don't shine down the center. After a day or two, the nem walks to the other end of the pipe, to get back into the light. And it's a lot easier to remove an anemone from a smooth PVC surface than from a craggy piece of live rock.

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Two of the anemones attached themselves to the shell that I was using as a feeding dish, but I moved onto the main piece of rockwork, and they seem happy enough there.

So far I'm using only equipment I already had for the reef setup. I've turned the Kessil A9 to go as far toward white light as it can, and I put fresh coral ATI bulbs in the fluorescent fixture. I've been trying to 3D print a replacement part for my protein skimmer (red cap for a Bubble Magus Curve 5), but I'm about to give up and buy a new skimmer. Precision fits are hard.
 
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