AfroPenguin's 40 Gallon Anemone Tank

[Afropenguin]

For any of you guys who have done zoa propagation, from your experience do you get faster growth (number of new heads over time) by having one larger piece or by splitting up that larger piece into smaller (1/2 head) pieces?

Also update from the maxi mini experiment, after about 6 weeks, the anemones seemed to have healed back up. 3 of the 4 look very good, 1 of them looks not as well. I will probably feed them more often over the next month or so for them to grow larger before I attempt to cut them again.

Growth in this tank feels slow, the GSP that I added to the tank has seen extremely little growth since adding it compared to the GSP that is in my main tank. This might be due to not having anything in there that produces any kind of waste. I fed the tank rotifers twice in the 3 months the tank has been up and have done 1 water change. The tank runs at 79F and the lights follow the same schedule as my main tank except offset by a few hours.

 

[Afropenguin]

the green maxi mini carpets have died, the 2 purple ones are healthy =)

@PeetaJai You can see my tank setup here
Full tank

My sump with the reef octo protein skimmer

A box with RODI water for ATO and all of my electrical stuff next to the water

 

[Afropenguin]

4/13 Tank update
Leathers looking like they are doing well and anemones have split a bunch after I started feeding a bit more regularly.

Full tank shot and a shot from the side, the other side is dirty so the picture didnt come out well.

 

[PeetaJai]

Looking good!
Thank You for showing me your setup.

 

[Srt4eric]

We even have the same stand.

 

[Afropenguin]

Not a fan of lps so I cut it up in preparation for a frag swap
I have confirmed that a green slimer acros is more resistant to temp change than ora green birds nest. Had both in a tank at 64 degrees for a day or 2 and the acro was fine.
Soft corals and candycane corals are fine too

 

[Srt4eric]

Not a fan of lps so I cut it up in preparation for a frag swap
I have confirmed that a green slimer acros is more resistant to temp change than ora green birds nest. Had both in a tank at 64 degrees for a day or 2 and the acro was fine.
Soft corals and candycane corals are fine too


View attachment 26264

Why was it so cold? Heater failed and didn't notice?

 

[Afropenguin]

Why was it so cold? Heater failed and didn't notice?

Yeah water level dropped too low and heater was not in the water

 

[Afropenguin]

Got the par meter today, here are my par readings with 2 AI prime 16s on a 40 gallon tank:

 

[Afropenguin]

Tried taking some The_Lazy_Reefer styled photos, waited till later at night when the blues were high and used an orange filter.

 

[ashburn2k]

Try stack yellow and orange

 

[Afropenguin]

Try stack yellow and orange

Ill try that tomorrow after I buy some corals from the coral farmers market

 

[PeetaJai]

Nice shot of the RBTA and the clown

 

[Afropenguin]

Experiment time =)
I'm not sure how people determine the size of the anemone, is it while it is happy in the tank? or while it is pissed off in the cup after you scrape it off a rock?

I cut a small BTA (the cup is 3 inches wide) with the attempt to see if they will survive. The anemone is a split off another anemone from about 3 months ago.

I have the same setup that I have from when I cut the maxi mini carpet anemones: 1 small cutting board and 1 sharp kitchen knife.

Taking the anemone out of the cup, the base is super fat so its hard to lay flat but I tried to spread out the tentacles as much as I could.

After 5 minutes of fussing around with the tentacles and poking its mouth/butt I was able to get a clear shot and cut though =) The misc debris around the anemone was some algae that was stuck to the foot when I took it out of my tank.

After cutting the anemone, I put them back in the cup with a rock to hold the cup down and just put the cup in the tank. one tentacle was lost but I feel like that is okay.

Hopefully they survive, I will check up on them later tonight / tomorrow.

 

[PeetaJai]

Experiment time =)
I'm not sure how people determine the size of the anemone, is it while it is happy in the tank? or while it is pissed off in the cup after you scrape it off a rock?

I cut a small BTA (the cup is 3 inches wide) with the attempt to see if they will survive. The anemone is a split off another anemone from about 3 months ago.
View attachment 27198

I have the same setup that I have from when I cut the maxi mini carpet anemones: 1 small cutting board and 1 sharp kitchen knife.
View attachment 27199

Taking the anemone out of the cup, the base is super fat so its hard to lay flat but I tried to spread out the tentacles as much as I could.
View attachment 27200

After 5 minutes of fussing around with the tentacles and poking its mouth/butt I was able to get a clear shot and cut though =) The misc debris around the anemone was some algae that was stuck to the foot when I took it out of my tank.
View attachment 27201

After cutting the anemone, I put them back in the cup with a rock to hold the cup down and just put the cup in the tank. one tentacle was lost but I feel like that is okay.
View attachment 27202

Hopefully they survive, I will check up on them later tonight / tomorrow.

I never have the nerves to do that myself. I feel like I would kill both of them. Good luck with result. Following...

 

[Afropenguin]

After a few hours, both sides of the anemone attached themselves to something in the cup and I used the par meter to take some measurements. After cutting the anemone, I thought it would be kind of rough for them so I lowered the lights using the AI prime acclimation mode set for 50% reduction on all levels going back to normal in 3 weeks.

 

[Afropenguin]

Oh and if no one noticed, the Iron man mushroom from @Srt4eric makes it debut.

this is a closeup shot of it:

 

[Srt4eric]

Oh and if no one noticed, the Iron man mushroom from @Srt4eric makes it debut.

this is a closeup shot of it:
View attachment 27212

How could no one not notice that monster...

 

[Afropenguin]

It looks like after putting in a bunch of toadstools / leather corals that shed, the anemones are not very happy. Most of em are walkin around and are pretty small compared to before.

 

[Afropenguin]

Update after almost a year
I bought a house and moved out to el dorado hills!

The anemone have lost vs the soft corals and now they reign supreme.
tank is running at 1.021 salinity and no other changes. Have not done a water change since May 2021.
I took down the experimental tank after not wanting to have to remember to fill up two tanks.

Findings is:

• every bta that I have cut has died (about 6 in total)
• every cut maxi mini anemone has lived.
• My black damsel fish survived a tank without a heater and no food for about 3 months

I transferred the damsel fish to the main tank after taking down the experimental tank. It lived and bullied the clown fish for about 2 months and then died to an anemone. Many of the zoas have fallen and the victors are starting to grow pretty well, but slowly.