anemone with 4x54w ho?

[kpiotrowski]

so I have this kind of cool 85g glass tank that is 6 feet long, only about 13 wide and 21 deep. I would like to stick about a dozen clowns (ocellaris) and an anemone in it. The lights are a 48in 4x54w ho. If I provide a high shelf right in the middle in tank, ya think that nem will be smart enough to seek that area close to the light and if so, what kind of nem that will host clowns could I do with 216w over that narrow and shallow area?
tia!

 

[Scampy]

Bubble tips are probably the most common anemone people get. Also it's one of the hardiest. As for the clowns....while they are juvies you may be ok. But as they grow and the females start to show dominance there may be some fighting and deaths. As they pair up, they will need their own hosting spot and wanting all of them in one nem is asking for trouble.

 

[IPisces]

With a six foot long tank it is very possible to keep more that one pair. I would not do more than two pair and either no anemones or one at each end for each pair of clowns. They are very protective of their anemone. I have a pair of orange ocellaris and a pair of black ocellaris in a 75. They get along well at feeding, but they do have their own side of the tank. I do not have an anemone in that tank. The orange clowns are hosted by a toadstool leather and will not let the black ones near it. So as long as they can keep their distance, and they grew up together in the same tank, I think two pair in that tank would work. Otherwise I too think you will have a lot of problems with a dozen clowns. It would be cool if they didnt pair up and become territorial. I'd hate to see you loose most of them.

 

[kpiotrowski]

tank raised are on sale right now at liveaquaria and was thinkin a bunch of juvies would be cool and buy some time before they paired up...at which point the first pair are going in my reef. but what about the lighting for that dimension and depth of tank? how much lighting would be good enough for a bubble tip? will that 216w work if the nem is high in the center? if doing 2 nems on opposite sides would a cheap 150w mh from aquatraders work, one above each nem...and how do I encourage the nem to sit below the light, or will it naturally seek it out since it is so focused in a specific area.

 

[IPisces]

The best you can do is supply the nem with good lighting, good water conditions and moderate flow and it is going to settle in where it wants to. I have a 2 RBTA's. One of them has set foot on a rock at the bottom of the tank under the rocks and stretches about 10-12" up reaching for the light. the other one set himself on the highest rock and just lies there basking in the light. So they pretty much do what they want.

 

[Scampy]

How long has this been set up? A tank should mature a bit before adding anemones anyways. As for the lights.."can it be done" yes. Could it be better....absolutely. What are your future plans for the tank? That will help determine which way to go with the lights also.

 

[kpiotrowski]

How long has this been set up? A tank should mature a bit before adding anemones anyways. As for the lights.."can it be done" yes. Could it be better....absolutely. What are your future plans for the tank? That will help determine which way to go with the lights also.

its just an extra tank that I want to do something differnt in, no big plans to go full blown reef...one is enough for me. just wondering about the minimum lighting for say a bubble tip. don't want to add anyh more light/heat/money than will work.

my theory is...and I wondering if anyone has found out different, if the only source of light is in a very focused area will a nem usually head towards it. that couple with a focused area of rock work, would this not give the result of the anemone wanting to be 1. on rock and 2. under the light. or are some of them dumb enough to walk away and head into the darkness off the rock across the sand?

the anemones to me are the big investment...not the $12 clowns. and I would hate for him to plugg my overflow!

 

[chelseagrin]

i have tried and failed numerous times trying to do a clown anemone tank. either the clownfish get so aggressive that they kill off one another or the tank just gets so crowded with different nems that they get cought in filters and powerheads and they end up killing eachother too and eating the clownfish on their way. but if done carefully with all juvenile clowns and all the same kind of bta i think its a very good idea. is the lighting t5?

 

[jrgilles]

Nems might live but I wouldn't think they would be that happy with that amount of light. In my tank at least, they really love high light. They are only fully extended/opened up when my 2X250 W metal halides are on. Once the halides shut off and I go to 4*54 W CF lighting, they disappear for the night.

 

[kpiotrowski]

lights are the aquatrader brand 54w t-5. sucks to hear about them needing more like 500w...but perhaps with only a 12 in wide tank and the light being more focused, it will be an experiment.

anyone have a freshly split rbt they will sell cheap?

 

[chelseagrin]

you cant really measure light output by watts per gallon. measure it by par or pur. this is the best way to tell if your light system will work.

 

[estanoche]

FWIW - I have the sister to that tank, the 5' long 80 gallon - 5'x13"22" - I light it with a a DIY 6 bulb 48" T5 fixture and a 400W metal halide - I can keep anything under the sun..... even under the T5s

I'd recommend getting a 48" and a 24" 4 bulb fixture, or doing a DIY, you can fit 5 bulbs across the top of the tank with a 5 bulb fixture - I stagged mine so I could fit all 6 in the hood

Then you wouldnt have to worry about "is this enough like for anemone X" just, yay!! I want that one

 

[kpiotrowski]

thanks all. with the thousands I have sunk into my reef this year...and more to come ( thousands), I was really trying to get an idea of what people have got away with as far as lighting and cool nems that will host clowns for a differnt tank. I don't care If I have to run a single halide right above the nem....just trying to figure out if the nem will want to stay there or will he go to the dark ends of the tank which would not be lit in that case. the 6 foot x12in wide tank the nem will go in has a skimmer and thats about it, runs 82 dg in the summer with the 2 mag drives running the return and skimmer, and the t-5 lights on 12 hours a day hence I did not want to add more lights...and chiller etc.

 

[jrgilles]

You can get them where you want by making it a nice spot and by making other places not nice.

Close to the light is good. If you could give them some sort of hole or overhang to pull into for protection. They want a place to pull back to out of direct current, but want to be able to extend into lights with moderate current. You can crate this and put them there.

If they don't go where you want, you can aim a little nano powerhead right at them, they won't like that and will inch back away from it, or move away entirely depending on how much flow you direct into them.

So yea, just build them a little cave with the proper attributes and I bet you can get them to stay

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[kpiotrowski]

thanks, real good info! so here is a bad pic of the tank in question. rock is just laying around cycling/maturing with no lights so no algea etc.

so if I just pile all that tonga up in the middle third of the tank and create kind of a bowl in the center a few inches deep, he may like that area he can drop down into and yet he will be right under the lights in the center. btw the flow through the tank is right to left with and overflow on one end and spray bar on the other with a mag drive 9.5, so about 650-700 gph with the head. my plan for more turbulent flow was to add a simple powersweep power head blowing back and forth over the nems area.

also, what about color tempature of the lighting, like would the nem find a 6700k (plant grow) more usefull than say a 10k? I have an assortment of t-5 bulbs to play with, red, blue, yellowish(6700) 12k, actinc blue etc. I know from my reef tank, I have a 48in 4x54 t-5 ho that I use for cleaning when the canopy is off. well when I didnt have but a few corals ( 1 acro, a 3/8 inch TINY frogspaw, and a few monti) I just used that 216 watt light for like 2 months cuz I couldnt justify using 1000w for so few. that acro about doubled in height in that time at only 216w about 10 hours a day( may be reaching for the light but never the less growing), monti put on about half inch all over and the worlds smallest frogspawn frag is now a good inch BUT it had more plant specific bulbs ( 1 actinc, 1 reef wave, one 6700k and, one 10k)


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[jrgilles]

as for lighting, I have used 10k and 14k and they have liked both. They are under 14k now and loving it.

If you were doing a pile with a bowl in the center (and based off observing the nems in my tank):
1: when the nem is open it should fill the bowl and not be under too much current (or it will move.) It likes a bit of current maybe right across the top, but they really don't like anything to direct that 'blows' it around.

2: At night and morning/evening, mine always retreat from the light. So, you will probably want to put a rock over an edge of the bowl, or if it is a pile of rock, it should be able to pull back into the rock for shade. Mine like to have thier food somewhere in the dark, where they can 'reach' out into the light and extend to touch the current. So, maybe think of a bowl with a 1/3 of the bowl covered with a mini lid.

I would build that and drop the nem in the bowl towards the side you want it to shelter under, and see what happens. I would think you could get it to stay there.

And again, you can gently move them with mini powerheads causing them to get annoyed. Usually if I put a mini current on them, they will reposition by the end of the day (usually just pulling their goot back more into the darkness of the rockwork.

Anyway, I'm no expert. Have had some dividing in my SPS tank for 2 years or so, and that is kind of what I do to try to protect my SPS and LPS from them. They are death to anything they fight.

 

[kpiotrowski]

thanks agian!

I think I've I made up my mind and am going for it, however... I AM going to be an idiot and put about a dozen half inch juvi clowns in and see what happens next. It would be kinda cool to see a pair defending their nem and chasing everyone else away. May even be kinda natural for that pair to have to defend thier territory. anyway, with 6 feet of tank full of tangled tonga branch there will at least be plenty of escape routes.

I'll put that canopy over the nem on backside of the tank so you can still see him from the front.

do nems need random flow pattern or would he be cool just being in a unidirection flow ( the tank was originaly designed and used as river tank with hillstream loaches I was breeding)