Newbie Questions

Hey everyone! Coldwater newb here! So I had a few quick questions about cold water reefs.

Is 55F a good temperature for one?

I have a 10 gallon right now, and was hoping to keep a fish or two, a starfish or two, a few anemones, and anything else cool! Also some crabs and snails maybe (like what would be a good clean up crew)? So some livestock suggestions would be nice!

What flow do I need? Like what flow patters and what turnover rate?

Can I have regular live rock and aragonite sand like I have for my tropical tanks?

What water parameters do I need to test?

What kind of lighting do I need? I was hoping to pick up two PAR38 LED's or would that be too much/little?

What kind of filtration do I need? Is just an HOB filter with carbon/filter floss and water changes good enough?

Anything else I should know? Also, I currently keep two tropical reefs so I don't need to know the basics of reefs, just cold water in particular

Thanks!

bump

Anyone out there????

I guess if depends on what you plan to keep exactly. If you know which species you can get you could just look for environmental information about them or the area which they're from. Some species can tolerate relatively high temperatures if they're intertidal i.e. 15- low twenties, at least for periods. Aragonite should be good.

I was thinking of maybe a pair of catalina gobies. And I would love to keep any starfish but Im not sire if one could work in a 10 gallon. I know with tropical reefs a star in a 10g wouldn't work, but I'm not sure if this applies to temperate too. I was also hoping to keep some corynactis anemones, goose neck barnacles, a pacific spiny lumpsucker, orange sea cucumber, purple encrusting hydrocoral, stalked tunicate, purple shore crab, beadlet anemones, waratah anemones, and white plumose anemones.

All these guys were found at coldwater-marine-aquatics.myshopify.com for reference. Im not sure on the compatibility of any of these but those are what interested me.

Thanks!

Chiller required..

You test for the same things as tropical . the bio takes longer because of the cold. flow rates and turn over about the same ,I use a little stronger and 1/3 extra turnover than required in tropical, Skimmer bigger and a large bio section ,I use filter mat , aqua clay and bio balls and a deep sand bed, and a skimmer twice the size required for a tropical tank all in a Sump. Live rock or seeded rock in the tank depends on the area you collect or purchase from.

Cold is a little harder to keep for the same size tank ,but the bigger you go the easyier it is small tanks change fast and need more regular checks but are cheaper to cool etc..If you want to keep esturine or rock pool then they dont mind the temps changing ..

Set up...you need to let it cycle for alot longer than Tropical and stock levels are differant..

HTH Andy

Those should be compatible with the exception of maybe the orange sea cucumber as it can get rather large i.e. up to 10 inches long and is usually found in lower current or less exposed areas. Lumpsuckers are probably found in less exposed areas also. The rest are usually found in more exposed areas.

There are other smaller sea cucumber species that should be more compatible with the rest, such as eupentacta quinquesemita. Snails such as tegula funebralis should help with algae. Several small fish species are found in more exposed locals, such as the kelp poacher, pitheaded poacher, and oligocottus snyderi. Giant green anemones might look good too ( they aren't necessarily giant : up to 10" diameter can be less than half when mature probably). As for starfish, Leptasterias hexactis is up to 4" diameter ( eats just about anything in cluding carrion so it should be easy to keep), and henricia pumila 2" . Whether these are available I don't know. They should be easy to get though.

So here's what I'm thinking. A pair of catalina gobies; two Sitka shrimp, a few gooseneck barnacles; some white plumose, waratah, beadlet, and strawberry anemones; a stalked tunicate; 5 or so common periwinkles; a couple pacific hermits; a giant green anemone. Would this all work?

And are any of these photosynthetic? I currently have a BoostLED Par30 LED bulb for lighting.

Also what would be a good flow turnover rate? I currently have a 32x turnover rate in the tank. Too much or too little?

I know tunicates and barnacles are hard to keep in tropical aquaria, but are the ones I found (stalked tunicate and gooseneck barnacles) as hard too keep?

Aquatic engineer will help with all your local stock needs if your purchasing and Im sure he will tell you what will work and what wont..

As I said in my above post flow and turnover should be higher than tropical and you have to avoid any dead spots in the DT.

Everythying takes longer in the cold .

Lighting is as simple as T5's or a good spectrum LED .

Have a seach of the Forum most set ups ,builds, etc are well covered..

Giant green anemones (Anthopleura xanthogrammica) have photosynthetic algae symbionts. So does Anthopleura elegantissima.

wii64brawl wrote:So here's what I'm thinking. A pair of catalina gobies; two Sitka shrimp, a few gooseneck barnacles; some white plumose, waratah, beadlet, and strawberry anemones; a stalked tunicate; 5 or so common periwinkles; a couple pacific hermits; a giant green anemone. Would this all work?

And are any of these photosynthetic? I currently have a BoostLED Par30 LED bulb for lighting.

Also what would be a good flow turnover rate? I currently have a 32x turnover rate in the tank. Too much or too little?

I know tunicates and barnacles are hard to keep in tropical aquaria, but are the ones I found (stalked tunicate and gooseneck barnacles) as hard too keep?

Everything you listed out should be just fine together The LED is ideal for lighting over the Anthopleura spp. like the greens and the aggregatings since it puts out good amounts of light with little heat.

I would get the turban snails over the common periwinkles though. The turbans tend to stay in the water more and do a much better job with the algae.

I've had good luck so far with the stalked tunicates and acorn barnacles. I found some Japanese Goose neck barnacles on some tsunami debris last time out fishing and brought em home, still waiting to see how well they do since the will likely become an invasive species along the west coast now.

Feel free to hit me up about livestock any time

wii64brawl wrote:So here's what I'm thinking. A pair of catalina gobies; two Sitka shrimp, a few gooseneck barnacles; some white plumose, waratah, beadlet, and strawberry anemones; a stalked tunicate; 5 or so common periwinkles; a couple pacific hermits; a giant green anemone. Would this all work?

And are any of these photosynthetic? I currently have a BoostLED Par30 LED bulb for lighting.

Also what would be a good flow turnover rate? I currently have a 32x turnover rate in the tank. Too much or too little?

I know tunicates and barnacles are hard to keep in tropical aquaria, but are the ones I found (stalked tunicate and gooseneck barnacles) as hard too keep?

Looks like AquaticEngineer answered your post well! At any rate it's sure to make an interesting tank. Expecting pictures .