- [Matthew] What would you say if I told you
it can live for a thousand years?
That it's stinging tentacles can trap
and kill an entire fish.
That it can walk around with a single foot.
Or that there is one subfamily of fish, 30 species,
that live inside its deadly tentacles.
(light upbeat music)
Bulk Reef Supply and World Wide Corals present,
My First Clownfish Anemone Tank.
Don't forget to watch the first video in this series
where we walk you through how to set up
this Innovative Marine 14 gallon Peninsula
and go through all of the gear we use,
link below.
Anemones and Clownfish.
With more than 1000 species,
anemones are found all throughout our salty seas and oceans.
But for our purposes,
we're gonna focus on the most common species
found in our hobby, Bubble Tip Anemones.
Bubble Tip Anemones, or BTAs for short,
are usually found in either greens or reds.
They derive their name from the unique bubbles
they often form near their tips,
although there are some specimens
that never seem to develop those bubbles.
Anemones can be a bit tricky to care for
as they require extremely stable water parameters.
Please be aware that if you are a true beginner
it is absolutely best practice to wait six months
to one year before introducing anemones to a new system.
This will help your system mature
and also give you the time to work out the kinks.
All of the bubble tip nems featured
in today's video are a mix of anemones
I've had for over a year
as well as some new specimens from World Wide Coral.
And even though this tank is a new set up,
I'm using pre-cycled rock, pre-cycled sand,
and saltwater from another tank that the nems
are already used to.
Bubble Tip Anemones can absolutely thrive
under a variety of lighting conditions,
but we always shoot for around 150 PAR.
BTA's prefer a low to medium indirect pulsing flow,
just enough to remove any waste
but not enough to hurt their tentacles.
Although photosynthetic BTA's do also
require supplemental feeding.
I like to feed my nems
about once a week with small pieces of shrimp,
but they also do like pellets, silversides,
and even some coral foods like reef chili.
BTA's will walk around your tank
until they find the perfect home,
so be sure to protect them by placing guards
over your wave makers.
For the anemones featured in this video,
I asked World Wide Corals to send me a variety of colors,
but nothing collectors or high end.
Moving on to clownfish,
there are several different color
and pattern varieties available.
Clownfish are semi-aggressive and closely related
to damselfish.
For our 14 gallon build, a pair of either ocellaris,
or percula clownfish, is the perfect amount.
Fun fact for you.
All clownfish are born male
and only the largest and most aggressive become female.
Unless you're building a large specialized harem tank,
you either need to keep clownfish
by themselves or with a mated pair.
Clownfish can live for a really long time,
10 to 20 years even in captivity,
and they do not need an anemone for their survival.
We recommend buying captive breed clownfish
because they come to you disease free.
For our Innovative Marine 14 build,
we went with two premium black ice clownfish
from Sea and Reef.
One thing to note, is sometimes your clownfish
will not immediately interact with your anemone.
In fact, I've had a clownfish that went well over a year
before forming that symbiotic relationship,
but then they were inseparable.
Sand and Scape.
Since the nems will need low to medium flow,
CaribSea Special Grade is the perfect sand
for the setup.
I use just enough to cover the bottom glass,
probably less than 10 pounds total.
I smoothed it out by hand pushing the sand
away from the edges of the tank.
There really wasn't much aquascaping to do
since my anemones were already attached
to rocks in their quarantine tank.
The CaribSea LifeRock Nano Kit is the perfect size
and amount of reef rock for this build.
Anemones really like crevices to sink their feet into
to be protective, and unfortunately this rock
isn't the best for that.
But by putting several small rocks together,
you can create artificial crevices and great habitats
for those anemones to put their feet into.
I didn't need to use any epoxy, or super glue,
or cement to put these pieces together
because I only used three small pieces
and they're all balanced quite well on the sand bed.
A minimal scape works really well
for this system because your anemones will puff out
and grow and cover the scape over time.
Just be sure to provide enough habitat
for your anemones to move around and grow over the years.
One more consideration is,
because this build has a powerful MightyJet DC return pump,
it puts out a lot of flow.
So be sure not to place your aquascape too close
to the front of the tank
because when that flow hits the front,
it's really powerful and needs time to dissipate.
For that reason, I place my aquascape closer to the rear
of the tank and left areas on the side of the scape,
so that you could get a really good front
to back flow pattern without directly hitting
any of the anemones.
Filling, Cycling, Leveling, and Water Parameters.
I'm using Tropic Marin Pro reef salt,
and I used a colander to disperse the water more easily
without disturbing the sand bed a huge amount.
I added pre-cycled reef rock, as well as a media bag full
of rubble rock to the rear filtration chamber.
Since most of you likely won't have pre-recycled reef rock,
I would recommend cycling your tank using ammonia chloride
and Fritz turbo start.
It's always a good idea to use composite shims
to level your tank.
But honestly, this system is small enough
that as long as it's relatively leveled to begin with,
it's probably not necessary,
but definitely best practice to do so.
Once your tank is cycled,
having stable water parameters is absolutely essential
to the long term health for your anemones.
Just make sure you test frequently,
make any changes extremely slowly,
and don't bottom out your nitrates and phosphates.
Gear Setup.
For lights we went with the Aqua Illumination Prime 16 HD
with the 12 inch flex arm.
I tuned the color to 12,500 Kelvin
and adjusted the intensity down to 34%.
Using the PAR meter, this gave me between 100
and 125 PAR at the top of the aquascape.
I will slowly increase the intensity to 45%
because that gives me around 125 to 175 PAR
at the top of the aquascape.
Since the IM 14 Peninsula comes
with a MightyJet DC return pump, I set it to 2.1,
which is the lowest setting on the pulse mode.
And honestly, I found that to still be
a little bit too much.
So adding in a small ball valve
or a random flow generator nozzle is probably a good idea.
And honestly, I added both to the system.
You can absolutely use a filter sock
as your primary mechanical filtration,
but I always like to keep activated carbon
as a part of an anemone system just in case
they slough off any toxins, it will help to remove that.
So in that case, use the custom acrylic caddy,
place the fiber filter balls up top,
and place the carbon pack down below.
It's summer here in the desert,
which means the coolest my house ever gets is 77 degrees.
But for those chilly winter months,
I use a Finnex 50 watt titanium heater plugged
into a bayite temperature controller
to keep my temperature consistent around 77 to 78 degrees.
No wave maker is necessary for this tank
as the MightyJet return pump provides more than enough flow.
I installed a Reef Breeders Prism Auto Top Off
unit and ran it into a small two gallon bucket.
And finally, I'm using a wifi power strip I picked up
on Amazon, and I love using these strips because it makes
turning off your equipment for water changes a breeze.
And being able to set an automatic timer
to turn things back on is really helpful
because eventually you will forget.
Adding Livestock.
Let's start by adding the anemones.
And if this is your first time purchasing an anemone,
be sure to get one of a good size.
I would say three to four, maybe even five inches.
The larger the anemone you can pick up,
the greater chance of success you'll have.
For some reason, and this just could be peculiar to me,
but I have had more success with the red and rose varieties
and much less success with the green varieties
of bubble tip nems.
Never, ever add a tiny anemone to your system.
I'm talking things like one inch or two inches max.
Small anemones, in my experience, do not do well
and often will fade away and disappear in your tank.
I have added more than a beginner should,
but my goal is to show all of you what is possible
after a year or two.
And the other reason I added more than one or two is
because I've had about half of these in a quarantine system
and in a previous tank for almost two years now.
So I know they're healthy and happy
and well adjusted to my parameters.
The greatest way for you to succeed in building this tank,
is to buy your anemones from a trusted source.
Getting an anemone that has been in a stable system
for as long as possible is absolutely key.
We got our anemones from World Wide Coral
because they are aquaculture specialists
and a company we really trust.
You're definitely gonna want a temperature
and drip acclimate your anemones,
and we will always recommend quarantining all new livestock
for a minimum of three to four weeks.
Enough of all that background,
let's actually get the anemones in the tank.
Start by turning off your return pump
and dimming your lights.
Using a gloved hand, place the foot of the anemone
into a portion of the aquascape that has crevices.
It can take several minutes for the anemone to grab hold,
so just gently keep your hand in place as long as necessary.
Turn your flow back on and stick around for a bit
because you may just find an anemone floating
around your tank.
If that happens like it obviously did to me,
just turn off the flow and repeat the process.
After your anemones have grabbed hold,
give them at least a day to settle
into their new environment
before turning your lights back up.
I highly recommend acclimating your new anemones
to the lights over a period of several weeks.
So if your goal is 45% intensity, maybe start out
at around 25% and then every single day come back
and increase the intensity percentage by one point.
And of course, adjust your flow as necessary during
those first few days to provide the perfect flow pattern.
But after that, don't touch it.
A change in flow can change the anemones habitat
and environment and it can stress them out.
Again, it's really important to keep not
only consistent water parameters,
but also consistent flow patterns as well.
Moving on to the clownfish,
you can absolutely add the clownfish the same day
or add them sometime later.
It goes without saying, drip acclimate and quarantine
all new fish.
If you bought aquacultured clownfish
they've probably never even seen an anemone.
I recommend adding them directly
to the anemone to give them the greatest chance
of immediately pairing up.
Using a gloved hand is perfect for this
because you can pick up the clownfish
with your hand and close it in a gentle fist,
and then place it directly on top of the anemone.
If your clownfish don't take to the anemone immediately,
don't panic.
It doesn't mean they're never going to.
It can just take a little while,
but there are some tricks you can do
to help encourage that union.
Adding a Cleanup Crew.
Personally, I always wait until the first signs
of algae before adding cleanup crews.
A mix of snails, hermits, and shrimp
will likely do just fine for this system.
And we'll link to our cleanup crew video below.
Long Term Care.
Of course it goes without saying,
you're gonna want to do, and need to do all
of the usual maintenance, including water changes.
As a part of these water changes,
I like to add a small amount of beneficial bacteria,
something like MicroBacter7, as well as coral aminos.
One of my favorite Instagrammers and YouTubers
goes by the name, HerNanoReefs.
She is an anemone expert and puts out
some beautiful pictures and some great content
that can help you have success,
and we'll link her channels below.
I feed my clownfish twice a day, but very small amounts.
In a closed system that is this small, if you over feed
it can quickly escalate to a high nutrient problem.
I pretty much exclusively feed them Hikari mysis shrimp.
Because it mixes completely clear and it doesn't add
a whole bunch of extra nutrients into the tank
like some other frozen foods will,
and especially pellet foods.
But you can absolutely also supplement their diet
with some pellet foods.
One of my favorite is TDO chroma boost, the small size.
For my anemones I will target feed them once a week.
I will turn the flow off and feed them either
some small pieces of shrimp one week,
and then oftentimes the other week I will do
some Hikari mysis shrimp with some mixed in coral food
and coral aminos.
I personally like to feed my anemones right
before I do a water change.
That way when I flip the system back on
I let it cycle out some of those excess nutrients
and then immediately do a water change and change
out my mechanical filtration to keep those water
parameters stable and not give any time
for that food to break down.
Since dosing isn't as important for this system,
I have found I don't really need a dosing pump,
but rather I just dose manually
after doing a weekly water change
if there's anything that needs dosing.
You may need to either increase your filtration
or lower your feeding if you find that your nitrate
and phosphates are getting out of hand.
There are some great protein skimmer options
as well as reactor options that you can either fit
in the rear filtration chamber or hang off the side.
Change your activated carbon every couple weeks
and then do your absolute best to keep your hands
out of the tank and don't change anything.
I said it once and I'm gonna say it again,
consistency is the key to success for anemones.
Click here to see the four other habitats we built
with this Innovative Marine 14 gallon system.
And as always everybody thanks for watching.
Happy reefing, be well.
We'll see you next time.
(light upbeat music)