Anyone cold water reef?

[Triggreef]

I'm just finishing breaking down a 125g (I will still be keeping and focusing on my 200g reef) but for the 125g I was planning to go freshwater and let my kid take it over.

Someone recently planted the cold water tank thought in my head and I been thinking about it. My main problem with this tank has been heating costs, constantly replacing heaters and just the energy bill. It has a basement sump which keeps it cooler and poses a challenge to keep it warm. I think without heaters it will stay around the 60's year round.

Askl i know of available is Catalina gobies and southern blue devil (no thanks at $600). I guess maybe some box fish like cold water? I'd be happy with strawberry nems for a while but would definitely want more eventually.

So just want to see if there's anyone doing this, and any possible livestock ideas, suppliers, etc.

 

[SDReefer]

There are a lot of cold water fish. However, they are very rare and uncommon. Fish such as Garabaldi damsels are very aggressive and grow very large.
The majority of "corals" here in SoCal would be gorgonians and sea fans; it's too cold for stony corals here. If you look at some public aquariums such as the Monterey Bay Aquarium and the Aquarium of the Pacific, you'll find a lot of inspiration.

Hope this helps!

 

[Triggreef]

Guess I'll use this to start a list for myself.

Catalina Goby
Kamohara Blenny
Blue spotted Jawfish
peppermint shrimp
margarite snails

 

[Triggreef]

There are a lot of cold water fish. However, they are very rare and uncommon. Fish such as Garabaldi damsels are very aggressive and grow very large.
The majority of "corals" here in SoCal would be gorgonians and sea fans; it's too cold for stony corals here. If you look at some public aquariums such as the Monterey Bay Aquarium and the Aquarium of the Pacific, you'll find a lot of inspiration.

Hope this helps!

You know off hand specific gorgs? I have a couple so I can try fragging them.

 

[A Toadstool Leather]

There are plenty of cool photosynthetic coldwater nems such as aggregating anemones or white spotted rose anemones. Strawberry nems are non photosynthetic but are easy to feed.

 

[A Toadstool Leather]

There are a lot of cold water fish. However, they are very rare and uncommon. Fish such as Garabaldi damsels are very aggressive and grow very large.
The majority of "corals" here in SoCal would be gorgonians and sea fans; it's too cold for stony corals here. If you look at some public aquariums such as the Monterey Bay Aquarium and the Aquarium of the Pacific, you'll find a lot of inspiration.

Hope this helps!

Garabaldi are illegal to take in cali. Only public aquariums tend to own them since they have the exuse of education.

 

[Slim_Okrug]

Look at this Mediterannean sea aquarium. This is real biotope of Mediterranean sea and it is cold water. Tank must be iso glass and keep at 12-15 Celsius. For me this one is best tematic aquarium i saw by far.

 

[tripdad]

Google Steve Weast cold water aquarium. He had a nice one going.

 

[Triggreef]

Look at this Mediterannean sea aquarium. This is real biotope of Mediterranean sea and it is cold water. Tank must be iso glass and keep at 12-15 Celsius. For me this one is best tematic aquarium i saw by far.

anyone know what those orange fish are? kind of Hawkfish looking?

 

[TikiBird]

This is a neat idea. I have no idea about this, but I remember the Monterey Bay Aquarium has cool little purple urchins. I have no idea if they’d be reef safe, or work in a tank. https://www.montereybayaquarium.org/animal-guide/invertebrates/purple-sea-urchin

 

[Slim_Okrug]

anyone know what those orange fish are? kind of Hawkfish looking?

It is mediterannean cardinal fish called Matulcic.

 

[tripdad]

Here's a link to Steve Weast tank. https://reefbuilders.com/2011/02/06/cold-water-reef-tank/

 

[malacoda]

Came across this write up on Tamberav's cold water nano over at nano-reef.com a few weeks ago and found it ... along with her tank journal (which is linked in the first paragraph) ... to be very interesting. It may provide additional inspiration and/or point toward other info, livestock, equipment sources.

 

[CalebWBrink2000]

Honestly, I've always wanted to start a coldwater and/or NPS reef. There's something so oddly alluring and different about them that's kinda hard to put into words. They look mysterious and gloomy- almost alien yet much more familiar to me than our tropical reefs. It reminds me of old pirate tales, stories of a raging sea up north amongst a ferocious battle with a Kraken. Perhaps that's my imagination running wild

 

[Summer4infinity]

I’ve been keeping coldwater reefs for about 4 1/2 years (tropical reefs for 3 1/2years). My current coldwater system is around 200 gallons (150dt, 50 gallon sump).
I’ve only ever purchased a few things, and those were from Coldwater Marine Aquatics, who are no longer in business. I have heard good things about Matsu Pacific in CA. It is definitely way more difficult to acquire coldwater specimens, and relatively expensive compared to most typical tropical species.
I am fortunate to live on the Oregon coast, where it is legal to collect some things with a fish/shellfish license, so everything in my tank except for one anemone has been collected by me.
I love my coldwater tank, and it’s fish inhabitants are by far my favorite fish I’ve ever kept, but coldwater has some really unique issues compared to tropical reefs. For example, I have 2 Sailfin Sculpins (Nautichthys oculofasciatus). They are both females, and do not enjoy each other’s company, so at one time I had a separate 150 gallon system set up just for the other Sailfin. My smaller female is happily residing in the sump now. Most fish from my area are either nocturnal (like the sailfins) or used to murky water, and don’t appreciate bright light. Tidepool specimens are much more agreeable to higher light.
Another issue is the chillers put off a decent amount of heat (I keep my tanks at 53°-55°) the extra heat is great in the winter, but awful in the summer. Our house doesn’t have a good floor plan to vent the heat out (the garage would be the optimal location for the chiller), we don’t have air conditioning, so it’s a constant battle of opening/ closing windows in the summer. It also makes it pretty much impossible for me to be gone even overnight during the summer.
Once you acquire your livestock, if something doesn’t get along, or you decide you don’t want it anymore, it is much, much more difficult to re-home them, and illegal to re-release. There isn’t a ton of information on what fish/inverts get along with what like there is in the tropical side. I’ve seen the most surprising behaviors in my cold tank... spot prawns for example, pick at and eat anemones, and their favorite food ever was a couple of iridescent nudibranchs (and also octopus poop, but that is a story for another day).
Also, the biological process is much, much slower. It’s not unusual for a coldwater tank to take 5+ months to fully cycle. Colder waters are much more nutrient rich, and the inhabitants are mostly non-photosynthetic, so heavy feeding and a lot of target feeding is required in most coldwater systems. It’s not unusual for coldwater systems to have very high nitrates 100+ppm. Nitrate reduction is more difficult than in warmer waters, but not impossible.
Overall, I love my coldwater system, and would not trade the learning experiences I’ve had from keeping coldwater marine systems for anything, but one day when both of my sailfins have passed on, I will definitely be downsizing my cold tank to a small (20-30 gallon) tank, a large sump, and most likely anemones/inverts only.

 

[VR28man]

Depends what you call "cold water", ie Sea of Cortez, San Diego, Chesapeake Bay, Monterrey Bay, Washington State, Alaska? (restricting ourselves only to the US).


The temperatures in each of these areas vary greatly. Googling only (presumably surface) water temperatures in San Diego, the temp varies from 60-70 fahrenheit from winter to summer. (Water below the first thermocline, at wbout 30ft, is probably in the low 60s consistently). Monterrey will be notably colder at the surface, to say nothing about WA.


Far and away your hardest job with such a tank would be getting livestock. I know there are some species from the Sea of Cortez which regularly are sold (eg the blue spot jawfish, though there are others). That might be a good start.

ETA: i'd imagine the cost/trouble of cooling a tank much below room temperature would far outweigh the cost/trouble of heating it to tropical temperatures.


As an alternative, if you wanted to keep your tank at room temperature (low 70s), a tampa bay area tank or even a deep reef tank would work. Both could be run off of from Gulf Coast aquacultured rock. Corals could include non-photosynthetic sps and gorgonians (there are some very common and hardy photosynthetic SPS's that can grow up to the Georgia coast, or in deeper indo- Pacific Waters, but they're not very common in the ornamental aquarium trade). Ironically, many popular species of fish in this hobby - angelfish, flasher wrasses, hawkfish - come from deeper parts of the reef.

 

[Triggreef]

So just to update I went this route with temp maintaining 68 to 69 very consistently with no heaters. I was a little surprised its that high because my heaters were always on even in summer for this tank to keep it at 77. Since my basement, where the sump is, stays cool in the summer I think it will maintain this temp year round.

So for now i kept a lyretail anthias I already had, and got some Catalina gobies, 2 kohmara blennies, a blue spot jaw fish, and 3 Fiji blue devil damsels. All seem to be doing well.

I also left a rbta, some zoas, and some shrooms, even a cyphastrea. And they all seem to be happy as well.

When i get a chance I'm going to cut a coupe gorg frags and try those as well. I'll try to update with a couple pics. Really liking this so far.

 

[lou dog420]

Only when the power goes out!

 

[Triggreef]

Only when the power goes out!

?

 

[VR28man]

When i get a chance I'm going to cut a coupe gorg frags and try those as well. I'll try to update with a couple pics. Really liking this so far.

Cool. FYI, you may have more success with the non-photosynthetic gorgonians, generally collected from deeper waters, as opposed to the photosynthetic gorgonians typically collected from the shallow reefs of Florida