Cold water corals?

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Are you planning on sticking to a certain region? How about anemones? Giant Green Anemone (Anthopleura xanthogrammica) and aggregating anemone (Anthopleura elegantissima) for example.
I don’t think I’ll stick to one certain region, and instead try to get a natural-ish cold water reef.
I might go for maybe one or two anemones, I don’t quite know just yet (Anemones have always been a questionable thing for me in both warm and cold water tanks)
 

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I kept a little cold water reef in high school. If I remember correctly, they were a bit easier to keep than the tropical nems. They did need to be fed though.
I don’t think I’ll stick to one certain region, and instead try to get a natural-ish cold water reef.
I might go for maybe one or two anemones, I don’t quite know just yet (Anemones have always been a questionable thing for me in both warm and cold water tanks)
 
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I kept a little cold water reef in high school. If I remember correctly, they were a bit easier to keep than the tropical nems. They did need to be fed though.
Yeah, I’ve read that the cold water news are easier to keep, I might try one when I do take the plunge into coldwater
 

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Definitely some cold water LPS corals. Northern star coral and there is a specific sun coral that is on divers den (name escapes me right now) that does great at 55 degrees.

Gorgs

Also hydrocorals which are similar to SPS.

I don’t find all cold water fish to be compatible with cold water nems. Catalina’s do great though. They know exactly how to swim through a maze of stinging cells at high speed without ever getting touched. I tried a cold water blenny which would eat the baby nems. Well one day I guess he tried to eat a big one or sat on it and it was game over. :/

Sculpin and Kelpfish did fine with the nems. It probably just depends where that specific fish is located/from.

My guess is a blue spot jawfish wouldn’t be great to keep with cold water nems.

The margarita snails and Mexican turbos you get at the LFS will do well at 55.
 
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Though not corals there's some cool fish that the template tanks get live old wives also alot of really nice macro algae.
 

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It’s even more interesting as the majority of people who live in colder waters live near coral reefs without knowing, mainly because it’s not the “Vibrant”, warm coral reefs we see photos of.

exactly! And you gotta wonder, how crazy are the corals down there which we have yet to see? You’d think they’d be primarily nps, which we sort of know about. But even then, I’m pretty sure nature could through something at us which would completely change our understanding of corals
 

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Yeah, I’ve read that the cold water news are easier to keep, I might try one when I do take the plunge into coldwater
Makes sense. Many coldwater tidepool anemones are built to survive large changes in temperature/salinity and removal from water for hours at a time, multiple times in a single day.
 
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Makes sense. Many coldwater tidepool anemones are built to survive large changes in temperature/salinity and removal from water for hours at a time, multiple times in a single day.
Yeah, that does max sense now that I think about it, the amount of nems that get caught in rockpools in Scotland is mad.
 

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There are quite a few fish and coral options for a 55F tank including anemones, gorgonians and hard corals. You can also look into Tasmanian boxfish which are available on supply lists. Here is a short video of my 55F tank.

 

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Not sure on what fish and corals you can keep or find for cold water reef at that temperature range, I have seen some beautiful cold water reefs over the years and always admired them. but they always mention the thickness of the acrylic and glass having to be thicker then your average tank because of sweating . I think most if not all where acrylic.
 
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There are quite a few fish and coral options for a 55F tank including anemones, gorgonians and hard corals. You can also look into Tasmanian boxfish which are available on supply lists. Here is a short video of my 55F tank.


Very pretty! I might wait till I get a 6’ tank (I probably will end up with two, one warm water and one cold water). I fire sure have fallen in love with the cold water reef tanks people have, especially yours. I can’t find anything on the tasmanian boxfish do you know what size tank is minimum for them?
 

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Shaws boxfish and Ornate boxish (from the Tasmanian area of Australia)......plus Flame boxfish (aka as White Bar boxfish) which come from the Perth area of Australia are all fairly readily available and show up on supply lists frequently. I would say a minimum tank size of 125gal for the boxfish....they are slow movers as seen in my video.
 
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Shaws boxfish and Ornate boxish (from the Tasmanian area of Australia)......plus Flame boxfish (aka as White Bar boxfish) which come from the Perth area of Australia are all fairly readily available and show up on supply lists frequently. I would say a minimum tank size of 125gal for the boxfish....they are slow movers as seen in my video.
Wow, the white bar box fish look beautiful! I’m for sure going to try get a 5’ cold water reef eventually.
 
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