Cold water marine aquariums are few and far between, and cold water reef tanks are an even rarer breed. While most reefers spend their efforts running tropical reef tanks with warm water and high powered lights, after building a few of these standard-issue reefs to masterpiece proportions, Steve Weast turned his attention to designing and building this fantastic 400 gallon cold water reef tank.
Steve Weast’s stunning coldwater reef is also non-photosynthetic, filled with beautiful thriving colonies of Oregon-collected Corynactis anemones, Balanophyllia elegans, and a whole suite or medium to large coldwater anemones from Puget Sound.Only the boxfish, eastern hulafish and catalina gobies were collected elsewhere even if they are quite at home in the frigid waters of this cold water reef.
Of course these tidal animals need a ton of water flow, the likes of which our colored sticks could probably never bear. To that end Mr. Oregon Reef has incorporated a completely hidden gyre flow system using Tunze Stream pumps which together move 25,000 gallons of water every hour. By looking at the flapping fins and tentacles and the wide open polyps it’s pretty clear that the residents of this 55 degree cold water reef probably aren’t aware that they ever left the sound.
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