In our latest video we showed off the new incarnation of our Mode retail rack system which has been an integral part of the Reef Builders Studio for several years now. The multitiered aquarium system was initially purposed as a dedicated fish quarantine system and it served us well in conditioning dozens of different fish for the dozen reef aquarium displays at the Studio.
But after running mostly fallow for most of 2021 we realized that our needs had changed, there was much less of a need to quarantine fish since we had enough and decided to repurpose the entire system as a system for holding our collection of anemones. At least that was the intent, and while we dedicated one row to holding our bubble tips, carpet, ritteri, and pizza anemone, the other levels started catching the overflow from some of our other tanks.
The middle tier came to house a wide range of LPS corals with a special emphasis on the corals formerly known as Australomussa, several Lobophyllias, and an assortment of Micromussa colonies including the smaller polyped species. Meanwhile the bottom level which is split was fleshed out to hold a variety of Echinophyllia which we affectionately call the ‘Chalice Palace’ and the other side is packed with Discosoma, Ricordea and Rhodactis which now goes by the name of ‘Shroom Room’.
The entire Anemone System is powered by a Vectra L1 for both the circulation and water flow, the mechanical filtration is provided by a ClariSea Gen2 filter roll and a Tunze DOC 9410 DC Skimmer packs a lot of power in a very short body to actually fit inside the low profile sump. Meanwhile the lighting is provided by a real hodgepodge of strip lights and fixtures including the stock LEDs of the Mode rack, the Aquamaxx NemoLight, as well as ReefBrite, NicoBar and Illumagic strips.
