Thinking of downgrading to 20g anemone tank

[jaBX1]

I am a college student and the effort to keep my mixed reef (sps,lps, softies & fish) up to the level i like is growing tiresome.

I have a nice 20 long that i have been thinking of moving things into and keeping it as an anemone/clown tank.
I have a rbt in my tank now.

I know anemones love light, but how clean do they like the water? could you keep it comparable to a softie/lps tank? would it be possible to run an anemone tank w/ a lot of LR and no sump/skimmer?

I was thinking of stocking the 20 gal with 4-8 anemones and 2-4 clowns.


Any opinions or suggestions are welcome.

 

[OOtzie]

I've ran a nano for the past three years in my experience :

1. Stability is much more difficult to maintain due to evaporation (my biggest issue)
2. Can only be a few days late on a water change before the coral lets you know, if the coral needs to tell you its time for WC then your stressing them out stunting their growth.
3. no sump, you can use a AIO chamber, someone was custom making them on nano-reef.com last year I'm not sure if he's still doing them. Run chemipure elite and purigen plus floss skimmer optional.

 

[sun1914]

I had a 29g BC (biocube) with about 5 fish (2 clowns, Six line, Goby, and 2 Damsel) and it was very tough to keep levels in check at first but once I got it, it was pretty sweet. Weekly water changes was a must...sometime every 2 weeks but I would do 8-10 gallons.
As stated above...def run Chemipure, Purigen and get your hands on a good skimmer.

I found it easier to lower the bio load as well. I got rid of 3 fish and stood with 3 which helped alot.

To answer your question though, the Renegade in me won't allow me to say its impossible to run the tank without all that you mentioned but I don't think it will be easy or last long...but maybe you may prove me wrong...which I hope you do.

 

[reefs4life]

I don't know how long you can run an anemone tank with no skimmer. Anemones secrete a ton of mucus and other fluids that are most likely removed by a skimmer. You absolutely need a activated carbon reactor with multiple anemones to combat allelopathy as much as possible, especially if you end up having different species of anemones. IMO a 20 gallon with over 4 anemones is way too much. You're better off having more clowns than more anemones. Also, if you don't want to run a skimmer, I see Pax-Bellum is working on a nano macro reactor, you could get yourself one of those once they begin to hit the market.

 

[jaBX1]

thanks for the comments.

i have the means to set up a sump i was just hoping to have the simplest setup as possible. Maybe i will just go simple with 1-2 anemones and 2 or 4 clowns.

I've never had more than 2 clowns in a tank before. do they need to be in pairs or is 3 a possible number?