Recognized his Magnifica anemone was starving from too-low phosphate/nitrate and dosed them upward; it began growing again after three years of decline.
A three-tier 'mode rack' retail display converted from a fish quarantine system into a coral-packed setup, each ~40-gallon tier sharing a built-in sump filtered by a Tunze 9004 DC skimmer and ClariSea roller. The top tier houses show anemones, the middle a dense LPS/'mussa collection, and the bottom a 'shroom room and 'chalice palace,' all fed by elevated nutrients and deliberate nitrate/phosphate dosing.
Recognized his Magnifica anemone was starving from too-low phosphate/nitrate and dosed them upward; it began growing again after three years of decline.
Re-drilled the mode rack so the return pump feeds an individual outlet into every tank, providing flow without cluttering each aquarium with power heads.
Runs mushrooms and NPS corals on deliberately higher nutrients plus nitrate/phosphate dosing, since these corals color and thrive better than under ULN conditions.
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Filtration
Tunze
9004 DC
Protein skimmer
The only skimmer short enough to fit the built-in sump with room to pull the cup — form factor picked it, and it filters all three tiers.
Lighting
Stock mode-rack LEDs
Base lighting
💡 Budget hack
Medium-output LEDs that shipped with the retail rack — kept as the baseline across all three tiers instead of upgrading to reef fixtures.
Illumagic
Vitamin E strip light
Anemone tier light
Mounted behind the top tier to push extra light onto the show anemones.
Nicobar
3-foot strip light
Supplemental lighting
Front-mounted and pointed backwards across multiple tiers, filling light in from the viewer's side.
AquaMaxx
~40 inch LED
Shroom-tier light
Runs blues only on the bottom mushroom/chalice tier — kept all-blue full time because those corals color up better under it.
Reef Brite
Strip light
Supplemental light
Front-mounted pointing backwards to back up the bottom tier.
Flow & Circulation
EcoTech Marine
Vectra L1
Return pump
🔧 DIY mod
Feeds a drilled outlet into every tier, so each tank gets flow without a single powerhead cluttering the display.
Small powerhead
Supplemental flow
Dosing
Two-part dosing
Ca/Alk supplementation
Alk gets dosed just once a week or every other week — coral demand is low enough that the system stays genuinely low-maintenance.
Husbandry & Notes
Dose nitrate and phosphate to feed anemones and shrooms; growing algae alone isn't enough
Reversed low-nutrient anemone shrinkage by dosing phosphate and nitrate back up
Drilled individual outlets to each tank to run flow without power heads
Keep bottom shroom tank all-blue spectrum all the time; corals prefer it
Only dose alkalinity once a week or every other week, low-maintenance
Started system with no live rock, no cycling, no seeding
Careful, minimal additions keeps the system Aiptasia-free
Angle 'mussa frags on back magnets so light hits indirectly
Every tank is just filled with corals.
It wasn't until I recognized that my phosphates and nitrates were too low and literally started dosing it that this guy has started to grow again.
This is one of those tanks that we set up no live rock, no cycling, nothing.
We don't even dose this tank automatically, we'll dose it like once a week every other week.
So far this is one of our only aptasia free systems.
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