anemone bleached, help!

[DrewPatton]

Hi, my name's Drew, this is my first time posting on the forum.

My roommate has a little 35gal or so tank and I got him an anemone for his birthday a few months back, he had another anemone at the time but it wasn't supposed to host clown fish (of course, his maroon didn't really seem to care). I'm not sure the kind I got him, it kind of looked like a fat little tube with really short tentacles, was blueish at the base.

Well the other one died and this one looks bleached and shrunk to maybe 1/4th of the size. It's been holding on for like a month now not getting any better or worse, and today I put a barricade I made out of a clear plastic cup with tons of holes around it so the clown will stop pushing it all over the tank trying to... do whatever he's doing, but I'm wondering if there's anything else I can do? She's too small to eat shrimp pellets now, only maybe an inch tall and half an inch in diameter, but I've been trying to place them near her so hopefully when they dissolve she can soak a little up, but, anything else?

Also, he had the water checked and everything was perfect except nitrates, and he did a 50% water change after that so it should be fine, I suppose the protein skimmer probably helps a lot. He also got an Aqualight T5 for it.

Thanks

 

[bues0022]

Here are some of my favorites from "Todd's list of questions" along with some slight modifications

What kind of filtration is on the tank (sump, HOB,)
What type of anemone did he have?
What type of anemone does he have now?

How long has your tank been set up?
What are the actual water parameters? (( "great" really doesn't tell much ))
What else (( if anything )) is in the tank?
What lights do you have? (bulb numbers/colors?, individual reflectors?)
What lights did you have before the T5?

Pictures will help us out a ton with figuring this out. Furthermore, I'm not sure pellets will be well recieved by the anemone. Try small pieces of raw SW meaty foods (krill, shrimp, clams, mussels, fish, octopus, squid, etc). no larger than pencil eraser sized when feeding the nem.

Taking a stab at the problem before the answers come back....I'm guessing the lighting wasn't sufficient, along with sub-par water quality and it caused a slow demise of the former nem. When the other one died it fouled the water and caused this nem to accelerate its decline. Water changes will help, but lighting is key. I look forward to your answers to figure out if my stab-in-the-dark is anywhere close.

 

[DrewPatton]

So a trip to the pet store revealed that my friend doesn't know... what he should know, haha I'll leave it at that. Tank's been up about a year, it's had fish in it for 2 but it was moved halfway through.

Tank is currently housing the nem, a choc chip starfish, a maroon clown, a sea urchin, 2 snails, and a big tang

Here are the water perameters

Salinity - 1.024 (fixed, brought down to 21/22)
Nitrate - 160
Nitrite - 5.0 (I know, I'm surprised anything's still alive)
Alk - 300
PH - 8.3

Filtration is a Penguin Biowheel 150, but guess what? He took out the wheel because he didn't think it worked with salt water. I have one on order.

The lights before were just some cheap florescent left over from when it was a fresh water tank 3 years ago

I'm not sure what kind of anemone this one is, but the last one was a little magnifica, and he told me today when it died he just let it disintegrate (I know, I know...)

a38/09 and a57/09 are the numbers on the current bulbs, one blueish and one greenish, looks like there's mirrors all around them (it's a coralife if that helps)

Today I did a 25% water change and got the salinity where it needs to be; I also added a bottle of IO Bio Spira to fix the nitrites. I also picked up some brine shrimp cubes and fed the nem with a turkey baster earlier today, looked like he ate at least 2.

Here's pics, the thing with the black circle around it is the sad little anemone, on his side as usual

 

[celamb89]

Well Im not an expert or anything but ur nitrates or extremely high, there was either a mistake in the test or with the disintegrating nem and with other factors such as not enough filtration the tank isnt keeping up. What skimmer do u have?

Also where are phosphates? should be 0
Nitrates should be below 10ppm but 0 ideally
Nitrite should be 0
amonia should be 0


I wouldn't worry about feeding the nem or anything, you should get ur params in check because they seem pretty high... I would start doing some big water changes and get the filtration to keep up with the tank, also would start to feed smaller amounts to the fish to try to lower the waste.

Good Luck

 

[bues0022]

Oh boy.

Before you buy anything else or any more livestock for your tank, I think you'll be better in the long run by reading more online or in books. It will help you so you aren't playing catch-up like you are now.

You definitely need to get the nutrient levels WAY down in your tank. Having the other nem disintegrate in the tank fouled up the water something terrible. With that picture you have and the size of the nem, it is 1) impossible to tell what it is, and 2) unfortunately not looking good for survival.

While I am not very knowledgeable in the use of biowheel-style filters on SW tanks, I do know that generally they are not used. I am thinking it is for nutrient reasons, but hopefully someone else can fill in the gaps here.

Salinity - you had a better salinity before you altered it from your water change. While fish-only tanks can be run at 1.021, you have invertebrates in your tank that need a higher salinity. 1.025-1.026.

Lighting - Does each bulb have it's own reflector, or "mirror" as you said? or is there one big reflector for the whole unit? How many bulbs? Also, bulbs should have a brand name, a color temperature. (10,000k, 6500k, 20,000k) or color name (blue plus, actinic, fiji purple, etc) I don't recognize the letters/numbers you gave us. Can you take a picture of the fixture with the lights off?

Yellow tang - while I'm generally not in the "tang police" becuase I've had my share of tangs in a smaller (58gallon) tank, a 35 gallon tank is far too small for the large yellow tang. They need ample room to swim, and a 35 gallon tank unfortunately just isn't enough.

Do you know anyone else in your area that also has SW aquariums? Where are you at? There is likely a club nearby to get help from the locals. Unfortunately, with the size of the nem, it's current condition, and your relative newbie status in keeping anemones the prognosis isn't very good for the little bugger. To be honest, even an extremely experienced anemone expert would have a tough time bringing this guy back from it's current condition. The reason I asked about a local club, is perhaps you could find a local expert and give them the animal to attempt to bring it back from the brink. In the future, ask lots of questions and gain the knowledge you are getting right now before, so you can have better husbandry and help us all in keeping rather than unknowingly killing creatures. I realize you didn't mean for this to happen, but these tanks can become really cool if you understand fully everything that goes into them, and the care that each animal requires.

 

[DrewPatton]

it's not my tank, man--I'm intervening, I admittedly don't know anything, that's why I'm here asking for help. I want my own tank but i wanna save some money first.

Also the tang isn't his, he's babysitting it for someone while they move. All the more reason i want to fix things.

But thanks for the advice