Anemone Problems

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Nick32

New member
Hi, over the last 2 weeks, all the anemone like creatures in my tank have gone downhill, I have some green hairy mushrooms, that are all shruken up, and are secreting a white frilly substance, all the smaller hitchiker anemones that were on the rocks are shrunken or have dissapeared, and my long tentacled anemone has been looking worse and worse, his foot is no longer attached to the bottom of the glass like it used to always be and hes very shruken, and his mouth is "gaping" sometimes, as well as secreting a stringy mucus around his body. Everything else in the tank is fine, the tangs are great (Yellow and Powder Blue) the clowns, the urchins, the shrimp....I dont know what''s wrong. Parameters like ammonia, nitrite and nitrate are all very low. Calcium aand phosphate are fine...The only thing I can think of is that I had a bubble coral that was dying...I removed it before it looked really bad, but could it of pulluted the tank and hurt the anemones? Any help would be appreciated...
-Nick
 
No thats not enough to destroy your tank. How low is LOW? ammonia and nitrite should be at 0 and nitrate shouldnt be any more than 5ppm so I hope when you say low thats what you mean. Also, smell the tank to make sure it doesnt stink because you long tentacle doesnt sound good at all. What do you do top-offs with? Could there been any chance you let any sort of metals in the tank such as copper or even steel? Also whats your salinity and alk too.
 
ammonia should be undetectable. The ammonia readings you see now might be the result of the bubble coral that died.... but why did that coral die in the first place? It takes a lot to make green hairy shrooms behave like you describe. You have serious problems. How do you measure specific gravity/salinity? What is the temp. of the water? You should make up some new saltwater to the proper parameters and do a large water change ASAP IMO.
 
I don't think metals could get into my system, but you never know, my salinity is arouns 1.023, ammonia and nitrates are indetectible (what I meant by low), the anemone is still moving/contracting, and it ate last week...but the mushrooms look like they are going down quick. I have nothing to test alkalinity at the moment...I do have a small 33 gallon tank, would it be wise to try and move the anemone over to that tank?
 
Why aren't any of the fish or delicate inverts reacting at all? If I have huge problems shouldn't I see some kind of affect on them?
 
In addition to what Hybrid suggested, I would suggest regular water changes, the use of activated carbon, heavy skimming and poly filter.
 
As of this point I cant think of anything besides the big water change and your alk and temp readings. Goodluck though man... I hope things work out.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11390388#post11390388 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Nick32
Why aren't any of the fish or delicate inverts reacting at all? If I have huge problems shouldn't I see some kind of affect on them?
Click to expand...
fishes aren't as sensitive as delicate inverts. Urchins and shrimps aren't very delicate- you can keep them in fish only systems that would kill sensitive things like corals and anemones.
 
you need to know the ca, alk, and mg levels yo. figure out what's causing problems in the main tank itself.
 
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If your nem is already stressed out and you put it in a new tank (marked as fish only in your sig, so what type of lighting does it have?) it is probably going to make it worse unless you have perfect conditions in the other tank.

How long has your tank been setup? How often do you do water changes?

If you could I would test your water again and then take a water sample to a lfs and have them test it to see if you have a faulty test kit(s). Also IMO a hydrometer is a p.o.s. for a reef tank and you should have a refractometer.

Do you have a skimmer? Start running carbon if you're not.

Anything else about your tank may help. Did you recently add anything?

Watch the nem. If it dies and you don't catch it in time, everything in your tank will die.
 
I have T12 VHO lighting; 4 x 95W actinic blue and 4 x 95 watt full spectrum, of which most of the bulbs are 10 months old except for a couple of the actinics...My LFS said that old bulbs could be the problem and i'm in the process of getting new ones...Could old bulbs really cause that much stress on the mushrooms and anemone? The mushrooms went downhill over a week, and some are clearly dead now...I can't get T12 bulbs without having to order them, so I put a set of T5 actinic/full spectrum lights over the anemone to see if that helps him...but that was yesterday and I havnt seen much change yet, hes still very active, and I can see him writhing and changing shape alot, but i've had him for almost a year now and he's not expanding like he should at all...:(
 
Your calcium actually might be a little low. It really depends on the test kit though. If it's correct then you might want to increase it towards the 400 mark.
The (American brand?) Aquarium Pharmaceuticals makes an inexpensive alkalinity test, as does the German brand Tropic Marin. You might want to check out Marine depot (although I'm sure there are other websites out there that carry these test kits as well) for some of those kits, if you can't find them locally. In the longrun it's best to get your own kits.

The Italian brand, Elos, is very good I hear and has been described by some people here on RC as the maker of some of the most accurate and reliable test kits out there.

In any event, you will need to maintain consistent levels of alk, ca, and mg- they interact with each other. You may find that stabilizing their levels, or bringing them close to the levels found in seawater, may reduce the symptoms you are describing.
 
And I too would like to know the last time you made a water change, its percentage compared to your tank volume, and how often you make water changes.
 
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Calcium is pretty low, but I doubt that would damage an anemone more than it would a coral. Your lights were probably the problem... give it some time and see what happens.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11391472#post11391472 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Nick32
...Could old bulbs really cause that much stress on the mushrooms and anemone? The mushrooms went downhill over a week, and some are clearly dead now...
Click to expand...
the lack of proper lighting did not cause your mushrooms to die in one week.
To reiterate, I wouldn't even bother testing your water right now. Do some large percentage water changes ASAP.
 
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