Anemone's Death

[Eron]

This will be my third forum stabb at this, not many answers on the last forums so i am moving it here. Hello Everybody, I have had a 75 gallon salt tank for about five years with a 25 gallon mech sump and an orbital 4 power compact for my lighting and a meduim size skimmer that has worked well. I have kept probably around 8 to 10 fish in it at all times along with soft corals, hard corals and anemones. I have always thought my tank looked great, I've spent a lot of time with it and keep up with its needs. Within the last 4 months i updated the lighting to a Unit from Orbital i believe not sure, but it has 2(175) metal halides along with 2 power compacts for actinitics, and looks beautiful. Along with this i pulled my sump and turned it into a refuguim that grows macro faster than i can keep up, put in a 5 inch dsb along with 15lbs of miracle mud (don't laugh) just thought i'd try it ... anyhow my Nitrates are almost nonexistent. I have also built live rock that i pulled the recipe from the GARF page, cured it twice as long as it called for and threw it in after the PH was normal. The tanks great, the problem is i can't keep any anemones, long tentacle red anemones, bubble anemones......they won't last 3 days. I have lost 5 in the last few months. I almost worry that i might have a metal or silicate problem possible from the concrete forms although i used exactly what the recipe called for. Anyway my leathers do great and my clam and green star polyps, spanish dancer and christmas coral are also doing well but nothing is growing near as fast as when i had straight power compacts with a normal mech sump. PLEASE HELP, PS my water passes through a small mech filter that basic forces all the water to eventually pass thru these phosphate/ carbon pads before reaching the refugee.

 

[SEAFLOWERS]

do you feed them at all?

what kind of shape are you getting them in during purchase?

what are your water parameters? ph, etc. etc.

what brand of test kits are you using?

do you acclimate them prior to putting them in the tank?
it very well could be something leaching out of the rock
the more info you can give the better chance you might have of being helped.

 

[Sk8r]

I was puzzled right down to the point where I read: "My leathers are doing great..."

It's very hard to combine leathers with an anemone: they have the same habits, spitting into the water in a closed tank. It's hard to run enough carbon to calm that interaction down, and some anemones are more sensitive (and angrier) than others. I'm really suspecting that is your problem, that you need a tank apart for the anemones. They will somewhat coexist with sps, but don't like the sps high light and killer current. It's just a couple of different environments, the one lower light and gentler flow, the other bright light, hard flow. The lps like bubble and frogspawn are more like anemones in most regards, and that is almost doable, but many lps have that nasty habit of sweepers, and if a nem gets up and walks, and runs into sweepers, it's really bad news.

 

[Eron]

Hello Seaflowers, thank you for responding.
I have always tried to feed the roses and your common green bubble tips mysis shrimp three times a week sometimes more if they looked hungry. They would scarf it down and then shrink latter on in the evening to expel what had been processed.
I have bought them from Live Aquaria and from my local fish store, he takes pride in his work and I always check to make sure they look healthy and beautiful... i drip line for about 2 hours to make sure for a healthy acclimation, with the MH lights off.
I check my water parameters and they were great so i took them for a double check at my LFS and he found a slightly high Salinity but it was fixed in a day. This whole problem has been going on for 4 months. I currently have a bubble tip that has been eating and hiding under some rockwork for 2 weeks, his mouth had become large and has since shrunk.

 

[finding nemo]

What temperature do you keep this tank and how much flow do you have in it?
I don't think lighting is the problem, it is a water problem.
Temp should be about 78 degrees and water should be in motion and all corals swaying in the tank.
Do you have any dead spots in the tank that could be accumulating junk that you don't know about?
I would up the flow. Shoot it down into the tank and keep the temp at 78 and feed silversides to the anemone.