Anenome help

[Endevor]

I've had a green bubble tip anemone for a little over a week now, and it's not looking as good as when I bought it. It ended up moving from one side of the tank to the other from where I originally set it up which is fine. I've been paying more attention to water changes and salinity, iodide and calcium levels trying to make as best conditions as I can so it can settle in. For several days, it opened up and ate once, but never really bubbled. The clownfish hosted, but never bubbled.

Now, it closes up in the morning when the lights come on until usually late afternoon, but then only half of it will open. It also seems to be spitting out stringy things from its tentacles. Attached should be a picture. Is it a goner? Or what? Should I pull it. I really don't want to nuke the tank.

1st was from earlier this week. 2nd is today when it looked almost dead.

 

[Tmoriarty]

It wasn't healthy when you got it, it looks very stressed. In the second picture, yes it is 90% a gonner. I have yet to see a BTA recover after looking like that. The cloudyness in your picture makes me think he is already starting to foul your tank, I would remove him post haste.

For the record though, and hopefully so you can avoid this in the future, how long has your tank been set up? What kind of lighting do you have? And what process did you use for acclimating the anemone?

 

[Endevor]

Tank has been up since late August. Sorry, I should explain the cloudiness, it's not from the anemone, it's from purple tech I had just added. Probably should've taken a picture beforehand.

The anemone has opened back up again once my night lights came back on.

I have this lighting:
http://innovative-marine.com/skkye-light/clamp-8-watt-white.html
14K
2 of them.

He now looks like this:

I there any hope of saving him? Any hope that he's still getting accustom to water/lighting and will get better?

 

[Tmoriarty]

He doesn't look as bad in the more recent picture, but his tentacles are very shrivled and short. He is definately not healthy and at the point you are at there is very little chance he will make it.

The lighting you have (2x 8w fixtures) is not enough to sustain a BTA. While they are one of the least demmanding of the anemone's that little lighting is not enough to sustain the symbiotic algae inside the anemone you have.

With the tank only being up and running for 4 months there is still a lot of variables in the stability of your tank, to keep most anemones you should wait until your tank has matured 6-12 months, while you can get away with keeping a healthy anemone sooner, one that is already doing poorly (as yours was from your first picture IMHO) is very difficult.

Like I said you can give it a few more days to see if it somehow recovers, but even if it starts to look better you would most likely need to get something that would provide more lighting.

I would also advise against using purple up, while it shouldn't do any harm to your tank there is really no real reason to use it (again this is my opinion so I will give you my reasons). Purple up just helps more a less to boost your calcium and magnesium levels, which you can do much cheaper with a 2-part additive. If you like using it feel free to continue, just know there are other paths that will help achieve the same goal (more coralline).

 

[Endevor]

I guess I'll keep him in there for a couple more days, see if he makes any kind of recovery. I have a Nuvo 16 and the people I bought the anemone from have one set up in their tank with a bubble as well as a wide variety of corals mainly to test which can survive under the lights and filtration. They said they had the corals and anemone in there for a month and never had any problems, so I thought that I wouldn't. I guess I was wrong. If I can't support a BTA without upgrading the lighting, then I'm thinking my tank will probably be better without.

Thanks for the info on purple tech, I was informed that it gives algae and stuff on the rocks turn a purplish color and turns out, it hasn't really had any affect since I started using it except making my water cloudy occasionally.

Originally before I found this tank, I was looking at possibly doing a RapidLED setup for my lighting and controlling it via arduino. Any advice on what LEDs I should get as well as how many?