Bleached nems... what to do now?

Gilgamesh

New member
Hi all. Here's my situation. I have two anemones that I believe are RBTAs (I actually never was able to confirm this, the original one was a tiny hitchhiker on some live rock I bought on Craigslist and it grew enormous and eventually split). They were living in a tank at my ex's place until I could afford my own tank, and they were really flourishing there, with one of our clownfish hosting in each.

End of May, ex and I broke up. Now that I have my own tank and am ready to move all the livestock over, I went by to check things out and found that in spite of what he had told me about "taking care" of them, the water hasn't been maintained in 3 months and the nems are totally bleached. :headwalls: He was feeding them defrosted raw table shrimp about once a week, and keeping the salinity and temperature stable enough for the fish to be okay at least, but definitely wasn't doing the kind of diligent water changes and maintenance I had been doing previously. The parameters are probably totally whacked out at this point.

After discovering this today, I have read whatever I can find about caring for bleached nems, but I don't know what to do next. Some sources say they will be stressed further by changing water parameters. But they look terrible where they are now, and moving them to my new (clean) tank will definitely be a change in terms of params. Will this benefit them or stress them out even more? I want to do whats best for them, but also need to consider all my other livestock that share a tank with them, as they would be poisoned should the nems die from the stress of the changes.

Just fyi, the nems are still large (not retracted or anything), still accepting food readily, but the tentacles are much thinner/stringier than they were before and they have gone almost entirely see through. They are under the same lighting under which they flourished before: 4 x 54w t5's.

I appreciate any advice you may have... thanks guys. Sorry for the long post.
 
First, sorry to hear about your split. I hope that things get better for your soon. I'm not saying you "need" a man, mind you; just that your happiness level starts to recover from the trauma.

My nem is bleached too, and I'm trying to feed it daily as was the advice given to me. Right now I shoot a turkeybaster of frozen mysis at it. It catches some and misses others.

IMO, I'd get the nem in good water, whether it is adjusting the water that it is in now or dropping it into a new tank. Acclimate it and I would expect that it will be fine. If you were in a room full of heavy smoke would you rather be moved immediately into a room of clean air or have the smoke removed slowly?

Good luck.
 
People bring home bleached nems from their LFS all the time. After time and proper care they turn around. I would get them in your tank ASAP.
 
Thanks all for the feedback, and thanks Hal for the words of sympathy, but it actually wasn't so bad... things had been going downhill for a long time, so I'm just happy to be outta there :)

Good to know my nems are not already doomed. I prepped the new tank yesterday and am going to try to move everything over ASAP... it does involve moving 110 lbs of live rock and all the other livestock, but I should be able to do it Friday.
 
I've recovered many nems from a bleached state. 4X54W T5's is on the low side if your tank is anything over 55-65g. It is possible though. It will expand to capture more intense light. Give it 2-4 months. I'd say stability is more important than extra frequent water changes. Good luck!
 
I've recovered many nems from a bleached state. 4X54W T5's is on the low side if your tank is anything over 55-65g. It is possible though. It will expand to capture more intense light. Give it 2-4 months. I'd say stability is more important than extra frequent water changes. Good luck!

That actually reminds me of a question I meant to ask as well...

So they actually were in a 65 high gallon tank for the last 5 months or so, under those 4x54W T5's, and were doing well with that lighting (I really think its the water quality that has them bleached ATM). But I am moving them over now (obviously) and the new tank is a 120g high.

The tank is the same length and height as the old one, it's just twice as wide (from front of tank to wall)- so I'm moving them from a 4' long x 2' high x 13" deep (as in front to back depth), to a 4' long x 2' high x 2' deep tank.

My question is-- can I keep the same lighting if I don't add additional livestock that needs more intense lighting (ie if I keep my current nems and few mushrooms only)? Or does the increased gallonage in the new tank change the way the light refracts/distributes or something?

My common sense tells me that it's the same height of tank with the same livestock under the lights so I don't need to add more light until I add more stock (which is what would cause people to recommend additional lighting for the 120g, because you assume twice as much photosynthetic livestock)... but of course my common sense is probably wrong when we are talking refraction/physics, lol.

Thanks for the feedback everyone!
 
More light. Although the tank is the same dimensions, it has more gallons. When light hits the water, it difussions in all different directions, taking par from it. Depth, length and height all play in for variables.

I've been trying to say my BTA for a year now. Ive got a 75 DT and a 20 gallon fuge light with one CFL bulb. It does good in my fuge, but when I put him into my DT, he sucks up. BTW my DT is lite with 4x54 T5 (2 blues 2 purple plus)
 
More light. Although the tank is the same dimensions, it has more gallons. When light hits the water, it difussions in all different directions, taking par from it. Depth, length and height all play in for variables.

I've been trying to say my BTA for a year now. Ive got a 75 DT and a 20 gallon fuge light with one CFL bulb. It does good in my fuge, but when I put him into my DT, he sucks up. BTW my DT is lite with 4x54 T5 (2 blues 2 purple plus)

Ok thanks for the info!
 
Just as an update for you guys: the nems recovered immediately when I moved them to the new tank... I also upped the lighting to an 8-bulb lamp... they look like they're in heaven!
 
Back
Top