Do I even bother trying an anemone?

R

rffanat1c

New member
I've got a 14 month 90G display with a 20 g sump with a gyre 130. I have extra hydor koralias. Everything is going well, do bi-weekly 10% changes. Nitrates are staying around 20 despite vacuuming the 2" sand bed and sump during changes. (Everything gets blown off bed by gyre anyway thanks to rockwork)

I tried one about six months ago when my tank was bare bottom. It was a small RBTA and my male maroon beat it to death and it died.

I've read every thread I can find and some say it's easy and some say it's hard. I'm worried about it crashing my tank. I've got two blood oranges so I'm looking at another RBTA. Thanks all.
bb00ae524cf29afecb334562f4cc37a0.jpg
 
Do I even bother trying an anemone?

Yeah duh just remembered I forgot that and was coming to add that. Getting two marsaqua 165w (Chinese eBay box) on Monday. Also already have a reef octopus 110int and a mag drive 7.5 return
 
You need about 3x that amount of rock for biological filtration. Would be best if you this before you get the nem. It can be dry rock to save on money your other rock will seed it for you and you won't get a cycle by adding dry rock as there's nothing in it to die off.
 
That's about 50 lbs and it's very porous. I've got more downstairs but I spent a long time designing the two outer pieces. They are each one piece and weigh about 25 lbs each. I've got 9 fish and it's all been in the tank since day one. I've had no issues with this amount of rock. When I was BB and had this same rock, nitrates were at 0
 
rffanat1c said:
That's about 50 lbs and it's very porous. I've got more downstairs but I spent a long time designing the two outer pieces. They are each one piece and weigh about 25 lbs each. I've got 9 fish and it's all been in the tank since day one. I've had no issues with this amount of rock. When I was BB and had this same rock, nitrates were at 0
Click to expand...

That can't be porous rock if it's 50lbs. Bowling balls, maybe. Porous, no.
 
Well it appears quite porous then. If my tank is processing my bio load without issue, then it seems to be working for me. From what I've read I don't think I need another 75-100 lbs to support a nem since they are photosynthetic.
 
I would tend to agree on more rock. Can be done without more, but you might need to increase amount of water changed or add a fuge to combat the nitrates. Pay attention to the foot of the anemone. if they have to pry it off the glass its probably healthy. If its just sitting on bottom would likely question if it is. Also color, bleached out means its unhealthy.
 
If your Aqua scape is your problem put the rock in your sump. I think 20 ppm is a little high but if you acclimate the anemone slowly over a hour period with tripping and possibly find a lower flow spot to put him first you should be okay. If you have the funds and a QT/Tank you could pick up some Cipro or melafix and he goes in and shows signs of stress (gapping mouth, inflating deflating, etc) medicate it. Return it. Don't kill it but it doesn't hurt to try with the right resources.
 
I also have to agree put more rock in their either in the display or the sump. Anemones are photosynthetic yes but they poop. Their poop is not imaginary it exists and it is a bioload that you should be trying to counter with my rock. Plus most people feed their anemones raw solid food such as squid, oyster, shrimp, fish, and more so that creates even more waste.


And I cannot see how that could be possible for your rock to be nearly 50lbs AND porous. If that was porous that should be around 20lbs.. Porous doesnt always mean the exterior of the rock but the inside as well. If its dense is not porous.
 
You don't always need Cipro. I can't find anywhere to get my hands on some so I picked up some melafix that is easy to get ahold of. Just be sure to make that anemone is as healthy as can be before adding him because he's stressing he will poop everything out and that's another Load for the tank to deal with it.

Edit: if the rock is just sitting somewhere not being used just throw it in the sump regardless. You can never have to much of bio filteration
 
They can poop alot at one time while they dont constantly poop like fish they sort of save it up and have a large amount of waste expelled at once. Usually in a thick brown slime.
 
You don't need more rock. You will have plenty of biological filtration with that amount of rock coupled with your sand bed. I've ran several tank with little more than a sand bed.
 
We are suggesting things to you so you don't have bare minimum. We are suggesting things that give you a buffer zone. Aquariums aren't about being easy, if you want easy freshwater is the way to go. If you wanna have a healthy anemone give it the buffer zone of extra rock in the sump, more real estate to work with in the display. All these things help!
 
I think bare minimum is subjective. All sps tanks are designed to have easy detritus removal hence bare bottom tanks. I am not looking for easy but rather efficient. All of our gadgets are designed for low maintenance. If you read the thread I posted, you'll see winwoods statement has validity. Also 14 months of my tank with the same amount of rock proves this point. A good question is posted in that thread, "Where did the rule of 1-2 lbs of live rock per gallon come from?" More than likely rock retailers.

Some places keep only bare bottom tanks and pvc that house lots of fish for retail. Bacteria will grow on any surface thereby supporting the bio load. If I add more rock, I won't necessarily have more bacteria but rather the same amount will be distributed over more area. Bacteria is equivalent to the load of the system. One fish being fed daily with 100 lbs of rock would have the same bacteria amount as the same system with 20 lbs. bacteria matches the bio load, not the amount of rock in the system
 
I don't see the issue in the amount of rock. If anything it may rather be the quality of the rock.

To me the tank looks too sterile. I have QTs that look more alive than this. If you don't want to do corals add at least a few macro algae, anything that makes it look not like a bleached reef.
 
All the rock except for the center pile is from reef cleaners. The reason the tank looks sterile is I added a diamond watchmen goby a few weeks ago who keeps the sand churning. Do you mean sterile as in not enough visible algae/life? This pic is also the day after a water change where I blew off the usual light green algae that grows on my rocks and the glass is clean. The back glass is covered in algae that you can see from an angle that I leave for my Coral beauty, tail spot blenny, and turbo snails.

My invert/cleanup crew is minimal, one red leg hermit crab, one blue hermit crab, one emerald crab, one pom pom boxer, one fighting conch, 5 nassarius snails, two mexican turbo snails, one peppermint shrimp, one cleaner, one sexy shrimp.

It depends on the time of day on how many of my 9 fish are out. The center pile of rocks was live rock I purchased cured already and is almost all purple. The rest was put in the tank August of 2014 and has coraline spots that continually grow.

I've got Zoas in two areas that are slowly reproducing. I have GSP on the far right rock with plans of that covering that rock. It is agreeing with me and has gone from a 1"x1" piece to double in a month or so. I also have pulsing xenia. I'm going for zoas to cover the far left rocks. I also have a maze brain coral on the ledge of the far right rock. This low amount of coral was by design in wanting to watch things grow into their own rather than buying big $100 rocks covered in zoas already.
 
Close up pics
 

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