S. Gigantea for dummies! by a dummy
S. Gigantea for dummies! by a dummy
As the title confirms, I am a moron! At least when it has came to my tank. From all my research on RC (alot) and reading elsewhere, ohh the ridiculous mistakes I have made. I have found out along the way that I have too many irons in the fire! Giving attention to all the things I love and dividing them properly can be a hassle...but my tank shouldn't be! I like the complicated simplicity of it all. Albeit I get lazy. I forgo one week then another and pretty soon the tank looks awful and here I am trying to stop the likely crash lol.
As for the nem. I have come very close to killing it out of sheer laziness. Now, I believe the my geographical area has played a role in my not killing the nem. I waited a whole year before the nem was put in. During that time, there was one small zoa colony, a Kole Tang, and my clownfish pair in a 75 gallon tank. Back to geo, I do not have a decent LFS within 100 miles in any direction, so i cant impulse buy :lolspin: Almost everything I get for my tank is an online order, of which I have to pay overnight shipping, my wife stops me from impulse buying. So livestock purchases for my tank are far and few between. Because of this my tank has had a very low bio load from the beginning. I could go a very long time without attention and not kill everything.
When my nem came in, i nursed it back from goo. I think the bag pics are back on page 1. It looked like death. A little cipro and some tlc and she was all good in the tank. All was well for 3-4 months...then i started relax on wc's and the such. The nem shrank down to 1/4 of its actual size. At night it was barely visible. So, i got off my rear and started to fix the tank. Nitrates were high, 20-40 on API kit. I didnt do anything drastic. No 100% wc or nothing. Just started getting the routine a little better. Did a few WC's in the range of 20-25 gallons. I got the nitrates down to 10ish...but wouldnt budge any further. Found the problem from the sludge in my sump. Cleaned all that out and nitrates dropped to undetectable. Now they are pretty stable @ less than 5.
My nem is looking better everyday, it actually had the "shaggy" look today. It has put back on a lot of the green, which had faded completely. The spots underneath have came back to a purpleish color from almost disappeared. I feel like alot of people would have tried to make drastic changes and killed their nem by now.
If you are an anemone dummy such as myself, there are plenty of people here to help. I believe my nem was in better health than it seemed in the bag. I stuck to the treatment plan as described by Minh. NO, don't do your own thing! Its right there, this works. There is a plethora of info here. The trick to keeping this anemone alive after treatment...TAKE CARE OF YOUR TANK! That is the secret! Keep on top of it, if you slip, don't go drastic. Just get it fixed. I originally thought this anemone was bulletproof once healthy, but looking back it may have had a lot to do with the very low bio load on my tank. I see alot of posts "help my nem looks bad". Then the testing starts, and looking for something to be wrong...if you look hard enough you will always find something wrong. I get too see my nem everyday, all day...some days it doesnt look perfect. Some days I get a little worried and start testing...and always find something...then i remember sometimes it just has a bad day. Maybe the clown has beat the crap out of it all morning, maybe it just doesnt like this particular part of the vortech program and the light intensity at the given time. All I am saying is dont flip out immediately. It also seems my nem looks "off" a couple days after a meal. Not from the bits and pieces it grabs from the water, but a couple times a month I feed it whole krill soaked in selcon, it usually doesnt look to thrilled for the next day or 2, then percs right back up.
I think I have rambled enough toady! lol
