Sebea Bleached

[bobbbm]

Ive had this guy for 3 months now and he was doing great. Last week his color changed. He started to lighten up and not eat. Now his mouth is open he is almost see thru and he is bouncing all over the tank every few hours. I have tried Silverside/Shrimp and target food. The first thing I did was check the water

Ammonia 0PPM
Nitrates= just a trace
PH 8.4
Sal 1025
Cal 480

Temp is 78
72G tank
2 175W MH 20K Bulbs
1 96 W Atinic Compact


The only thing we changed in the past 3 weeks was 50 LBS if base rock we added. Am I missing something? Well Obviously I am but I am just not sure what...

 

[saltydude]

Just read your posted question. I experienced the same problem. I later read that sebae anenomes are many times bleached, maybe so they can sell more as a malu. Sorry to hear about that! Keep me posted. Thanks

 

[raoul]

I wonder if your wattage isn't strong enough to penetrate to the bottom of your tank like it needs to. I'm just guessing. We have a 75gal that we're running 250w mh's on. We've talked about going deeper top to bottom, but my husband was worried we'd have to move up to 400 watts to get the light to penetrate like it needs to.

I could be wrong though, I'm still learning the technical stuff, usually my husband takes care of those things

When we got our crispa it was bleached pretty badly, and it bounced around the tank too. If it is your lighting, your nem could be bouncing around looking for a better spot. Sadly, they're pretty hard to feed in this situation as you're noticing, and ironically, it's the time they could use it most.

I'm guessing the trates are a bit higher because of the base rock you added? If it's under 10ppm, I don't think this would cause the bleaching. Have you done a water change since you added the rock - just as a precaution?

Hope you're able to find out what's wrong.
Good luck!

 

[Amphiprion]

Unless it was a drastic change in the nitrate level (i.e. sudden significant rise), then I don't think that would be an issue--they can be extremely tolerant of the actual levels, though. For a 72g, that sounds like ok lighting to me. I have kept this species under less. Honestly, it sounds like a water quality/environmental issue rather than an equipment issue. Are you sure there wasn't anything in the base rock that could have rotted? With that much added, it seems that that scenario can be very likely. If there was, it may have already done the damage and then was mineralized and undetectable now. My suggestion when you can't find anything noticeably wrong (or verifiable via testing), is to just do a waterchange--several wouldn't hurt. Hope it pulls through for you.