trying agian, please help my nems twisting off tenicles

[TOURKID]

It happened about 1 1/2 weeks ago, it was twisting tenicles till they fall off. I dident see any and it was doing really good after i posted the first time.

Now today i woke up and it had a gaping mouth. as soon as the lights came on it closed up. but a tenicle floated by

i found another one an hour later stuck in my frog spawn.

then just now there were two just about ready to fall off, but these ones have noodles coming out of the spot they are torn. One flew off, the other tenicle is just danglinging there with noodles holding it on.

Ive had this nem about 8 months, it has always thrived.

I ran all tests today and within a week my nitrates went from ten or so to 30-40 today. nothing is dead, i assume thats why it had a gaping mouth, but still doesent explsain the tenicles.

I did a water change just yesterday but i figured id do another one. it looked better immediately. waiting for more water to mix to do another one i guess

 

[TOURKID]

well, it figures. it looked really bad on thursday. I did 2 5 gallon water changes and tested for everything under the sun,, just nirtates at 40 to start (10 after water change) was all i found wrong

so of course i need to do the xmas thing with my family fri and sat. i just got home.

My poor boyfriend stayed up all night with my nem

Its walking all over the place. stung and knoccked over corals.. then i got a call at 1pm. it was an inch from the nano stream and already lost two tenicles. he caught it just in time.

now i just got home and im retesting everything agian. nem looks decent, attached, mouth tight, but its in the top bac corner of the highest rock next to my shut-off nanostream.

Ill list any perimeters i find weird, but It seems like health is deteriorating after 8 months.

 

[Sk8r]

Tourkid, that's pretty high nitrate. Are you running any wet/dry or filter media, sponges, etc, you know, all those notorious nitrate things?

My total sympathy on the nem: I used to have them in a reef, before I decided this was more excitement than I needed. The only thing I can suggest on a walkabout is exactly what you did: water change.

Points to the bf!

 

[TOURKID]

Ya pretty high nitrates for sure. esp. when they were tested for the week before and were ten or lower. No animals are dead/decaying same for corals. Cant explain it.

I do have some nitrtate catchers. my bubble box on my skimmer, and I have an aqua clear with 3 stages, a sponge, carbon, and those lil tiny balls. most are rinsed with every water change.

So heres all the strange things I can think of that Ive done in the past week. But keep in mind that it was acting strange 2 1/2 weeks ago by twisting its tenicles all the way off before i did any of these things

1. changed my maxijets over to 6025 nnano streams
(And I cant think of any good way to cover them. they are shaped like tennis balls

2. Caught and gave away a sailfin tang that needed a larger home ( it was still 3 inches at the most tang police)

3. I set up a qt, and put a hold on a filiment wrasse

steps to setting up my qt:

I took the sponge from aquaclear, cut it in half, used half in the qt's aquaclear, and put the other half back in, along with a new half

I took 5 gallons of water from main tank, replased it with 5 gal of new sw, and put 5 gal. of new salt water in qt as well

then,
**note, I suspect this may be a valid reason for all the havoc but want to see your thoughts**

I took a baby scoop of sand out of reef, to put in corner of qt to make wrassee happy (would remove if end up treating for copper, but they are already on hypo (sort of) and get fed garlic

SAND BED:

4 months old, carribsea sand, not super fine, but not big
Not REALLY a deep sand bed, but my marron has made a few deep spots.

So I just skimmed a lil off the top, but since my tests are coming out decent, Im thinking

Anorobic pocket realeased???

Shortly after I got my nem 8 months ago, I bought a sand sucker.
On a deep sand bed with crushed coral.
Needless to say, all three shrimp died and the nem looked like a taco shell for days. But I know it can bounce back. This is the only thing that makes sence after racking my brain

salinity -1.025
calcium - 380 (trying to raise it, but its going slow)
alk- 7.5
ph- 8.3
nitrate- 15 or so
nitrite - uundetectable
ammonia- possibley .25 but i dont by it.
buying a salifertt test tomorrow when i pick up the wrasse

temp is stable at 82 as always.

Oh. when the nem first started looking bad, this lil kenya tree i have wouldent open. dident open all day yesterday either. but today it is open... good sign maybe

any advice will be loved

happy holidays

 

[zoomfish1]

You don't say what kind of anemone it is. If a condy, that's normal. If not, don't know.

 

[TOURKID]

its a bta. sorry..

 

[zoomfish1]

Is your maroon clown beating it up? They can be brutal to a small BTA.

 

[TOURKID]

lol no. it grew to 16 inches across and then split three ways, the one i kept is about 8 inches around (when happy) right now..

heres some pics...

glory days

twisting off tenicles

I dont have a pic of it today, it looks like your basic stressed out bta, not fulliy inflated, kinda small really,. but tight mouth and has its foot planted in the rock in the light, but boy i hope it moves from this new spot...

 

[zoomfish1]

I've had BTA's for several years and never saw one do that.

 

[TOURKID]

well thats why im asking for help. i know its not normal... this one never did it either. i think the total count of twisted tenicles is somewhere near 8 not counting the two that got chopped off. Im a good mom, i need some advice

 

[zoomfish1]

Wish I knew. You might PM Traveller7. He seems to know a lot about this sort of thing.

 

[Amphiprion]

Hmm, nitrate will not cause that, and though 40 ppm is high, it is well within tolerable limits for a healthy anemone. Your water quality otherwise appears up to snuff to me. I would look at other causes, i.e. have you changed water flow (down current from another cnidarian), etc. I suspect it would have more to do with something along those lines rather than your water quality.

 

[rs]

This morning I noticed something similar. My 2 1/2 yr old BTA had two 1/4" ends of tentacles lying on the bottom. Then I noticed the end of a third tentacle in the mouth of the anemone. When the tentacle came out, the last 1/4" was detached. I'm wondering if it was caused by sucking the small food pellets that had clinged to it last night. Otherwise the anemone is fine and the ends of the tentacles appear to be healing closed.

 

[TOURKID]

she of course moved agian last night, killed an acan. she only moved about 5 inches to the left stuck between the glass corner and a rock.

If she floats tonight ill place her where she was, but im not going to get to crazy and peel her foot up or anything.

 

[rs]

Look at the tentacle when coming out of the BTA mouth. Maybe it was sucking the food off.
This is the 3rd broken tentacle.

 

[TOURKID]

wow that nem is beautiful. Ive never had mine suck off a tenicle, although it seems reasonable that it could.

I dont think its to big a deal losing a tenicle or two. try feeding it bigger food maybe?

Mine twists them off. not since it started walking tho...

 

[rs]

Then you may like this picture too.

 

[chris.hampton]

I don't know a lot about these but there is one in my lfs that looks the same but it sits in direct flow right in front of the pump all day, could that have anything to do with it?

 

[TOURKID]

wow do you still have a maroon in there with al those percs?

 

[rs]

Two perculas and one maroon.
After 2 1/2 years of 2 Percs and a huge BTA, I wanted the BTA to host something other than open water. The Maroon manages to hide pretty well to stay out of trouble.