Unhealthy Anemone, still alive?

S

SS21CA

New member
Hello,
I am unsure weather or not my anemone is alive, and what I can do to help it survive. I purchased this guy last week w. a mandarin. the anemone was pretty big, a 3-4" disk, and looked healhty. After about 2 days it began to shrivel and occastionally some of its fingers will inflate, but for the most part it has been like this. I lost 2 clowns in 2 days so I am unsure if they are related. I thought maybe the mandarin had attacked them because the clowns looked a bit bruised and beaten up. The mandarin is in my friends tank now.

IMG_0748.jpg


Tank Background
60g
Fluval 403, 2 powerheads, air pump running 8hrs per day
3 Weeks Cycle w/ Tang and 2 Clowns
Added anemone a few days back.
55lbs cured LR
Nitrates are <20 ppm
Nitrite = 0
Ph 7.6-7.8

Im gonna stay away from anemone's until x-mas, but im hoping this guy will pull through. Salinity was a bit high after evap, but has been stable at .22 for a couple of days.

The anemone has also been excreting white fluff recently.

Thanks in advance.
 
HI ss, how old is your tank?
You say 3 week cycle with tang and 2 clowns.
If so your tank is not ready for an anemone.
Have you been feeding it at all?
Looks like from the pictures it is spilling it's guts which is not a good sign at all.
What is your lighting?
 
Tank is a little over 3 weeks old
I have 160w NO w/ Reflectors
Tried feeding it brine frozen and dried w/ and w/o garlic
Guy at LFS said tank could handle it, and i went for it. Read about it here and regretted it, not about the money but I do want this guy to survive. Ive tried feeding it every day, no luck.

I can place it higher in the tank?


Worst case I can take it to my friends tank, but dont know if I want to risk his 2 yr setup.
 
Am I reading this right? You've had the tank for a little over 3 weeks, had a mandarin, 2 clownfish die, and now about to lose the anenome?

3 weeks? Serious?

I wouldn't put it in anyone else's tank. You should really give your LFS an earful.


whirley


:(
 
Well, nothing goods happens Fast in Salt Water. You need to slow down with your additions and research. Saying that, please do not use the sentence my "LFS said...". Whatever they say, you can go to a book store or look online to back up any decisions you make or advise given, DO NOT IMPULSE BUY! You should plan each addition to your tank. Obviously you made a mistake with this guy. I would simply return it before it dies and kills whatever else you have in your tank. After that I would wait a week before adding anything else only after you have tested your water parameters to see if you are still running a nitrogen cycle. If everything is good, add (1) major item a week and make your selection carefully. Good Luck!
 
It's tough to learn things the hard way, I think most of us have made an impulse buy, or made mistakes in live stock, unfortunately, these mistakes can lead to the demise of an animal, so our stakes are higher.

Do you know what kind of anemone you purchased? We got one a year and half back and came to find out our LFS didn't really have a clue either!

We just set up another tank and I plan to have a nem there as well, but when I asked how long I should wait to make sure things were going well, I was reminded that I should wait AT LEAST 6 months from when my cycle was completed, I offer the same advise to you.

Some nems can make a rebound, but I would take yours back to the LFS, your tank is too new. I haven't lost one, but others have and when they die, they just kind of fall apart and they're very hard to get out of the tank. A dead anemone also pollutes the tank and can crash your system making you have to start all over again.

Just my 2cents, good luck.
 
First things first

<img src="/images/welcome.gif" width="500" height="62"><br><b><i><big><big>To Reef Central</b></i></big></big>

Now for the rest:

Reefcentral is the best source for info - don't be afraid to ask before you commit to a new animal for your tank.

You need to mature your tank prior to adding any of the more challanging items (Anemones, Mandarins, SPS, etc). This process takes upto six month. During this period you will learn more about diffrent aspects of saltwater husbandry. A good sign that you are moving in the right direction is when you see coraline algea begin to thrive in your aquarium.

I didn't note that you are using a skimmer. Are you?
You do not need an air pump - unless you do not have adequate waterflow. You will need to have atleast 10x tanks volume in water movement through your powerheads.

Normal Output lighting is too little for Anemones. You will need at least PC's or even better T5's or MH to keep Anemones

Your PH is too low - you need to be in the range of 8.2-8.4

S.G. needs to be at 1.026

Calcium at 400 - 450 ppm

Alkalinity at 8-10 dkh

Temp between 78-82 range

Once your anemone starts to die it will fowl up the water quickly, so you will need to get it out fast.

Good Luck.
 
I think as far as moving your anemone or feeding it, you should just back off and leave it alone. You shouldn't stress it anymore than it already is. Just let it be for couple of days and monitor it. As soon as it starts to "melt" disintegrate, get it out of the tank so it doesn't pollute the water...
 
Well that looks like a Sebae anemone Heteractis crispa which requires strong lighting. Kamil5000 gave you some excellent advice about general anemone husbandry in a nutshell.

Best of luck,
Ciaran.
 
I would suggest , on top of all of the above good advice that you feed it meaty foods such as silversides, From the shortness of the tenticles I would say it is starving.
If you don't want to move it, feed it and hope it rebounds.
We have all made the misstake of going to fast. I have back in the day and learned the hard way, loosing my first few anemones.
So don't take it to hard, just do the right thing, take it back, give it to someone with an established tank or try feeding it silversides,(lancefish) some call it. And see if he responds.
Best of luck to you with him. He deserves to live so try to do what would be best for him.
 
I think I've come to the conclusion that many LFS owners push anemonies hard on their customers because they know they're not going to keep them alive for very long in their own tanks, so they want to sell the things before they die. Hopefully it's not like that everywhere, but two out of the three stores around where I live clearly do that. We kill enough of these poor anemonies just shipping them here. I listened to my LFS guy at first too. . .

Also, you'll probably hear this again, but cycling a tank with live animals really isn't an accepted practice these days. It's simply unnecessary to put the poor fish through it, since like you saw, there's a good chance they won't live through the experience. If you ever cycle a tank again, either cycle it with live rock or just throw in a piece of uncooked coctail shrimp. Anything that's going to decay and start producing ammonia is going to kick off your nitrogen cycle.
 
Hello,
Thanks soo much for the responses, specially kamil5000
and some of the latter posts. It truley was an impulse buy i knew i shouldnt have. I really feel bad, but it was starting to fall apart and I removed it earlier. My chemicals seem to be in check, except for ph. Nitrates are still less than 20ppm but not quiet 0 yet. I am going to wait a few weeks before adding anything.

Furthermore, I'm going to stay away from anemonies for a pretty long time, but I want to know if anyone would know what my clown died from. I purchased it a 3 weeks ago, and it was doing fine. Colors were good, and it was eating. Overnight I noticed it looked a bit bruised on one side, as if it had been attacked, and a few hours later it had died. Anyone know what that may have caused such a thing? Disease or attacked or stress?


I also have diatoms growing now, so im assuming its a good sign.
 
Many things could have a killed the clown. Sometimes they can get into a powerhead and be hit by the props. I've had this happen to my very curious Goby. First It got bruised as per below pic.

64467115_1536a.jpg


Next day it was dead - but all the time it was in the tank, it was swimming around the powerhead so that's why I suspect the powerhead.

You may also have some nasty crab hitchikers that came with your LR. You can only see these at night after with lights have turned off for an hour or so, using a red flashlight (Invertabrates are not effected by the red spectrum - so they will not run away when you illuminate them).

Without a proper clear pic of the Fish it will be almost impossible to say if it was a disease that killed it.

The Diatom blooms are normal process in the establishment of tank and they will go away within a month.

Try to keep you Nitrates (and phosphates) down via water changes using RO water, otherwise you will start getting algea blooms.
 
Mandarin does not attack anything, other than one male attack the other male.
Your tank was too new and the condition is not stable yet.
Make sure the temperature is stable. Don't add anything sensitive yet for a month or so more. I know that everybody myself included wanted something in the tank at this stage. You can add a hardy fish or two at this stage. Yellowtail Blue Damsel come to mind. It is a colorful fish, peaceful and will not be a bully in your community tank later on.
My first marine aquarium was a 29 g high back in 1980. I make the same mistake. From the advice of the LFS, I added an Ocellaris, an Anemone (I think it was a Condy), and a Clown trigger right after the tank finishes cycle. It had one light tube NO. I need not tell you how much of a disaster that was. LFS always take back fish for free or at the most give you 1/2 the selling price in credit. I wish that we had good books and the Internet at that time. Much of my early experiences were expensive and emotional draining. Many of the early books were horrible.

I highly recommend that you get a book by Scott Mitchael: Marine Fishes 500+ Essential to Know Aquarium Species. It is a pocket size book that give very good information like hardiness, temperaments, size, aquarium requirements. Take it with you to the LFS and use it for information instead of advice of the LFS. It does not cost very much. Certainly less that the two animals that you just lost. It will help protect you from lots of heart and head aches (plus save you money from mistake and dead fishes). A good aquarium book is never a waste of money, and this is certainly a very good and very useful book.
Don't trust all the books either eventually you will able to tell a good book from one that is full of BS.
Good luck
 
It's a good thing you got rid of your mandarin, as he would have slowly starved to death, a process that could have taken as long as 12 or more weeks for him to go through. A mandarin is a tricky thing to keep alive in an established aquarium. Your mandarin needs an established pod population to feed off of, many mandarins will refuse all prepared foods.
Your tank should cycle for a minimum of six months before you attempt to add an anemone. You could have a nitrate bloom at any time, especially as your liverock acclimates.
Clownfish, tangs, and most other fish also shouldn't be added until after your tank has gone through a full cycle, and a cycle can take 12 weeks or more.
I believe that a tank should be cycled in the following fashion, but I'm not an expert in this so do some research into tank cycling before taking my advice.
Live rock first for a couple of weeks with all filters, lighting, and skimmer running.
Add some clean up crew, snails, hermits, (but not any sea starts or anything more delicate), etc. and add a couple of small, hardy fish like damsels or chromis to really get the biological processes flowing. Wait 3 months or so for everything to swing into check and slowly add your ideal livestock, starting with the hardiest fish first. Do your research before purchasing a fish. If you find a fish that you fall in love with, ask your LFS to hold him for you, go home and research it before you bring it home.
My rule of thumb is to add no more than 1 fish per week, or three small invertebrates per week.

Good luck!
 
Your clown may have been a victim of what I've heard called "new tank disease" where the tank is just too new, it doesn't have the bacteria needed to support a quickly increased bioload. It can be very stressfull for the fish and they can develop fin rot, problems with their scales, ich can pop up due to the stress on the fish - a whole mess of problems. I actually saw this at a LFS not too long ago. It's a fairly new store, and they, like us, were eager to get their tanks stocked. Unfortunately, they couldn't sell the fish, either because they died, or because they were not well enough. I respect them for not selling sick fish though!

I have an idea that may be helpful though.
If you really want to buy something (and you've done your research) set up a quarentine tank/observation tank. You can probably find info here on that instead of me taking a lot more space here :)
We do this and it usually lasts 6 weeks. This might satisfy the urge to buy something as well as letting the tank recover. We do it even though we could put something in the tank because we know the tanks at the LFS have been exposed to all sorts of things we don't want in our tanks :) This gives us a chance to monitor and treat if necessary.

My personal feelings on the the damsels, I wouldn't put one in if you didn't really want one, just be a little more patient and add the right fish for your tank later. Fish are tricky to catch if you decide you don't like them later! I've known people who've taken down their whole tank just to catch a damsel!

Don't know if any of this helps, but I thought I'd give it a try!
Good luck!
 
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