What is up with my nem?

V

vyerous

New member
Ok here's the scoop. I have had this nem for about 3 months now. It had been doing great, I would rarely feed it and it was always bubbled up and happy. It hasn't wandered around in a long time and it slowly but surely deflated its tentacles. I thought maybe this was part of it excreting waste but it never really recovered afterward. As time went on it got a little smaller and the tentacles kept getting smaller. I was worried so I started supplement feeding it small slices of silversides and some shrimp. Every time I feed it now it takes a long time to open its mouth and I practically have to guard it so the shrimp doesn't steal its food. The mouth doesn't stay open and it doesn't always stick out or suck in, it really changes day to day. The other weird thing is at night when just the moonlights are on it gets big. It opens up, it stretches the bit of tentacles it has left, out, I mean it gets about 3 inches in diameter bigger.

My params are:
55g tank

Sg 1.024
Temp 80 (1+ or -)
PH 8.1
Amm 0
Nitrate 0
Nitrite 0
Phosphate 0
Lights on 8 hours a day (T5s x 6 bulbs)

Only things running on the tank is protein skimmer which is cleaned every other day and a phosphate reactor. Nothing that I am aware of provoked it (no param swings). Water changes are done 15% monthly but I did 3 over a span of a week @ 10% WC to see if adding trace elements to the water would help. I use reef crystals and my water ages over night before WC.

Any help is greatly appreciate, sorry for the crappy pictures.


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Your sg could be raised a little...1.025 or 1.026 is ideal. What are you using to get your SG readings? (hydrometer or refractometer?)
How old are your T5 bulbs?
What kind of shrimp are you protecting the anemone from?
 
Yea I am slowly raising it back up but I wouldn't think that would be the cause, like I said no swings in my params. I check the salinity with a calibrated refractometer.

The T5 bulbs are only 2 months old however the spectrum is a bit off in my opinion. Its 3 atinics and 3 5/50 bulbs although I don't know if that would make a difference because it was happy with the current lights for as long as it was.

The shrimp is a skunk cleaner and shrimp and it doesn't harass it, it just likes to try and eat its food when I feed it. I usually resolve this by putting the top of a 2 liter bottle over it, it doesn't touch it, the bottle is clean, there are holes in it for flow its just merely to keep things out.
 
You said you have been feeding it more often. You use a refractometer..Sound like you are doing all the right things. I am not sure what is going on. If you continue to keep things in check, it might start to recover.
Before you added the anemone, how old was your tank?
 
The tank was about 6 months old, tank was cycled for 2 months before any fish went in, everything taken slow, no harsh params throughout the whole life in the tank (other than during the cycle), plenty of live rock and live sand, skimmer works fine, I just don't know =( I acclimated the nem using the drip method for about 2 hours. I know I probably should have waited another 6 months before adding a nem but it felt so right and it was my only iffy purchase as far as life stock goes.

I just don't understand the shriveling during the day and the expanding at night, its so bizarre.
 
I have read that low magnesium can make an anemone unhappy..what is your Mg level?

Just trying to come up with some thing. Maybe someone will know what questions I'm missing.
 
I definitely appreciate your effort because I am clueless. Unfortunately I don't have an Mg test kit I'll run to my LFS when I get a chance and post the results.
 
Just an ideas, because you said the nem is opening up at night it sounds like it is feeling threatened during the day and going into a defensive posture during the day. I would purchase a cheap false Perk, quarantine it for the shortest time you feel comfortable then release it into the nem at night. I have seen this work in stopping an anemone from roaming, and help to bring a nem back from the dark side. Also feeding the nem at night will help it relax and enjoy its meal. I also read on this forum a couple weeks ago that a guy was very adamant about silversides being a poor choice for nem food. Trying a new food source might be another option.
 
Very interesting. I've fed it small slivers of silverside, some mysis, even ate some pelets. I have a mated pair of True percs that for the first time the female interacted with it a bit like it wanted to climb in but it was closed up and she wandered off. I'm hoping that when I move it for some miraculous reason it will come around, I'd to have to toss it =/
 
In the condition it is in, I wouldn't want a clownfish anywhere near it. Good luck with your anemone vyerous. Keep up with 10%weekly water changes. Try to feed it small pieces of food every three days. I hope it recovers for you.
 
Silly question maybe but are you using RO/DI for water changes?

The invertebrates are the most sensitive creatures to metal poisoning...

If you were not using RO/DI the metals could be building to toxic levels...
 
Well it finally died =(

Thanks for your help everyone, it will be a while before I decided to go down this road again.
 
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