My Anemone Saga...

[dcathey]

I have an 80 gal w/ met hal and all of the water readings are in good shape. I bought my first long tentacle anemone and he lasted like a week and got inside a rock and died. My second was a pink tip haitian and he was smaller. He lasted like 2 days and crwaled into the same rock...weird and was never seen again. I then tried one more long tentacle and he looked much better as he stayed out front with the clown the first few days. He then lived in the back behind the rocks but still did fine. After that he just slowly started looking worse and worse. He is now dead...I have kept water in good shape...my lighting is sufficient...I had Microvert and Phytoplankton for filter feeders. All of other inverts are doing great.. COrals growing.. flame scallop doing great.....What are some other reasons that an anemone cannot succeed and are there any other types that host clowns that are more hardy?

 

[misfit]

Could be alot of things, what are your parameters exactly ?including Cal , Alk and SG, wtaer temp? did you alcimate? if so how?Are you purchasing them from the same place?List other tank mates, possibly a shrimp or something attacking them?How long has your tank been up and running?

 

[dcathey]

Specif Grav- 1.023, Calcium-?? Dont have a test but I add 2 caps of liquid calcium every day., pH-8.2, Alkalinity-140 ppm, Nitrite-o, Nitrate-20ppm. Water temp-76,
Tank Mates-Coral Beauty, Clarkii Clown, Purple Firefish, Mandarin Goby, Bannerfish, Yellow Tang, Fiji Blue Devil Damsel, 2 cleaner shrimp, coral banded shrimp, 2 peppermint shrimp, Flame Scallop, Assortment of corals, Serpent Starfish and Red seprent starfish and cleaner crew. I have only had the tank for 6 weeks but I bought it from a guy who had it up for over 2 years. I do a 10% water change and add Kent - Liq. Calc & Pro Buffer everyday, Stont, Iron, Iodide, Iodine, Coral Vyte, Micro Vert, Essent. Elements as needed on the bottle. I dont know what I am leaving out. I have been battling a little bit of red slime but I think i am geting it with the weekly water changes and gravel vacuuming. Any tips would be appreciated my clown loves the anmones but I cant keep one. Oh yeah all came from same place.. He hand picks every Monday and I observe before ibuy to make sure they open up and "look" good.
Acclimated for about 30 mins I guess and after like 15 minutes.. i would add some of my water to the bag every 5 mins or so.

 

[jakebtc]

not sure if this has anything to do with whats been going on but with delicate stuff "and everything now days" I always do the drip acclimate rather than the cup and a bag thing

 

[dcathey]

How do you do the drip acclimate...Ive never done it and was just wondering what type of equipment you use, how long, etc?

 

[misfit]

First, you shouldnt be adding anything that you are not testing for(very important). Go get a test for Cal, right away and dont add any more til you do.You need to bring down nitrates, altough I dont think this caused their deathes, it wont make them very happy. If you have CC ,I would advise to change it to LS,IMO.There are lots of old threads here, that are worth reading on the subject.Yes, you should be drip acclimating all corals and inverts(I do fish also).How long depends on what it is ,some star fish need like 5-7 hrs drip acclimation or more. You should always research before your purchase or at least for 5 min before you start acclimation when you get it home.There are many ways to do this , simplest way, is a bucket(dedicated to fish only)and small tubing, start your syphon, drip into bucket, tye knot or knots in tubing depending on how slow you want the drip , put purchase in bucket with water from bag, when done acclim. net it and put in QT tank.Hope this helps :joy:

 

[ak_guppy]

Does anyone know if pink tipped anemones are hard to keep? I am looking to buy one,but i have never had an anemone before so i dont know what would be a good one to start out with.
AK, :happyfish

 

[misfit]

AK, what is your setup like?Your lighting?

 

[dcathey]

I went and bought calcium and nirate only tests rather than the multi tests that I have been using. The calcium checked out good but my nitrates are reading around 40 or just under that. I know that its high but I did a 10% on Monday and I just did a 10 % tonight(Thursday). Is this sufficient enough to get them down or do I need to be doing larger water changes. I have an 80 gal so I have been taking out 8-9 gallons each time. How long after water change can you expect to see change in trates?

 

[hottie79]

I would suggest using the salifert saltwater tests. The strips can be really inaccurate.

 

[dcathey]

I checked this morning and trates were down to 5 after being 30 or 40 yesterday. Tank also looks much better,

 

[sjg22483]

I also suggest trying a Condi anenome. They're under 10 bucks and are a good test anenome for water quality. Try to get your quality as good as possible and give it a try. They're not great for clownfish, but will at least be an indicator if you will be able to get another long tentacle or something. If nothing else condis look cool too