Help! Something's Up With My Poor Anemone!!

[1Meshy]

The Nem sadly looks very close to death but you did not mention: when you last worked in the tank, did you change anything about the water flow?

Thousands of articles online telling you that your Nem will crawl around by itself, might forget to mention that changing flow can completely mess with the Nem.

To me it looks like your Nem is being blown into a corner and it is not yet strong enough to stop it.

Good luck with everything!

No, I haven't changed anything flow-wise.

Did you see the recent pic of the nem I posted a while ago? It seemed to have opened up again.. Do you think it's still on death row?

 

[1Meshy]

May have had answers to this already, but I looks like it isn't getting enough light to photosynthesize. Sadly, nems have feet that are planted to the rock. I have moved one intentionally, but it required removing rock, tuning it upside down and putting it directly in front of a gyre and blasting the foot with a turkey baster to irritate it enough to move. Hope that helps.

Good luck.

It moved itself there not too long ago. Should I try forcing it to come off and move it elsewhere? I feel that moving it might cause more stress on it atm

 

[Bretth282]

Yeah, it's actually only 3 hours of peak time..

I had a feeling that that wasn't enough light for it, but I'm still fairly new to this light and am still figuring out what the best setup for it is.

Great thinking! Take it slow with moderate adjustments! Sorry I’m no help to the issue at hand though!! Good luck!!

 

[1Meshy]

disagree ,nem looks ok clown is bashing ,earlier pics shows him under foot,healthy foot i may add nem is trying to move clown bashing ,is a tomato we all know how aggesive can be imo

Would make sense if the clown's the problem here.. I'll buy an acclimation box and put the clown in there and see what happens.

 

[1Meshy]

Great thinking! Take it slow with moderate adjustments! Sorry I’m no help to the issue at hand though!! Good luck!!

Even if all you have to offer are words of encouragement, that's fine by me! Lol.

Thanks for your input

 

[Bretth282]

Great thinking! Take it slow with moderate adjustments! Sorry I’m no help to the issue at hand though!! Good luck!!

I will throw this out there... keep in mind I am just figuring this out so maybe others will chime in. Higher alk you want more nutrients I believe is what I have read....? Maybe slowly bring your alk down. I keep mine around 9.
I do have 1 nem but have yet to experience any issues with it other touring the tank in a small area. I use t5 lights and they are on 11hours a day full blast.

 

[1Meshy]

I will throw this out there... keep in mind I am just figuring this out so maybe others will chime in. Higher alk you want more nutrients I believe is what I have read....? Maybe slowly bring your alk down. I keep mine around 9.
I do have 1 nem but have yet to experience any issues with it other touring the tank in a small area. I use t5 lights and they are on 11hours a day full blast.

Yeah, I'm going to work on bringing the alk down and bringing the calc up. I'm going to do a water change this week and start dosing some calc to get things leveled.

And your lights are on for 11 hrs? How do you avoid algae problems?

 

[Bretth282]

Wellllll....... lol, I have an algae issue right now due to Dino’s. Was over feeding to help combat the Dino’s naturally. I guess the algae stage is next (or now for me) I have slowly decreasing the amount I feed and watching the algae slowly (and very slowly I might add) disintegrate. Once I find that happy medium and balance of input and export we “in theory” should be good! Considering Dino’s is thought to be a condition of too low of nutrients and algae to be to high of nutrients.

 

[Bretth282]

Before the Dino’s I never had an algae issue because of the lack of nutrients...? So, that said, now that I’m trying to keep some nutrients in the water I just might have to decrease the hours my lights are on! Still in this stages of testing for now!

 

[Birdbrains?]

I currently have an AI Prime HD. Here's the current setup I have for it.

I chose this setup because this guy from my LFS told me that this would be pretty good for a mixed reef. I've been to this place quite a few times in the past and feel pretty comfortable with them. However, I'm open to the idea of using another setup if this one doesn't seem suffice.

The bubble tip usually takes tomato clowns which are much harder on their Nems than most clowns, I do not think that your fishes are stressing your Nem.

I did not see anywhere the PAR-effect on your lighting, do you know how much par it gives in the level of the bubble tip?

I have never kept a bubbletip but as I understand it they need around 220-350 PAR.

 

[fishguy242]

Yeah, I'm going to work on bringing the alk down and bringing the calc up. I'm going to do a water change this week and start dosing some calc to get things leveled.

And your lights are on for 11 hrs? How do you avoid algae problems?

just adding cal will help bring down alk ,don't change too much water no drastic changes same goes for lighting as someone said above go slow happy reefing ps get rid of that clown get a nice pair of snowflakes or something jmo

 

[weamdog]

Definitely no shortage of opinions, i guess everyone has a different recipe for success. The key is stability. It took my new nem a week to adjust. I just decided to check my cal for the first time in my nano which has been up for about 6 years and only gets about 5g of fresh saltwater a year now (i don't even clean the sand bed). Not sure when the filter media was last cleaned and my skimmer wasn't emptied for a good six months. Tank is completely covered in mushrooms and two huge BTAs. Calcium was 487 and the only thing that goes in is food and rodi. I would have bet my cal would be low, but just the opposite. Shows what i know, but its my perfect recipe my clowns ignored the nem(s) for like a year. Yours is definitely looking better, but my guess is this will be a cycle you until the stress is reduced.

 

[1Meshy]

Before the Dino’s I never had an algae issue because of the lack of nutrients...? So, that said, now that I’m trying to keep some nutrients in the water I just might have to decrease the hours my lights are on! Still in this stages of testing for now!

I'd love to hear how it goes! Keep me posted!!

 

[1Meshy]

The bubble tip usually takes tomato clowns which are much harder on their Nems than most clowns, I do not think that your fishes are stressing your Nem.

I did not see anywhere the PAR-effect on your lighting, do you know how much par it gives in the level of the bubble tip?

I have never kept a bubbletip but as I understand it they need around 220-350 PAR.

I wish I could tell you what the PAR is.. I need to order a PAR meter to get those readings.

Is there anything else you want to know about the light?

 

[1Meshy]

Definitely no shortage of opinions, i guess everyone has a different recipe for success. The key is stability. It took my new nem a week to adjust. I just decided to check my cal for the first time in my nano which has been up for about 6 years and only gets about 5g of fresh saltwater a year now (i don't even clean the sand bed). Not sure when the filter media was last cleaned and my skimmer wasn't emptied for a good six months. Tank is completely covered in mushrooms and two huge BTAs. Calcium was 487 and the only thing that goes in is food and rodi. I would have bet my cal would be low, but just the opposite. Shows what i know, but its my perfect recipe my clowns ignored the nem(s) for like a year. Yours is definitely looking better, but my guess is this will be a cycle you until the stress is reduced.

Wow, they're gorgeous!! Can I have your tank? Lol.

But, yes, I know stability is key. How often do you change the water? And what salt are you using?

 

[1Meshy]

Update: Hey guys, so I've adjusted the light so it peaks for 4 hours now (instead of 3). I'm going to be increasing the light by 30 minutes every day until I reach a peak of 8 or 9 hours (not including the 4 hour ramp time for the sunset/sunrise). The nem seems to have liked the extra hour, but I can't say for sure yet (this pic was from about 10 minutes ago).

I've also lowered my greens and reds to 5 instead of 30, and I am starting to slowly dose calc to get my levels back in check (I'll be checking the calc every 3/4 days or so).

I'm also going to order an acclimator box to put the clown in to see how the nem reacts, and I'll probably buy a PAR reader soon too.

Any other suggestions? Should any changes be made with the lighting colors (more white, less UV, etc)?

 

[weamdog]

Wow, they're gorgeous!! Can I have your tank? Lol.

But, yes, I know stability is key. How often do you change the water? And what salt are you using?

This tank is basically no maintenance, just top it off. It's a 28g nano and I may have changed 5g of water twice in the past couple years. Last time I changed I was hoping to trigger some split, but that didn't happen. I do need to change the chemipure media as I do have a patch of hair growing on the largest exposed piece of rock.

 

[1Meshy]

This tank is basically no maintenance, just top it off. It's a 28g nano and I may have changed 5g of water twice in the past couple years. Last time I changed I was hoping to trigger some split, but that didn't happen. I do need to change the chemipure media as I do have a patch of hair growing on the largest exposed piece of rock.

Dang, that's impressive. What are your params at? And you don't dose anything at all??

 

[Alexreefer]

Update: Hey guys, so I've adjusted the light so it peaks for 4 hours now (instead of 3). I'm going to be increasing the light by 30 minutes every day until I reach a peak of 8 or 9 hours (not including the 4 hour ramp time for the sunset/sunrise). The nem seems to have liked the extra hour, but I can't say for sure yet (this pic was from about 10 minutes ago).

I've also lowered my greens and reds to 5 instead of 30, and I am starting to slowly dose calc to get my levels back in check (I'll be checking the calc every 3/4 days or so).

I'm also going to order an acclimator box to put the clown in to see how the nem reacts, and I'll probably buy a PAR reader soon too.

Any other suggestions? Should any changes be made with the lighting colors (more white, less UV, etc)?

Nem looks much better than before, leave the nem for now and once you feel comfortable that the nem is better go ahead and feed him.

 

[1Meshy]

Nem looks much better than before, leave the nem for now and once you feel comfortable that the nem is better go ahead and feed him.

For sure. He still closes a bit every now and then, but he seems a little better now. Hope he perks up enough so I can feed him soon. Pretty sure he's itching for some krill