Issue with nippel anemone

[Pascal]

Hello,

I have a nano aquarium with soft corals, 2 clownfish and nipple anemones. The nipple anemone did very well, splitting 3 times so that I now have 3.
Nano tank is 3 years old but I had a langer one before. Since everything was running well, I starred to measure less, but performed the usual maintenance.
About 6or7 months ago, I started to have issues with Dino’s. Problems was the nitrate concentration that was unmeasurable and close to zero. I had issues to get the dino’s understanding control and even today, they are not completely gone.
I lost most of my soft corals and also an acropora that did it amazingly good before. The anemonen survival but are retraites since several months. But they are still alive. Initialen, the diameter was about 20 cm (8 inch), today 2 cm.
Beside taling care of the water parameters, what can I do? I check pH, KH, Mg, Ca, SiO2, NO3, PO4, salinity. All parameters, maybe exception made of NO3 are within spec. Even today, its hard to get above 5 ppm.
I performance a waterchange weekje of 10%, also to add components. I feed to much for 2 clown to increase NO3 and feed about 3 times a week the new softcorals with Reefenergy (RedSea), what I didn’t before. My new softcorals are growing good and are very nice. But my anemones are still retracted.

Any idea what I should do? Thanks a lot for your help.

 

[Pascal]

Sorry for the english, I was struggling with the autocorrect that is set in Dutch apparently

 

[bradleym]

So, if I understand, you have bubble tip anemones that are not doing well. And you have nitrates that stay very low. You lost several corals over time, and the anemones have shrunk.

The solution, if this is all accurate, is probably to increase the nitrates. You mentioned weekly water changes. If you want the nitrates higher, perhaps you should switch to every two weeks.

I had a similar experience in my tank, but every tank is different. Please post the test results so we can be sure nothing else stands out.

 

[Pascal]

Hello,

Tanks for your reply.

Last six months value range:

KH : 10-14
Ca : 400-500 ppm
pH : 8,3-8,4
NO3 :0-5ppm, mostly 2-3
PO4 : 0,00-0,03 ppm, mostly 0-0,01
SiO2 :Below 0,25 ppm, but present
Mg :1400-1500 ppm
Density :1,024-1,026 (34-36ppt)

When I had the dino invasoin, parameters were approximately the same, exeption made for NO3 that were unmeasurable low. Same for PO4

 

[OrionN]

There are a variety of Dino. They are not growing due to excessive nutrients so water changes do not help control most them. I find that diversify your fauna helps a lot. Mine was mainly on the sand so every Dayi would excavate a hole in the sand and shovel all the Dino in it and cover it up. Eventually they are essentially are almost completely gone.

 

[Pascal]

Even by paying attention to create as much waste as reasonnably possible, I don’t succeed in increasing NO3 to 10 ppm. In my former RedSea 130, I had 8 fish, shrimps andlots of corals growing and covering the complete substrate and rocks. The tank required almost no maintenance, no algae, no dinos. The only invasion I had were the corals.

 

[Pascal]

There are a variety of Dino. They are not growing due to excessive nutrients so water changes do not help control most them. I find that diversify your fauna helps a lot. Mine was mainly on the sand so every Dayi would excavate a hole in the sand and shovel all the Dino in it and cover it up. Eventually they are essentially are almost completely gone.

Thank you. You are completely correct that changing more water is not the solution, on the contrary. I need to create an environment where other organism can live too.

Leaving the dino’s in the sand and hence create waste is a good idea. I’m afraid about the toxins they liberate. I think this was one of the reasons my corals died when I had the massive invasion.

I call it dino’s but I’m unable to identify it with certainty. They look most probably dino’s to me. I also tried chemicals. Since the source is not eliminated, they come back although in much low amounts.

The reason I continue to change water is the supply of elements. I try to compensate by adding too much food for the clownfish and adding coralfood, what I didn’t before.

I also forgot to highlight that I eliminated active carbon in the filter, skimmer is put to a minimum but I still use it for oxygenation. I don’t use NOPOX (RedSea) anymore. So everything that can eliminate NO3 is eliminated as much as possible.

Thank you all for your valuable ideas.

 

[Pascal]

Hello,

Any experience with anemones that stayed retracted a long time? I don’t have an idea what I can do more.

Thanks a lot for your replies.

 

[bradleym]

Hello,

Any experience with anemones that stayed retracted a long time? I don’t have an idea what I can do more.

Thanks a lot for your replies.

The same advice as above applies here too.