Rainbow Bubble Tip Anemone Not Doing Well / Also Zoa aren't growing

[nostalgiaforinfinity]

Hey,
Have had him for a month. Last night he started sagging and wasn't puffy all day. I don't have a pic yet. We justed added 5 gallons of Reef Crystal for our montly water change. This took our salinity up to 1.027. I did so fresh swapping today and got it down to 1.025.

Tomorrow AM I will post a pic.
First anemone. He has moved 5-6 times at least.
Flow is good I think. Lighting is good I think

**Might as well add that I have had some frags for 3 months with no growth. They open and close and seem healthy.
Just getting my head around the tank water "too clean" idea. Kept phosphates low to keep algae down.**


Here's the parameters:
Red Sea G2 200
42 g display// 52 g system
23"L x 22" W x 21"H
Light: Red Sea LED 90
Light Schedule: 15K Blue // 10 hour full 30 minute Sunrise/30 minute Sunset;
3 hour moon

Tank Started Feb 2024

Temp: 79.6
PH: 7.5-8.5
Nitrite: 0ppm
Nitrate: 0-5 ppm
Ammonia: 0ppm
Phosphate: 0.25ppm
Salinity: 1.025

Livestock:
Inverts:
Copepods alive in tank
(3) CUC Conches
(1) Emerald Crab
(2) Turbo Snails
(2) Nassarius Snail
(4) Hermit Crabs
(1) Skunk Cleaner Shrimp
(4) Zoas Frags
(1) Mushroom Coral
(1) Frogspawn Coral
(1) Kenya Tree Coral
(1) Rainbow Bubble Tip Anemone

Verts:
(1) Pajama Cardinals (Sphaeramia nematoptera)
(1) Red-Line Wrasse (Halichoeres biocelattus)
(1) Starry Blenny (Salarius ramosus)
(1) Snowflake Clown Fish (Amphiprion ocellaris)

Thanks

 

[ThisIsTheWay]

If your RBTA only started acting up after the water change then it's most likely due to the salinity swing. You don't mention alk levels but a 10% water change shouldn't make that big of a difference in alk so I'd lean more towards it just being ticked off at the salinity swing.

I got an RBTA somewhat recently and it moved a bunch of times too before it settled down. I then added more rock to my rockscape (separate reason than the RBTA, I was taking down another tank and moved some rock over that I wanted to keep) that increased the height of the rock structure and it moved once more to a higher location and has been happy there ever since.

In regards to the zoas, sometimes they take a while to settle in. Stability in your parameters it key. I honestly think that it doesn't matter what your exact numbers are, as long as you keep them stable your coral will adjust and then go from there.
Zoas I believe also do well with higher nutrients. That's not to say all zoas will do well at higher nutrients, but I've had a number of zoas and they've been just fine in my tank (currently at 0.1-0.25 PO4 and 50-100+ NO3 though I'm trying to lower the Nitrates). Based on your parameters you posted, you PO4 looks fine but you may want to try raise your NO3 a little bit.

On the topic of algae, I used rock that had already been running in someone else's tank but I still ran through some ugly stages. I had a period of a few months where I had lots of algae growth all over my rocks. I manually removed it every now and then, but over time as the tank matured and I got better at maintaining stable parameters it went away. Now my tank has almost zero algae on the rocks, even with high nutrients, and I almost wish it would grow some because I want to make sure my CUC has food . There's algae growing on the glass though so my CUC is probably just eating it as soon as it starts growing on the rock.
All that to say, growing a little algae isn't necessarily a bad thing, and it'll get easier to manage over time as the tank matures.

I hope this helps and best of luck with your tank