Possible Anemone Problem?

[ashley.nicole]

I have a 210g reef tank ... fairly new. Probably have had it for almost 2 months. Today after doing a 5% water change all of our anemones, australian elegance, and even the sea slug seem to be all angry. The anemones seem to have turned inside out, and the elegance is completely closed. Both anemones have also detached themselves from the rocks they were on. Am I looking at a possible problem with my tank? After some research I have found that a dead anemone can completely kill off a tank...so I am a little worried.

Any info would be healpful!

Ashley

Ps...My husband checked all levels in tank and they are all fine.

[rluix]

I have a 210g reef tank ... fairly new. Probably have had it for almost 2 months. Today after doing a 5% water change all of our anemones, australian elegance, and even the sea slug seem to be all angry. The anemones seem to have turned inside out, and the elegance is completely closed. Both anemones have also detached themselves from the rocks they were on. Am I looking at a possible problem with my tank? After some research I have found that a dead anemone can completely kill off a tank...so I am a little worried.

Any info would be healpful!

Ashley

Ps...My husband checked all levels in tank and they are all fine.

Hmmmm... try and check the tank for any sea slug, some times they come as hitch hikers, and some are toxic , but i don't think thats the problem ,anyway, go for the safe side and check.

ALSO, if you spot one, don't kill it as if it is killed in the tank, it will nuke it.
And could you post you're tank spec.? like tell us the equipment, lights, etc , and at what time did you put the anemones in the tank? 1 month after you started the tank?

[Parrothead]

I'm gonna be nice,

Ashley at 2 months there is no way your tank is mature enough to keep any ane. or for that matter any type of coral with the exception of mushrooms and some zoas, maybe, just because your tank has cycled does not mean that it is ready for corals, at the top of the reef forum here there is a sticky "click here before you ask", please read through that, there are alot of articles in there that will help you out alot.

Also, please post your equipment list, lighting, etc.

Also you mentioned your husband said the water tested fine, please retest and post the actual results for amm., nitrite, nitrates, and pH. knowing these things will enable us to help you more, Also exactly what spieces of ane. are we dealing with here

[zhenya]

Hi ashley.nicole,




Can you desctibe the process of doing the water change for us? Amount of water exchanged and how many hours you aged your newly mixed salt water?
Also, if you have them handy, can you post the actual results of the tests your husband performed?
Salinity, temperature, etc., ets.
I hope you know that freshly mixed synthetic sea water is quite toxic to marine life, and sensitive invertebrates are the first to react if you didn't age your water for at least 48 hours prior to exchange.

Anyway, I wouldn't overreact and start pulling live animals out just because they reacted harshly to the water change. If amount of whater exchanged is not all that large most of the life will bounce back, unless we are talking about some type of contamination (like copper for example).

PS.And lastly, I agree with Parrothead, that it is usually best to let tank mature for at least few month before attempting to keep invertebrates auch as host anemones.

[ashley.nicole]

Ok so I woke up this morning and one anemone is dead, the sea slug is dead, the sea cucumber is dead, the lavender tang is on his way out. Oh and there was a 9in worm in the sand.

Here are our test levels that we did this morning
pH 8.2-8.4
amonia .50
nitrate 0ppm
nitrite 0ppm


We have a salt water fish store taking care of our tank, and they told us that the tank was ready for all of this stuff. ..I dont know about what kind of water they used for the change last night. What I do know is that after the change everyone was P*&^* off...

We called them this morning to have them come out to look at everything. They told us to take the anemone out if we were sure he was dead, and to take out the worm.

I wanna cry....i feel so bad for the animals that are dieing...

We have in the tank
210gallon
250 halide lights (2 of them)
skimmer
1 power head

I know that I am still fairly new to this ...but I thought I did the right thing by hiring people to take care of my tank....

[ToddTT]

I wanna cry....i feel so bad for the animals that are dieing...

I know that I am still fairly new to this ...but I thought I did the right thing by hiring people to take care of my tank....

Keeping a saltwater tank unfortunately involves learning from your own mistakes, despite your best intentions. Here in this forum you get to benefit from other people's mistakes as well, so keep coming back and see what problems others are running into.

I think one of the most important truisms to remember is that bad things happen quickly. With that in mind, it is usually best to take things slow.

Another is that LFS's can frequently give bad advice. Some put profits first, while others are simply not well informed.

I would fire your LFS, and start asking lots of questions here in this forum. Also make sure to read all of the stickies, there is a lot of useful info to pick up.

Once your tank gets past this episode, do not add any additional inhabitants for a while, and only after you get unbiased feedback. This means don't listen to your LFS, who already has a couple of strikes against them now.

There are many excellent books on reefkeeping, have you picked up any yet?

If it takes 3 years to get your tank how you like it, with the inhabitants that you want, enjoy the experience, and research everything you do, and the needs of the inhabitants you plan on adding. Much of the reward in this hobby is in seeing how your tank evolves over time, and learning lots of new stuff along the way.

[Parrothead]

Ashley,

First thing I would do is find another lfs, there has to be several in Vegas, first thing you want to do is get about 30 gallons of saltwater brewing, you can find storage containers to mix this in, try to find food grade containers, check Home Depot, Lowes, Dollar Store, etc..., get RO/DI water to mix you saltwater up, get a hydrometer or if you can a refractometer, mix you saltwater up to about 1.023 - 1.025 as close as possible to the tank water, but try for the target mentioned above, as Zhenya said, let it mix for about 48 hours, I don't know how much of your livestock will make it through this crisis, but learn from it. with your amm. that high, that is proably what is doing in the inhabitants, when you do the water change, see the 30 gallons above, check your amm., nitrites, nitrates, and pH, you are gonna need to monitor your tank closely for a couple weeks to a month, and then as Todd said, research, research, ask questions, research some more, then add what you have learned, we're here to help, but first things first, get busy on the saltwater for the water change, you need to get the amm. down.

Start here

How to Make a Successful Water Change

Then start going through these

Table/Contents - Link List

Click here before you ask, (links to answers)

Post any questions you have, we'll do our best to help

[rluix]

Ok so I woke up this morning and one anemone is dead, the sea slug is dead, the sea cucumber is dead, the lavender tang is on his way out. Oh and there was a 9in worm in the sand.

Here are our test levels that we did this morning
pH 8.2-8.4
amonia .50
nitrate 0ppm
nitrite 0ppm


We have a salt water fish store taking care of our tank, and they told us that the tank was ready for all of this stuff. ..I dont know about what kind of water they used for the change last night. What I do know is that after the change everyone was P*&^* off...

We called them this morning to have them come out to look at everything. They told us to take the anemone out if we were sure he was dead, and to take out the worm.

I wanna cry....i feel so bad for the animals that are dieing...

We have in the tank
210gallon
250 halide lights (2 of them)
skimmer
1 power head

I know that I am still fairly new to this ...but I thought I did the right thing by hiring people to take care of my tank....

Wait, you had a sea slug then? could you describe it? did it had bright colours? if yes, then i could say that the death of the sea slug problably nuked you're whole tank, and the fish are prob. gonna die

[ashley.nicole]

Wait, you had a sea slug then? could you describe it? did it had bright colours? if yes, then i could say that the death of the sea slug problably nuked you're whole tank, and the fish are prob. gonna die

the sea slug was brown with small blue spots....

[rluix]

the sea slug was brown with small blue spots....

Without a photo, i can't say what species it was, try here (last part of the page).
If you can recognize it, please come back and tell us what species it was.

[Parrothead]

irregardless of what caused the damage, we need to work on damage control, it's dead, get busy on the stuff needed for the water change, that is a priority.......

[gregr]

Sorry to hear about the trouble you're having.
It sounds like you had some very nice and very expensive livestock in there. I really hope you take the advice you've gotten and fire that fish store. I would go as far as asking for a refund for all your corals (unless there are "beginners" corals in there) and maybe even some of the fish too. Was it the fish store employee that did the water change? If yes then they should pay for everything that dies. Not sure if it's worth the trouble for you- they will probably fight it if they're as immoral as they appear to be. Don't be surprised if you get some very indignant people posting in this thread- what that store did is outrageous.
Could you list the livestock? There are cool critters you can keep in a young tank but anemones and elegance corals are wayyyy wayyyy down the list of what's recommended, that's for sure.

[blennydude]

Did the fish store know how old your tank was when they sold you all those animals? If so go back there and tell them you want all your money back and they are f%#kin fired! With a tank that old you should have a couple hardy fish (not tangs) and a clean up crew, and you got a fricken assortment of rare species for advanced hobbyists in there.
It's not really your fault, at least you are here now attempting to fix the problem. Many people would just buy more livestock to kill. Now that I have calmed down a little bit, I noticed you said you have only 1 powerhead in your tank. You need more than that. You want 20-40 times your tank gallons in gph in pump movement. Position them to blow across rockscape to help prevent build up of debris and create a bottom up circular flow throughout your tank and attempt to direct water towards your outlets to your overflows. Does that make sense? Good luck in the future.

[blennydude]

Greg, those are some pics on your website! What kind of blennies are those besides the lawn mower? Nice tank.

[gregr]

lol- thanks! Not sure which ones you're talking about since I don't have any lawnmowers (I much prefer the starry blenny) but I think you're asking about the little barnacle blennies. They are awesome.

[gregony]

According to your tests, you had measurable ammonia. It could be from the dead animals, but only 2 months in, it probably wasn't. You know the poor man's ammonia test is when all your fish die, you've got ammonia. That's a big tank, that will need more time to cycle than a small one. If anything is still alive, you need at least a 20% water change immediately.
Do not add anything to the tank until your ammonia and nitrite is 0. Not nearly zero, but zero. If you measure nitrate daily, along with ammonia and nitrite, you will see the nitrate increase as the ammonia and nitrite decrease. I apologize if you already know all this, but I feel compelled to share.
The nitrates will eventually start to come down after the ammonia and nitrite has gone to zero. Remember, the nitrite and ammonia will still be in the tank, they will just be consumed by bacteria and converted into nitrate. After several weeks, anywhere between 2 and 20 depending on numerous factors, the nitrate should drift down to less than 20. It too, will still be in the tank, it will just have a different bacteria consuming it, and converting it into nitrogen. Your measurements suggest that your tank was not capable of supporting your livestock, because you had ammonia, but no nitrate. Unless my understanding of the nitrogen cycle is sadly mistaken, this should be impossible for a tank that is properly cycled. If you have ammonia, you should have had nitrate, even if the ammonia came from the dead fish!!!!!.
It could be the sea slug, but then, why no nitrates if there is ammonia?

Going forward, the elegance coral will need more light. A pair of 250W halides probably won't be enough to keep it happy. Much like an anemone, this is another animal that needs a stable environment to be happy in. It is an expert's coral. Mother Nature's practical joke to reefkeepers is that, the better looking the coral, the harder it is to keep it alive.
I gave up on keeping anemones. I just couldn't keep them alive, even the "easy" ones.
You'll need at least two more powerheads for circulation. I believe Parrothead has a 210. He can tell you the ideal number.
Do you have a sump? If not, its going to be really difficult to maintain a 210 without one. A 10% water change is 20 gallons. That's shlepping five buckets worth.
Don't worry about the worm, unless he's dead, then get him out of there. After your tank has been up and running for a couple of years, you won't want to know what lurks in your sand bed. Speaking of which, how much sandbed do you have? How much live rock?

[blennydude]

I bet the "sea slug" was a blue dotted sea hare. If so, he didn't have a chance, they eat hair algae. He should not have released any toxins as far as I know. I have one in a tank I can take a pic.

[Parrothead]

Again, see post 7 from me, and see greg's post, a water change is of the utmost importance right now, Ashley hasn't been on since yesterday morning, so I hope they are working on a water change and didn't just say the hell with it, and throw the towel in

[Steve McKay]

Again, see post 7 from me, and see greg's post, a water change is of the utmost importance right now, Ashley hasn't been on since yesterday morning, so I hope they are working on a water change and didn't just say the hell with it, and throw the towel in

If they had a LFS taking care of their tank,they have pesos.Their not done yet but they need to be able to take care of their own tank.If their going to have corals you can't have the LFS come over each night to add Ca,Alk and Mg when needed.Not only that what LFS or Aquarium service really cares,they just found this out.

[gregr]

Hope we hear back from them. I'd like to know if they talked to the fish store and what their response was.
gregony- I've not heard before that 250w metal halides weren't enough for an elegance coral, or any other coral for that matter. Is this something you're certain of?