New to anenome, have questions, want help!!!

[amastine]

My local fish store had its bi annual sale last weekend. Ao i got my clownfish a lta, since the flame angel had taken over their rock that they slept in. I also bought the led lighting system for the lta. the ones with the blue and white lights with dimmers. I placed him in the tank and he found a location he loved immediatly. he has only moved a little. he placed himself under a shelfrock originally in the sand, the moved his foot upside down on the actual shelf rock, now i thing hes moving back into the sand.

Here are my questions, how do i know if my lta is not doing well. he looks pretty happy to me. Also i had 2 cleaner shrimp. one died, adn the other went missing overnight, they were added the day after my lta was. the one that died, im not sure it was b/c of stress or w/e and the other went completly missing. that night when b4 i went to bed the shrimp were on the rock right next to the lta. the one that went missing we have found no remnants of its body or anything could the lta have eaten it. Also i cant seem to find food he likes, i bough mysis shrimp for him, and also some silversides. But when i give them to him he "tosses" them aside. Also the clownfish wont go anywhere near the lta but my 2 domino damsles have taken to hosting in it. also my sally lightfoot crab guards it its kinda odd lol. he'll stay upside down on the bottom of the shelf rock circling hte outside of the tenticles, but never actually going over them. i just want to make sure he gets taken care of, hes absolutly beautiful, and i want to keep him that way.



We have a 75g, running a fluvul fx5, the led lighting system, parameters are good, amonia did spike a bit after the addition of some new fish but we have an amonia filter in place and it is falling back into place. I have a foxface, 2 orealus clownfish, 2 domino damsles, one blue velvet damsle, 2 yellow fin damsles, a blue heptas tang, a yellow tale wrasse, the lta and the sally lightfoot cra. And a mandarin goby currently in a quarentine tank with ich.


*recently lost the flame angle who was in the quarentine tank with ich aswell. treating with medication, mandarin seems to be doing better thatn the flame angel did, the ich almost looked as if it had started to eat throgh his scales on the side of his body, poor thing

 

[bshow24]

Alright so a lot of stuff here. Lets see if I can help...

how do you know if it is healthy: for me, I always look at the mouth. If the mouth is gaping or drooping, then the nem is probably not healthy. An unhealthy nem is very hard to care for, especially if you are new to them.

food wise: do not feed silversides, just not good for overall health of anemone. stick with mysis, krill, brine, etc. I feed krill to mine, loves it. The fact that it is not eating is not necessarily a bad thing.

the cleaner: yes, it is very possible that the anemone ate him. There are some tanks that can keep an anemone and cleaner shrimp, but others have had problems. Anemones will eat anything they can grab and if the shrimp was too close, then it could have been a meal.

the crab: shouldnt be a problem, if you see it start to harass the anemone or claw at the foot, take it out, but based on what it is doing now should not be too many problems.

clowns: clowns do not always take a liking to the anemone right away. I put a bubble tip in my tank last week, today was the first time my clowns have been in it. The damsels could be a problem to the clowns as both are very territorial, but I do not keep damsels because they are extremely aggressive so I would not be able to help you with that one.

Now big question with the ich, did the fish contract ich while in your display tank? If so, you need to quarantine all fish otherwise your other fish will help it live in your tank. They may not necessarily show signs of it, but most likely they have it. Better safe and sorry to get them all treated. You cannot treat the display tank because of the nem, and also if you have corals, but at least you have a qt you can use.

And lastly, for the mandarin, do you have pods that you are feeding it?

 

[stingythingy45]

Just so you know,the LTA is extremely bleached from lack of correct lighting.Hopefully it will color back up and regain it's zooxanthellae.
I think you're going to have issues,that way too many fish for a 75 gallon.
Oh and the mardarin Dragonet should be returned asap.It will simply starve in your tank.
It's too bad you didn't find this site before getting bad advice from your LFS.

 

[bshow24]

Just so you know,the LTA is extremely bleached from lack of correct lighting.Hopefully it will color back up and regain it's zooxanthellae.
I think you're going to have issues,that way too many fish for a 75 gallon.
Oh and the mardarin Dragonet should be returned asap.It will simply starve in your tank.
It's too bad you didn't find this site before getting bad advice from your LFS.

I was thinking that same thing, but there were so many other eye openers going on I forgot to even type it!

 

[stingythingy45]

I was thinking that same thing, but there were so many other eye openers going on I forgot to even type it!

LFS employees should be required to show proof they've been in the hobby for a few years,and had success.
They should also be required to have at least 500 post on RC helping new folks.

 

[unkel j]

^:beer:^

 

[amastine]

I do have pods for the goby. So hes eating and actually on his last day of treatment, also the heptas tang is about s half an inch. Secondly the anemone decidrd to move today and it did not go well. He decided he wanted to move to one of my top rocks clise to the blower. For those of u who havent figured it out he got caught in the blowet and his tenticled got damahed badley. The foot it not damaged and neither is his mouth but i fear hes done for what do i do!!!!!

 

[DUPioneers]

Ok. Here are the issues I see.

1) First of all, SLOW. THE. HOLY. F&*K. DOWN!!! Nothing good happens quickly in this hobby. Buying livestock before you and your system are ready is a quick way to wind up with dead livestock and an empty wallet.

Take some time and do some research here before you do ANYTHING else.

2) Overall, you have too many fish in that aquarium. The foxface will get to be 7 - 8" inches long and needs a minimum of a 100 gallon aquarium. Hippo tangs are huge swimmers and require a MINIMUM of an 8' long, 240 gallon aquarium.

Don't say that "you'll upgrade when they get bigger", because that rarely - if ever - happens.

Return those fish and get fish that can life their whole natural life in your sized system.

3) You need to rethink your stock plan. With so many damsels, sooner or later, you're going to have World War III and fish will die unnecessarily.

4) You didn't mention a producing refugium - do you have one? If not, take the mandarin back. It will starve to death unless you CONSTANTLY keep your tank stocked with copapods.

5) How old is your system? Most who have the experience don't recommend trying an anemone (or mandarin) until your system is at least a year old and has STABLE water parameters. I'm not a 'nem guy (yet...) but, I suspect that those here who are would recommend you take that thing back to the LFS until your system is "ready" for one.

(FYI...the fact that you had to buy a light the same day you bought your 'nem indicates to me that your system isn't quite ready....just sayin'...)

6) "parameters are good". What does that mean? What are your parameters? The people here who can help you need numbers.

 

[amastine]

First off calm the **** down. I never said i added all this livestock at once,the tank has been going for awhile. Stable tests n everything. This isnt my first rodeo. Just yhe first eith an anemone

 

[DUPioneers]

First off calm the **** down. I never said i added all this livestock at once,the tank has been going for awhile. Stable tests n everything. This isnt my first rodeo. Just yhe first eith an anemone

Hmmm...ok.

I stand by what I said.

Whether you choose to acknowledge it or not, you have a lot of issues that you need to address and adding new livestock (particularly a delicate creature like an anemone) isn't the way to go about it.

 

[stingythingy45]

I have 3 bta anemones now.A rbta,gbta and one i'm not so sure of.And even with a large system with a lot of water volume and metal halide lighting,I still waited nearly 8 months before I got my first rbta nem.
You're going too fast.You're on a fast track to disaster.
Many lfs employees are just there to sell,sell and sell more.
They could care less if they sell you all kinds of stuff and it dies.They'll come up with some lame excuse that YOU somehow did it.And then sell,sell and sell some more.

 

[amastine]

ok, my tank is not a new set up. the fish are not new. my tank has been up and running for about 7 months. the only things that were new were the mandarin and the anemone. i hear what u are saying and i understand the necesity of moving slow with a saltwater tank. Again not my first setup. I added the mandarin to the tank, and he probably should have gone into my quarentine tank, however i was concerned b/c i do not have live rock in my quarentine tank, its a barebottem tank. So i spoke to the ppl at my lfs. they said keep an eye, and move him if he got sick. so he got sick n got my flame angel sick, everyone else is, for the time being healthy but i am watching them closly. obviously i cant treat the display tank b/c of the invertbre. and i didnt mean to come off as being an *** so to say. but i was not asking about the rest of my fish.


I was asking about the anemone care. My amonia is at 0, my nitrate is at 0, and my nitrite is at 0. my ph was 8.2 and my salinity is 1.023.

And i am not exactly sure what sun bleaching is, i actually picked it out at the fishtore because he was white, and i thought he was beautiful compared to the other 2 in the tank i had no clue he wasnt actually that color, and no one told me when i bought him. My store is aquarium adventure


Interesting fact thou, i know damsles can get very aggresive, however its the oddest thing the domino damsles and the clownfish dont go anywhere in the tank without eachother, except for bed. they all used to sleep in the same rock but the damsels moved to the anemone. the rest of the damsles will follow the clownfish n damsles for acouple of hours during the day, and then go do whatever. my in the last 7 months(they were my firsh fish in the tank never ment to stay after cycling was compleated. But they got along well after other fish were added about 3 months later) they have shown no aggresive behavior towards other fish


Again sorry about the lash out earlier was not ment really as vicious as it had sounded.

 

[bshow24]

The only reason I mention your other fish is because they may not show signs of ich...but ich still lives on. All ich needs in order to survive is a host, and because your fish are in there, it has one. It may not show because the fish are happy, but that does not mean for one second they are healthy. Your goby got your flame angel sick which means it is not in your display tank and the only way you would be able to get rid of it (safely) is quarantining all of your fish and treating them. Even that is not a guarantee though. When I first set up my tank, I had to do the same thing. Got impatient, put one fish in that had ich, and it ended up where 2 of my 4 had ich. I quarantined just the 2, and before there 6 week treatment was up, the other 2 began to show signs of it. So regardless of if you are watching them or keeping an eye on them, they are not going to get better. If they get stressed at all, they will show signs. Would you rather just eliminate the problem now or later when it actually shows?

As for the anemone, that really stinks. You actually reminded me that i need to get some sort of cover over my powerhead. Mine is currently at the opposite side but you never do know when they will decide to float around the tank. I have had many anemones but never had that problem, so I do not know what to do, i would suggest googling it and I am sure many people who have dealt have posted about it somewhere. Also, all anemone are suppose to have color in some way. White = bleached. It does not mean that it will for sure die or that there is a problem, although it could, but it means that it needs to regain zooxanthellae. Over time, with quality lighting, this will happen.

Your params look good. That should not be an issue, the only thing that you should be worried about is lighting. Idk what type of LED fixture it is, but if an LTA was moving to the top of the tank, it probably is not enough light. LTAs like to be on the sand with their foot squished between sand and rock. But if it doesn't get enough light, it will move up to try and get some. If you are eventually looking into corals, or if you have any, maybe look into t5 lighting. Anemone will LOVE it and if it pulls through, it will move back to the bottom and you wont have to worry about it hitting the powerhead.

Remember we are here to try and help, not trying to argue or tell you that you are wrong and cause problems. We want you to have a successful tank. The fact that other people are bringing up other things is because of experience and opinions they have that have worked. Many saltwater fish are beautiful and it would be great to have them all...but some require very large tanks and that is why someone suggested taking back fish. Once they grow, they will be unhappy. I read a post on here somewhere that talked about having a yellow tang in a 40 gallon breeder and he felt like the tang was unhappy because it would not swim much. He took it to a friends house who had a 200 gallon, and immediately after going in the tank, the tang was zipping around swimming like crazy. Sorry that was a mini rant, but point is, listen to everyone who is giving advice. Someone out there has been doing this longer than you or me and knows everything there is to know or has made the exact same mistakes. I have for sure made mistakes, but its fixing them and not making them again that is important. Good luck with the nem!

 

[Chriscro]

crazy long posts..... for such a simple conecpt.
your livestock does not match your tank size or age
simple as that. your anemone is already RIP whether its dead yet or not by the sense i get about your setup.

do more reading and use the search function to get a better understanding of SW fish.

 

[MrTuskfish]

crazy long posts..... for such a simple conecpt.
your livestock does not match your tank size or age
simple as that. your anemone is already RIP whether its dead yet or not by the sense i get about your setup.

do more reading and use the search function to get a better understanding of SW fish.

I agree. And if you don't completely eradicate the ich, nothing else matters. I'm amazed at how lightly an active ich infestation is taken on some of these threads.

Can you get a pic of the mandarin? Its very unusual for a mandarin to show ich, even when their gills are loaded with it.