HELP! First Anemone

[ApolloRoma]

Surprised to read you've kept the Anemone.....tough decision.
So many hermits! Algae and Bacteria come in many forms and require target controls.
Many other clean up crew critters may be available, (snail, starfish, cucumber, Abalone, Shrimp, diversity is key in any ecosystem. Less can often be best, crabs may starve.
Turbulent surface agitation allowing for Oxygen intake and frequent "fresh water" top ups will help with Salinity.
Do you have a hydrometer? Or are you using your Refractometer ????? (be sure to recalibrate if you are)
Have fun!

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[rmud]

Surprised to read you've kept the Anemone.....tough decision.
So many hermits! Algae and Bacteria come in many forms and require target controls.
Many other clean up crew critters may be available, (snail, starfish, cucumber, Abalone, Shrimp, diversity is key in any ecosystem. Less can often be best, crabs may starve.
Turbulent surface agitation allowing for Oxygen intake and frequent "fresh water" top ups will help with Salinity.
Do you have a hydrometer? Or are you using your Refractometer ????? (be sure to recalibrate if you are)
Have fun!

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I am thinking of getting a few snails to clean up the sides of the tank and we were recommended 10 crabs because our nitrates are still quite high and we just had so much algae. They've been doing well, although I think we are down to 9-after letting them settle in I've noticed one of the shells our centre gave us (that has never moved) was empty so I assumed it was a dud.
We've been using a refractometer (brand Red Sea). I did calibrate it using deionised water at 25 degrees Celsius (same temp as tank water and the temp prescribed in the refractometer's directions). I got a 1.025s.g. reading.
However when I took a water sample to my aquatics centre, they used their refractometer (of the same brand) and got a much higher reading of 1.030s.g. They gave us RO water and we have used it once so far but, because I'm getting completely different readings to my aquatics centre, I'll probably have to take the refractometer in to see if it's a dud or if I'm not doing something right. Until then I'm topping off any evaporated water with RO for now and won't try to bring down the salinity until I know that my readings are correct.
That being said, the tank looks a lot better now that we have our hermits working away at our algae blooms and my chromis seems to have perked up now that we've added some RO into our tank.
The anemone also seems to be doing well too- our aquatics centre recommended that we feed it with a teaspoon of phytoplankton twice a week until it gets a bit bigger. I still think it's managing to eat some of my chromis' brine shrimp- any ideas of stopping it from doing this? I really don't want to overfeed it..
I was thinking of covering it with a see-through plastic tub whilst the chromis is feeding but I don't really know if this is safe or not.
You guys have helped us identify so many problems already so I'd like to thank all you contributors!
Again, any more advice/ criticism is kindly appreciated! [emoji5]


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[DaveK]

I...
The anemone also seems to be doing well too- our aquatics centre recommended that we feed it with a teaspoon of phytoplankton twice a week until it gets a bit bigger. I still think it's managing to eat some of my chromis' brine shrimp- any ideas of stopping it from doing this? I really don't want to overfeed it..
I was thinking of covering it with a see-through plastic tub whilst the chromis is feeding but I don't really know if this is safe or not.
...

To put it bluntly, your LFS is clueless when it comes to recommending you feed it phytoplankton. You have a BTA. This is considered a large predatory anemone. In other words, it doesn't eat phytoplankton. This is an anemone that should be fed about once a week, and it should be fed items such as small pieces or shrimp, or crab, or clams. The anemone will only need a few small pieces.

These anemones also require a good source pf light, but you should already have that.

While we are on the subject, feeding brine shrimp to anything is usually not the best idea. It has very little food value. It's great to get a fish to start to eat in you tank but beyond that feed other items, such as mysis shrimp. Brine shrimp also has a lot of "juice" in it and if feed too often can cause major nitrate and phosphate problems.

 

[ApolloRoma]

BTA can be tricky to feed, your small anemone can survive on light alone for a long time.
(maybe, once a month if it looks really healthy and is sweeping the water looking hungry.)
I think you need to regard it as half plant, half animal, it will photosynthesise, it expels zooxanthellae under stress.
How often do you check Ammonia, Nitrite, Phosphate in your young tank ecosystem?
Having fun yet? Tehe

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[rmud]

To put it bluntly, your LFS is clueless when it comes to recommending you feed it phytoplankton. You have a BTA. This is considered a large predatory anemone. In other words, it doesn't eat phytoplankton. This is an anemone that should be fed about once a week, and it should be fed items such as small pieces or shrimp, or crab, or clams. The anemone will only need a few small pieces.

These anemones also require a good source pf light, but you should already have that.

While we are on the subject, feeding brine shrimp to anything is usually not the best idea. It has very little food value. It's great to get a fish to start to eat in you tank but beyond that feed other items, such as mysis shrimp. Brine shrimp also has a lot of "juice" in it and if feed too often can cause major nitrate and phosphate problems.

I had a look at what they gave us and it's 'live phytoplanton' (without the K). I'll attach a picture of it. I don't know if it's the same as phytoplankton..
I'm just going to try what our aquatics centre has given us and if the nem starts to deteriorate I'll switch back to brine shrimp and move on to scallop (which is what the guy who gave us the anemone would feed his dinner-plate sized anemone with).

As for testing, I used to test everyday but since there hasn't been much change I've reduced it to 3 tests a week. My test kit has nitrate, nitrite, ammonia, alkalinity and pH tests but no phosphate test. I'll ask my aquatics centre about phosphates- we are going again tomorrow.

I tested today and the nitrates are still over 50ppt and nitrites are at 0.05ppt (although our nitrites do switch from 0-0.05 day to day).

I should explain that this is because we are using BioNitratEx to remove our nitrates. As the product is culturing bacteria that breaks down nitrates, our nitrites will increase slightly. However, we are using nitrite remover every other day so any nitrite will be removed- hence the fluctuating nitrite level (from 0-0.05ppt).

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[rmud]

I should add, I spoke to my dad about feeding and we've reduced the amount of brine shrimp we feed our chromis to an 1/8 cube a day-hopefully that will have some impact on our nitrates.


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[DaveK]

I had a look at what they gave us and it's 'live phytoplanton' (without the K). I'll attach a picture of it. I don't know if it's the same as phytoplankton..
I'm just going to try what our aquatics centre has given us and if the nem starts to deteriorate I'll switch back to brine shrimp and move on to scallop (which is what the guy who gave us the anemone would feed his dinner-plate sized anemone with).

As for testing, I used to test everyday but since there hasn't been much change I've reduced it to 3 tests a week. My test kit has nitrate, nitrite, ammonia, alkalinity and pH tests but no phosphate test. I'll ask my aquatics centre about phosphates- we are going again tomorrow.

I tested today and the nitrates are still over 50ppt and nitrites are at 0.05ppt (although our nitrites do switch from 0-0.05 day to day).

I should explain that this is because we are using BioNitratEx to remove our nitrates. As the product is culturing bacteria that breaks down nitrates, our nitrites will increase slightly. However, we are using nitrite remover every other day so any nitrite will be removed- hence the fluctuating nitrite level (from 0-0.05ppt).
...

Yea, totally the wrong product for a BTA. This food is something you feed corals and filter feeders. I stand by my original post on this. Do not over use foods like this. The can produce a massive amount of nitrates and phosphates.

I think you mean ppm on the nitrate and nitrite readings. Any readings of nitrite above 0 indicate that you either have a tank that has not cycled yet or you have a problem. It doesn't matter if your using BioNitratEx or not. Adding a nitrite remover is the wrong way to correct this.

What I recommend you do here is to discontinue the use of BioNitratEx and the nitrite remover for the time being. Then make some large partial water changes to bring down the high nitrate level. Make sure your new water has a very low nitrate reading. Most people use RO/DI water for mixing their SW.

You will need to change about 30 to 50% of the water and do this several times spread over several weeks. A 50% water change is a 50% reduction in nitrates. You will likely need to do about 5 to 6 partial water changes to get the nitrates down to a reasonable level. The good side is that this will go a long way to getting rid of problem algae.

As an additional note here is an excerpt from the BioNitratEx instructions -

"...5. Use in saltwater
JBL BioNitratEx is also suitable for use in saltwater. Use as described above for
freshwater, but add one layer of activated carbon (JBL Carmomec ultra) to the
BioNitratEx in the filter to avoid nutrients being washed out and clouding the water
during the activation phase. Excessive nitrate levels (50 mg/l and more) should be
reduced by suitable means (water change). ..."
​

I should add, I spoke to my dad about feeding and we've reduced the amount of brine shrimp we feed our chromis to an 1/8 cube a day-hopefully that will have some impact on our nitrates...

You should reduce the brine shrimp feeding to about twice a month as a treat. See my previous post.

 

[ApolloRoma]

Trust your instinct with YOUR tank. Advice and opinions will help, the choices are yours.
Every tank has it's own personality and particular needs. Continue getting to know your tank and trust your gut. Right or wrong, the learning process is yours to experience. So many variables interact in so many ways....... Explainable and often unpredictable until after the fact.
In my OPINION you are on the right track and should enjoy the challenges your tank will pose.
Trial and error inevitable. If it was easy everyone would do it, I think it's really hard work, frustrating, yet rewarding and addictive.
I'm hooked, think you will be too, stay patient !
Hope to see you post future photo's and continue sourcing opinions.
Your tank looks great!

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[rmud]

Trust your instinct with YOUR tank. Advice and opinions will help, the choices are yours.
Every tank has it's own personality and particular needs. Continue getting to know your tank and trust your gut. Right or wrong, the learning process is yours to experience. So many variables interact in so many ways....... Explainable and often unpredictable until after the fact.
In my OPINION you are on the right track and should enjoy the challenges your tank will pose.
Trial and error inevitable. If it was easy everyone would do it, I think it's really hard work, frustrating, yet rewarding and addictive.
I'm hooked, think you will be too, stay patient !
Hope to see you post future photo's and continue sourcing opinions.
Your tank looks great!

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Yes I have felt quite stressed at the moment with our tank (especially since I'm still in full-time education and I have assignments to worry about too). But I do feel that our aquatics centre has a more 'laid back' approach to dealing with our problems which I wasn't entirely impressed with. They seemed to be more interested in selling us a bigger tank or exotic birds than helping us with our nitrate problem.. They also just assumed the way I calibrated the refractometer was wrong (perhaps because I'm a newbie and I'm only 17) even though I followed every single instruction on the manual- it's quite frustrating and I'm pretty sure you're supposed to put the test sample onto the refractometer with a clean pipette and not slap it on with your finger (which is what I saw them doing). I'm going to go there today with my refractometer to see why it's giving us different readings to theirs. If they still don't believe that I'm doing it right, I'll give them a demonstration -.-

I had a good talk with my dad and we are going to try to get the salinity right first before trying to do some major water changes.

We've also found another aquatics centre so I'm hoping to go there and get a second opinion on our water. We are also going there to see if they have mysis shrimp as my dad also felt that us feeding brine shrimp everyday is a major contributor to our high nitrate levels.

Sorry if this post sounded a bit like a rant. My family is telling me that I'm spending too much time worrying about the tank but it really feels like I'm the only one who is bothered to worry. After all, it is because I'm constantly researching that we are starting to address problems that we had no idea about.

Again, thanks for all the support. Hopefully my next post will bring some good news.


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[rmud]

In response to Dave, our aquatics centre gives us saltwater that they mix themselves.
Do you suggest we start mixing our own saltwater? My dad has been thinking of buying an RO filter for our tap so we can mix our own water.
Now that I've realised how many things our aquatics centre has failed to tell us, I'm starting to lose faith in them- and even their water.


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[DaveK]

In response to Dave, our aquatics centre gives us saltwater that they mix themselves.
Do you suggest we start mixing our own saltwater? My dad has been thinking of buying an RO filter for our tap so we can mix our own water.
Now that I've realised how many things our aquatics centre has failed to tell us, I'm starting to lose faith in them- and even their water.


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In a word yes. You just can never tell how much care a LFS put into mixing SW.

Besides that, you have the job of lugging that SW from the store to your home.

(corrected typo)

 

[DaveK]

Trust your instinct with YOUR tank. Advice and opinions will help, the choices are yours.
Every tank has it's own personality and particular needs. Continue getting to know your tank and trust your gut. Right or wrong, the learning process is yours to experience. So many variables interact in so many ways....... Explainable and often unpredictable until after the fact.
In my OPINION you are on the right track and should enjoy the challenges your tank will pose.
Trial and error inevitable. If it was easy everyone would do it, I think it's really hard work, frustrating, yet rewarding and addictive.
I'm hooked, think you will be too, stay patient !
Hope to see you post future photo's and continue sourcing opinions.
Your tank looks great!

Sent from my E5823 using Tapatalk

This is a post I don't agree with. Way too many people have wiped out their tank because they trusted their "instinct". This is extremely easy to do, especially if your a beginner. Not only is this a let down to the owner of the tank, but it can also be very expensive.

Yes, it's important to know your own tank, but you also need to first have at least some basic understanding. You need this so you can understand what is happening in the tank.

In this day and age trial and error is not inevitable for most systems. Many people have set up reef systems with no experience at all, but by listening to people with experience, they get it more or less right.

Now if we were talking about keeping something that had never been kept in an aquarium system before, they there will be some trial and error. Most people are trying to keep the usual items that many other have kept previously. If they are just a bit careful, they should have few problems.

 

[SPR]

In response to Dave, our aquatics centre gives us saltwater that they mix themselves.
Do you suggest we start mixing our own saltwater? My dad has been thinking of buying an RO filter for our tap so we can mix our own water.
Now that I've realised how many things our aquatics centre has failed to tell us, I'm starting to lose faith in them- and even their water.


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If your going to take the plunge and get the RO get the RODI unit as they are not that expensive here in the UK (well in comparison to marine stuff in general!) and will give a 0 TDS reading and this will eliminate adding unwanted solids to the tank which causes all sorts of issues. Mixing your own seawater is easy. If you don't get a RODI then get a TDS meter and test the readings of the water they are giving you and the salinity.

On the Red Sea Refractometer I have this and it is extremely sensitive and needs to be calibrated before each use with 0 TDS RODI water or calibration fluid set to 35ppm. The RODI water is fine as I have both.You calibrate,and wipe and then test the tank water. If you don't recalibrate you will get wild variations in readings. I know this from experience and had a separate thread on this.

As per Dave, The live phytoplankton is for corals and filter feeders, not fish etc. Might be worth testing the knowledge of your LFS by asking them a fairly basic question that you already now the answer to and see what they say.

 

[rmud]

Update: I went to my aquatics centre and sorted out my refractometer- our salinity was at 1.025sg and I've brought it down to 1.024sg today. I'll bring it down gradually to around 1.022-23sg by Wednesday hopefully.

I went and bought mysis shrimp for the chromis and mussels for the anemone. I'll feed the anemone tomorrow (it was fed with bribe shrimp on Monday so tomorrow will be a week since it has been fed).
The midis shrimp comes in cubes, I've given a fair sized shaving of the cube to my chromis today but I don't know how much to give. I was thinking and 1/8 cube..? I'll attach a photo to give you an idea of how big a cube is (I've used my pinky as reference).

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[rmud]

If your going to take the plunge and get the RO get the RODI unit as they are not that expensive here in the UK (well in comparison to marine stuff in general!) and will give a 0 TDS reading and this will eliminate adding unwanted solids to the tank which causes all sorts of issues. Mixing your own seawater is easy. If you don't get a RODI then get a TDS meter and test the readings of the water they are giving you and the salinity.

On the Red Sea Refractometer I have this and it is extremely sensitive and needs to be calibrated before each use with 0 TDS RODI water or calibration fluid set to 35ppm. The RODI water is fine as I have both.You calibrate,and wipe and then test the tank water. If you don't recalibrate you will get wild variations in readings. I know this from experience and had a separate thread on this.

As per Dave, The live phytoplankton is for corals and filter feeders, not fish etc. Might be worth testing the knowledge of your LFS by asking them a fairly basic question that you already now the answer to and see what they say.

Thanks for the advice! My dad is going to order a RODI unit this week. As for the refractometer, after 2 hours of fiddling around with it, I've realised how sensitive it is! I've been recalibrating it before every use now.


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[spiraling]

Hey rmud,

relax, you're doing great! Enjoy your tank for a bit.

If you think your nem is grabbing too much food, you might be feeding the chromis too much. maybe try to defrost a cube, give the chromis about 3 pieces at a time, and see how many he can eat in 5 minutes. That's about what he needs daily. I wouldn't be too concerned if the nem grabs a piece now and then. if he is getting some food frequently then just don't feed otherwise. You have a small tank and that's bound to happen. Mysis are pretty small. As long as the nem is sticky and eating you are fine with it. I just caught you got it from a friend, that is really fun.

A salinity of 1.025 isn't bad at all. IMO you don't need to chase the perfect numbers, but get within a good range and it stable. With you and your dad working on salinity and getting that dialed in, if you should be good.

Some LFS stores are good, some aren't as much, and some depend on who you talk to. Same with these forums. Double check information before you make changes to your tank. I understand you can get frustrated when you seem to be the only person who cares. That happens a lot in this hobby. One family member is dedicated, and others like to look at a nice tank. Welcome to the addiction of saltwater systems

Dave is correct about water changes, they will bring down nitrate. I know this from experience. I also know I have trouble perfectly matching my salinity and temperature with water changed (I'm close and all, but don't have a great system for making water), so I do smaller water changes to keep things more stable. 10% a day is more stable in my system than 50% once a a week.

Have you figured out you nitrate source yet? make sure you don't have deposits of detritus built up somewhere. With all the new knowledge you've gained just from this post I'm sure you will get them down soon enough.

 

[ApolloRoma]

Nitrates do not need to be zero in your tank, not toxic for fish unless closer to 100ppm.
Anemone may discolour at the 50 ppm, thus expelling zooxanthellae. Did you know some corals with large polyps absorb Nitrates?????


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[rmud]

Have you figured out you nitrate source yet? make sure you don't have deposits of detritus built up somewhere. With all the new knowledge you've gained just from this post I'm sure you will get them down soon enough.

I bring some good news! I've managed to bring the salinity levels down to 1.023s.g. so now I can concentrate solely in bringing down these nitrate levels.

I decided to do some detective work and made a list of possible nitrate sources:

1. Dirty protein skimmer- we cleaned our protein skimmer for the first time this week (2 months after setting the tank up). This isn't because we forgot about it but because it never got dirty.. I realise now that this is probably because we didn't used to top off our water to the top of the tank everyday, resulting in our water not circulating through our filtration system. Now that we've been doing this, we've been able to give our skimmer a good clean.
2. Dirty power head- we decided to give our power head a good clean this week as well and it turns out that it really needed one! A lot of what I assume was decomposing leftover food was stuck in the power head- I will also assume that this is probably causing our nitrates to be so high.
3. Dirty tank in general- even with our power head on its highest setting, food will still manage to settle on our gravel. I'm planning to get a gravel scooper so that we can give our gravel a good tossing to remove any buried debris.
4. Overfeeding- I've changed our food from brine shrimp to mysis shrimp and I'm feeding MUCH less to my chromis. I'm guessing that this will stop so much food being sucked into the power head and settling onto our gravel.
5. Saltwater? Like a true detective, I tried to single out every single possible source of nitrates so I tested the saltwater that our aquatics centre gives us for water changes. I should say, I did dilute this water with RO to bring it down to a 1.010s.g. and used this dilute saltwater to bring down the salinity of our tank more gradually (and I don't plan on using it again). After testing- I got a 10ppm nitrate reading so I'm not sure if this is the cause of our nitrate levels (but like I said, I did dilute this water with RO way before I decided to test it so who knows...).

So, I'm pretty sure that our high nitrate levels are due to a mixture of overfeeding and poor tank keeping in general. I've added a protein skimmer clean and powerhead clean to our weekly 'to do' list so hopefully this will prevent our nitrates from increasing once we start doing major water changes.

I've showed my dad a RO/DI unit and TDS meter that would best suit our tank and its requirements. We should hopefully order it by the end of this week and get started with water changes next week. Until then, I will be working on maintaining our salinity levels.

On a brighter note, our clean up crew has done an amazing job and we have very little green algae left in our tank (just red and 'grassy' algae now). As we have so many crabs, we've increased how long we leave our t5 lamps on to 8 hours a day and the blue lamp is on for 5 hours- this will also be better for the anemone too.

I also fed our anemone with a small piece of mussel today. Its tentacles grabbed onto it straightaway and it closed up for around an hour whilst it 'swallowed' its food. It's body is now a bit swollen (I'll assume this is because it's digesting its food now) but I must say, I've haven't seen it look this great since we first got it! [emoji5]

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[spiraling]

Looking good. I still love your rock work and your algae is really cleaned up!

Your protein skimmer may not be adjusted correctly. You should have to empty the cup once or twice a week. The water level is important for a good skim, so that could be part of it. But there are also other adjustments to try depending on what skimmer you have. If you aren't skimming anything out then it makes sense for the nitrates to build up.

RO water should have nitrates of 0. Saltwater made with RO water should have nitrates of 0. If you have nitrates in the water you are getting that might be part of the source. All the other cleaning you did should very much help. Apollo is correct that they don't need to be 0, or really close, unless you are keeping livestock that like it low like SPS corals. Red Sea has some nice informational videos on what corals vs what nitrate levels. Zoas tend to like it a little 'dirty' so its probably loving it. Are you measuring phosphates too? They can help fuel algae.

You nem is beautiful! About a day after mine eats it shrivels back into its foot and disappears for a few hours. That's pretty normal for them. Anytime I cook seafood I save a little raw treat for my nem. Tuna, salmon, swordfish, shrimp, clams. Its a little piggy.

BTW - you might want to move the zoas a little further from the nem. The nem can get to be about 12" across, and the zoas will spread. Keeping a wide birth around the nem so it wont sting them later is a lesson I wish I had known earlier. I lost a nice meteor shower I couldn't get off the rock.

 

[ApolloRoma]

How is your Anemone / hermits?
Zoas? (algae)....

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