HELP! First Anemone

[DaveK]

Your moving in on a lower nitrate level. Keep up the good work.

You might want to test your tap water to see if that was a source of the problem. Nitrates in tap water will not hurt you, but they can help cause major algae outbreaks. Of course, this in not the only source of nitrates in a tank.

 

[ApolloRoma]

I'm guessing your return pump is located in your third compartment below the filter combs....? ( no harm in removing and cleaning this pump which also has an impeller )
Anemone fish for Christmas??


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[rmud]

Your moving in on a lower nitrate level. Keep up the good work.

You might want to test your tap water to see if that was a source of the problem. Nitrates in tap water will not hurt you, but they can help cause major algae outbreaks. Of course, this in not the only source of nitrates in a tank.

I tested our homemade RO (made from tap water) for nitrates and it came back with a 0ppm reading. I think our source of nitrates was caused by a mixture of over feeding, letting the water level be too low so the protein skimmer wasn't working and the salt water our aquatics centre gave us (I tested some of it after I diluted it with RO and it gave a 10ppm reading for nitrates).


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[rmud]

I'm guessing your return pump is located in your third compartment below the filter combs....? ( no harm in removing and cleaning this pump which also has an impeller )
Anemone fish for Christmas??


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I'll have a look around the filtration with my dad to see if there are any other pumps we can clean- he did say he wanted to clean the first and third chamber this weekend.

If all things go well then, hopefully, we'll get a little clown to give our anemone some company!

I think, once we bring our nitrates down to a suitable level, we'll wait for 1-2 weeks to see if anything in our tank will cause the nitrates to come back- this will tell us if there is something else wrong.

I also need to buy a phosphate test kit and check that they are not too high either (so the clown may end up being a new year present)!


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[rmud]

So I went to our aquatics centre and bought carbon (which we'll put into our filtration system tomorrow).

I also bought a phosphate test kit and tested our water. Our tank water has a phosphate reading of 1.36ppm which is really high- now we know what is fuelling our algae.

I tested our RO water for phosphates and got a 0 reading. Once I mix a new batch of saltwater, I'll test that for phosphates too.

I'm not entirely sure how to reduce phosphates- I know frequent water changes will help but other than that.. nothing. Any advice?

My dad and I also bought a lobophylia (which will help absorb some of the nitrates in our tank). We've affectionately named him Dutchman- you'll see why once you see a photo!

My phone camera does no justice to the real colour of the lobophylia but you get the idea...


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[DaveK]

In addition to water changes, phosphates can be removed by using one of the many phosphate absorbing products available. I prefer to use GFO (Granular Ferric Oxide). You can buy it in bulk as GFO, or buy products like SeaChem Phosnet or Two Little Fishes Phosban.

Ideally GFO works best in a dedicated reactor, but it will work fine for you if you put it in a fine mesh filter bag and add it to your filtration system.

I am not a fan of Alumina Oxide phosphate removal products. They just don't seem to do a very good job. I also do not recommend mixing GFO in the same filter bag or reactor with other media. GFO is a very hard material, and it can easily grind up other media just from the water flow. This is especially trun of carbon. You can use both media in the same tank, just use a filter bag for each media.

"...My dad and I also bought a lobophylia (which will help absorb some of the nitrates in our tank). ..."

You seem to have been fed some misinformation on this one. While corals do remove some nitrate and phosphates, it's usually not nearly enough to make much difference in the tank. The coral is a hardy one though, so you should do fine with it. Keep in mind that it likes a lot less light, compared to the anemone, so it's a good candidate for going near the bottom of the tank or in a dim corner.

 

[ApolloRoma]

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[ApolloRoma]

IMHO: salinity and temp. are 1st & 2nd anyday! Keep it simple while you're flat out with basics.
Can be all consuming, enjoy your tank and research as much as possible. "Tis the start of a long journey".


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[ApolloRoma]

Lobo like eating plankton!
Dutchman looks awesome!, great coral addition to your system. How's Nem doing?

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[rmud]

Sorry it's been a while.

In general things have been going well, the carbon has brought nitrates down to less than 5ppm (but more than 2ppm) and I've been using 'Rowa phos' phosphate remover.

Since our nitrates haven't risen at all, we introduced two clown fish to our tank on Tuesday. They've settled in well and have been giving our chromis a hard time but it's only really serious just before feeding. The clowns haven't paid much attention to the anemone at all.

The nem was doing fine too until I came back from grocery shopping today- I think it's starting to move again so I switched the powerhead off in case it came fully loose from the rock.

It's foot is inflated and from what I can see (I can't see very much because its tentacles are still nicely inflated), one side of it's foot is kinda yellow in colour.

I don't know how the foot could be damaged because it has stayed in the same position for over a month now and we haven't tried to move it or even touch it for that matter..

I did some tests last night after topping off with RO
Nitrates 3/4ppm
Nitrites 0ppm
Phosphates 0.36 ppm (so the phosphate remover has been working)

I'm going to do a full test on the water today to see if I can find a reason why the anemone is acting like this.
I'll attach a photo of how the nem looked when I got home and how it looks now (it's moving very quickly).

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[rmud]

Here's a better photo.


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[rmud]

The anemone seems to be healthy- just moving. I think it's settled down now but I'm not completely sure so I'm going to leave the powerhead off for the day and see if the anemone will settle down overnight.

I haven't been able to do a full test on the water yet but more strange things have been happening. I noticed that some of the red Cyanobacteria we have started to glow a bright orange colour. I didn't have time to take a photo but any ideas of what's going on?

I thought maybe it was due to the fact that I added more phosphate remover to the filtration last night after initially calculating the wrong amount (I initially measured 5g instead of 20g so I added another 15g last night).


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[rmud]

Here's a photo of the anemone now- it's foot looks fine but I'm not sure if it's still moving (I've been out most of the day so I can't tell if hasn't moved).

I realised I didn't show you a photo of the clowns so there they are. They were sold to us as a guaranteed couple so they haven't been fighting each other but they do like to gang up on our chromis. The smaller one (which I assume is the male) is particularly aggressive but our chromis is pretty quick so she's able to avoid a lot of damage.

I've had to go back to feeding every day to stop the clowns from going crazy on my chromis but the phosphates still seem to be going down so I don't think it'll be an issue.


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