Rose Bubble Tip not extending

Jim Olson

New Member
Hi folks,
I'm new to this and not sure about what I have going on. This Rose Tip has not extended at all since I put him in the tank. Been in tank for 5 wks. Eats fine on Silverside (mouth is closed) and seems to be growing but does not extend. Would a higher flow area be better for him?

75gal tank on started 8/11/17
BRS Pukani(70 lbs)
Caribsea Aragonite sand
Red Sea Coral Pro Salt
Octo1000 HOB skimmer
Aquaflow 110 with Chemi-pure Blueand Poly filter
2 Starfire led lights (with 3 channels)
RODI water

IMG_0715.jpg IMG_0719.jpg
 

DaveK

Well-Known Member
Anemones require well established tanks and excellent quality water to survive long term. In looking at this post and your first post, you have several issues that should be resolved.

Well established tanks usually means that they have been set up and running and stable water conditions for about a year. Your only about four months into this. Note the algae on the rocks around the anemone. This tends to indicate that your tank is not yet mature enough for an anemone.

Only time will correct this issue, so your best course of action would be to return the anemone and wait the additional time. However few people want to do this, so here are other areas that should be addressed.

Check your nitrate and phosphate levels. Anemones should should be in water where these readings are very low. If they are high use large partial water changes to reduce the levels.

The placement of the anemone is very close to the other anemone you have in there. This may be a problem. hopefully one of them will move. Often one can sting the other causing a problem.

Your filtration system and skimmer are very limited for the size tank you are running. Manufacturers tend to way overstate the size tanks their equipment should be used on. As a rule of thumb, you want equipment that can handle about twice the size of your tank. For example if something is rated for a 100 gal tank, you want to use it on about a 50 gal tank at most. As a note make sure your cleaning the filter often. This should be about once a week.

While we are on the subject, consider a major upgrade to the filtration system. My personal choice would be a berlin type sump and large powerful skimmer, but other ways can work too.

You also have a very crowded tank, eight fish in 70 gal of water. In SW tanks a good rule to follow, especially when your starting out, is to keep the stocking level about 1 inch of fish for about 5 gal of water. You also need to account for all the water displaced by the sand and rock. This is usually substantial. You can figure that your 75 gal tank is holding only about 45 gal or so of water. This would typically let you keep about 9 or 10 inches of fish. If you figure your fish are about 2 inches long you have about 16 inches of fish, far more than ideal.

With stocking levels that high it's going to be very difficult to maintain the quality of water needed for an anemone. Consider reducing the fish population. The shrimp and anemones don't create much in the way of waste products, so they are not a big factor here. Of course you can also upgrade the tank size, but that gets extremely expensive.

As for water flow, anemones usually like moderate water flow, and good circulation will benefit the entire tank. It's worth adding a couple of circulation pumps, one at each end of the tank. However, this is not going to make up for the other issues.

Lastly, I know reading this post might seem like your new and getting totally ripped apart on your first couple of posts. I'm not trying to do this, but you do have some things that need to get looked into. Your tank really isn't all that bad off, especially for a first tank. Many others have done far far worse the first time out.
 

Uncle99

Well-Known Member
Your not posting any water parameters.
To DaveK point if your moving forward I would guess one of the water parameters is out....nens require perfect water and consistent. I'm OK with the time your tank has been up, but water must be perfect.
Check them all....
 
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