# Help: My Long Tentacle Anenome is Dying



## Frank1971 (Aug 23, 2010)

I purchased it about 2 months ago, and it was very lush and a healthy green color. But now he seems to be shrinking as all his tentacles are getting smaller and smaller as well as the rest of the body. I have plenty of lighting, running my T5 for 10-14 hours a day. I was feeding it early on, but no longer takes the food on his tentacles. My water parameters are perfect with 0 nitrates and Ammonia. I have other corals in my tank that seem to be doing okay, my Polyps continue to grow with no problems. My other inverts such as Emerald Green Crab, Hermit Crabs and Sand Sifting Star are doing just fine. I have had a problem with my Hammer coral, but that was exposed to bad lighting prior to it's problems before it also shrank up. My hammer now under the same lighting condition seems to not want to recover, I just assume that under my previous bad lighting conditions that it may have been permanently damaged. But my Anemone never was exposed to the bad lighting, my bulbs in my T5 are only 3 months old. What could be the problem? Any thoughts would really be appreciated, because the little guy needs help badly. Thanks!


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## tike (Nov 10, 2008)

Hmmm.... first off, how large is the tank and how many t-5's do you have across it? It may be that it isn't enough light for the anemone. Also you need to have the t-5's that have indivdual reflectors for each bulb in order to get the maximum intensity you need to keep the anemone healthy.I say that because you are also having problems with the hammer coral. The _Polyps_ I am assuming is star polyps or zoanthids which don't requir quite the light intensity of LPS and others. If it took two months for this to come about i would have to look at lighting since your other parms are testing 0( you didn't mention your nitrites).


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## Frank1971 (Aug 23, 2010)

tike said:


> Hmmm.... first off, how large is the tank and how many t-5's do you have across it? It may be that it isn't enough light for the anemone. Also you need to have the t-5's that have indivdual reflectors for each bulb in order to get the maximum intensity you need to keep the anemone healthy.I say that because you are also having problems with the hammer coral. The _Polyps_ I am assuming is star polyps or zoanthids which don't requir quite the light intensity of LPS and others. If it took two months for this to come about i would have to look at lighting since your other parms are testing 0( you didn't mention your nitrites).


Tike, I have 4 bulbs. 2 white. 2 blue. My tank is 80 gallons and my nitrites are a 80ppm. It looks like I do have reflectors if the reflectors are those silver shiny things under the lights.


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## Reefing Madness (Aug 12, 2011)

Nitrites are worse for Corals than Nitrates are. Very dangerous situation you have going on there for your Corals right now. I'd recommed doing a 50% water change A.S.A.P. to get those readings down. If that takes them down by 1/2, do it again tomorrow to get them down even more. Need to find out what died in your tank to create that, you should have had an Ammonia Bloom before you had that Nitrites go up, or you just removed a Filter form your system that had alot of media in it, thereby removing your Nitrates that were keeping your Nitrites in check. ??
Need to have your Calcium, Magnesium, ALK and Phosphate readings also in order to be of more help.
But, on the other side of things, Nems do shrink up from time to time, they usually fluff back up in a day or 2 also. But having that high of Nitrites in your tank is not good.


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## Frank1971 (Aug 23, 2010)

Reefing Madness said:


> Nitrites are worse for Corals than Nitrates are. Very dangerous situation you have going on there for your Corals right now. I'd recommed doing a 50% water change A.S.A.P. to get those readings down. If that takes them down by 1/2, do it again tomorrow to get them down even more. Need to find out what died in your tank to create that, you should have had an Ammonia Bloom before you had that Nitrites go up, or you just removed a Filter form your system that had alot of media in it, thereby removing your Nitrates that were keeping your Nitrites in check. ??
> Need to have your Calcium, Magnesium, ALK and Phosphate readings also in order to be of more help.
> But, on the other side of things, Nems do shrink up from time to time, they usually fluff back up in a day or 2 also. But having that high of Nitrites in your tank is not good.


Reefing, thanks again. I just got hit with ick and had a few fish die. I removed them, and did a ammonia test and did find a spike. I did a 10% water change and it helped get rid of that ammonia spike. I havent got the reef test kit yet because I don't have too may corals, but I will fork out the cash to get one now. I will do the water change, and see if I can get those nitrites down. I better get to work... thanks!

What is an ideal number for Nitrites?


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## Reefing Madness (Aug 12, 2011)

Nitrites should always read 0.


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## Frank1971 (Aug 23, 2010)

Reefing Madness said:


> Nitrites should always read 0.


Hold on, my bad. My nitrites are at 0... my nitrates are at 80ppm. What is an ideal nitrate reading for corals?


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## Reefing Madness (Aug 12, 2011)

Frank1971 said:


> Hold on, my bad. My nitrites are at 0... my nitrates are at 80ppm. What is an ideal nitrate reading for corals?


Under 20 for most coral. Under 10 for an Anemone. But i have spoken with a few people who do care for Anemones with Trates between 10-20. I would definately not let them get above 20 though.


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## Euruproctos (Mar 2, 2012)

I am somewhat dubious that an anemone would be ok with just 4 t-5s, but I don't know if that's low enough to really cause problems that soon

But yeah, those trates are ridic high


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## Lego Star Wars (Mar 13, 2012)

I had a feeling you had your nitrites and nitrates crossed. How old is your tank? Temperature? If you have fish dying of ich, you may have more problems than your anemone and nitrates.


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## Frank1971 (Aug 23, 2010)

Lego Star Wars said:


> I had a feeling you had your nitrites and nitrates crossed. How old is your tank? Temperature? If you have fish dying of ich, you may have more problems than your anemone and nitrates.


Lego,

I have my heater set at 78, but the tank temp tends to get a little warmer by a degree or two at times because of the T5 lighting. My tank is about 3 months old and the ich came from a Yellow Tang bullying a Powder Blue. I removed the Powder Blue, but the ick got into my system. The ick problem seems to have run its course, at least the most violent stage as all my fish are doing fine now. I did a 25% water change yesterday, and got those nitrates down to 40ppm.


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## Reefing Madness (Aug 12, 2011)

Do another water change to cut those down again.


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## Lego Star Wars (Mar 13, 2012)

Hi Frank. First things first, you'll probably need to get those temperatures down a bit. It really doesn't matter what your heater is set at. Grab yourself a cheap floating thermometer. Ich and stress kind of run hand in hand. Heat being a big stress. Anything over 82, your going to see those cottonballs on tangs. Cooling fans in your canopy or small clip on desk top fans blowing over your sump should do the trick. Reduce your lighting down to 8 hours a day to help keep your temps low. Ventilate your hood as best possible. If all 3 of those don't get your temps down, let us know what type of submersible pumps your running, we can help you from there on the heat issues. No, I don't think a chiller will be necessary.
My honest opinion, your tank seems over stocked and young. I'm guessing by your signature that you moved things from the 55 FOLWR to your 80 gallon reef? If you did do a tank transfer, keep in mind that you will still suffer some kind of cycling, even under the best conditions so the tank really wasn't ready for the bioload you have. If you didn't transfer, your tank is just WAY too young for a bioload like that.
Anenome typically don't die in a day. It is usually a process that can be a week to 3 months. Although I'm not 100% sure of your T-5 set up and the quality of it, I agree with euru that it wasn't enough light. 
But your lights alone didn't kill it. Lights, heat and water quality got you, your anenome and fish, and probably your hammerhead.
So my advice is to do as reefing madness says and keep up on water changes. I've never seen a properly conducted 20% water change EVER hurt a tank. I'd look to do 1 a day and throw a poly pad somewhere in your sump and tell us what color it changes to. 
-Take a step back and SLOW DOWN. Your tank is way too young. These things take time and I promise you, the wait is worth it.
-Tell us about your filtration and pumps, from your RO/DI system to the smallest power head you are using for water movement.
-Cool your tank down.
-Stop buying live stock and let's worry about the right equipment at the moment.
Last thing, and please don't take this as an insult... any and almost everyone in this hobby has done it. The difference between the novice and the advanced is the novice posts "my water parameters are perfect, but my tank is green, I have green hair algae, this died, now that died, now I have diseases!!!" The advanced knows that these things happen because his parameters are off and fixes them. If you need some help with testing equipment, we can talk about it. I think for right now, all you need is a thermometer and give us some pics/description of your filtration.


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## tekjunkie28 (May 5, 2012)

Lego Star Wars said:


> Hi Frank. First things first, you'll probably need to get those temperatures down a bit. It really doesn't matter what your heater is set at. Grab yourself a cheap floating thermometer. Ich and stress kind of run hand in hand. Heat being a big stress. Anything over 82, your going to see those cottonballs on tangs. Cooling fans in your canopy or small clip on desk top fans blowing over your sump should do the trick. Reduce your lighting down to 8 hours a day to help keep your temps low. Ventilate your hood as best possible. If all 3 of those don't get your temps down, let us know what type of submersible pumps your running, we can help you from there on the heat issues. No, I don't think a chiller will be necessary.
> My honest opinion, your tank seems over stocked and young. I'm guessing by your signature that you moved things from the 55 FOLWR to your 80 gallon reef? If you did do a tank transfer, keep in mind that you will still suffer some kind of cycling, even under the best conditions so the tank really wasn't ready for the bioload you have. If you didn't transfer, your tank is just WAY too young for a bioload like that.
> Anenome typically don't die in a day. It is usually a process that can be a week to 3 months. Although I'm not 100% sure of your T-5 set up and the quality of it, I agree with euru that it wasn't enough light.
> But your lights alone didn't kill it. Lights, heat and water quality got you, your anenome and fish, and probably your hammerhead.
> ...


OK as im learning about reefkeeping and what not I have a ? Why do you say to lower tank temp?? Shouldnt a reef tank optimally be at 80? I'm still learning here so idk much but I keep my tank 78-80 but it IS A CICHLID tank 55 gal.


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## Lego Star Wars (Mar 13, 2012)

78-80 are normal reef tank temps. Frank didn't tell us his actual temp, only that he had a heater set at 78 and his tank tends to get a little warmer. I don't think I could tell the difference between an 80 or 85 degree tank just by sticking my hand in it. There is no indicating how high it actually goes. Judging by his description of what's wrong I believe his tank is at least @ 82*. One way for him to find out his high end temperature would be to turn up the thermostat on his heater and see what temp he reaches when the heater turns on, but its easier, more accurate to just go with a glass thermometer. Those ones that stick on the outside of the glass have a tendency of being very inaccurate. Again, there are more issues than just his temperatures, that one is just the easiest and fastest to fix. Keeping them on the lower end will help reduce some stress and prevent other undesirable outbreaks from really taking hold of his tank (aptasia).


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