Sick fish due to sick anemone?

[jcramey84]

Info:

150 gal tank
Live rock/coral/anemones/sand
2 koran angels
12 blue chromis
2 clown fish
1 sandshifting goby
1 mandarin dragnet
1 foxface rabbit
1 eel cleaner shrimp
1 garden eel
2 damsels
1 dwarf angel
Misc. hermits and snails

My husband and I are new to the salt water scene (hello everyone!) and have a bit of an issue. For a few days now we've noticed that one of the anemones (one of the 2 that the clown fish never touch) moves around a lot, especially towards the window when we have the blinds pulled to let in some sun. We looked into it and we know that we
Need to get a better light for our tank.

The situation that we've run into is that in its adventures of moving around alot is that I think it moved too close to the pump that cycles water around. I say this because there were pieces of its "arms" from one side of it floating around last night. I moved it to a spot away from it on some rocks and took out all of the floating pieces I could find. It seemed to be looking fine this morning but while I was at work husband told me that our dwarf angel was swimming in a jerking motion and died and the chromises were swimming at the surface and acting like they were gasping for air.

He did a 5gal water change and noted that the fish seem to be looking a little better. Is there anything more that yall can recommend that we do?

Thanks!

 

[WickedXb]

U should change more then 5 gallons. What lights do u have running now? Check your ph ammo and nitrates. Then check your alkalinity

 

[Nu-Nu the eel]

Did you turn off the pump??? That could take oxygen out of the water and kill the fish. The nem might have stung the angel but i doubt it. Anemones moving is totally natural and there is nothing wrong with it. I agree, test your levels and with a large tank like that you should be doing 40 gallon water changes every 1 1/2 weeks IMO. Also how deep is your sand?! Garden eels need very very deep sand... Probably like 7-8 inches maybe more

 

[WickedXb]

I mean I'm no expert but I've made a ton of mistake with my first saltwater tank. Just gotta have a disposable income to get it right. Yeah with a 150 Atleast 40 gallons. I get a lot of stuff off Craigslist. Picked up a 250 watt halide brand new for 75$.

 

[crister13]

Just keep up with the water changes. Since anemones are almost all water they decompose very quickly and fouls up water quite a bit.

 

[WickedXb]

Good luck.

 

[jcramey84]

Thanks everyone for all the helpful tips! I didn't get a chance to talk to my husband about what levels are as far as testing is concerned. But he did do a massive water change, tirned off the cyclimg pump, and threw on a spare filter to help speed up the water cleaning process. After all that everything seems to be behaving well.

 

[Race37]

May also look and see if you have a surface film, this can really mess up the oxygen levels, especially if it is a 150 tall, very little service to volume ratio

 

[jcramey84]

So that same anemone that I'm pretty sure got stuck in the cycle pump? Well, now it got stuck in the filter pump.

What in the world do I do? This guy moves around in the tank way too much and now I think he may be too damaged to save.

 

[melosu58]

How old is the set up? Did you cycle the tank? He will keep moving around till he finds the right parameters and lighting. If either is off he will keep moving.

 

[jcramey84]

So that anemone was dead... Did a water change and everything seems to be doing well now.

Thanks again everyone for all the help! I never knew how stressful this saltwater tank business could be! Like I mentioned before, my husband and I are new to this, so we greatly appreciate all the help we can get.

Thanks everyone!

 

[jcramey84]

May also look and see if you have a surface film, this can really mess up the oxygen levels, especially if it is a 150 tall, very little service to volume ratio

Yeah there was a lot of that, and a lot of gooey film that came from the anemone that was in the water. Took a net and skimmed all that i could out and did a water change. Thanks!