Sick haitian anemone?

[kelllyrocks]

We have a haitian anemone that keeps turning black-ish and then shriveling up. Then he will come out again and be pretty and then he'll shrivel back up. He's regularly purple... I have photos but do not know how to upload them yet.

We do the liquid tests on 10/17 around 8PM and everything seems in the norm.

Temp: 81F
pH: Roughly 8.1
Ammonia: .10
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 20
Salinity: 1.025
Calcium: 540 ppm
Carbonate: 179 ppm
Phosphate: .25 ppm

We have a 36 gallon bowfront. Our light is a marineland LED, 1670 lumens. We have a wet/dry filter... Good amount of liverock .. about 40lbs. and Besides this one anemone we have 3 different damsels - Dominoe, Sargent, and yellow tail.., 2 clowns, 1 goby and 1 skunk shrimp and 1 peppermint shrimp.

Any ideas why my haitian anemone is lookin down in the dumps?!

 

[JLH-l3ioCub3]

Definitely sounds like it's just expelling waste to me. I was worried when I first got mine but turns out that it's normal. Usually happens 1-2 times/week. They deflate and replenish themselves with new water and expel waste or essentially "poop" and you should usually see a dirty slime coming from it's mouth.

 

[JLH-l3ioCub3]

This is what it looks like when mine is pooing..

 

[kelllyrocks]

I just took this picture for you... you say this is normal? Haha.



This is what she looks like when she's not pooping I guess..

 

[JLH-l3ioCub3]

Yea if it's doing it every day that's not normal.. Your test results don't sound good but I'm not very experienced to know exactly how they will affect the anemone. It would help everyone to know 1: how long your tank has been running. 2: what other inhabitants are in the tank. 3: when the last time you did a water change and what type of water you're using;Tap,RO,etc.

Water quality as well as proper lighting is crucial to the health of an anemone. Hopefully someone more experienced here will give you more experienced input.
If the foot of the anemone is becoming detached from the rock, it is dying. If you even suspect that it is dying take it out ASAP as carefully as you can because it will kill your tank very quickly, and any small pieces left in will also cause you a huge headache. After a nem dies, a 50% water change is something you want to do immediately. Then, keep a close eye on nitrates and keep doing water changes daily until they are 0. Honestly, there should be no ammonia, nitrates or phosphates right now but low levels are ok. I would do a 20% water change now to try to get those levels down. In my experience ammonia is present either because a new fish was recently added, something recently died, or your tank isn't cycled. I change 5 gallons of my total 29 once a week and my levels are always 0. If I miss a week they MAY be very minute, but the rufugium helps with that. If you don't have macro algae to absorb the nitrates and phosphates they will just keep accumulating.
Phosphates and nitrates always accumulate for various reason and again, the presence of those two are normal but bad when reaching high levels. I'm just giving you everything I know because I don't know how much you know.

Is the tank cycled?

 

[JLH-l3ioCub3]

Actually, your water does look ok, I'm really not sure what's going on. Hopefully someone else can give you better advice.
I'm still fairly new at this.

 

[mr_X]

i don't think you have enough light to support an anemone. 1600 lumens is about the potency of 2 curly-Q energy saver bulbs.
you also have detectable ammonia-poison to inhabitants. i would cut back on feeding and do a couple water changes. that should help a lot.

 

[kelllyrocks]

Are you serious? Because it says Reef capable, it was nearly $400, and they said it would do great for anemone and coral!

 

[mr_X]

i know that's what they call it, but according to their own website, the output is shabby at best. one person asked if you could keep a bubble tip anemone, and they answered
"Yes, the Reef Capable LED’s were specifically designed for photosynthetic organism like your bubble tip anemone. The chart on the packaging shows how much light is available at different aquarium depths, at 6” your anemone is getting full illumination."
so, if your light demanding corals are way up top, allegedly, it can sustain them.

everyone else is using 3 watt LEDs to reach tank bottoms. marineland uses 1 watt LED.
go to home depot and pick a bulb off of the shelf and read the box. you'll see you can match the lumen output of this fixture with standard light bulbs.

 

[Gti_Leo]

lumens is just a figure of light output though. i never expected the marineland LEDs to do much but the optics on LEDs direct their light to a smaller area so the lumens doesn't need to be as high to generate the PAR value, and from what i've seen the marineland LEDS give a pretty spotty light and you can really tell how narrow the beams are.

i myself if i were to go with LEDs which i might on my next build would go with a DIY rapid LED kit that uses 3 watt cree LEDs

 

[JLH-l3ioCub3]

From what I've heard those are awesome. I know I don't have quite enough light for my nem so I'm getting their retro kit for my 29 BC. My nem has been doing well for 5 months now and growing like crazy but it's stretching out as far as it can to get more light. You get a lot more longevity out of LEDs as well so it's definitely worth it.

 

[mr_X]

lumens is just a figure of light output though.

yes. that's exactly what it is. if you aren't putting out much lumens, you aren't putting out much light, no matter what kind of reflectors you are using.
i don't care what kind of optics or reflectors you are going to put on a lamp- it's not going to make it brighter. it's only going to direct whatever it's putting out in a direction.