carpet anenome dying?

[reefmaster]

hey, i have a green carpet anenome and it has shrunk to the size of a silver dollar. It's mouth is super large, or i dont know if its foot or whatever. it kinda looks like he is turning himself inside out. Is he dying? Or is he just really stressed.

I just had a disaster in my tank over vacation, so i wouldnt be suprised if he is dying.

I did a water change last night, and all ph, ammonia, nitrate ect. are fine

 

[steve-s]

Need more history about the anemone and details about your tank set up...

Cheers
Steve

 

[reefmaster]

hm

well, ive had it for about a month or 2 and its been fine ever since. My gold stripe maroon clownfish hosts in it. Since my tank disaster which happend last weekend all i have is my hammer coral, the anenome, some crabs and the gold stripe maroon clownfish. My tank is 30 gallons.

 

[steve-s]

In terms of tank set up I was not merely asking for tank size but actual equipment details and tank parameters.

Since my tank disaster which happend last weekend

Care to expand on that little bomb shell... 8O

FWIW, try to offer as much information as you can whenever you post. The more detail you provide the more accurate replies will be, sparse or insignificant info lead to errors.

Cheers
Steve

 

[reefmaster]

well, here it goes

well, i went to hawaii for a week and my relative took care of feeding fish and turning on/off lights. came back and cleaner shrimp died and my chromie. i took um out asap.

LFS told me to check all paramaters (which are all good, exept my alk is high. he said to also clean my filter media. since i have a canister filter he said to put the sock in the washer with some bleach, cycle it, then do it agian with no bleach.

i tryed to clean the sand as good as i could when i was doing the water change.


hope thats enough info

 

[steve-s]

Re: well, here it goes

hope thats enough info

To be honest not what I was looking for but a step in the right direction...

So while away on vacation someone else cared for the tank and as is quite common overfed and possibley skewed the chemistry. There may also be a the problem the lights where not on a proper time cycle.

If you had the tests done by the LFS, I'm skeptical on the results. Most haven't a clue what's good or bad. They think moreso in terms of good enough. You should really own your own basics tests (if you don't already) for proper care of your tank. Ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, pH and an accurate means of measuring the salinity are the bare minimum.

At the very least, you will most likely have elevated nitrate readings. Anemones of any species will not tolerate higher levels at all. Without knowing the actual numbered results of your tests, I would take a pro-active approach and perform several water changes over the next 7-10 days will well aged/aerated ( a full day) SW. Change about 15% at a time every second day. This will help repair water quality and bring your alk back into line depending on your salt mix. Are you able to test the chemistry of the saltmix, alk, Ca, pH and such?

As for the lighting, you can get yourself a simple light timer from HD. This would be alot more efficient and consistant for the tank and it's inhabitants. If whomever was caring for it while you where gone did not have a consistant routine allowing for a proper 10ish hour photoperiod, the anemone could be experiencing light shock once back to a normal routine. This would greatly depend on the type/intensity of light you have now though?

The anemone is severely stressed and still somewhat a mystery as to a concrete cause but I'm guessing it is tied into the vacation scenario. If something happened serious enough to affect the health of fish and mobile inverts, it's not a wonder about the anemone. Try your best to repair the quality and also try to find out what the person who was caring for the tank did while you where away.

Cheers
Steve

 

[reefmaster]

lol, i did all of the water parameters by myself.


ph is at 8.0, nitrate 0, nitrite 0 alk is high ,nitrates 1

salinity is at 36 (i have one of those dingy salinity meters) i mean when my lfs took my salinity it was fine (he did it with refracto) refractometers are expensive.

 

[HoopsGuru]

Drs. Foster and Smith have a refractometer for $39 I believe. A very small investment for the piece of mind and you probably didn't know that they were available at that price.