sick fish

[teranicole]

i have a 24 gallon saltwater aquarium that was set up back in october. on friday i purchased a bubble tip anemone and a sebea clown fish. after getting them home the anemone would not stick to a rock and kept floating to the top of the tank. after anchoring it with a rock, it began to bury itself upside down in the sand. my fiance placed the bag the fish was in into the aquarium for about an hour to acclimate it. by sunday the anemone and clown fish were dead. i tested the water and the ph is about 7.5, the nitrates about 5 and the ammonia is about 5, and nitrites are 0, but all the other fish are fine. i have 2 other clown fish, a goby, and a scooter blenny. no medications or anything of any sort has been added to the tank. partial water change and vaccuming of the live sand was done about 2-3 days ago. the fish and anemone displayed no signs/symptoms of any kind except that the anemone buried itself upside down into the sand. can anyone tell me what went wrong??

 

[Ziggy953]

Your tank has not been established enough to house an anemone. You are pretty much at your max for fish.

The fact that you have ammonia present in the tank tells me it wasn't cycled completely. Your PH should be 8.0-8.4 so it is very low. I would suggest doing some water changes to get things in balance. When you mix your SW mix it overnight a power head can help in doing this.

Go to the article section of this site and read about cycling a tank.

 

[Kurt_Nelson]

Just to add to what Ziggy said...

pH will really move around on you, and often read low during a cycle. I wouldn't focus on the pH and add anything to raise it, but instead get your ammonia issue taken care of. Most likely, you were either not completely cycled, or you added too much too quick and the bacteria haven't had time to catch up. Once the tank gets done with catching up, your pH will more than likely be higher. Water changes (like 20% daily) will help bring those ammonia levels down in the mean time.