Weird anemone problem

might be bad food? test water and check temp.

dont know much about anemones hope it works out for you. i will be watching for you repost

Temperature and water is ok. As said on an other post, I can't test phosphate right now. Does not look like they will eat today so I might wait until tomorrow and will give a try with some good old table shrimp or ciscoes.

heya, sorry for the delayed welcome, but WELCOME! 
as far as anemones go, i apologize in advance if i repeat any information that you are already aware of, but i like to cover all bases, just in case there is something that is new information to even the most experienced of reef keepers.  plus, since other people read these posts, they may be having the same issues or similar ones to what you are having, so if they can read this and get answers, then it makes it more informative for everyone on our forum. 

anyhoo, so, first off, i'm sure you DO already know that anemones are VERY sensitive to ANY change in what quality.  i saw in your other posts that your tank is 25 gallon.  because it's such a small tank, changes in water quality happen FAST, and are often difficult to fix without stressing out the inhabitants because it often calls for a large water change.  25 gallons is very small for anemones, so congrads for being successful thus far! 

as far as feeding, it is not essential to feed anemones frozen food, and often times frozen food can be the most polluting and risky of all foods to introduce into a tank.  there are many things that can go wrong in the processing of frozen foods all up until the point that you first put them into your tank...parasites, bacteria, and other harmful pathogens can be introduced into your tank, if even ONE thing goes wrong with the food along the way.  Not to say that anyone should COMPLETELY get rid of feeding frozen foods, because depending on the brand, they can be REALLY good for fish, inverts, and corals, but they can be risky, especially in a very small tank. 

i usually just target feed my bubbletip (have had it for many years now...larger than a dinner plate) with phytoplanton, cyclopeeze (freeze dried power that i mix with the other liquid suspension foods), etc when i target feed my corals.  it's really ALL that it needs, along with strong lighting.  but, when i DO feed it something more substantial, i feed it freeze dried krill, or cyclopeeze wafer (flake) food.  this is MUCH less polluting to the water, and will bring out colors in your anemones that you didn't even know they could have!  the freeze dried krill is up to you which brand you use.  there are many.  as far as the cyclopeeze, the freeze dried "wafers" that i use are from the Argent brand, which is the most popular cyclopeeze brand.  they are kind of strange in consistency.  they aren't really "flakes", but they aren't really "wafers" either.  they are more pliable than both.  i usually just grab a bunch between my fingers and smoosh it together into a ball, and then give it straight to my anemone.  it LOVES it!  it's good for fish too.  so anyhow, in a tank that size, i would just be really careful about putting frozen ANYTHING in there. 

also, i know you said that your tap water is crystal clear, but have you ever tested the TDS on it?  your nitrates and phosphates may be at 0ppm, but if your TDS is much higher than 10ppm, you will end up with a whole lot of problems, especially when keeping anemones.  i have an RO unit, and i have a two way inline TDS meter.  sometimes i test the water going into the RO unit and it's 130ppm, and other days it's 170ppm, so tap water can change in quality too, in no time AT ALL.  anyhow, hope this helps a bit, and hope your anemones start looking better!  -Ash

Hi,
Thanks for the advice about food. I never tried freezed dried food but I will. I usually give them table shrimp, scalops and other stuff I find at the grocery store. I also feed the tank cyclop (my fish love that).

I know smaller tanks are much more difficult but I move too often for a bigger tank. The other tanks are not home so I don't have to move them (80g FOWLR and 150g with live rock and 18 bubble tip anemone and a blue carpet anemone). Those big tanks need way less care.

Back home (25 gallon):
At this time, the anemones look a little better. They stayed open all day which is a big thing this week. One of them is moving to a new spot right now. After years without moving, it decided to look for a better spot a week ago and it looks like its going back to its good old spot. Good sign? Maybe.

I don't have a TDS test but here is whats in the tap water up here (got the value from an environmental lab):

Nutrients:
Nitrate:      0.05  mg/l
TDS:        28.00 mg/l
Major Ions:
Chloride:   4.40 mg/l
Fluoride:   0.06 mg/l
Sodium:    2.2 mg/l
Sulphate:  4.00 mg/l
Metals - Total:
Aluminium 0.087 mg/l
Arsenic 0.0006 mg/l
Barium 0.0065 mg/l
Copper: 0.115 mg/l     <==== BAD BAD BAD!
Iron: 0.072 mg/l
Zinc 0.005 mg/l

What ever is in that water, it worked for me for the last years and worked find for over 7 years for a friend (first owner of the 150 gallon).

As you said, small tanks are unstable and it does not need much to create problems. Here is a list of all the change I have done in the last month:

4 weeks ago: replaced the 125w power compact light for my 150 Metal Halide light.
3 weeks ago: Decided to use some of those trace element block I bought 2 years ago (I had 2 block left so I decided to finish the jar).
3 (maybe 2) weeks ago: went camping, did not add new fresh water to the tank on time. Salt level went up to 0.026
2 weeks ago: Started using a skimmer on the tank (no skimmer before that day).
2 weeks ago: 2 water changes that week (usually 1 per week or two)
This week: feed the anemone some scalop
This week: feed the anemone everyday for 2 days with mysid shrimp (I suddenly realized I did not fed them for over a month started to panic for no reason lol )
This week: 2 water chages.
Today: add activated carbon

When I think about it... I might have done lots of changes over the last month.

  the freeze dried "wafers" that i use are from the Argent brand, which is the most popular cyclopeeze brand.  they are kind of strange in consistency.  they aren't really "flakes", but they aren't really "wafers" either.  they are more pliable than both.  i usually just grab a bunch between my fingers and smoosh it together into a ball, and then give it straight to my anemone.

-reefsurgeon

I have to try that food. Do you know the exact name?

WOW!

I have to try that food. Do you know the exact name?

-madcaptains

from now on, i wouldn't use anything from the grocery store to feed anything in your tank.  i know a lot of people who do that in aggressive tanks to feed their triggers, loins, etc, and it can cause A LOT of problems long term.  believe it or not, you will probably find nastier stuff on the raw or frozen seafood at our grocery stores than you will in our fish foods sometimes!  lol!  as for your water, i found a really cool site that you can put in all your levels of chemicals that you found in your tap water and get an overall TDS result.  i would go through and do it for you, but i'm REALLY tired.  lol!  here's the link http://www.lenntech.com/calculators/tds/tds-ec_engels.htm
but even without that calculator, at a quick glance of the break down you posted, i would DEFINITELY recommend trying RO water from now on.  any trace of those elements is harmful to water quality.
and like you said at the end of that post, you did do a lot of different things over this past month, so it may be that as well.  the anemone moving is probably related a lot to the fact that you changed your lighting.  mine will move just a bit even when i replace my bulbs after 6 months!  also, i would for sure try the freeze dried foods from now on, and try that site out to see what comes up on your tap water.  any copper, as you pointed out, is not good AT ALL.  fish only, it's ok, but not for any inverts, corals, or sharks (not sure if anyone has an agressive tank on here, but if so, NO COPPER FOR SHARKS!!  haha!).   hope that helps.  lemme know!  -Ash

WOW!

-getinpora

what's the "wow!" for, mister?!  hmmmm??  you gotta problem!!??  [image]  hehe

-reefsurgeon

ok, madcaptains, i was really excited about that calculator i found lastnight (yes, i know, i'm a dork), so i decided to use it with the info of the water you posted, and i ran it through that calculator.  i had to change the weight and charges of some of the chemicals, and also left out zinc, iron and barium since they are not AS important as some of the ones you did list.  so, since your list contained arsenic and copper, but the calulator didnt, i just changed the charge and weight of potassium and magnesium since your list didn't contain those...anyway, long story short, your tap water actually isn't THAT terrible, considering it's tap water, BUT it isn't clean enough to use as top off water for a reef.  it's not EXACT because not ALL of the chemicals in tap water were listed on your list OR on their list, but according to my knowledge of chemistry and the calculations of that thing, you should definitely grab an RO unit or just start buying big jugs of RO water from the store since it's a small tank, those jugs would last you a while.  but anyhow, i'm a nerd, but there's my two cents.  lol! -Ash 

Thanks for all the information! I have been keeping those beauties with success for years but there is still so much to learn.

At this point, the following theories look not bad to me:

1) Adjustment to light. Its been a few weeks since I changed the light but I have noticed they are more open in the morning before the light.

2) TDS problem. It never been a problem before but I use to have one of those Haitt Distributor's filtration system that works with Tri Base Pelletized Carbon and Right Now Bacteria. There is lots of carbon in that filter and that might have help lot in my case.

3) Too much changes in the last month combined with poor nutrition for a month

4) A mix of the 3 theories above.

So maybe I should simply:
1) Stop playing with the tank (I am going back to work tomorrow so that won't be a problem)
2) Use some carbon and look at something to reduce TDS.
3) Let them be

Its time for an update!

I haven't done much over the last 5 days. I tried to feed them every 2 days and tried to keep the tank as stable as possible. Now that I am back to work, I have plenty of time to read (I love my job) so I went through all articles about anemone I could find.

I now think it is all related to the light. They are usually open all night and close within the first 2 hours after the lights open. After reading about bleaching, I realized my anemones show slight signs of bleaching (almost nothing but still there). So I reduced the light time from 11h to 5h 3 days ago.

Two of the 3 anemones look much better already but it's gonna take some time before full recovery. My biggest challenge now is to feed them. I am still worry about the third one.