Is my Anenome dead?

[gemini9]

I bought a Pink Tip Anemone (condy i believe?) a few weeks ago and I've had trouble with it ever since. It always detatches from rocks and I have to reseat him and turn off my power heads for the night. He keeps shriveling up and shrinking all the time, then he will expand out fully, then shrink again. But it's becoming more frequent. Detatches from rocks and floats around the tank, and shrinks. When he shrinks he loses his color and turns green.

But a few days ago, I fed him a silverside. Maybe 1/3 portion. Was a pretty good size portion. He ate it and ever since he's been 10X worse. He looks terrible. Shriveled up, green, I'm wondering if I should just take him out of the tank. I hear that if they die, it can be bad for the tank.

Here are my params:

T5 39w 10000k and Actinic lights
Ammonia is 0
Nitrite: 0
pH: 8.2
Nitrates: 20
Salinity: 1.024
Temp: 79

I duno but he looks terrible.

Is it normal? I mean i know it's normal for them to shrink up a little bit at night, but it's not night time and he looks pitiful. What should I doooooo??? Is it dying? Dead? Remove it? See if it bounces back?

 

[chiblackhawks4]

It does look to be struggling pretty badly. Id say get it some flow. Do a decent sized water change and cross your fingers. I wouldnt feed it and hope it bounces back. Good luck.

 

[gemini9]

Okay so I am EXTREMELY confused here. I left for a little while and when I came back home, this is what I saw...

sooooo... what's the deal here? :squigglemouth: Is this normal behavior for nems or is mine just.. weird?

 

[ontop27]

How big is the tank and how old? 39 watts total?? Or each

 

[fishroomlady]

The not so good pictures don't look good - I wouldn't feed it at this point. I would leave it be and see what happens....the lighting question is an important one as are your nitrates - you want to get that down (I know you've been trying). I have not had luck with condys but I did do some reading after I tried another one and the information is that they prefer a colder temperature - in the mid 70's - it couldn't hurt to turn yours down 4-5 degrees slowly. It's rarely mentioned in the live stock descriptors and such and I don't know why.

 

[ontop27]

If you have anything else in there don't turn the temp down that low

 

[gemini9]

I have a total of 4 bulbs, each 39 watts. 2 10000k and 2 actinics. I run all 4 during most of the day. Just the actinics for 2 hours in the morning and 2 hours before bed. The rest of the time, all 4 bulbs are on which is about 10-11 hours of the day. All lights off at night. It's a 30 gallon tank. 500gph circulation pump. Penguin/Marineland 350 water filter and reef octopus bh100 skimmer.

Yeah I know the nitrates are still bad fishroom. But I'm sure you remember when they were 160+! Hey, 20ppm is a huge leap for me hahaha. Tank is 7 months old by the way. I was doing 50% water changes weekly, but I've dropped that down to about a 15-20% change every weekend.

 

[gemini9]

If you have anything else in there don't turn the temp down that low

2 clowns, 1 yellowtail damsel, hermits, 1 cleaner shrimp, 1 emerald crab, and snails.

 

[ontop27]

Hmm everything sounds okay, actnics don't out out much par so maybe to little light and with that combo I'm guessing stock bulbs

 

[mwbeach]

I'd love to see how this progresses. Best of luck. I lost one a couple weeks ago

 

[fishroomlady]

I'm rethinking my advice on the temp. I might just bring it down to like 77 - maybe 76

 

[gemini9]

I'd love to see how this progresses. Best of luck. I lost one a couple weeks ago

Oh noooo. Sorry! It always sucks to lose things like that.

The 4 T5s are stock, yeah. I just bought the fixture a few weeks ago so I'll be running them for the next 6 months or so. I'll upgrade the bulbs when they are needing a replacement. I'll bring the temp down a notch.