anemone dying?

[Stv]

Hi guys, totally new to this hobby and have a concern. I have a bio cube 32 and added my first anemone a week ago. The tank is simple. just a small clown and diamond gobby, plus CUC and a cleaner shrimp. The tank is newer but was started with 15 year old rock that was thriving and it completely cycled in 72 hours. T was two months ago. All parameters seems in line with actually 0 amn, nit, nat. green, purple and brown algae present and in control.

The first few days the anemone looked amazing but tended to move to lower areas and under overhangs. The last three days, he's completely upside down under a rock and has not shown his tentacles for three days. he's seems still attached well, I fed a little reef rods and no change at all. Interesting enough, my one very small coral frag (added a month ago) seemed to shrink up completely the same day and has come back out at all. They were never close to each other. any advise? I can't get the the bubble anemone to look into its mouth.

 

[Stv]

You’re PH being 7.8-8 won’t hurt anything. The only downsides to PH that low is that coralline is less likely to grow, stony corals will grow more slowly, and tridacnid clams shouldn’t be kept at a PH below 8. Unless you’re farming coral or want really fast growth, there’s no reason IMO to chase after raising your PH a couple tenths of a point.

That’s great news. Thanks so much. It’s a 32 gal tank so the slower it grows the better. I did a 25% water change out and the KH dropped to 12. I’ll do another one tomorrow and should be good. Nitrates came up to .25 finally. Do t k ow if shutting the UV and skimmer off overnight helped that? Someone suggested I might be over filtering for my set up and that’s why the nitrates never went above .1

 

[MaxTremors]

That’s great news. Thanks so much. It’s a 32 gal tank so the slower it grows the better. I did a 25% water change out and the KH dropped to 12. I’ll do another one tomorrow and should be good. Nitrates came up to .25 finally. Do t k ow if shutting the UV and skimmer off overnight helped that? Someone suggested I might be over filtering for my set up and that’s why the nitrates never went above .1

You could shut the skimmer off completely until your nitrates come up a bit. Though, I’m a little confused, are your nitrates 25 or 0.25, the only way you’d get a 0.25 reading is if you have the Hanna low range nitrate checker. If not, I’m guessing they’re 25, which isn’t horrible, ideally I like mine to be around 5-10, they’re currently at around 20 (from a high of around 80). Personally, I don’t use a UV sterilizer currently, but have in the past, running it or not running it shouldn’t affect your nitrates. Shutting your skimmer off at night can affect your PH, but not significantly. So, if it were my tank, if the nitrates were indeed 0.25, I’d shut the skimmer off (assuming you otherwise have adequate surface agitation for gas exchange) until nitrates came up to the 5-10 range. If they’re 25, I’d be running it 24/7.

I’m happy to hear your anemone is perking up a little bit, hopefully it will continue to do better, it sounds like your water is moving in the right direction. If you have any other questions, feel free to ask!