Sickly bubble tip help

[the_publix]

Hi everyone - first post here

I have a 22gal long (36"x12"x12") that has been running for ~ 2 months. After ghost feeding for ~3 weeks I dosed up to about 2 ppm of ammonia, and it reduced to 0 in about a day, which seemed to confirm sufficient bacterial colonization. Then, I added a modest CUC (4x nassarius, 5x astraea, 3-4 bumblebee, and 2 trochus snails), which have been doing well. A few weeks later, a friend offered me a BTA as his were growing like crazy and had a few splits. I knew the tank was a little young for an anemone, but he was having trouble finding homes for them and so I figured I'd give it a shot. I acclimated over about an hour with a manual drip-acclimation (I just pipetted some of my tank water into the bag every few minutes). For the first week, he was doing great. Would open/close throughout the day, wandered around a little looking for a good spot, would take small bits of mysis/pellets, eventually ending up on the overhang in a little cave. I thought, oh well, he's just a little stressed, and I left him be. However, over the past few days especially, the situation has turned much more grim. First, he deflated significantly, more than any other time which he did semi-regularly. Then, he fell off the overhang, and didn't appear to be moving much. After about an hour of no movement, I gently picked him up, and set him on a nearby rock towards the bottom of the tank, and turned the flow way down so that he could reattach overnight. This morning, he fell off again, and I found him rolling in the sand bed. Did the same, but placed him higher up in the tank, in case he wanted more light.

That takes us to right now. I didn't see any damage to his foot when i moved him both times. He's lost a few tentacles, and the remaining ones are very deflated, and have been for a few days now. Occasionally I see one or two of them twitch, but they seem very limp/inactive. I've also found some brown gunk on the oral disc, near the base of some tentacles, which I fear is some rotting tissue. Most interestingly, I never really see the mouth gaped very wide open. Only today is it starting to open up some, but has remained tightly closed nearly the whole time. Still see some movement on the foot, and some periodic inflation/deflation of the body, which I suppose is promising. I also see quite a bit of color still, especially given the oral disc is still quite green, and there's still some orange in the tentacles.
Day 1:

Day ~12 (today)

Some info about the tank/water parameters:
Salinity - 1.025 sg, very stable (have an ATO with RO water)
pH ~ 7.8, quite stable
Ammonia - 0, although had a brief blip into ~0.1 (it was barely detectable, but not negligible) and did a ~20% water change. Otherwise has been undetectable.
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - around 5, sometimes difficult to detect, may be between 0 and 5. I've struggled to get it to easily detectable levels, even with higher feeding. I presume this is part of why the dinos are having a field day.

**note - I have the API test kit, which I now know people don't tend to love for accuracy, but I don't have the money to buy Hanna checkers, and didn't know about the salifert kit at the time**

Temp - swings between 77.8 - 79.5 throughout the day
Haven't tested Alk/calc/mag, but there isn't anything else in the tank to be using these up, I'm using reef crystals as my salt.
Lighting - Basic LED bar light with white/blue channels. I guesti-measured with the photone app that the water surface gets ~250 par. The tank is only 12" deep, and he's hung out in the top ~6" of water mostly, leading me to believe he's getting enough light, even if not 300 par.

I've occasionally battled some Dinos, which I've tackled by manual siphoning/turkey bastering. The tank has a Fluval AC50 HOB with a sponge filter, activated carbon (especially since I'm worried about dino toxicity) and ceramic media. Despite the tank being on the younger side for typical anemone timeline recommendations, I've got a robust variety of microfauna (tons of various pods on the glass, some small bristleworms in other rockwork, etc.). Started the tank with dry sand, and ~30% of my rock was live/cycled mature rock from a LFS.

So, what should I do? I've taken a minimal approach up to now, and avoided messing with him as much as possible, but I don't know if this situation calls for some intervention or help on my end. I'm giving him pep talks every night! I've avoided feeding him since he started looking rough, out of fear that more food would be more stressful.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

Can you tell us what kind of light you have? What brand, what wattage? You did not mention powerheads in your post, what do you have for water movement? Just the filter on its wouldn't be enough flow.

I don't think you have dino's, that looks like diatoms to me.

 

[EnterName]

The tank is only 2 months old. You can still see the diatoms growing on rocks and substrate which are indicating that the tank is just at the the beginning of the "ugly phase".

Right now diatoms are taking up all available nitrogen sources and phosphate they can get while the anemone's Zooxanthellae struggle to produce enough energy for the coral and themselves to survive.
After the diatoms disappear green hair algae will take over the entire tank and cause the same issues.

I'm afraid it's a very hostile environment for any coral right now

 

[the_publix]

Can you tell us what kind of light you have? What brand, what wattage? You did not mention powerheads in your post, what do you have for water movement? Just the filter on its wouldn't be enough flow.

I don't think you have dino's, that looks like diatoms to me.

the light is a NICREW 30" bar light (a no-name amazon special), 32W. Because the tank is so shallow, I assumed this would be sufficient. Granted, I didn't expect to be gifted any anemones, otherwise I might have found something more powerful. I have it set to ramp up at 11AM to peak lighting for ~4 hours, then a weaker (probably 1/4 power) for 6 hours in the evening. The powerhead is a Hygger Mini HG021

As for the diatoms/dinos, I definitely see Diatoms, but the majority of the surface area is covered in snottier, mucous that I usually see people attribute to Dinos. They're easy to blow off with a turkey baster, and trap air bubbles during the day when the lights are on. Here's a better picture of them

 

[the_publix]

Update: doing a deeper dive into how I was testing my parameters, its possible my salinity is way off... I incorrectly calibrated it originally. according to a DIY test based on some (probably good) math (8.4g of instant ocean in 236g of RO water should get me to 35ppt, calibrating to that target, my tanks water reads at 1.03 sg. Going to run to the LFS to confirm my calibration is right with their water. if so, I've been running the tank way too salty. Will update here as I learn more

 

[EnterName]

Can you tell us what kind of light you have? What brand, what wattage? You did not mention powerheads in your post, what do you have for water movement? Just the filter on its wouldn't be enough flow.

I don't think you have dino's, that looks like diatoms to me.

the light is a NICREW 30" bar light (a no-name amazon special), 32W. Because the tank is so shallow, I assumed this would be sufficient. Granted, I didn't expect to be gifted any anemones, otherwise I might have found something more powerful. I have it set to ramp up at 11AM to peak lighting for ~4 hours, then a weaker (probably 1/4 power) for 6 hours in the evening. The powerhead is a Hygger Mini HG021

As for the diatoms/dinos, I definitely see Diatoms, but the majority of the surface area is covered in snottier, mucous that I usually see people attribute to Dinos. They're easy to blow off with a turkey baster, and trap air bubbles during the day when the lights are on. Here's a better picture of them

It's pretty normal to have diatoms and dinoflagellates at the same time, especially during the ugly phase. Both organisms are close to the bottom of the food chain and establish very quickly, but will disappear on their own. I don't think fighting any growth in your tank right now would be beneficial. The ugly phase pretty much always happens, especially if a lot of dry rock and substrate was used.

You anemone will struggle regardless of the dino's presence, and I unfortunately doubt it can be saved in your tank.

I assume (you would need a decent phosphate test to verify) the dry rock and sand is binding nearly all available phosphate together with the diatom and dinoflagellate growth. This is effectively letting the anemone starve. Feeding it will only make it worse as digestion requires a lot of energy in the beginning. You have to know that there is an ongoing equilibrium reaction between phosphate and calcium carbonate that constantly dissolves and precipitates phosphates. If there isn't a lot of bound/precipitated phosphate yet, all phosphate you add, will be bound immediately and is no longer accessible to corals. Once the calcium carbonate is "saturated" sufficiently, phosphate levels stay stable and within detectable range.