Why does my nem look like this?

[i_declare_bankruptcy]

Ive had it for just over a week, tank is 7 months old. No deviations in parameters which are as follows:
Sal 1.026
T 77F
NO3 0
PO4 0.01
Cal 420
Kh 8.4
Mg 1400

Filtration is a protein skimmer, some floss, and carbon in a reactor that is currently turned off.

Flow around the nem is there but gentle

Lighting is 3x kessil a360 @65% intensity, and two t5 fixtures — coral plus and actinic. Tank is 525xl 22”x22”x60”. SPS growing fine but colors could be better (been trying to bring up NO3). Everything else looks great. Do have a HA issue that I’m chalking up to still being in the ugly phase.

I got the nem a week ago and drop acclimated it. It was healthy with no tears and very sticky (still is). Responded immediately to touch and ate when my clownfish fed it (I know you’re not supposed to feed to soon but my clownfish give it shrimp bits).

Now it doesn’t react to food and looks sort of wilted instead of reaching up for the light like it did m the first three days of being in the tank.

It appears to be losing its tentacles. Once I saw it eating one of its tentacles which was very strange.

I’m very sensitive to this as I lost a gBTA and it appeared to die in the same manner, despite doing everything I could to reverse it. Slowly losing tentacles then bleaching.

I have two books on clownfish and anemone care and have read so so much I don’t understand where I’m going wrong :(. This was my attempt to “get back on the horse” so to speak.

Now, I did swap my maroons out for a clarkii pair (maroons couldn’t decide if they were going to pair or not and it was stressing me to death). The clarkii are aggressive with their nem and perhaps that’s part of it? But it’s not like they’re biting off tentacles and they basically leave it alone during the day as they forage.

Any help?

When I got it:

Now.

 

[Crabs McJones]

What lighting do you have it under? Do you feed it at all? Shrunken and missing tentacles is usually a sign that it's starving and consuming itself to stay alive.

 

[Leadfooted]

I'm with Crabs, start with lighting. The shady side's not so happy though I'm surprised it wouldn't stretch to get more.

 

[Oshengems]

Feed it, not obligated to but my BTA loves getting fed my Maroon it’s spoiling it since she’s always feeding it so from time to time I toss in some LRS the big chunks left and it plums up about an hour later

 

[PDR]

Well I read your post, so I know what your lighting is and that you have been trying to feed it ;)

To be honest I have never come across this issue with any of my btas. Do you know if yours was wild caught?

How deep in the tank is it and how high are your lights mounted? Have you tried running the reactor with fresh carbon since it started giving issues? What have you tried feeding it and how often?

 

[i_declare_bankruptcy]

Well I read your post, so I know what your lighting is and that you have been trying to feed it ;)

To be honest I have never come across this issue with any of my btas. Do you know if yours was wild caught?

How deep in the tank is it and how high are your lights mounted? Have you tried running the reactor with fresh carbon since it started giving issues? What have you tried feeding it and how often?

Thanks PDR :) it is not wild caught — it is a split from another tank that had a BTA infestation lol. So it was a very healthy specimen when purchased! The lights are 6-8” off the water, BTA is probably 10” below water line, so 14-18” away from light? It’s directly under it too! When it was happy it would keep its foot in its cave and then stretch up to the light and open up just like a flower.

And yes I have tried running carbon with no change. I try not to run it constantly though but am happy to start it again. Carbon is fresh.

I feed daily a mix of different shrimp and veggies soaked in garlic (LFS recipe) and processed. The clowns will take some of the larger shrimp chunks (size of pinky fingernail) and feed the nem every day. However the nem will only take when it wants which seems to be every other day (though not at all as of the past two days).

 

[Leadfooted]

And how old are your T5’s? Any chance they need to be replaced?

 

[i_declare_bankruptcy]

I’m happy to slowly bump my lighting up as well. All of my LPS are currently on the sand bed due to dealing with a polyclad issue (none are on the nem) so they would be easier to acclimate and I’m sure my SPS would appreciate it.

T5’s are maybe 3mos old so should be fine right?

 

[i_declare_bankruptcy]

Seems like lighting could really be a factor here. Though 3 a360's and 2 t5's seem like a lot of firepower, even if the a360's are running at 65%.

EDIT: Second thought: the GHA could be outcompeting stuff in the tank for nitrates in the water column? I do have a good amount of it (not like overrun but there is a lot).

 

[PDR]

My btas are under less light, so I don’t think that’s the issue. I would be more concerned with your nutrient levels, but I know you are working on that.

I have a frag tank that is about as old as your tank that also runs no detectable nutrients and I feed it a ton, and dose aminos everyday. I put some btas in there to see how they would do and they absolutely hated it. Split almost immediately, and kept moving like crazy and going downhill for a couple of weeks. I moved them back to the display and in less than a week are looking great. All other parameters between the tanks are the same. I say all that to say, there might just be something about your tank the anemones don't like. Something that would hopefully change as your tank matures.

I'm not an expert by any means, but I'll tell you what I would do if this was my tank. In no specific order:

New round of testing just to be sure.

Check source water for tds and possibly ammonia.

Make enough water for two 10%-20% water changes, test new water. Then do 1-2 wc several days apart.

Run brand new rinsed carbon.

Up my feeding to the tank. And maybe add something like reef energy A&B to the mix if still low nutrients after a week or two of increased feeding.

Check ammonia in the tank as well, just to be sure nothing strange is going on.

I’m sure I'll think of something else.

A couple other questions. What floss do you use and how often do you change it? Do you run a fuge or algae reactor? Do you wet or dry skim?

 

[PDR]

Seems like lighting could really be a factor here. Though 3 a360's and 2 t5's seem like a lot of firepower, even if the a360's are running at 65%.

EDIT: Second thought: the GHA could be outcompeting stuff in the tank for nitrates in the water column? I do have a good amount of it (not like overrun but there is a lot).

Yes it definitely could be. Does your glass get film algae on it? How often do you have to clean it?

Something else I thought of. I personally would stop adding garlic to the food, and add something like selcon instead. I don't think it's related though.

 

[i_declare_bankruptcy]

My btas are under less light, so I don’t think that’s the issue. I would be more concerned with your nutrient levels, but I know you are working on that.

I have a frag tank that is about as old as your tank that also runs no detectable nutrients and I feed it a ton, and dose aminos everyday. I put some btas in there to see how they would do and they absolutely hated it. Split almost immediately, and kept moving like crazy and going downhill for a couple of weeks. I moved them back to the display and in less than a week are looking great. All other parameters between the tanks are the same. I say all that to say, there might just be something about your tank the anemones don't like. Something that would hopefully change as your tank matures.

I'm not an expert by any means, but I'll tell you what I would do if this was my tank. In no specific order:

New round of testing just to be sure.

Check source water for tds and possibly ammonia.

Make enough water for two 10%-20% water changes, test new water. Then do 1-2 wc several days apart.

Run brand new rinsed carbon.

Up my feeding to the tank. And maybe add something like reef energy A&B to the mix if still low nutrients after a week or two of increased feeding.

Check ammonia in the tank as well, just to be sure nothing strange is going on.

I’m sure I'll think of something else.

A couple other questions. What floss do you use and how often do you change it? Do you run a fuge or algae reactor? Do you wet or dry skim?

Interesting observations! Yeah my back glass is covered in HA (snail and tang food) and I used to get film algae but now I think some form of stringy (not dino-like) HA is growing on the glass and I have to use a scraper to remove it every 3 days. Annoying. My dang foxface just isn't doing his job either!!!

I upped to max dose of AcroPower daily w/ a dosing pump (similar A&B?) for a month and no changes in anything :( so I stopped.

I have 30% of tank volume in water aged and ready to go for a w/c, will try that but want to do something else (fluconazole) first.

I'm going to check everything for ammonia; something that's a great idea just to be safe.

I do not have a fuge or algea reactor -- those are in the works and I'm certainly going to expedite that project after eliminating the HA.

I dry skim because I can't get my dang skimmer to make a consistent wet skim even though it's adjusted to the correct height. It is a RO 150INT skimmer. I'm thinking of upgrading. Clean cup once a week. Skimmate is dark/black and smells like that normal marine mud smell lol.

I use Blue Ribbon Pet Products filter floss every other week and change it every 3 days. I don't always use it (been reading up a lot on this).

I am strongly considering ordering some fluconazole and helping my tank kill off the HA. Then when the HA has been nuked I will start up a fuge and let that chaeto outcompete it (will it outcompete for nutrients though just like the GHA could be doing?).

After talking and thinking about this I"m almost 90% certain that my issues solely lies in my algae outcompeting things in the tank for nutrients. It's a problem that needs to be solved anyways so might as well.

I do have brightwell NeoNitro that I have started dosing today; I"m curious to see if I can get measurable nitrates or if the GHA will just take off. And to see how that will affect the nem.

 

[i_declare_bankruptcy]

Eating tentacles.

 

[Leadfooted]

Eating tentacles.

Whoa! Well I say it’s not lighting at this point. Now that it’s eating tentacles I’m baffled

 

[Leadfooted]

What’s this black object?

 

[i_declare_bankruptcy]

What’s this black object?

Looks like the reflection of my phone! haha

 

[Leadfooted]

Eating tentacles.

Any chance you dropped some bbq shrimp in by accident lol

 

[i_declare_bankruptcy]

Any chance you dropped some bbq shrimp in by accident lol

LOL I can’t have gluten or dairy so no chance... ranch wouldn’t make it in there either haha

 

[i_declare_bankruptcy]

I tested my NO3 today at 1ppm! 24 hrs ago I dosed NeoNitro to raise by 2.5ppm. Either I didn't dose enough or that's the rate of consumption with the algae and filtration. Either way not cool with that algae so I ordered Fluconazole, 28x200mg capsules. I will follow the 200mg/10g dosing for a total of 12 capsules @ 2400mg dose (est. volume after displacement is 120g). I know it has mixed results with GHA but I want to see if there are any results with knocking back the GHA; I want to see where NO3 and PO4 end up as this has been an issue for me since I started the tank.

On the upside I fed the anemone a nice piece of Krill. Immediate reaction to the food, it practically snatched it from the tongs. That's a good sign! When I looked down to clean the tongs the Krill was gone and the nem's mouth was shut again; I'm hoping the nem ate it any my wrasse didn't steal it.

EDIT: Per @PDR 's suggestion I tested Ammonia in the DT... dead zero (always a good thing to check though)

 

[i_declare_bankruptcy]

Anemone still looking bad.

I’m going to feed every two days. Dosing neonitro as well to keep nitrates readable (not helping with algae of course).

Will dose the fluconazole when it comes in. I also ordered an ICP test (will do before fluc) to get the full picture.