Reclamation project

[snostorm]

Welp. Might have settled in. And it’s huge!!! I guess it’s his, or her....tank now. I’d love for my clowns to host it. Fascinating animal. I’m surprised It moved down but I guess they find their happy spot. Been doing some rearranging but I guess I’ll wait a few days to make sure it’s happy. 

[snostorm]

Researching heavily right now. Wasn’t really prepared to plop a big RBTA Im

kinda freaking out. But it was a gift. I never had anything this big. I’m terrified I’m gonna kill it and it nukes my tank. 

[Tired]

It looks pretty happy. Make sure not to put any corals where it can reach them, they won't appreciate that.

 

They aren't too hard to keep, as long as the light is decent. The main thing is a well-established tank, which you have. Nitrates and phosphates should be higher than 0. It'll move 'till it finds light it likes. Don't give it silversides, sometimes those make nems sick for unknown reasons. It probably doesn't need to be fed, since it can get food from catching stray food and from the clownfish poo if they move in, but feeding it now and then would go over well. 

[snostorm]

1 hour ago, Tired said:

It looks pretty happy. Make sure not to put any corals where it can reach them, they won't appreciate that.

 

They aren't too hard to keep, as long as the light is decent. The main thing is a well-established tank, which you have. Nitrates and phosphates should be higher than 0. It'll move 'till it finds light it likes. Don't give it silversides, sometimes those make nems sick for unknown reasons. It probably doesn't need to be fed, since it can get food from catching stray food and from the clownfish poo if they move in, but feeding it now and then would go over well. 

Thanks for the advice.  Have no experience with them. Any ideas on coaxing the clowns to host it?  

 

[mcarroll]

You mean coaxing the anemone to host the clowns?  It's up to the three of them to decide.

[snostorm]

35 minutes ago, mcarroll said:

You mean coaxing the anemone to host the clowns?  It's up to the three of them to decide.

Thanks for the helpful response. 

 

[snostorm]

Alright. So this thing is way too big. It’s pretty much dominating my tank it has to go. This is gonna be fun. Yikes. Gonna trade him in. 

[seabass]

Are you planning on trading the rock it's on too?  Even though it's been moving around, it's probably holding tight onto the rock, and removing it from the rock will probably damage its foot (which is typically fatal to the nem).

[snostorm]

3 hours ago, seabass said:

Are you planning on trading the rock it's on too?  Even though it's been moving around, it's probably holding tight onto the rock, and removing it from the rock will probably damage its foot (which is typically fatal to the nem).

Im gonna work with my LFS.  See if he can get it off for a trade in.  Im not gonna try and remove it. Certainly dont want it harmed. Im conflicted.  Its really cool.  Clowns arent interested in the least...they rather host the cave in the back. They are old and maybe not really being threatened they seem oblivious too it.  If they took up residence id certainly hesitate.  But in this tank its just too big.  Shame.

 

Or I could entertain a bigger tank......lol.

[seabass]

24 minutes ago, snostorm said:

Clowns arent interested in the least

It can take months before they figure it out.  Then all of the sudden, they will stick to it like glue.

 

24 minutes ago, snostorm said:

Or I could entertain a bigger tank

 

[mcarroll]

5 hours ago, snostorm said:

See if he can get it off for a trade in.

All it takes is fingernails and patience to get them off, but it can take more nails AND more patience than most people have.  LOL.

 

Trade the rock with the anemone if needed.   IMO

[snostorm]

Very conflicted.  But im not ready to upgrade and this thing is just huge.  I just started getting into the coral scene after a long time and the sheer size of this thing is limiting.  I put in some GSP, a toad stool, monte, and some zoas and palys.  mixed results on the zoas and Palys but this anemone just seems to love my tank.

[seabass]

You could embrace its hugeness.  Granted it will be limiting as far as corals go, but it's a cool tank featuring the anemone as a centerpiece.  Once the anemone hosts the clowns, it will be a nice display of the symbiotic relationship.

 

Just my

 

[snostorm]

21 hours ago, seabass said:

You could embrace its hugeness.  Granted it will be limiting as far as corals go, but it's a cool tank featuring the anemone as a centerpiece.  Once the anemone hosts the clowns, it will be a nice display of the symbiotic relationship.

 

Just my

 

Is it a given that they will ultimately take on residence in the nem? 

[seabass]

13 minutes ago, snostorm said:

Is it a given that they will ultimately take on residence in the nem? 

Not 100% guaranteed; but given enough time, I'm pretty sure that they will.

[Tired]

Especially if you don't have anything else that temps them, like a wavy soft coral or some sort of macroalgae. It may take them a bit, captive-bred clowns seem to be prone to not immediately noticing anemones (though I'm honestly not sure if wild ones are much better), but that's basically the perfect host. 

 

I vote you give them a bit longer to try to find it. If they won't take it eventually, you can always get rid of it later.

[snostorm]

Ultimately I decided it would be best to give the nem up.   Was torn.  And it seemed to be doing well.  But my tank is just too small and the whole thing was getting stressful.  I brought the rock to LFS and they popped it off rather easily.  He plopped it in his nem tank and a tomato clown went right in it.  I was like WTF...apparently Tomato clowns are more willing to host? Gonna let the tank settle and carry on.  

 

[Tired]

Very reasonable. If you want clownfish hosting behavior, I believe torch corals can be a decent bet? Though I haven't done targeted "what do clownfish like to shove their faces in" research. 

[seabass]

49 minutes ago, snostorm said:

apparently Tomato clowns are more willing to host?

They are.

 

Ocellaris clownfish will take to a BTA host anemone (and will become inseparable to their host), but they seem to be equally fine without one too.  IMO, not needing a host is one of the reasons that ocellaris clownfish are so popular in nano tanks.

[snostorm]

Well my GSP has turned all brown and they dont look good.  Every thing else seems ok.  I was using nutri-seawater for WC but started buying slat water from LFS.  They use Red sea pro .  Only thing I can think of.  Anyone know what would cause GSP to turn brown? 

 

[seabass]

Not sure, but natural sea water has an alkalinity of about 7 and RSP might be closer to 12 dKH.

 

GSP also wants good nutrient levels (nitrate and phosphate).  Too low of levels may be the cause.

[snostorm]

30 minutes ago, seabass said:

Not sure, but natural sea water has an alkalinity of about 7 and RSP might be closer to 12 dKH.

 

GSP also wants good nutrient levels (nitrate and phosphate).  Too low of levels may also be a cause.

Interesting.  thats a pretty significant swing in alk.  I have done 3, 5 gallon WC's with the new stuff.  Also have a hanna PHOS tester and i keep getting 000 on phosphate. Was thinking I am flaking out with it like how could that be possible? 

[Tired]

Algae and corals use up phosphate to perform photosynthesis. It's entirely possible for them to absorb all your phosphate, especially if you feed lightly and/or have fast/growing corals and algae. 

 

What's your nitrate? Lacking one or both will kill your corals, and surprisingly quickly at that. Start feeding a bit more, spot-feed any corals that will accept it, and stop doing water changes until your nutrients are up to a good level. Once they're up, start doing water changes again, but less than before, until you can figure out via experimentation and testing what schedule works best. Exactly what level of both is good varies a lot depending on the tank, but I'd say shoot for at least 10-20 nitrates (GSP loves nutrients) and at least 0.05 phosphate for now. You might see a bit of an algae bloom at first, but don't worry about that- just set your snails on any spots you notice, and pull out any long tufts of hair algae. The tank should find its balance again once the non-pest algae catches up, without any severe algae chaos. 

[snostorm]

54 minutes ago, Tired said:

Algae and corals use up phosphate to perform photosynthesis. It's entirely possible for them to absorb all your phosphate, especially if you feed lightly and/or have fast/growing corals and algae. 

 

What's your nitrate? Lacking one or both will kill your corals, and surprisingly quickly at that. Start feeding a bit more, spot-feed any corals that will accept it, and stop doing water changes until your nutrients are up to a good level. Once they're up, start doing water changes again, but less than before, until you can figure out via experimentation and testing what schedule works best. Exactly what level of both is good varies a lot depending on the tank, but I'd say shoot for at least 10-20 nitrates (GSP loves nutrients) and at least 0.05 phosphate for now. You might see a bit of an algae bloom at first, but don't worry about that- just set your snails on any spots you notice, and pull out any long tufts of hair algae. The tank should find its balance again once the non-pest algae catches up, without any severe algae chaos. 

Thanks for the wisdom.  So conditioned to strive for pristine water. This is a biocube so skimmers are not a viable option so maybe I have been over compensating.  I get zero  nitrates when testing. My bio load is a pair of false percs. But I feed them pellets, and an evening spritz of flakes so I dont consider that light feeding. I run filter floss which I change religiously, and run Chemipure elite.  Thats it. Sand bed and I dont have an excessive amount of LR.  actually kinda low when considering that old pound  of rock per gallon philosophy which is a bunch of nonsense anyway. GSP is one of my favorites I love the color and the movement in flow.  Which isn't great in my tank.  My toadstool and monte cap are seemingly doing well though. Lots of coraline in the back sump though it gets some sunlight using nutrients.  I will need to find the right balance. 

[Tired]

Zero phosphates and nitrates will definitely kill your GSP. Your other corals will suffer from it eventually. It's possible they're doing OK now because they're able to survive on the scraps of nutrients they can manage to suck up, in the process of sending your nutrients to 0. 

 

Take the chempure out completely, it's sucking up nutrients as well. The filter floss is probably fine, but it might not hurt to change it a bit less often. I would absolutely stop doing water changes, completely, for a little while. When you start them again, start with very small ones. In a tank that size, with just two fish, you probably don't need to do water changes very often. You might even wind up needing to deliberately dose nutrients, depending on how much coral you wind up with, but that's not something to worry about right now. Just feed everything that accepts food, and stop removing nutrients as much as possible. Do you have any fine-particle foods you could try offering directly to the GSP? I don't actually know if it'll eat food, but I assume so. 

 

Clean water is, of course, vital to a reef aquarium. But "clean" doesn't mean free of nutrients, it just means nutrients at a reasonable level.

Nitrates have to be pretty high to start doing any harm to corals, and phosphate doesn't really have a "too high", at least not in terms of coral health. High phosphate, at any level you could accomplish by non-absurd means, won't do anything worse than encourage algae.