Rainbow Anemone not sticking and opening up

[AnandBT]

Hi All,

 

I am a Marine newbie. My Tank specs are as follows:

 

1. Dimensions:36*18*18 (Inches)

2. Age: 6 months

3. Current Live stock: 1 Royal dotty-back and 3 Red hermit crabs

4. Lighting: Radion G3 PROD. It is set with the predefined template that comes up while Radion for Soft/LPS corals.

5. Wavemaker: Turned off since yesterday

6. Water Params: 

    a. Salinity: 1.024-1.025

    b. PH- A little less than 8.

    c. Nitrate: 2

    d. Nitrite: 0

    e. Ammonia: 0.15

    

I have recently brought home a Rainbow Bubble Tip Anemone. It was in good condition with no damaged foot. I drip acclimated it for around 3 hours before introducing it to the tank. While it was getting acclimated, I saw it sticking to the bag in which it was brought in. Then I introduced it to my tank and placed it on the live rock yesterday. The flow has been turned down and I presently have negligible flow in my tank. 

 

Ever since I brought it home, it just randomly falls off the rocks often with its tentacles facing down on the sand bed. It is all closed up. I have been reading a lot about this behavior but have seen mixed responses about some saying it it is normal and other saying its dead. 

 

Hereby attaching some pictures for Advanced aquarist to answer. Before is a picture of the Anemone under T5 at the aquarium shop. After and After 1 images illustrate mine.

 

 

All Help is appreciated. 

 

[seabass]

Was it shipped to you, or did you purchase it local?  When you say recently, how long ago are we talking about?

 

It is a little concerning that it doesn't want to stick.  However, that's not necessarily a death sentence either.  You'll want to watch for it to turn inside out or start to disintegrate (those or more definite signs that it's dying).

[dling]

Do you know what your par reading are ? It may need more light.

[jservedio]

14 hours ago, seabass said:

Was it shipped to you, or did you purchase it local?  When you say recently, how long ago are we talking about?

OP, without knowing this it's really hard to give you any good advice other than to wait and see, keep your flow fairly low, and maybe put it in a breeder box with some rubble so it can't get hurt floating around the tank.

 

14 hours ago, seabass said:

It is a little concerning that it doesn't want to stick.  However, that's not necessarily a death sentence either.  You'll want to watch for it to turn inside out or start to disintegrate (those or more definite signs that it's dying).

While I've never seen one come back after starting to disintegrate, I have had an anemone come back after turning inside out and recovered after about a year. This anemone definitely isn't a goner, but it's not looking good!

 

5 hours ago, dling said:

Do you know what your par reading are ? It may need more light.

OP, don't need your PAR numbers, but what intensity is your Radion set to? That should tell us all we need to know.

 

FWIW, I also use a Radion Pro and in a tank that's only 18" deep, I have far more concerns with too much lighting and have light bleached even acropora with it and I use the wide-angle lenses which pretty dramatically cut PAR using only 35% of the available power, and my fixture is a generation older than yours with less power.

[AnandBT]

Hi Guys,

 

1. I brought it on Sunday (June 28th).

2. Radion's lighting: I have set it the pre defined template called "Coral Growth". Sub template: LPS/SOFT. Reason I chose is, I have also introduced fragged softies (precisely 2 polyps each) of GSP/Mushroom/Zoas (Which have not opened up yet). The max lighting intensity was set to 90%.

3. All the flows are minimal.

 

Although I think my Anemone has started to melt 😞 I want to understand the cause so that I can avoid it in future.

 

I must admit that now I am super scared to introduce any invertebrate in my tank. 

 

Thanks

Anand

[jservedio]

9 minutes ago, AnandBT said:

Hi Guys,

 

1. I brought it on Sunday (June 28th).

2. Radion's lighting: I have set it the pre defined template called "Coral Growth". Sub template: LPS/SOFT. Reason I chose is, I have also introduced fragged softies (precisely 2 polyps each) of GSP/Mushroom/Zoas (Which have not opened up yet). The max lighting intensity was set to 90%.

3. All the flows are minimal.

 

Although I think my Anemone has started to melt 😞 I want to understand the cause so that I can avoid it in future.

 

I must admit that now I am super scared to introduce any invertebrate in my tank. 

 

Thanks

Anand

You are wildly over-lighting your aquarium and you need to turn the intensity WAY down. For an 18" tank, you should only have an intensity of 20-25% if you have LPS and softies. If you don't turn the intensity of your light down, you are going to kill everything you put in there very, very quickly!

 

Take a look at my tank - it's only 1" shallower than yours and I easily grow fully colored up Acroporas on the sandbed using only 35% of the light's power, and that's after further reducing it's intensity by putting wider-angle lenses on. And, it took me more than a year to even get the intensity that high - you should start your intensity around 20%.

 

You should look into purchasing the 120 degree optics for your Radion since your tank is so shallow. The 120 degree optics will easily grow the most light-hungry acros on the sandbed of a 24" deep tank with ease.

[seabass]

12 minutes ago, AnandBT said:

I want to understand the cause so that I can avoid it in future.

With the information at hand, it can be hard to say.  While it might have gone downhill after you got it, the cause may have even happened beforehand.  It could be lighting or even something else.  Damage to the foot could cause this problem (some stores accidentally damage the anemone while removing it from their tanks).  It could have even been in poor health prior to purchasing it.  Sometimes the store just got it, and it could have been damaged or stressed when they received it.

[AnandBT]

Well, I have now reduced the intensity to 25%. But yeah Radion's pre defined templates are way too confusing for newbies. Bdw @jservedio would you mind sharing your lighting template ? I just do not want to go about experimenting and killing things.

 

@seabass Probably yes. One thing I am definitely sure that the foot did not look injured and It looked very healthy in the stores tank. But yeah It might have been possible that there could been some damage to the foot while pealing it off the rock.

[jservedio]

9 minutes ago, AnandBT said:

Well, I have now reduced the intensity to 25%. But yeah Radion's pre defined templates are way too confusing for newbies. Bdw @jservedio would you mind sharing your lighting template ? I just do not want to go about experimenting and killing things.

Sure, just keep in mind that my Radion has the Wide-Angle lenses which cut the peak intensity directly under the LED pucks by like 50%.

 

 https://pastebin.com/c1PYMT4y 

 

I can't attach my ETG here, but it's just an XML file with a ".etg" extension. All you would need to do to use my schedule is copy/paste from the link above into a new file in Notepad and save it with the extension of ".etg", so the filename would be something like "radionschedule.etg," which you can then import into EcoSmartLive.

 

This is what my graph looks like with peak intensity selected (34%).

 

 

 

[Tamberav]

That nem is very small by the photo next to the zoa's. I doubt it would do well being peeled off that rock. A healthy nem will not come off easy and the foot can tear. They should have removed the rock and cut a portion of the rock off instead of peeling the nem off. 

 

To get my nems off I usually blast them with flow so they walk off naturally and collect them but that can take hours ofc... I then place the nem's inside little plastic containers/cups and put them up for sale a week or so later after they look settled. 

 

In the future, I would buy one that does not need to be forcefully removed from a rock. 

 

I agree the lighting is too high but a healthy nem would still have just walked into the shadow's. 

 

 

 

 

[AnandBT]

@jservedio Thanks A ton for sharing it. I will setup something similar.

 

@Tamberav Yes, it was a small anemone not many tips. I am very new to keeping anemones. Started off in a bad shape.

 

Any suggestions for the Zoas and GSP frags that are not opening up?