# Tank & Anemone HELP.. pretty sure it's sick



## Steve1505 (Feb 24, 2015)

*reef tank help*

Hey everyone

so I when i went to sleep last ngiht everyone was happy and healthy parameters were stable and no issues.

this morning I woke to find the first (hopefully the last ) death in my tank. my flame angel was laying on its side. i thoroughly inspected it and couldn't find any diseases.

i looked at all the other livestock and foudn my flame BTA was looking completely out of it. its mouth looked as if it was inflmaed (no pun intended). I know they purge themselves but this guy has done that before and it did not look like this.

So i have three questions basically.
1. can anyone help with diagnosing my flame BTA issues.
2. Why would a happy flame angel that was eating and swiming with no issues the day before just drop dead
3. any suggestions on ways to reduce nitrates.

The tank is 30 gallons and has been set up for just about over 6 months now. I`m religious with water changes, checking parameters and good husbandry

i know some wont like this but I do not have a sump and utilize a canister filter. 65 gallon coralife protein skimmer and have about 40lbs of live rock with a good amount of coralline and green calcerous algae.

I use the current orbit marine LED for lighting.

Water Params are as follows;

Salinity: 1.025
PH: 7.8 this morning yesterday was 8.2
Ammonia: 0.15ppm (using api test kit it's in between the .25ppm and 0ppm)
Nitrite: 0ppm
Nitrate: 40ppm (these have been creeeping up lately. use to have it stable around 5ppm) 
calcium: 440ppm
Alkalinity: 9 dKH
Phosphate: .08ppm
Magnesium: 1400ppm

any help would be sincerely appreciated. I have attached 3 pictures of the flame and two of the tank. and i apologize for the crappy quality. Iphones clearly arent made for pics


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## y4zhuang (Oct 2, 2013)

when in doubt. do another water change. always a good idea to do a wc after a fish dies. with 40 ppm nitrates, maybe a good idea. I'd wait to see if your nem recovers. It doesn't look bad, water change if you're concerned.


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## sig (Dec 13, 2010)

nice tank BTW

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## Steve1505 (Feb 24, 2015)

y4zhuang said:


> when in doubt. do another water change. always a good idea to do a wc after a fish dies. with 40 ppm nitrates, maybe a good idea. I'd wait to see if your nem recovers. It doesn't look bad, water change if you're concerned.


thanks should have mentioned that was the first thing i did after testing my params. i wanted to see if those were the cause first but immediately after i changed 25%



sig said:


> nice tank BTW


thanks SIG. much appreciated. not seeing a ton of growth from the corals but i think that has to do with the light. the birdsnest is the only one growing - as fast as i`d like. waiting on the acans to see how they do.


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## Bullet (Apr 19, 2014)

Bunch of great nem people on this forum - hope that they chime in to help
Seems like your nitrates are a bit high and canisters have no place in a reef setup IMO 

Sorry for your loss


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## nc208082 (Jun 27, 2013)

Couple things right away.
You should have zero ammonia, nitrates are also fairly high these are two bad signs indicating your tank may be too new for an anemone. These creatures are sensitive to water quality. As well your lighting is not strong enough to sustain many corals/ anemone long term.

As well cannister filters are known to be nitrate factories. How often are you cleaning it? 30 gallons is small enough to get by without a sump.

Also how long has your anemone been looking like this? Has it recovered at all yet?


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## Steve1505 (Feb 24, 2015)

nc208082 said:


> Couple things right away.
> You should have zero ammonia, nitrates are also fairly high these are two bad signs indicating your tank may be too new for an anemone. These creatures are sensitive to water quality. As well your lighting is not strong enough to sustain many corals/ anemone long term.
> 
> As well cannister filters are known to be nitrate factories. How often are you cleaning it? 30 gallons is small enough to get by without a sump.
> ...


Hey NC. i clean the canister filter bi-weekly as i was told weekly would be too often. the anemone only started to look that way this morning, after i found the daed flame angel. i have ordered new lighting. i read that for the coral i was looking for the low watage led`s weren`t sufficient so i went with a high powered full spectrum system which should be in early next week.

with regards to the anemone. he has settled down quit a bit since i completed the water change this morning.

any suggestions on the ammonia and nitrate.


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## nc208082 (Jun 27, 2013)

the ammonia spike could be from the death of your flame angel, so its good to usually have some prime on hand to help out in those times when some is detected.(Note prime down not rid your tank of ammonia by binds it to a less toxic form which will need to be removed via water change).

how many fish do you currently have in your system?
anemone sounds like it is recovering but I personally feel the bigger issue is why did your flame angel just die suddenly. We should try to pinpoint that.
so a couple details

size of your tank L x W x H
how many fish? roughly what size?
what is flow like in your tank?


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## Steve1505 (Feb 24, 2015)

nc208082 said:


> the ammonia spike could be from the death of your flame angel, so its good to usually have some prime on hand to help out in those times when some is detected.(Note prime down not rid your tank of ammonia by binds it to a less toxic form which will need to be removed via water change).
> 
> how many fish do you currently have in your system?
> anemone sounds like it is recovering but I personally feel the bigger issue is why did your flame angel just die suddenly. We should try to pinpoint that.
> ...


NC

much appreciated. I just picked up a bottle of prime the other day. will use it tonight. that being said once i use prime tonight should i wait a day to do another water change.

my tank is 30 x 12 x 18

I have two hydor koralia 425`s in my tank

I currently have two ocellaris clowns one is about 1.5inches and the other 1 inch. the only other fish was the flame angel. so now i just have the clowns


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## noy (Nov 19, 2012)

Ammonia is toxic to livestock- see this article.

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2007-02/rhf/

You may have introduced something in your system that caused a bacteria die-off which then caused the ammonia spike (which then killed your flame angel). Prime will bind ammonia but you still have to remove it from the system. I would recommend doing water changes until you get the ammonia readings to 0. Seachem makes a ammonia alert badge which is very good for new setups.

I used to run a cannister filter in my nano. You only need to clean the mechanical filtration stage with any regularity (this is the foam and, if you use it, the filter floss). The biological media (rings or bioballs) don't have to be cleaned - the film of bacteria buildup is what reduces ammonia to nitrite to nitrates). You can also run phosban (or GFO) in a media bag in your canister to remove phosphates. It seems you have plenty of live rock in your system already and may want to remove any biomedia in your canister (redundant).

40ppm nitrates and 0.08 phosphates are a bit on the high side but i wouldn't get too excited over it at this point. Work on stabilizing your system so the ammonia levels remain at 0. It really is a matter of time for the bacteria buildup in your live-rock / cannister.


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## altcharacter (Jan 10, 2011)

The anemone has it's beak sticking out which means certain death soon. You can try to bring it back to life but I think it might be too late.

Take the canister filter off...end of story. It won't help in the long run.

Lastly, it looks like a fairly young tank and it is definitely a beauty! In a smaller tank like yours you could easily get away with not having a sump or mechanical filtration like a canister filter. The skimmer should be doing a fine job and there should be no need for any other type of filtration.

Good luck and keep doing water changes!!


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## y4zhuang (Oct 2, 2013)

I've never had over 10-20ppm of nitrates from just normal water changes. it doesn't look like you're overstocked either. the canister might be the first issue. I agree with everyone that the ammonia is most certainly from the flame's death. I agree with Alt that you should take the canister off.


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## Bayinaung (Feb 24, 2012)

nc208082 said:


> Couple things right away.
> You should have zero ammonia, nitrates are also fairly high these are two bad signs indicating your tank may be too new


First off, sorry to hear about your flame's death. It's a pretty fish.

I agree with nc. At 6 months there shouldn't be any ammonia nor nitrate as that's enough time to build necessary bacteria colonies and supporting eco system of critters. I'm not sure that your tank is mature enough at this time. I suggest buying a really grizzly slimy live rock from somewhere (just a few pounds will do) to help seed the tank. Many experienced reef aquarists use bottled bacteria culture to prime their tanks, even when they are adding live rock (ChingChai comes to mind immediately, amongst others). I did the same thing as well.

flame tip nem you have is pretty hardy, and a fairly domesticated nem used to living in tanks so I assume it will survive as long as you are able to bring your parameters back to good standing.

It's all part of this hobby. Everyone has to learn the hard way. hope it works out for you.


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## kwsjimmy (Jan 5, 2015)

*nems*

+1 on cleaning the canister filter, what do you run inside it? Ive seen bta do that with over dosing alk and raising ph too quickly as well. Try daily 10% water changes for a week to help with the water quality. I have a 20 gallon with a gigantea anemone, and 2 bta, and 3 clowns, but my filtration systems is over engineered to keep the water quality up. I would also suggest maybe looking at the salifert ammonia test kit much more accurate on the low range.
+1 on the everyone's suggestion on the light as well. You need to remember anemones use light yo create energy, if anything they are more demanding than corals can be.
My flame anemone is also more sensitive than my other 2


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## Steve1505 (Feb 24, 2015)

kwsjimmy said:


> +1 on cleaning the canister filter, what do you run inside it? Ive seen bta do that with over dosing alk and raising ph too quickly as well. Try daily 10% water changes for a week to help with the water quality. I have a 20 gallon with a gigantea anemone, and 2 bta, and 3 clowns, but my filtration systems is over engineered to keep the water quality up. I would also suggest maybe looking at the salifert ammonia test kit much more accurate on the low range.
> +1 on the everyone's suggestion on the light as well. You need to remember anemones use light yo create energy, if anything they are more demanding than corals can be.
> My flame anemone is also more sensitive than my other 2


I have a new light coming early next week

I currently run coarse sponge, seachem matrix, carbon, purigen&phosguard


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## kwsjimmy (Jan 5, 2015)

*humm*

If you plan to keep the can filter I would suggest removing the coarse sponge and replace it with filter floss that you might chage every other day. The problem with filter canisters , the flow seams like it's too much for what you are running. The purigen and phosguard are both low flow to be the most effective. Look into filtration flow and effectiveness. If the water flows too quickly it doesn't get filtered properly. I run purigen on a reactor, and I've looked at high and low flow , using ORP readings, a moderate to slow flow works the best with purigen.

Other option drill the tank and sump it, or change to a aio 30 gal like the innovative marine fusion tanks.
.


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## Steve1505 (Feb 24, 2015)

okay guys

so since i originally posted this a few things have happened. everybody is looking happy and healthy. with the exception of the nitrates. the only unfortunate thing is i believe my anemone stung the crap out of my birdsnest and it isn't very happy. but i've been tending to its wounds and its doing better. water params came back into line and are as follows;

Salinity: 1.025
PH: 8.2
Ammonia: 0 (using seachem alert, salifert test and api)
Nitrite: 0ppm
Nitrate: 64ppm 
calcium: 480ppm
Alkalinity: 10 dKH
Phosphate: .08ppm
Magnesium: 1500ppm

I have done 3 water changes in the 8 days since i had my issue and nitrates remain high. i've cleaned out my filter. sifted the sand during water changes and have fed the fish very little amounts to see fi it would reduce. Unfortuantely they go down a bit from the water change and then go back up. i had a diatom outbreak for 2-3 days if that and the snails and crabs took care of it quickly. 

so my question is how do i get my nitrates down? i have read a few tricks but most of them need a sump to work effectively. so i'm looking for ideas to control them without a sump.

cheers


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## kwsjimmy (Jan 5, 2015)

*gfo*

Gfo time, grab a phosban container, it comes with a bag and tie, measure out some , put I. The bag, use the tie, rinse in rodi water, and place it in the canister filter

You can make a refugium in a phosban style media reactor,


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## Steve1505 (Feb 24, 2015)

kwsjimmy said:


> Gfo time, grab a phosban container, it comes with a bag and tie, measure out some , put I. The bag, use the tie, rinse in rodi water, and place it in the canister filter
> 
> You can make a refugium in a phosban style media reactor,


okay sorry for being a newb.

just need a little more explanation. with the GFO, can i put it in line with my canister filter or should it be seperate?

and when you say put it in the filter you mean the phosban reactor correct?


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## nc208082 (Jun 27, 2013)

You dont need GFO yet. Your phosphate isnt that bad. It will have little effect on nitrates.
What are you testing your nitrates with? What brand of test kit. 
Also your doing well. Keep up with the water changes and your nitrates will drop over time.

Just re read since your already using phosguard you dont need gfo. Phosguard does the same thing as gfo, they are just made from different things.


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## Steve1505 (Feb 24, 2015)

nc208082 said:


> You dont need GFO yet. Your phosphate isnt that bad. It will have little effect on nitrates.
> What are you testing your nitrates with? What brand of test kit.
> Also your doing well. Keep up with the water changes and your nitrates will drop over time.
> 
> Just re read since your already using phosguard you dont need gfo. Phosguard does the same thing as gfo, they are just made from different things.


Hey Nc

I used the api test kit and figured about 80ppm. however i used my recently purchased nitrate pro test kit from red sea and it was hovering between the 32 and 64 ppm colour spectrum


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## nc208082 (Jun 27, 2013)

Yeah Api is grabage. Dont waste your time. Red sea is good. Salifert is good too. Just keep up with weekly water changes, feed sparingly and just a simple routine and your water params should stabilize.


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## Curtis22 (Dec 11, 2014)

Here is what i think:

- You HAVE to ditch the canister filter. If you dont want to listen then thats your decision. I recommend using a hang on the back filter if you want instead of the canister, its easier to clean out and does the same purpose. Look your goal with a reef is good water flow and a good bioload meaning you have tonnes of micro organisms crawling in your sand and your rocks to break things down then a protein skimmer will remove the rest. Also you should be siphoning your tank daily if your nitrates are that high, you need to up your cleaning schedule asap without removing the water! Its easy to clean your tank with a filter sock and a bucket and then dump the water back in the tank. You have to blow out your rocks and sand with a turkey baster make your tank cloudy so your skimmer can clean the water. This is what lowers your nitrates not a canister filter sucking in floating pieces of food only to rot where nothing can even get to it. Your canister is for flow, its not for cleaning your tank or removing nitrates, if anything it creates them because detritus will settle in there, longer than 2 days detritus for me has to go (hence why i have no substrate in most tanks). Whoever told you to clean it out once a week is too much is completely wrong. Clean it out daily if you can or remove it and buy a nice jebao rw fan for irregular flows and a cheap hang on the back if you cant build a sump. Anyways remove everything from your canister, nothing should be in it! 

- Buy N03Po4X and add on a daily basis a very little amount. Start slow its strong, its the same thing as vodka dosing/vinegar/etc to lower nitrates in heavily stocked tanks or when people cant keep up with their maintenance or bioload. 

- Phosphates. I highly doubt your phosphates are 0.08 they are probably more like 0.8 . You need to buy a quality test kit, even the red sea is crap for phosphate at any levels under 0.09. You need the hanna checker if you want to measure phosphates period. Red sea or any other test kits are good to tell you yes you have phosphates. They will say you have no phosphates when you have 0.06-0.08 and still growing algea and wondering why. Also i consider 0.08 very high levels in my tank and would see algea grow on plastic frag racks when they reach 0.04 or higher....you need to keep them 0.03 or less for perfect algea conditions. They will not be the reason for your fish's death i dont think, and are not your biggest problems. From what i understand fish and even some corals can live fine in high phoshate tanks however its any changes or fluctuations in Po4 that harm or kill. So lower them slowly with a GFO (phosban or rowaphos) in a Reactor over several weeks. Better to use too less than too much media. Dont use a bag sitting in your canister. It will add to your nitrates, you have to clean it daily which will ruin your phophate media, and your GFO is so expensive why put it in something that doesnt work lol Look for a two little fishies reactor $50 and buy a cheap whisper pump to run it for 20 bucks.

Basically you need to step up your maintancence schedule or improve your skimming and siphoning skills. Its not necessary to remove water from your tank when your cleaning. You can still suck out all the bad stuff through a sock or strainer into a bucket then dump the clean water back in your tank and then Clean the sock. Do that every day. I guarantee your nitrates come down. Throw away the canister, you cant even see whats in there in some places i bet.

Focus on your nitrates and yes water change is good if you have ammonia 

Goodluck tank does look nice !


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## kwsjimmy (Jan 5, 2015)

*nems*

Any updates?


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## Steve1505 (Feb 24, 2015)

kwsjimmy said:


> Any updates?


Okay so here's an update. Thanks to everyone who has responded thus far everyone has been a tremendous help. There are a lot of conflicting opinions in this hobby so please don't take offense if I didn't take your suggestion.

My tank parameters are as follows
Salinity: 1.025
Ph: 8.2
Ammonia: 0 (based on seachem alert and salifert)
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 5-10ppm (based on salifert and 16 based on Red Sea) seriously the discrepancy is ridiculous. Lol. Any opinions on which one is better?
Calcium: 460ppm
Alkalinity: 9.8dKH
Phosphate: .08 ppm 
Magnesium: 1350ppm

So what I did was put an in line ball valve on my canister filter and slowed the water flow right down. Based on doing calculations for how long it takes to fill 1 gallon, I found I slowed it down to about 60-70 gph.

I completed a 10-15% water change for 6 days straight. I am feeding the fish twice a day but in much smaller amounts. I use alpha and stability when doing my water changes. I have increased the amount of skimming by making it a little more wet skim.

So I have attached a photo of the tank. So you can see where it's at. You'll notice the anemones have moved. They have been in the same position for about two weeks now. The flame anemone has lost some colour. But I am assuming its because it had inadequate light and expelled some of its zoox. It has opened up as you can see, and remains that way until the lights go down to 10% ish. Then he'll close up a bit and open back up to let the clown host and sleep.

The coralline and green calcareous algae are growing again but from what I'm reading, I think my high phosphates are inhibiting its growth. It's the two larger pieces who still aren't fully covered but everyone else is almost there.

I do have some algae growing on the glass but I am assuming it is due to the phosphates. As Curtis mentioned. I will be getting the Hanna phosphate checker, but will stick with the Red Sea until it's feasible.

My hammer corals and Acans are doing fantastic. I have put together a game plan for getting my nitrates and phosphates lower. I'm going to do a 30% wc this week and see if it will come down further, and I'm going to add a gfo reactor to rid the phosphates.

I apologize for the crappy iPad picture but it's the best I can do right now. The nem is more purple than it looks in the picture. I'll take one tonight when the blues are more active.

Happy Mother's Day to any mothers out there.


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## Bullet (Apr 19, 2014)

Keep the faith brother - looks like your progressive actions have paid off and you are stabilizing your tank
Maybe you just got off to a quick start and as others have posted, anemones are only comfortable with stable clean conditions 
For what it's worth, I prefer Salifert nitrate kit. Easy to read and seems reliable


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