New To Saltwater - Flower Nems Not Doing Well

valoraquatics · May 7, 2024

Hi All

New to saltwater and reef here. I have a 20G aquarium that is about 7 months (a little over). Almost two weeks ago I added 2 flower anemones and a leather (in addition to a ploy I added about two months in and a long tentical anemone around 5-6 months).

The long tentical and poly are doing great, though I feel the ploy doesn’t extend as fully as it did in the shops tank. The leather and flower nems were doing pretty well in week one but I noticed around the end of the first week they didn’t seem as full or “clean?” as when I first put them in. Moving up to now, two weeks later, and they just look sad. The leather has shrunk up to about 1/4 of its size when I first got it, one of the flower nems won’t come out of the hole he moved to, and the other flower nem (the one who arguable looks the best) as moved down to the sand bed and just isn’t fully spread.

Tank Details:
2 clowns (neither hosting)
3 snails
2 hermit crabs
1 anemone crab (hosting)
A Kessil A80 Tuna Blue with the controller added and set to the Auto Tuna Blue programming
HOB Fluval Filter
Protein Skimmer
Surface Skimmer (only runs occasionally)
Small wave maker

Parameters As Of Today:
Calcium (460 but the past three weeks of readings it swings between 400 - 465ish)

Mag: 1440 and stays around there with almost no swings

Alk: 9.2 (stays pretty stable between 9-9.5)
Salinity: 1.025 (some minor swings up to just below 1.030 due to vap but stays pretty stable between RODI and salt RODI)

PH: 8.0 (doesn’t move much from there and haven’t used any reef buffer because I want alk stable and don’t wanna param chase 0.4 PH unless necessary)

Phosphate: 0

Nitrite: 0

Ammonia: Usually 0 with a few swings up to 0.25 (today the color was between 0 and 0.25). Usually corrects itself or the weekly small water changes corrects it.

Nitrates: Usually 0 to 5.0. Today it was a little above 0 but not near the 5.0 color. Correction same as ammonia.

Flower nem pics attached. Let me know if I forgot to include a detail that might help.

TIA!

Mr. Mojo Rising · May 7, 2024

The RFA in the first pic looks just fine to me...

For the RFA that went into hiding, unfortunately not much you can do about it. Usually they will come back to the light after a while, but I've had some that came to the light only when they were totally bleached white, and I've had others that just stay in hiding until they die. They are not too smart unfortunately.

The second pic is impossible to see, its just appears as a blue square. Can you post a pic in white lights only?

As for the leather, they do like flow so put it into a higher flow area. Also, your phosphate and nitrate is too low for soft corals, they like some measurable amounts of phosphate and nitrate in the water

Uncle99 · May 7, 2024

Zero phosphate if true, is a level for which can starve the system, and limit those things which feed on phosphate and in turn, feed our corals.

Zeroes can also lead to pest algae’s and bacteria.

I’d shoot to maintain phosphate at .1-.2ppm in systems less than a year with some coral loads and higher values with high coral loads and a year or more.

Nitrate, I’d shoot for 5-15ppm.

valoraquatics · May 8, 2024

Mr. Mojo Rising said:
The RFA in the first pic looks just fine to me...

For the RFA that went into hiding, unfortunately not much you can do about it. Usually they will come back to the light after a while, but I've had some that came to the light only when they were totally bleached white, and I've had others that just stay in hiding until they die. They are not too smart unfortunately.

The second pic is impossible to see, its just appears as a blue square. Can you post a pic in white lights only?

As for the leather, they do like flow so put it into a higher flow area. Also, your phosphate and nitrate is too low for soft corals, they like some measurable amounts of phosphate and nitrate in the water

Here is a hopefully better pic of the one that is hiding in the hole. Two different pics under two different color (full intensity) light settings.

I’ll work to get my phosphates up to a small non-zero level and not stress so much about small ammonia bumps so that the natural cycle can occur to get the nitrates up a bit.