Anemone Species details and behavioral question

Hemil · Nov 3, 2020

Hello,

My name is Hemil and I recently purchased a 55g saltwater aquarium. And as all newbies would, I just went to my LFS in a week and purchased a huge long tantacle anemone with bunch of fishes. I did not realize the mistake I made till I researched a bit (nor did the fish store representatives tell me). My intention was to keep my maroon clown safe from koran angel and figured why not keep an anemone to solve the problem! Little did I know, my tank was still cycling and they came with fungal and ich infection all over and unfortunately neither of them survived, fighting the tank parameters and the infection. However the anemone is still alive and I would like to know if the behavior is normal.

The anemone tantacles are not as long as they were at the LFS when I got it. I have attached a few pictures. Also they only shine green under violet light. Is it normal for them to not deflate but shorten their long tantacles despite the favourable lighting / flow / feeding?

Tank conditions:

It has been eating frozen mysis shrimp every 3rd day since I got it..
Light is fluval marine 3.0 and I keep it running for 12 hours a day very gradually increasing/decreasing throughout the day.
I have fluval sea power head on one side and tidal 110 on the other. Also have a uv sterilizer since the infection.
pH: 8.0
Kh: 10-12(still trying to get right reading on salifert test kit)
Ammonia: 0.25
Nitrite: 0.25
Nitrate: 5
Salinity: 1.024
Temperature: 78

Also is this a tube long tantacle anemone? Or something else? I just want to have it on the best health possible.
I know the mistake on impulse buy but now trying to eliminate them all hope you understand as most of you would have gone through the same. Thanks.

xxkenny90xx · Nov 3, 2020

Assuming your ammonia test is correct and not an api false positive reading your gonna want to get that nem out of the tank. Anemones need a stable tank and won't do well in one that is cycling.

If returning the nem isn't going to happen I would add some prime to counteract the ammonia, do a water change, and add a bunch of LIVE rock, not the dry stuff.

lapin · Nov 3, 2020

Looks like the nem is moving around. It might be trying to find a better place it likes.
Could be the fact your tank is not stable is why its not fully extending.
The mouth seems ok. If it was dilated and open then I would worry.
The rock you have looks like it has some algae.
I assume you have added bacteria, live rock or something to cycle your tank. ( 5 nitrate and low ammonia)
I would try to use a lower alk salt mix if you can. 10 - 12 is pretty high for a new reef.
From the reviews it looks like your light is ok.

Fluval Marine reef 3.0 review

For all those curious I’m doing a review of the Fluval Marine reef 3.0 for a low tech light it’s pretty good, the app is decent although without a par meter you might find yourself lost adjusting the spectrums the light by itself will support softies however for any LPS and SPS corals I would...

www.reef2reef.com

Oh ya Howdy, Bienvenu

Hemil · Nov 5, 2020

Hey..thanks a lot for the advice.
I believe my tank has cycled a couple of weeks ago because I used to put seachem stability and also I began with bio spira. Now the tank has almost no Ammonia and no nitrite since a couple of weeks. I used API saltwater test kit. And for kH I used salifert test kit which I'm still trying to understand correct measures. And as far as salt goes I have only used Fritz RPM salt but I used seachem kalkwasser in my waterchange to increase the pH from 7.8 to 8.2 slowly. May be that's the reason of higher kH and my anemone has been not in the same place ever since..may be it needs lesser kH and that's why it's moving around.
I have added about 60 lbs of caribsea dry rock and 40 lbs of carib sea dried live rock ..with carib sea 40 lbs sand.

I don't have a par meter yet but after I researched, I believe I need to wait for at least 6 months of stable parameters to add any corals. So I would be getting the par meter eventually before I add any corals.
Here is my full set up. The one in the middle are the live rocks. Brown ones are the first dry rocks that I had and are full of diatom bloom. The white ones are the recent addition to the final setup.