How does this nem look? Stressed or not?

[Krixic]

Does this black widow look stressed? Just received it an hour ago and deciding whether to treat him with Cipro or not. This is my first nem so I am not sure what a truly sick or stressed nem looks like. Regardless I am going to put him in a separate tank I set up to keep an eye on him for a few days until I transfer to the main display

 

[laverda]

It looks healthy from what little I can see. I think the stress of being in a qt and moved around is not worth it if it is healthy. I would add to your display and leave it be. Place by holding it foot up under a rock or near a hole in a rock. It should attach in less than a min if it is happy with your tank parameters and healthy.

 

[Krixic]

It looks healthy from what little I can see. I think the stress of being in a qt and moved around is not worth it if it is healthy. I would add to your display and leave it be. Place by holding it foot up under a rock or near a hole in a rock. It should attach in less than a min if it is happy with your tank parameters and healthy.

Gotcha, thanks. I mainly want to bring it to my quarantine due to my nitrates and phosphates being really high for some reason in my diaplay. I want to do a few water changes before I add him but do you think it can handle higher levels of phosphate/nitrate? If so I'll add him to the tank, I just don't want to stress him out too much. The display is almost a year old but I fell behind on my water changes due to a crazy couple of weeks so that likely is what contributed to the higher nitrate and phosphate levels. I probably should have waited to receive him but didn't check my parameters till yesterday (after I paid for him).

 

[GoReefin]

Looks good for being in a bag! I'd acclimate and set him in the display.

 

[laverda]

How high are your phosphates? High nitrates are not an issue at all. Nitrates are a food source for them. I doubt your phosphates are an issue either. Just drip acclimate so it can adjust to them.

 

[Sleeping Giant]

The anemone will be fine, it'll be worse if you try to move it again from a QT to a DT. Lower the flow in your DT and place it close to where you want it to grab on too and hope for the best. They usually don't take too long to grab onto rock work, then it could look like crap for awhile, as they do get crabby.

 

[Krixic]

How high are your phosphates? High nitrates are not an issue at all. Nitrates are a food source for them. I doubt your phosphates are an issue either. Just drip acclimate so it can adjust to them.

So apparently phosphates are 0.06 and my nitrates are zero. I redid each test 3 times to be sure and that's what I got consistently. I must have messed something up yesterday lol. Guess I was worried for nothing

 

[laverda]

Zero is worse than if your nitrates were 50.

 

[kutcha]

are you running a Algae turf scrubber? if so you may want to reduce the lighting period and feed the tank a bit more food. A nutrient deprived tank is a breeding ground for Dinos and red slime.

 

[Krixic]

are you running a Algae turf scrubber? if so you may want to reduce the lighting period and feed the tank a bit more food. A nutrient deprived tank is a breeding ground for Dinos and red slime.

I don't have any issues with dinos but I have a crazy hair algae breakout that I am battling. Could low nutrients be related?

 

[Krixic]

Zero is worse than if your nitrates were 50.

Oh shoot. In that case what might be a good course of action? Should I feed it directly?

 

[laverda]

If your having a hair algae issue it is because they are using the nutrients up giving you false results on your tests.
I find the best way to control gha long term is to use a ATS to out compete what is growing in the tank. You can make one for very little. See my thread Under $30 ATS for some ideas.
Short term you can remove any easily to access rocks, remove what gha you can by pulling and scrubbing and pour hydrogen peroxide over the remaining to kill it. Do just a few rocks at a time. H202 will also kill pods and brittle stars this way.
If you pull gha in the tank you just going to spread it. If you have do it that way dose a small amount (5ml per 10 gallons I believe) of hydrogen peroxide directly to your tank to kill to free floating gha. You can also use a pipette to dose H202 directly to a patch of algaebin the tank. But only do small amounts at a time. To much hydrogen peroxide can cause issues.

 

[Krixic]

If your having a hair algae issue it is because they are using the nutrients up giving you false results on your tests.
I find the best way to control gha long term is to use a ATS to out compete what is growing in the tank. You can make one for very little. See my thread Under $30 ATS for some ideas.
Short term you can remove any easily to access rocks, remove what gha you can by pulling and scrubbing and pour hydrogen peroxide over the remaining to kill it. Do just a few rocks at a time. H202 will also kill pods and brittle stars this way.
If you pull gha in the tank you just going to spread it. If you have do it that way dose a small amount (5ml per 10 gallons I believe) of hydrogen peroxide directly to your tank to kill to free floating gha. You can also use a pipette to dose H202 directly to a patch of algaebin the tank. But only do small amounts at a time. To much hydrogen peroxide can cause issues.

Thank you for info, Ill check all that out! Although regarding ATH, How does it work better as opposed to refugium with chaeto? My chaeto has a ton of algae growth that is not chaeto algae.

 

[resortez]

Looks to be in good shape. I’ve seen way worse, like the insides of the anemone sticking out, with cloudy white water & smelling like death but after a proper slow acclimation, tha anemone bounce right back. I like to dose some salifert natural iodine to help the anemone with recovery. Good luck.

 

[Krixic]

Looks to be in good shape. I’ve seen way worse, like the insides of the anemone sticking out, with cloudy white water & smelling like death but after a proper slow acclimation, tha anemone bounce right back. I like to dose some salifert natural iodine to help the anemone with recovery. Good luck.

Right now he's lookin a little smaller than when he was in the bag. Hes attached to the roof of my acclimation box. There is a little while stringy stuff on the sides of his feet but very little.

 

[Krixic]

Here's an updated pic

 

[laverda]

Thank you for info, Ill check all that out! Although regarding ATH, How does it work better as opposed to refugium with chaeto? My chaeto has a ton of algae growth that is not chaeto algae.

It works better as it is very easy to remove the gha from the mesh sheets. I use an old knife and clean each sheet in a min or two. There by exporting all the nutrients the ghs has uptaken.

 

[Crashjack]

My experience has been a little different. I've found that GHA can thrive in both low and high nutrient environments. I had GHA with zero nitrate and zero phosphate and then had Dinos. I've also had GHA with high nutrients like when I was trying to grow GHA when dosing nitrate and phosphate to combat Dinos. The most effective way I found to combat GHA is by manual removal. It doesn't go away overnight and takes weeks if not months but if you periodically remove with a toothbrush and use a fish net to get out large clumps and let the rest go into your filter socks (a mesh type filter works better because it is easier to clean), it will eventually go away. During this removal period, your chaeto should start growing and up-taking nutrients provided there are enough nutrients to uptake. It will outcompete the GHA, and the GHA will go away.

 

[laverda]

The gha in my ats completely out competed my cheeto, which declined to nothing.

 

[Crashjack]

The gha in my ats completely out competed my cheeto, which declined to nothing.

I've seen the exact same thing in nutrient poor environments (I'm not saying that an ATS automatically creates a nutrient poor environment, but it is like a tank full of GHA on steroids). Unlike chaeto, GHA seems to thrive in very low nutrient environments and unlike the type of dinos reefers usually battle, GHA can also thrive in high nutrient environments.