Second opinions on Nem and Tank

[ReefHunter006]

Nem for the past 8 days has been shrinking and moving a lot but staying on the same general rock. It appeared to be doing really well and eating every few days. Usually a small piece of frozen raw shrimp from the grocery store. I started getting worried about day 4 when it was expelling what looked like waste but I haven’t fed it since it started its move around the rocks. It is staying very small and even closed up during the day for long periods of time. It’s 3/27 picture is the nem as close to the top of the tank as the rocks will let it and it seemed happy there. I started checking all my parameters. The only difference is that I switch from using API for phosphates this week to a Hanna checker. API was showing zero, but the hair algae growth suggested otherwise and I suspected the color chart was crap. All readings on the stat page are from the Hanna checker for phosphate. So I started running half the recommended dose of GFO in my reactor.

All my tank stats are in the picture below.

Things not listed:

Ammonia/nitrite both are zero
- 55 gal + 11 gal sump
- Carbon and GFO reactor. (Added a new batch of carbon on 4/26/20 and started GFO on 4/26/20 as well to combat algae bloom and phosphates.
- Weekly water changes around 20% preformed every Sunday. I performed two back to back water changes on 4/25 & 4/26 in a move to get alk, cal, and mag in balance. I use Red Sea pro. - - - The increase in alk is a combination of water changes and dosing about 15ml of alk. At the beginning of the week it was 7.6. The balance did not occur and I am kind of stuck scratching my head how to fix that particular issue. I am not terribly worried about it and want to try to bring those down slowly. It is hard to tell if the magnesium reading is right since high calcium interferes with magnesium testing, so I am suspect that it is at 1500ppm. Hanna calcium checker results are all over the place from 435 to 520. No idea what is right for that one. Red Sea titration suggests calcium is greater than 500ppm.
- I dose 20ml of phyto every morning. Protein skimmer is turned off for 90 minutes.
- I dose copepods weekly from my Phytotank culture.
- I feed live baby brine shrimp every other day in generous proportions. Mandarin likes them. Pellets every other day. Frozen brine and mysis mixed with amino acid and garlic then refrozen into cubes. That is usually fed daily. One sheet of seaweed.

Livestock:

- 2 clownfish (1 contracted ich today)
- 1 Hippo tang (contracted ich as of this morning as well)
- 3 Bar Gobies
- 3 Chromis
- 1 Yellow watchmen goby
- 2 cleaner gobies
- 1 mandarin goby
- 1 cleaner shrimp
- 1 fire shrimp
- 1 pep shrimp
- Mixed reef and clean up crew.

The fish store I buy from said they quarantine all their fish. So I had only been quarantining new arrivals for about two weeks and treating with general cure and copper during that time. None of the fish showed signs of disease except for the clownfish with white stringy poo. I treated them for an additional week to fix that issue. Unfortunately, my q tank will not hold all the current livestock so I am really worried about losing the fish, but we are unable to get a bigger q tank right now .

Appreciate any help that might assist in saving the anemone because I am running out of ideas for what is causing it to fade. I am also interested in others opinions on what might be a better way to proceed overall.

The pictures are of my anemone as of 03/27/2020 and 04/27/2020, tank parameters, and rest of my coral livestock. Not sure if anyone sees anything I may not have mentioned.


Thanks for the help!

 

[mcshams]

Anemones can be weird. But if I'm honest, your bubble tip looks fine. The movement might be due to light or flow... it both. I've not seen a sick or dying BTA with good color and fat healthy bubbled tentacles... so let your BTA run around a bit until it's happy.