Sickly Bubble Tip Anemone

[mannn2]

Hello everyone! I am slightly new to reef tanks and anemones. I have had several tanks before that were solely fish and rocks. I have a 120g reef tank that is in the baby stages of coral building. I got this tank from my father in law who had really let it go so we had to scrub everything and pretty much start over. Its been reestablished for about 6 months now and has been fully cycled for quite a while. There are 3 clowns, 1 fire goby, a blue leg hermit, a purple condylactis, and a bubble tip anemone along with a zoa, hammer, and a torch. A month or two ago my nitrates got way out of hand after a blenny got stuck under a rock and died without me knowing right away. It seemed like after that I just could not get them under control no matter how hard I tried or how many water changes I did. My coral all looked fine and both heads of my torch were splitting. My zoas were growing new heads like crazy and my condylactis was growing huge. I had a bad algea bloom (red and green) since the nitrates were high. I also tried the stabilize stuff to lower them. My bubble tip however had not been doing so hot. He began to fade out in color and never inflated his bubbles. His mouth goes through cycles of inflating and then deflating. I began to give up but as a last ditch effort I got my emergency 40b set up with some of the sand(swished thoroughly with salt water) from my 120g and all the live rock that would fit in the tank. I mixed 100% new water and let everything settle for a little while. Then I moved my stock over and drained my 120g to do a 100% water change. I am leaving everything in the 40b for a week or two while I get a new tank stand for the 120g and move it empty (its glass so freaking heavy even empty).

Do you think my bubble tip may recover? If so how long do you think it will take? Any tips?

My new tank set up has perfect perimeters and its been a little less than a week. All my coral and fish are doing great. My bubble tip looks like he might be doing a little better but its so hard to tell. I attached before and after he got sick pictures.

Thanks in advance! Sorry for the long post.

 

[GatorScott]

The best thing to do for nems in my experience has been to keep the waters parameters as stable as possible and leave them alone. Try and keep everything the same, do not change lighting or flow and just let it do it’s thing while holding the parameters steady.

 

[mannn2]

What causes the color fade out? I am not sure if it was bad water quality or a lightning issue.

 

[GatorScott]

What causes the color fade out? I am not sure if it was bad water quality or a lightning issue.

Mine lost color when stressed out. They’d lose color and shrink up. But all kinds of things cause them to stress like parameters having a big swing up or down, flow being changed and definitely changing lighting drastically.

 

[Lance M.]

This is what it looks like now?

Likely, you will need to rely on light and stable water parameters to get it to come back. At this stage, you may be able to get it to suck in a pellet if you shut off the water flow. You could try that but do not be poking it or forcing food in to it. Or you could just wait for it to start regrowing tentacles. Enough light, stable water, and time, it would probably come back.

 

[Auto-pilot]

Yeah it looks like your coral has really started to bleach. Stress lack of light and poor water parameters can cause this. I would leave it be and try not to stress it out. Also if your LR came out of a tank that was dirty and not well maintained sometimes it leaches nitrate and phosphate back into the water column for a while. LR can really act like a sponge that releases what it absorbs back into clean water. I do your best to keep all the water parameters stable and not changing things rapidly. 100% water changes can shock corals.