Very Frustrated! Am I Over Reacting??
 

I have a 90 gallon tank that I have had running for over a year and about 6 weeks ago I added some frags and a sebae anenome. I have 2 x 250 watt MH and my parameters are as follows:
ammonia-0
nitrate-1
calcium-430
phosphate-0
magnesium-1250
Ph-8.1
temp-79
salinity-1.026
I have an overflow (not drilled) and sump and an HOB Remora skimmer and also two koralia 1050 ghr pumps for flow. I have a third pump but took it out a few weeks ago as I thought I had too much flow.
I have been increasing my lighting gradually with 4 layers of screen above the tank.
I am stressing because one day or hour everything looks great and then suddenly half the stuff is closed up including my nem. I realize things take time to acclimate but today everything looked great this morning and a couple of hours later my hammer coral, mushroom and nem is closed most of the way without any MH lights on. But the frogspawn looks good. Now the lights have been on the side of the nem,it is closing more. I am just stressing for nothing or am I missing something?

Leanne P

Very Frustrated! Am I Over Reacting??
 

You're probably stressing for nothing :). Stuff opens and closes all the time, sometimes closes for days. It's all part of salt water tanks. If you can figure what triggers them to open and close then you might get ahead of it a bit but really... I wouldn't expect to figure things out, ever! I have critters that do great in one tank and terrible in another with no apparent reason why. It's all part of the game and the sooner you can treat it with wonder rather than frustration the more you can enjoy the crazy randomness that Reefs are ;).


Dan

I have also found that nems are crazy and do exactly what you don't want or expect

How much are you feeding it?

You said you have removed one pump because you had too much flow, also
you have been adding more lighting right.
Both flow and light are two factors that could be causing your corals an anemone
to close more or less, so i wouldnt worry too much for now. Do you have an inverts
or fish that could also be part of the problem?

I have been wondering about how much to feed the nem. He hasn't been getting that much light since I have gotten him and I was feeding him about once every 5 days but did a bunch of reading and was wondering if I should be feeding him more until he has acclimated properly. Any suggestions?

Maybe it's time for new bulbs. 6-7 months and they seem to lose something.

Feeding is not required. I feed mine every few weeks at best. Any more and my RBtA splits.

I was reading some articles here on Canreef and they were saying to feed them every couple of days if they were the size that mine was and that most people underfeed them. Maybe I will cut back and see what happens. I know that Andrew (previous owner) had said to feed less too. Anyone else have feeding input on nems??

I never feed

I have a big (18" across) long tentacle anemone in the a bunch of sps and lps in my DT. I feed him when he starts to shrink, which is about every 6-8 weeks. By 'shrink' I don't mean the periodic shrivel up, I mean it will actually start to be smaller when fully inflated. I used to feed it every couple of weeks and it got to be about 24" across and was burning all my corals. I have been feeding my fish more often lately (every couple of days) and haven't needed to feed the Ben in a couple of months and he is growing again. My tube dwelling anemones get fed with my fish. I tried feeding them every couple of weeks but they shrink down when I do this. My last long tentacle anemone was fed every couple of months and he was around for about 12 years, eventually losing a battle with a power head.
I think if you feed it every couple of weeks and watch how it does for a couple of months you will be at a safe starting point.



Dan