unexplained anemone death

[seattlevet]

Hey Everyone. I have two questions, 1) my long tenticle anemone that I have had for 9 months suddenly died the other day, It lookes like it had been attacked during the night, leaving a large hole in its side. There have been no new additions for 9 months. I have two peppermint shrinp, 1 cleaner shrimp, and a coral band shrimp in the tank as well as a long spine urchin. I suspect that one of them may be the problem. I got a new anemone yesterday and it had the same wounds the next morning. 2) my second question is that I have had a hair algae issue for the last three months. It started when getting new lights for the tank. My tank is 55 gallon, nitrates are 10ppm ammonia and nitrate are 0. My phosphate was zero- but I used a phosphate binder anyway just to be sure. I do add a lot of trace minerals and iodine for the rest of the tank inhabitants. I use only R/O water and instant ocean for salt mix. Any thoughts would greatly appreciated. Now that my anemone is gone my clown fish is irritating my soft toad stool coral.

 

[Jan]

Hi! Welcome to Reeffrontiers.

Sorry to hear about your anemone. Could it have got sucked into a powerhead? Was it in the habit of moving around at all? If not, and one of your creatures did it, I would suspect either your coral banded shrimp or a hitchiker you haven't seen in the daytime. Some people check out their tank in the dark using a flashlight when there is unexplained predatory behavior going on.

can you move your new BTA out of harm's way until you figure out the predator and remove it? I have a contraption you could use for isolating it from harm's way. Send me a pm if you want to borrow it.

as for your hair algae, I wonder about the supplements you're adding...I'll be interested to hear what other people have to say about it.

 

[Jan]

bumping this for my friend....

 

[returnofsid]

Powerhead damage was my first thought as well. Although, when that's happened to mine, I've found it in the powerhead. It wasn't able to get out on its own.

 

[Jan]

FYI I posted a link to this thread in the chemistry forum for help with your second question....

 

[Herefishyfishy]

The shrimp are not the cause, they are merely being natures cleaners and munching on dead tissue. Most anemone injuries are from power equipment and intakes.

see anthony Calfos opin: http://www.reeffrontiers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=25985

 

[returnofsid]

Not sure I understand your parameter readings. You state that your Nitrates are 10 ppm and then in the next sentence, you state your nitrates are 0. As for phosphates, from what I understand, it's impossible to measure phosphates in your tank. They bind with sand, rock and algae and don't show up on a test accurately. Also from what I understand, the only way to truly test phosphates is to test water before going into the tank.
Hair Algae can be a bugger. I ended up spending a lot of time manually removing it. I started off by removing the affected rock and taking a stiff toothbrush to it while rinsing it often in a bucket of clean SW. I also added a couple Emerald Crabs that really liked eating it. I did water changes more often and increased flow. All of this, combined....or maybe it was just my tank maturing, finally stopped the Hair Algae from returning.

 

[Jan]

I think it's a typo and he meant "nitrite and ammonia are 0"

I have heard the same thing with how phophate test kits don't measure phosphates in tanks accurately. I heard they were targeted to "inorganic" phosphate and what's in our tank is organic....

 

[returnofsid]

Yep, that's the problem with phosphate test kits. Kevin was explaining to me that's why he doesn't even sell the Salifert Phosphate test kit. It's pretty useless.
I figured the nitrate, nitrite thing was a typo...just not sure which way. 10 ppm nitrate or 10 ppm nitrite. Could make a difference with the algae problem.

 

[Jan]

this happens to be my vet and we've talked about his hair algae issues. that's how I remembered it was 10 ppm nitrate.

 

[returnofsid]

Well, 10 ppm nitrate is definitely going to contribute to algae growth.

 

[Boomer]

Iodine how much and what kind ?