got ethical husbandry?

Introduction

Blaise006

Supporting Member
Hi all,
This is an awesome site and looking forward to becoming a supporting member.

I wanted to introduce myself and hopefully clarify a couple things I was unsure of.

First, I would like to say how cool I think the goal of this site is!

I started reefing when I was 15, and kept at it until about 17/18. I wasn’t able to continue the hobby in college, so I donated my tank to my high school. Fast forward 13 years, I jumped back into the hobby about 4-5 months ago. It has been really exciting to see learn about all the new tools at my disposal. Here is a link to my imgur album with pictures of the frags, tank, and parameters. Please let me know if this an acceptable way of posting this information. It is typically how I post to reddit and am not 100% if it is proper protocol for these forums. Imgur Tank Stats

I was lurking on the don’t break the chain forums and noticed someone said they wanted a tank journal. What exactly is in a tank journal?

Are there any particular tips people suggest for new profiles? Would love to hear some things I could do to improve my profile in needed.

Lastly, for about a month I have been having trouble with a rose bubble tip anemone. I’ve posted on multiple sites and tried to seek possible answers, but so far I haven’t made any progress. I would be happy to link those reef2reef and reddit posts, but I am not sure if that is against the rules, so I will leave them out for now.

Below is a imgur album of the anemone through time.
Feb 2020 - This is a picture of when the nem established itself near the top of the tank. It stayed this way for a little over a month. Towards the end of March it began to deflate and I could constantly see the white parts inside of its mouth.
4/28/2020 - I thought it was going to be dead within a few days, so I put it in a specimen box to isolate it. A little bit of orange cane back after three days, so I let it loose again.
05/20/2020 - compared to when I thought it was going to die, it is still surviving(ish). Looks terrible and constantly deflated to the size of a quarter daily while expelling waste of zooanthelle. Not sure how to tell the difference. I see the whites of inside it’s mouth more frequently.

I am out of ideas of what could be causing it to deteriorate, but not die. I would love to save it because it was a beautiful anemone. Any help would be appreciated.

My historical tank stats up to today are in my link above.

Current stats

Alk: fluctuates between 9.3-9.7 through out the day.
cal: 480
Mag: 1600
Salinity: 1.026 - 34.9ppt
Ammonia: 0ppm
Nitrate: 8ppm
Phos: Flucates daily between .015-.05
Protein skimmer: runs slightly wet
Refugium: Chateo

Dosing

4ml NOPOX (started beginning of May)
Copepods
Phytoplankton
12ml Esv 2 part alk
12ml esv 2 part calcium
4ml Red Sea coral nutrition a
4ml Red Sea coral nutrition b

Weird stuff

I have been dosing iron at 6-8ml for 5 of the last 7 days. My thought it the cheato is stripping it out of the water, but I can’t be sure. Either way the tests keep reporting less than .15 ppm iron. In total over the last week I have dosed about 36ml in total. I saw no difference in the Red Sea test. I stopped dosing today, because I started to get nervous the test is wrong. I never dose without measuring. Since then the anemone has moved deep into the rock work out of the light. That made me think it is sensitive to the change in iron, but does nothing to explain its deterioration since I only started dosing that last week.

sorry for the wall of text and happy to repost this somewhere more appropriate. Just point me in the right direction :).
Looking forward to talking with everyone here, have a great day!
 
Welcome. I would make this the first list in your tank journal. There is a sub forum on here called tank journals. Start a new post there and keep a journal of your tank with info, pics, questions etc...
 
Welcome to the family. Do a journal, will be fun to follow your system.
Also do make use of our DBTC and pay it forward forums.
Tank journal is basically a thread you creat and keep updating it with your system progress, news and things you learned or want to ask help for. Very useful tool for you to document your progress and document your learnings.
 
Welcome!

Starting with your easy questions:

You can see what we mean by tank journals here:

Which you can get to by the link in top left to Forums, then Tank Journals. As Mike said, this first post would also be a good first journal post, just over in that forum section.

As far as linking to other sites, it’s fine when appropriate like when you truly want to link to someone else’s conversation, article, item for sale, etc, but for personal pics it’s better just to upload them in your post. You’ll see it as an option when you are posting.
 
That nem is a candidate for having a bacterial infection. You can try using a ciprofloxacin treatment (google Fish Flox or get a prescription from a vet). Here is a link describing the treatment plan. Most follow this treatment fairly closely. I’d recommend you do a minimum 10 day treatment vs. the 7 days that is stated.

 
@Blaise006 suggest going the cipro route as well. It may have an infection. What else do you keep in your tank? Any yumas? Or other nems?

I can also be that your tank is too young.

Any idea of PAR where your nem is?
 
For the nem...Honestly before you try anything crazy, I would do a series of lugals iodine dips and watch for any improvement.

look for my thread about my meat coral. It has made a huge turn around.
 
For the nem...Honestly before you try anything crazy, I would do a series of lugals iodine dips and watch for any improvement.

look for my thread about my meat coral. It has made a huge turn around.
For nems, i would avoid lugol's. In the past, when i tried lugol's for shrooms and nems, it usually results in accelerated melting

Cipro is proven mostly safe and effective in treating nems (not always a guarantee though)
 
@Blaise006 suggest going the cipro route as well. It may have an infection. What else do you keep in your tank? Any yumas? Or other nems?

I can also be that your tank is too young.

Any idea of PAR where your nem is?

Thanks, I got Cipro yesterday and set up a very rudimentary holding hospital tank for the nem. It did not like the cipro being added to the water and won’t grab on to anything now. After a month and a half of looking really bad it just may be to late.

I do have a ricordia and a second BTA.

I don’t have a PAR meter. I am running the redsea hydra 26 that came with the reefer deluxe package. I use the Saxby preset as well.

Really appreciate the help. :)
 
Unfortunately, this is the worst I have seen it look. Appears to be melting on its far side.

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I assume your QT solution is mixed to the equivalence of 250mg / 10G... ?

If it is melting on one side, the nem was probably already in critical condition. Your best option here would be to cut the melt through the mouth and continue to treat. It's a hail mary since you are banking the nem to heal while fighting off an infection

The cause of the issue might be due to incompatibility with the othe nem in the tank or yumas or both.
 
Btw, losing tentacles and having some messenterial filaments come out is ok, and different than melting.

If it's melting it'll smell off and funky. And truly looks like a melt
 
Btw, losing tentacles and having some messenterial filaments come out is ok, and different than melting.

If it's melting it'll smell off and funky. And truly looks like a melt

Thanks so much for the info. I adjusted the dose accordingly to the tank size. I am not experiencing any smells yet, but it appears like necrosis is setting in all around the nems exterior. I will try to post a clear picture when i get home. I am doing another dose with a water change this evening.


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Btw, losing tentacles and having some messenterial filaments come out is ok, and different than melting.

If it's melting it'll smell off and funky. And truly looks like a melt

Btw, losing tentacles and having some messenterial filaments come out is ok, and different than melting.

If it's melting it'll smell off and funky. And truly looks like a melt

Here is a pic. You think splitting it is still worth it?

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OK -- that looks pretty bad.

I would said take this as a learning opportunity and split it. high likelihood of failure but good learning...

I was very careful about the dosing adjustment and dissolved the antibiotic really well before adding it to the water. However it really went downhill since I moved it last night.

It went from looking like this for the last month to the picture you just saw (not great). I’ll give splitting it a try. Next time I’ll know to use cipro much earlier. Really appreciate everyone’s help, wish I found the group sooner.
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I wish I could figure out what triggered the infection. The nem did really well for a good while. Would feeding it a frozen scallop or shrimp have caused it? I made sure the ingredients had no preservatives or additives.
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