newbie with many questions

[drive]

the concerns i have are these:

1. the rose bubble-tip anemone has bleached quite a bit since it was purchased and introduced three weeks ago. every effort has been made to accomodate its lighting requirements (single 65-watt dual bulb with a 10000K white and actinic 7100K). as you can see from the pictures that the RBTA was pinkish before, it is now pink-tipped and a ghoulish transluscent green as well. i've been feeding it three-four times a week with bits of shrimp in hopes of helping the little slimeball make it. furthermore, i have the idea that acquiring a clown (maroon or tomato) for the RBTA will help it convalesce.

2. the yellowtail damsel that resides in the tank has a disproportionate left eye. by that i mean its left eye is covered by a giant bubble and its right eye lacks this bubble. what is it? would i be better off without this fish in the long run?

3. is there anything more i can do to clean up the fishy poop on the bottom of the tank? there is already 6 turbo snails, 3 blue-legged hermit crabs, one emerald crab on janitorial duty. however, it appears that the load of 2 domino and 1 yellowtail damsel is too heavy a burden.

4. oh btw, the tank is a 26 bow with a 280 emperor and a powerhead, no protein skimmer. the bio-wheel's been removed since that's the general consensus on reefcentral.com. its been floating in the tank for about a week. is that a ok? or it there a more preferred method to approach this?

that's it for now. sorry about being verbose. brevity is art. yada yada.

pictures for you to see...

anemone 3 days after we got it:
http://www.bitdecay.net/aquarium/anemone.jpg

anemone as of 2 minutes ago:
http://www.bitdecay.net/aquarium/anemone_current.jpg

yellowtail:
http://www.bitdecay.net/aquarium/yellow_tail.jpg

thanks again for the help

[BraenDead]

Regarding the anemone and damsel:

I would try feeding the anemone a bit more. The lighting might not be quite enough (I assume PC? Maybe VHO?) so you should be sure to supplement that with plenty of food. Good choices are pieces of silversides and mysis shrimp. Finding nemo has a good article in the anemone/clownfish forum regarding this stuff as well. I would recommend against the clown until you nurse the anemone back to health as a clown would only disturbe the anemone (they can be pretty rough to them).

For the damsel, I would recommend taking it back to the fish store as damsels tend to be very mean fish.

Out of curiousity, how long has your tank been up and running??

By the way, Welcome to Reef Central!!

Bob

P.S. Finding Nemos thread is here: http://archive.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=375656

[fishy_fishfish]

In regards to the fish poop: a protein skimmer would probably help. Your tanks is quite small so it won't cost you too much money to get one.
What are your water perameters and how long as the tank been running? That could be part of your anemone problem.

As for your damsel; I saw a coral beauty in a LFS a few days ago with the same problem. The store does not specialize in saltwater and they keep these fish in quite poor conditions. I think it must be some kind of disease/infection. Check out the Fish Disease Treatment (http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=87) forum for help on that. I wouldn't return the fish yet, first see what the disease experts here on RC have to say about it. If it is a disease, you should quarentine the fish during treatment. I hope this helps!

[Aaron1100us]

Welcome to RC. Don't mean to sound harsh but it sounds like your tank is new and anemones require established tanks that have been going for atleast 6 months and a year is better. I'd get a skimmer on there as soon as possible. Anemones require pristine water quality inorder to survive. I'd also upgrade your lighting. BTA anemones don't require as much light as other anemones but they are still light demanding. 65w on a 26 isn't much light at all. I'd adtleast thriple the amount of light. A 175w halide would be a great choice IMO. I've got a sebae anemone in my 29 gallon and it was bleaching with 120w of PC lights. I added a 400w halide to my 29 gallon tank and my anemone is colored up and allmost 18 inches across now. You don't need to go that crazy with lighting but I would upgrade. I'd also feed it krill or silversides about three times a week. What do you have for a substrate? I'd really reccommend a deep sand bed. Then you won't have to worry about the fishy poop. Another real good thing is a refugium, do you have one of those? Why do you have the biowheel floating in the tank? If so, get that thing outta there:) Any mechanical filtration besides a skimmer will just add nitrates to the water.

[bertoni]

[welcome]

A 150 W DE metal halide works well on a 29g for me. The anemone would probably like it, if introduced gradually.

For a protein skimmer, the BakPaks aren't too bad, IME. The AquaC models seem to get better reviews, though. I would definitely get one of the two, or some skimmer, for sure.

Your water parameters might be informative.

[drive]

thanks for all the help!

the amonia level is around 0.2
nitrate: 20
nitrite 0 - 0.5
pH: around 8.3

this is based on the test strips i have.

is the anemone eating : yup. i feed him a piece of silverside every one or two days.

the temp stays at about 78-80 degrees. on really hot days it can get up to 82.

we have about 25lbs of live rock i think.

we now have a skimmer (thanks to Wasabi!) which i will putting into the tank tonight. i will also do a 10% water change.

i got a percula clown this weekend and it is in the tank. been in there for 4 days, but has not approached the anemone. it's really small though and looks like it has a tough time swimming against the flow.

the two domino's have been taken back to the fish store and the yellowtail was unfortunately flushed.

yeah, i totally jumped into getting the anemone too quick. i think it's doing a lot better now though.

thanks again for all yor help. Especially to Wasabi for the skimmer and all the info. i really appreciate it.

[bertoni]

Any trace of ammonia is a bad sign. You might want to double-check that with a test kit like the Salifert or the FasTest-SeaTest, IMO.

[der_wille_zur_macht]

Not to be harsh, but you'll probably loose the anenome if you keep it in your tank. The lighting you have is marginal, and the water conditions indicate that your tank isn't quite cycled yet. Anenomes demand perfect conditions and pristine water. Any sign of ammonia or nitrite = cycle not yet complete. Even if those were zero, 20ppm is pretty high for nitrates.

Perhaps you have a reefing buddy who would hold the anenome for you for the next few months?