sick anemone

jewels03

Reefing newb
On Tuesday I picked up a 55 gallon saltwater aquarium with all the rocks and sand and everything already in it off craigslist. There wasn't suppose to be anything live in it. We had to add about 15 gallons of our own distilled water when we got it home, salinity set to in between 1.024 and 1.025. The tank was so high it barely read on my salinity tester so I had to fix their salinity as well.

Anyways a few hours after I set it up I noticed a large anemone on a rock. He seemed to be doing well until today (friday) he was fine all day, I was at work and he was fine when I got home, I did some errands and than went to my second job when I came home and went to turn the tank light off the anemone was shriveled up basically inside himself and his little tenticle tips that were exposed were black. Should I pull him out now or what can I do? I didn't feed him yet, the fish store was closed when I got there so I couldn't buy anything for him to eat. Honestly I didn't even know it was an anemone until last night. It looks something like a long tipped anemone.

Just a quick search says that sometimes they do shrivel up but what should I look for I don't want the anemone dying in the tank, there isn't anything else alive in the tank, that I know of. If it does die in the tank what can I do to make it safe for future inhabitants?

I did a quick test of the water. The nitrates are high and I bought 10 gallons of distilled water to do another water change on the tank tomorrow.
 
If the nem dies, just do some water changes and remove it before it starts to rot. However, when buying distilled water, you should make sure you aren't buying water that was distilled with copper. Otherwise, you are basically dosing your tank with copper. I could be wrong, but I remember reading somewhere that you have to watch for that. Other then that, nems don't really need to be fed. They are photosynthetic and should only be fed when lighting is under par. Best of luck, and welcome aboard :)
 
Thank you! How do I know and if the water was treated with copper? I just bought distilled water from walmart, I plan on buying RO water from the fish store for all future water changes.

I am not sure what type of lighting is set up it came with the tank. It's an old fixture I think he said t-14 in one than a regular bulb bulb in the other socket. I think don't qoute me I will check the bulbs when I have a chance (I haven't checked my tank today is my only day off this week so I'm still bumming around my room, lol) I am sure it is not adequate.

Now I am thinking it is a large aiptasia though. Someone else told me it was a long tipped but after further searching it looks to me like a big aiptasia, so it'll have to come out if it makes it or not.
 
The lighting is an F40 pl wide spectrum 40 watt, it says for plant and aquarium than another plain F40 40 watt bulb. The anemone opened up and looks great again but now that I have time to research on my own it looks like a large aiptasia so guess I have to get it out either way. I plan on double checking with a very knowledgeable fish store this afternoon.
 
Could you get a picture for us so we could ID it for you?

The lights you have are (sadly) not enough to keep any photosynthetic animal, let alone an anemone.
 


here it is, I just took this picture today. He was out this morning when I went back out there so I'm assuming he is feeling better? I have no idea how to get it out though, short of removing the whole piece of rock, which I would rather not do.
 
I actually do not want any corals or anemones, not at this time, as I am not experienced enough and I have no idea what happened to this tank before we got it. Plus I am going to upgrade my tank to a larger tank with newer supplies, I just couldn't pass up a 55 gallon tank with all supplies for under $100. They dropped over $600 on rocks alone, plus the sand and than the fluval 406 filter and a sump too(that I decided not to set up). I have a nice protein skimmer coming from ebay in the next few days as well.
 
that is what I thought it was I was told a long tipped anemone and than I researched a little and he didn't look anything like a long tipped. I have some Joe's Juice can I use that, it worked for some of the little ones in there. Is it bad to use that on it right in the tank? He is so big won't I have to remove it after I put the stuff on it?
 
I got rid of him, used Joe's Juice. I ended up having to take tweezers and removing some of it though, not fun at all as it just started falling apart and smelled so bad. So luckily I had no animals in there yet.
 
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