# HELP!! carpet anemones keep dying



## reefman5 (Nov 4, 2007)

well,I got a green carpet anemone and it was doing fine for a couple weeks until it just died


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## Guest (Nov 4, 2007)

Care to provide us with more information? Water parameters, lighting, tank size, other inhabitants, etc. Hard to answer a question like that if we dont know anything.


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## reefman5 (Nov 4, 2007)

I'm not sure about water perameters, it's a 29gal tank,it was a 250w bulb,and there was not anything else but some perculas in it


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## Guest (Nov 4, 2007)

First off, that tank is beyond small for a carpet anemone. Secondly, is this tank even cycled? How long has it been set up?
You should always know the water parameters when necessary. Get a saltwater test kit and test for ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate. Also, what is your salinity and temperature? How often do you do water changes?

As for lighting, what do you mean _was _a 250 watt bulb? What is it now? And how many watts is the ballast? And what kind of lighting? CF? TH5O? Metal Halide? Other?


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## reefman5 (Nov 4, 2007)

yeah it was a cycled tank,it was running for a couple months i don't have the ballast any more,and it was a metal halide, the bulb was a pheonix


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## Guest (Nov 5, 2007)

Okay, so it does not have a light anymore? Anemones are highly photosynthetic animals and need light to thrive.
Your first priority should be to get a good saltwater test kit and test the ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate, all important parameters to keep in check which are toxic to aquatic life. 
Don't take offense to this, but from your posts you dont sound like you did your research or are too experienced with saltwater keeping...I suggest picking up the book The Conscientious Marine Aquarist by Robert Fenner and reading, reading, and reading. Also read around online to learn more about it, especially the essentials.


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## reefman5 (Nov 4, 2007)

ok which test kits do you recomend,because i heard that the salifert test kits "wich i have"are not very acurate


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## leveldrummer (May 27, 2005)

salifert are some of the best, do you have live rock in the tank? what did it do when it died? bleach? just turn to mush? did you acclimate it when you put it in your tank? or just float and plop?


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## TheOldSalt (Jan 28, 2005)

A couple of _months_?

*sigh*

Anemones don't often survive very well in tanks which are less than a YEAR or two old. Of COURSE the guy at the petshop didn't tell you that; he shouldn't have even sold it to a beginner anyway. Oh, well, there's nothing to be done for that, so let's just move on...

If you want a saltwater tank, then you are going to have to learn a whole new set of things to check for and why.

I'm not getting on your case about this, as it's probably not your fault. Your local petshop owner, though... you better watch out for that guy. He's apparently not looking out for your best interests. ( unless he's trying to teach you stuff the hard way in an attempt to force you to learn...yeah, right.. )

Salifert is one of the best kits you can get. LaMotte is about the only thing even better that you can buy, but it costs too much to be worth it for most people.

Anyway, back on topic, anemones are very simple creatures with very complicated requirements. Even a very small mistake can be the end of them. Beginners with new tanks will have unstable systems and make lots of mistakes.


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## Fishfirst (Jan 24, 2005)

I'm almost thinking the temp is fluctuating... if he has that big metal halide bulb over it... but with the little info we have its only a shot in the dark.


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## redpaulhus (Jan 18, 2005)

I'd also keep an eye on alkalinity
(I use the Tropic Marin test for Alk, but the salifert tests overall are great).

And get a much much larger tank before trying a carpet (a mature carpet is huge - like 3' in diameter in a circle ).
And let the tank stablize for about a year first.

MH lighting should be fine, along with high quality skimming and lots of water changes (ie extremely good water quality)

in other words - what they said


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## vvolfe1 (Oct 9, 2006)

The light was not the problem. It's a long slow death if lighting was the only issue "more than 2 months" Some of the carpets along with most anemones are very hard to keep and need very stable tanks. ie lighting, temp, salinity, the right flow helps, ph, and so on.


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## leveldrummer (May 27, 2005)

why is the name of the thread "carptets keep dying"? how many have you tried?


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## TheOldSalt (Jan 28, 2005)

Whoa!
You know, I didn't even notice that until you mentioned it. Yikes.


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## reefman5 (Nov 4, 2007)

it's titled that because i've had 2 do that to me so far


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