what have i done wrong????

My water is cloudy and my anemone looks like its trying to eat its s elf. Its tenicals are deflated and turning green and the base is looks over inflated. Does anybody know what's wrong. All fish are acting fine and health

Do you have a quarantine tank? I've heard of them doing this, and it resulting in them dying. Result nasty smelling water and a damned big water change required.

Could be something else, but that's what comes to mind from what I've read...sorry.

Gotta get more info. How long have you had it, where is it in the tank, what are your water test readings (ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, temp, salinity, pH, phosphate)? Any of those things could be upsetting the anemone.

I noticed you mentioned you had high nitrates in another thread and did something about those yesterday. Did you add a product perhaps? Which product and at what dose? What were your prior nitrate readings and current?

We'll try to figure it out! If I'm guessing I'd say remote ammonia readings with the tank being moved recently.

My nitrates went up

Did a 30% water change and treated for nitrates again so we shall see in the morning. Thanks for the post guys

Good luck Aaron, fingers crossed.

this is what it did an hour after the light went out. Is this normal night time behavior? Like I said I'm new to saltwater and need help. Another thing is I am using well water but will have my ro/Di system up and going tomorrow. I am eager to learn so the more info you can give me the better

Ouch. Likely lots of stuff in that water that's a no no for sensitive creatures like the anemones. Don't do anymore water changes until you get RO water up and running (or purchase/borrow some). Make sure you flush the system really well when you first turn it on. They say not to use the first hours worth of water or so. Also, your well water may actually contain nitrates. Although... with all the freshwater tanks you have you're likely using that water for those so it's unlikely you'd have ammonia or high nitrates in it. So that's good. I'm still going to guess around 250TDS though.

Did you run the other water tests? I would get used to that habit anytime you think you see something out of the ordinary in your tank. It's to the point with me now that I'll never post a question about something without also testing those results. They're always the first questions asked.

The good news... is that this doesn't seem extremely bizarre to me. It's pretty typical for anemones to close up when it's lights out... especially if it happened to catch a snail or other snack during the day. I've never had this exact type, so I'm not sure if the foot looks swollen or not. The best advise is to not panic, but to do everything possible (which is sounds like you're doing with the large water change) and hope for the best.

Sorry Aaron, but I'm a newbie at the actual keeping of a reef, I've read... oh hell I've spent hundreds of hours reading online, but I'm now discovering that every tank set up is slightly different (hence my thread on trying to discover the basic facts about what is good for Coraline growth by asking for everyones experience).

As for your water, I'm on city feed, and never let it touch my tank, I use the water from Brookshires, and RO/DI is even better than that, but your well water may be loaded with various base metals, especially iron, from what I understand about East Texas (I'm not a local).

All I can say is read, read and read, I was FW (and have been since the age of about 12) when I joined the forum, and then spent about 9 months fighting the desire, whilst spending 1-2 hours a night reading about why I should fight the urge (I don't watch TV, hell my TV isn't even connected to anything but the DVD player).
Now I'm SW & FW, notice the SW comes first. I love my Cichlids, but I have more life in my 30G Reef than the other 6 tanks.
You have a great set up, and yes I'm jealous. A 120G reef to me sounds great, but take it slowly, even if someone had it before you. Also I'm certain everyone here will say that to get your tank going really well it's better to set up a sump/refugium, rather than run your canister filter/ bio balls. From what I've read bio balls in a reef are bad news awaiting / dead man walking, as they load up, keeping the tank clean, then get over loaded...and release into the tank.

So, could you set up a sump? Add live sand and live rock, some Cheato?
That seems to be the way, from what I've read. And. From how the guys here that seem to keep a reef tank running smoothly.
Now I'm a newbie at SW, but that is my penny worth.

BTW buy your self a full water testing kit, the strips work ok for FW, but are useless for SW I've found.

I figured mentioning a complete filtering overhaul was a little pre-mature. Lol

In case you haven't seen it yet, here's a post a put together that contains tons of reading for anyone new to saltwater. Here's a link: https://etak.forumotion.com/t168-new-to-saltwater

Thanks for the post guys

Ok so when I got up this morning and turned the light on it was fully opened with healthy looking tentacles. The foot wasn't swollen looking and had good color. I just think maybe he was hungry

Great news!

If it's eating that's a very good sign and dramatically increases it's chances of surviving the move from ocean to tank. :-)

How often should I feed it

I'd say once or twice a week for awhile just for it's health. Once it settles in less often. It'll end up being whenever you think about it... but around once every week or week and a half... ish. :-)

What would be the best thing for it

If you had more powerful lighting they really don't have to be fed. You'd be surprised what they'll catch on their own. I've lost a crab, a fish and at least a dozen snails to my mini maxi carpet. The feeding can help supplement what the anemone would receive from higher lighting. Once it has been in your tank for awhile you'll simply see it, notice it's looking different and understand that it's trying to find more food. Strange but true. Lol

I have nova extreme lights how much more powerfully do I need

You have a 4 bulb t5 correct?

Those are pretty good, but they need to be changed at least every eight or nine months. You won't be keeping acros or anything, but right under the lights in the middle if your bulbs have reflectors you might be able to keep birdsnest and monti caps. A six or eight bulb would allow you to keep more, but bulbs get expensive.

I'm an led guy. I'll likely put leds over my tanks for a long long time.

I actually have 2 fixtures on it so its 8 bulbs in all and they do have reflectors along with moon lighting. What leds do you have I wouldn't king having a nice bright set on my tank and where can I find them

How long are each of the bulbs? Is it eight 48" bulbs? If that's the case that's plenty of light. If it's eight 24" bulbs that's the equivalent of four 48" bulbs.

I have an evolution led 120w fixture over my tank that I purchased from www.thecoralshop.com. Those exact fixtures can be purchased from Hong Kong for much less also. The new rack build is using DIY cree LEDs from rapidled.com

Now that I've put together all of the fixtures for my tanks I'm going to start building them for others. My plan will likely be to put LEDs over my tanks, build a new fixture with new technology and sell the old ones over and over again. That... or if someone wanted something specifically built just ask me and I'll try to guess how long it would take me to put it together and give an amount for the cost.

If you wanted to look at the nicer fixtures, I'd look at Orphek and Kessil LEDs.

Ok thanks for the info. I did some test on my much hour my nitrates are at 30mg, my phosphate is .5 mg, and my calcium is 480mg. Does this tell you anything

No ammonia,iron,nitrites,and ph. Was 8.2

Everything looks okay. Nitrates are high, I'd get the RO up soon and get some water changes going. Nitrates and phosphates will drop proportional to the % of water change. I'd try to get them down and keep them around 5 or so. If you have to do too many water changes to keep your nitrates down, that's when you need to reconsidering your filtering setup.

I'm working on getting a 30 gallon refugium or should i go bigger if so how big for a 120gallon tank and remember my stand is 48L-18deep