Slow Swims: Tube Anemone Tank Setup

[demonmagus]

Hes a beauty! I know these animals are both genders but i prefer to just say "He" because this animal just looks so mean! lol


- Matt

you little sexist


looks awesome

 

[Mr Miagi]

but i prefer to just say "He" because this animal just looks so mean! lol

That could be said for some members of the opposite sex too you know!

Nice colours, what a great specimen!

 

[adam.crouch]

I had a tube anemone like that but it liked to sting my clown fish so i got fish of it

 

[SlowSwim]

but i prefer to just say "He" because this animal just looks so mean! lol

That could be said for some members of the opposite sex too you know!

Nice colours, what a great specimen!

Yeah i know of a few

Everytime i put my hand into the tank to feed the nem i get this tingling feeling, Once hes a monster i think id need gloves

Last night he retracted himself into his tube but like 5 - 10 mins later he was fully extended? Anybody have idea what this kind of behaviour is?

- Matt

 

[rhysiboy]

hey the tingling in water sounds like an electrical leak. take out all the plug sockets and then see if you still feel the tingling, then turn each piece of equiptment on one by one and put your hand in the water when one gos on. The piece of equiptment you can feel the tingling with needs replacing.

 

[SkiFletch]

hey the tingling in water sounds like an electrical leak. take out all the plug sockets and then see if you still feel the tingling, then turn each piece of equiptment on one by one and put your hand in the water when one gos on. The piece of equiptment you can feel the tingling with needs replacing.

Agreed, dont mess around with tingly sensations.

 

[wflash3]

rhysiboy, its interesting you say that, i dont know if you remember my post about this happening to me...so i was wondering....how come this doesint affect the fish? why dont they feel a thing?

flash

 

[SkiFletch]

Wow, a simple question but a really tough answer. Here's the nickel and dime version of the answer, hope you can make sense of this tough concept. If an electrical component is faulty and the tank achieves a higher voltage (potential) due to the fault, everything is fine. Its just like working on a high-voltage power line. Those guys charge themselves up to 100,000 volts or higher when working on the lines. Because they are at the same potential as the line, no current flows through them and they're safe. Same is true in your tank with a simple 1-wire fault. Voltage builds up but no current flows and the livestock are fine.

Then, as soon as you provide a path to a lower potential or ground, current starts flowing and things start to get shocked. Current paths to ground can happen when the fault gets worse and 2 wires get exposed to the water. Then there's a direct path to ground, current flows, and livestock are harmed. The degree of which depends on how/where current is flowing. If you stick your hands in the tank, you act as a ground source, absorb some current, and recieve a momentary shock. Once you're potential is up to that of the tank (which may take some time depending on the severity of the fault), you wont feel the pain anymore presuming you're standing on a carpeted or wooden floor. The last common way ground faults can occur in an aquarium is if the aquarist uses a ground probe. Ground probes can protect you the aquarist for sure, but they can also spell certain doom for your tank (and energy bill) should you develop a fault in your lines elsewhere. Even if you use a GFI to protect the tank/circuitry and shut off power when a fault is detected, what happens when the fault occurs, the components are shutoff, and your tank is left without light/heat/flow all day? Equally disastrous.

 

[tnhowery]

The tank looks great, id love to keep one of those how big will it get?

 

[SlowSwim]

They get to a massive size but because of how slow they grow you'll never see them that size in your life time.
Having said that though they are beautiful animals and should be respected. They are very easy to keep because as you can see i dont have any expensive equipment or anything to be called a sump.

Good luck!

Just to update the tingling feeling i get from the water isnt an electric shock its from the nem itself.. Since you've suggested it might be from my equipment ive just put my hand in the water and i dont feel a thing, but as soon as i touch the nem i do. So unless the nem is a better conducter than water theres no way its electrical

- Matt

 

[rhysiboy]

ok well its good to hear that its from the nem rather than the electrics. also that tube anemone is absoloutely crazy. love it defo

 

[andywg]

While I agree with most of what Ski has said, the presence of high voltages does affect fish. It is attributed to a number of deaths of sharks (though these are noted for being particularly sensitive).

Furthermore, a voltage can "leak" into the aquarium from something as benign as a flourescant light over the water (not in it) so replacement is not always the answer.

If you provide a grounding probe for the tank then it will prevent there being any high voltage and the currents observed are far closer to what one would expect to see in nature.

Gerry Parker carried out some tests on this with osciliscopes and the like (found here) and came to this conclusion:

Regardless of the method by which the energy is being coupled into the tank (and we can debate this further) the voltages are quite real, and quite high for a sufficiently isolated tank. The currents, however, are so small that they very nearly defy measurement with laboratory grade equipment. In all cases tested for this paper, no voltage was detectable in the tank when the titanium ground probe was properly connected to (earth).

So if you now accept this as the normal case for SW tanks, you begin asking yourself if this is a problem. I have discussed this with several educated folks, and we have concluded that the minute currents in the tank, due to grounding with titanium probes, are much less significant than unterminated voltages on the order of tens or hundreds of volts. We could not conceive of a case in nature where the volume of water would consistently be charged to 80 volts, but could very easily see situations where nano-amp currents would flow throughout the media. It was the consensus, then, that it would be better to ground the tank, in that it would more accurately simulate the electric environment found in nature.

This is not to say that when equipment fails (insulation on power cords, for example) that fatal currents cannot be impressed in SW tanks.

This is seldom a great problem and most fish are not massively bothered by the voltage, but there are instances when the voltage does have a deletrious effect on the livestock in an aquarium, and the currents experienced were almost impossible to detect using lab equipment, so it is not as much a risk as often believed.

 

[wflash3]

yes, good thing it is from the nem. My LFS store had those and i think they still do, but they are pink and purple and are huge! the biggest ones tenticles were about 8 inches with a 5 inch stalk or tube. good luck though, should be fun.

flash

 

[wflash3]

Well i told my dad about this situation and what ski said as well as what andywg said. My dad being an electrical/mechanical physics teacher knew the answer easily. He said it quick and simple, its because were "grounded". Its similar to when birds rest on powerlines and they dont touch if they are on different lines with different potential. Which would cause a huge electrical shock to all the birds which would be interesting to see, but mean to say i actually wanna see it. I was wearing socks on carpet flooring so that might explain my shock. Also he said that the fish shouldn't be affected.

P.S. i know this is not the situation anymore presuming it was the nem. Just wanted to share what my dad said lol.

flash

 

[Miss Wiggle]

wow that nem looks lovely