Is my Anemone ok?

[tobysmurf]

First here is a picture from yesterday when I first brought him home:

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e273/tobysmurf/Reef%20Tank/2006-01-06003709.jpg

Here are some shots of him today. Notice his tentacles, they are shorter and many seem very skinny compared to before, and his mouth seems to be sticking out:

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e273/tobysmurf/Reef%20Tank/2006-01-07184954.jpg

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e273/tobysmurf/Reef%20Tank/2006-01-07185015.jpg

Do you think he's ok? If not, any suggestions on what to do? He was really blowing around a lot, so I tried digging a hole for him and he stayed there last night. Today he came out of the hole and blew up against the live rock. His clowns are trying their best to host him but since he's blown against the rock they haven't touched him. My water levels seem pretty decent so I am at a bit of a loss as to why he's shrunk so much.

Suggestions welcome!

[Aquattro]

Pretty sure there aren't any white anemones in the wild, that one is probably well bleached. I'd put a basket over it to keep it out of the pumps and clowns away from it, and feed it a fair bit to get some color back.

[tobysmurf]

I was told that it was a sand anemone by Wai's in Calgary (the LFS it came from). It looks more like a bleached long tentacle though, any ideas on that? Also what should I be feeding him? Any particular kind of chopped up fish? I see that there is great debate on what to feed them and if, so I'd love recommendations.

[Aquattro]

Bleached LTA sounds right. Sand anemone?? hmm. I think little bits of fish are fine, although others probably know a lot more about them than I do.

[Aquattro]

http://www.chucksaddiction.com/anemone.html

[whatcaneyedo]

It looks like its knocking on deaths door. Bleached, inverted mouth, and unwilling to attach are all bad signs. Reviving it will be difficult but not impossible. Mine was bleached white like that when I purchased it several years ago and it managed to pull through. It should accept pieces of silverside, krill or raw clam meat if its tentacles are still 'sticky'. I hope your tank is at least a few months old... judging by how white your rocks are it looks like you just set it up which is also to your disadvantage. Anemones can be pretty delicate and an immature tank isn't very suitable for them. Do you at least have some intense lighting?

[tobysmurf]

Crap, so lesson learned - don't trust the LFS to sell me something healthy...I'll try and get some food for him tomorrow. Any chance I could spot feed him some mysis? That's the only meat based food I have right now. Anyone happen to know a place in Calgary where I can buy silversides?

[reefwars]

Crap, so lesson learned - don't trust the LFS to sell me something healthy...I'll try and get some food for him tomorrow. Any chance I could spot feed him some mysis? That's the only meat based food I have right now. Anyone happen to know a place in Calgary where I can buy silversides?


mysis is just fine ,alots gonna depend on how your system fluctuates and the intensity of your lights:)

[tobysmurf]

Update: His mouth is back inside where it belongs, but he's still not attaching and of course he's almost completely white.

Also to answer the questions this tank is pretty new, although the camera exposure really made the rocks (and the animal) look whiter than they are. My vodka dosing might be making stuff look white too, I am not certain. My lighting sucks, it's just compact high outputs right now but I have 300 watts of LEDs showing up in the next 2-3 days. We have pretty extreme flow inside the tank (2 x 1200gph power heads and one 2x 1600s). My water tests actually seem quite stable, nothing bad (virtually zero phosphates, ammonia, nitrates, or nitrites). My Calcium is a bit high right now (470) but other than that I think I'm doing pretty well. I will try and spot feed him.

[daniella3d]

wow, this is really bleached. It will need to eat or it will surely die. It does not have a trace of symbiotic algae anylonger.

Does it accept food? this will make the difference between live and death for this creature.

It might not accept food right away. It it is not sebae because of its red foot. Probably a long tentacles. Sand anemone is not a name it's a general term for the types of anemones which live in the sand, like the long tentacles and the sebae.

My sebae was pretty bleached when I got her but now she's huge and dark brown as she should be. I was lucky with this one that she eats like a pig. Previous one was also bleached, did not eat and died in 2 to 3 weeks.

[tobysmurf]

For most of last night he was attached to the side of the tank. This morning I see that he is sitting in that same quiet corner of the tank. His foot isn't fully attached like last night, but it's still partially on the glass and partially on a rock. Last night he ate a metric ton of Mysis, and when I fed soaked algae wafers to the fish the clowns insisted on feeding him some of that as well. His tentacles have lengthened a fair amount from last night so he looks a bit more like his old self again (even though his old self was still a bleached state).

I assume one feeding a day is in order or should I try to do it more often since he's so sick?

[mike31154]

Inverts such as anemones, coral, shrimp, snails, crabs etc. are much more sensitive to even small changes in water chemistry. How did you acclimate the critter? I assume slowly? Perhaps a moot point now since it's been in there for several days now, but improper acclimation to water that is most probably quite different from that of the LFS where it came from would contribute to making it look like it does in photos 2 & 3. From my experience, my LFS keeps salinity a fair bit lower in his tanks than I do in mine. I think this is the case with many LFS, not sure why, just seems to be what they do. In any case, a salinity swing of several points & probably a large difference in pH will not go over well with a freshly introduced invertebrate.

Looks like it's coming around though and the fact that it is eating and at least trying to attach to something bodes well for recovery & survival. Took my bta a while to acclimate as well & it wouldn't take food for weeks. It had a bit more colour than your nem though. First few times it actually held the food I gave it, the tentacles did not have much 'stick' to them & a cleaner shrimp promptly grabbed the food. After a few months the tentacles were much stickier & these days there's no way the cleaner shrimp can even get near my nems to compete for food.

[intarsiabox]

With an orangy base and white tenticles it looks like a Condylactis anemone to me. Once a day feeding should be fine, it will spit out excess food which should be siphoned away. I hope it pulls through for you!

[tobysmurf]

I hope he lives too! His body is very bright red - almost orange. His tentacles are still quite sticky, last night 99% of the Mysis I squirted onto him stayed on his tentacles. I am always careful to feed the fish first so that they are more likely to leave his goodies alone.

As for acclimatizing him to my tank, I did the drip method on him - it took about 3 hours before it finished as my dip was a bit slower than it should have been but I didn't want to shock him since my salinity is a bit high right now (1.026). I will feed him once a day. Thanks again folks, I really appreciate the help and I've certainly learned some valuable lessons about making purchases without adequate research first!

[tobysmurf]

Here is a new pic from tonight. Anyone think he has a hope?

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e273/tobysmurf/Reef%20Tank/DSC_8260.jpg

[xenon]

It's looking much better. Starting to see some brown. Good job! :)

Keep feeding it with small chunks of silversides and it will recover nicely.

[mohammadali]

my GBTA bleached when i bought it ,
i had to put it in my 20g with a florescent and just turn it on for a few hours and it got brownish and after while its kinda green

[Madreefer]

I've had a LTA in my tank for 12years. Bought it on an impusle buy and fed it for the first couple of months or so. I have never fed it since that time and it is doing awesome. So 12 years and no food. Makes me wonder if they need to be fed.

[whatcaneyedo]

A bleached anemone does not possess any zooxanthellae from which it would otherwise harvest energy. Without any additions of food they can starve to death just like anything else. A healthy anemone with all of its own zooxanthellae is basically self sufficient and as you've demonstrated does not need supplemental feeding. But thats not to say that it wouldn't benefit from a few scraps on occasion. Anemones are pretty good at capturing food on their own too. Or if you have clownfish with them they will probably feed it for you.

The anemone in the picture is looking a lot better. Previously when it had its insides coming out from its mouth it looked like many of the dead ones I've seen at our LFS.

[Ryan]

Crap, so lesson learned - don't trust the LFS to sell me something healthy...I'll try and get some food for him tomorrow. Any chance I could spot feed him some mysis? That's the only meat based food I have right now. Anyone happen to know a place in Calgary where I can buy silversides?

Ya you should definatly do your own research before hand.

Tgere are better stores than wais in calgary as well for advice, stock, and prices.

[Coralgurl]

Ya you should definatly do your own research before hand.

Tgere are better stores than wais in calgary as well for advice, stock, and prices.

Wais is a good store for experienced reefers, or ones that do their research before buying, its definitely not a good one for impulse buys!! :biggrin:
I've seen many a bleached nem in almost every store in the city, especially the sebaes.

I like Wais as he brings in varied corals that you likely wont see anywhere else, but he sure gets you on the pricing. I tested him on a coral I bought almost 2 years ago, thought maybe he gouged me as I was a noob, but his pricing was identical. You just need to know what you are looking at and what's reasonable to you may not be to someone else.

Good job on getting your nem healthy again!

[Ryan]

Wais is a good store for experienced reefers, or ones that do their research before buying, its definitely not a good one for impulse buys!! :biggrin:
I've seen many a bleached nem in almost every store in the city, especially the sebaes.

I like Wais as he brings in varied corals that you likely wont see anywhere else, but he sure gets you on the pricing. I tested him on a coral I bought almost 2 years ago, thought maybe he gouged me as I was a noob, but his pricing was identical. You just need to know what you are looking at and what's reasonable to you may not be to someone else.

Good job on getting your nem healthy again!

If you say so.

[tobysmurf]

"Annie" attached itself to the back of my largest Trochus snail early this morning. I felt so bad for the poor snail as it was pretty much trapped (it was strong enough to pull the anemone but just barely). I forced the anemone off and put it on the glass of my tank - it's now healthy enough to attach to things!

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e273/tobysmurf/Reef%20Tank/2006-01-04170108.jpg

It's getting a bit more brown too which I like. It seems to enjoy munching on silversides!

If folks think it is healthy then I can finally look towards putting more in the tank. I didn't want to add anything while I was focusing on this poor creature's health.

[tobysmurf]

Wai's pricing is generally not good although the clowns seemed pretty inexpensive to me (17 ea for true percs). His coral is beautiful however, I think anyone who hasn't been there should come in just to look at the coral selection if nothing else.

[michaelis88]

this is bleached, try find a way to recover it or try bring back to the store.
Sand Anemone? Ive seen lots of sand anemone, but not one like this. Sand Anemones are more darker color like little tanned and not as white as yours. Maybe your lfs lied to you, Im sure your lfs knows how to tell differents

[reefwars]

this is bleached, try find a way to recover it or try bring back to the store.
Sand Anemone? Ive seen lots of sand anemone, but not one like this. Sand Anemones are more darker color like little tanned and not as white as yours. Maybe your lfs lied to you, Im sure your lfs knows how to tell differents



Fwiw its a LTA, as mentioned they prefer sand to bury their foot.being bleached doesn't mean the end of the world anyone who has experience with anemones can tell you they get color back fast considering this anemone isn't fully bleached, fully bleached and you can almost see right through it.

[michaelis88]

Fwiw its a LTA, as mentioned they prefer sand to bury their foot.being bleached doesn't mean the end of the world anyone who has experience with anemones can tell you they get color back fast considering this anemone isn't fully bleached, fully bleached and you can almost see right through it.

Well, does it still grab food or no?

[reefwars]

Well, does it still grab food or no?


how do i know i dont own it lol

[michaelis88]

how do i know i dont own it lol

I thought it was its since u replied to me. But anyways, it's its ratting, that a still good sign right? If not, u know what can happen

[reefwars]

I thought it was its since u replied to me. But anyways, it's its ratting, that a still good sign right? If not, u know what can happen


i replied cause you were kinda wrong, and i mean no offense, its fact most long tentacle anemones prefer sand to bury their foot in so they can be considered a sand anemone although they need not be found only in the sand.

i honestly have no idea what ratting is ??

if its eating then it should make a come around, if its foot grabs and it doesnt turn its self inside out it will recover rather quickly provided you have good water quality and strong lighting.

i took a 100% bleached lta about two years ago and had it full purple within six months , daily feedings of mysis and strong lighting.

like madreefer mentioned once its healthy you need not feed it at all, it will benefit from it but anemones are prey capturing animals and they find a way to get food both from your tank and through proper lighting.

its actually not uncommon to find lta's bleached in lfs as they rarely get the lighting they need untill they hit an aquarium and most lfs rarely target feed anything let alone every few days;)


cheers

[tobysmurf]

Thanks folks, he seems to be holding onto food just fine now and he attaches nicely to things. I clouded up the water last night searching for a sand shifting starfish in my refugium and he got annoyed and moved, but he attached to the glass again right away. His tentacles are slowly getting darker, and around his mouth is much darker now. Thanks for the help and suggestions folks, I feel quite confident that I can recover him. I look forward to showing pics of a nice brown LTA in the coming months!

[tobysmurf]

Wow, and just like that he's gone :-(

My new uber lights seem to have brought up the temperature too high (I don't have them hanging yet they are sitting on top of the tank), but here are my water readings:

temp 27.9C
Ammonia NH4 0.1
Nitrates, NO3 < 5
pH 8.38
KH 10
Salinity 1.027 (we are slowly fixing this)
Calcium 450
Phosphates PO4 < 0.03

So my temp was too high and my salinity was too high. Would those possibly be the cause of his demise? Everything else seems so happy in the tank...

[whatcaneyedo]

They are quite delicate and need a stable mature tank especially if they are really stressed. So it was a combination of things.

[asylumdown]

Was there any indication that your nem had previously been dyed? I bought a neon pink sebae anemone from wai's that I think came from the same tank as the one you got, not too long before you got yours. There were a couple others in there that were that colour. I didn't know that people actually dyed anemones, but when I got home and transferred it to a bucket for acclimation, the water it had come in was tinted pink, and the next morning the skimmate in my collection cup was also tinted pink. I looked it up, and it's apparently a pretty common practice in the Philippines. I took the anemone back that day, as the general consensus is that dying them kills 99.9% of the anemones that go through it, and if they start to expel the dye, it's common for them to expel all of it, leaving them really, really bleached, usually followed by a slow demise.

[daniella3d]

so far I bought 2 sebae that were bleached. One died and the second one make it because it was eating like a pig from day one and I feed it tons of mysis each day.

It went from a tiny 3" bleached thing to a huge 12" brown anemone with a green hue on the top of the body. It had lots of symbions now but I keep feeding it each day. It is home to my 2 clownfish.

The only hope with such anemone is that it eats. If it does not eats it is lost.

I don't think heat alone killed it, but a combinaison of water quality issue (ammonia should be 0!), heat and lack of food.

[tobysmurf]

Once this tank matures some more I may give another anemone a try, but for now I will focus on other creatures. I will also avoid buying a bleached anemone in the future, even if I can save them, it's so stressful! I've only done corals until now so anemones are new to me (as is this tank). I've learned a lot over the past little while and hopefully the next one will go better for me.