What does this mean on an anemone

[mike31154]

What species of anemone? I have BTAs and experienced splits that are quick, within a day or two, but also some that have taken a week. Once I even had one almost split, the 'mouth' had already opened up into a horseshoe ready to tear apart & it put itself back together! Completed the split months later.

From your first photo it's difficult to say what's going on. Not sure if different species go through different split scenarios, but any time my BTAs split, it's obvious that they tear themselves apart at the 'mouth'. Your photo shows the mouth intact with a blob of stuff below it, apparently coming out from the inside? Sort of like the little alien in the movie coming out of victims' chest?

About all you can do is keep your water parameters stable & observe. A large portion of it still looks ok. If it starts actually 'melting', then it will be time to consider yanking it out so it doesn't mess up your water for the other critters.

[untamed]

I would NOT assume this is splitting. It is very normal, however.

[Basterb]

It died.

was loosing it's red base in stringy pieces all over the tank. Wansn't holding on to any rock.

I guess the tank was too new!

Thanks for all the help.

[Reef_Geek]

sorry to hear.

sounds like it's a new tank... so a newly added anemone?

From selling these things over the years... very important to avoid damaging the foot on anemones when selling them. Best practice for a sales tank is to bury a layer of window screening about 2 inches below the surface. Anemones can be gently peeled off the window screen for sale. I personally cringe when I see anemones being worked on, to come off rock/glass for sale.

[Basterb]

I started with a 60 gallon that I had for 3 months and then upgraded to a 90 gallon that i've had up for 4 weeks. So really quite new.

The anemone was a gift that was only in the tank 5 days. It's possible it was damaged when removed from the store.

[mike31154]

That's unfortunate. I added a BTA when my system was quite new, probably should have waited but didn't know any better at the time. Surprisingly the thing made it through thick & thin, split many times to date & currently have the original & 2 clones in the tank. They're spreading out & doing a number on a couple of corals close by. If you decide to try another, BTAs are a bit tougher & more tolerant of less than ideal conditions than some of the other species.