Advise needed: Mixing nems? Gigantea and Rock Flower

[c-me-fish]

Hi. My neon green gigantea has been in captivity for just over 4 years now, and has been doing great (only keeps getting bigger and the largest I've seen it is about 15" across now). I moved it into it's current tank (160g; 6ftx1.5ftx2.5ft tall) about a year ago and luckily it had NEVER moved. The rest of the tank is a mixed reef with a bit of everything, but the clowns the anemone hosts are the only fish. Here's where I might have screwed up...

3 weeks ago, I saw a few rock flower anemone's at my LFS. I took my chances and picked up 3 of them (red, pink, green) and put them at the other end of my tank. I kept an eye on things quite diligently for the first couple of weeks, and everything looked great so figured they'd be fine. I left my tank for a few days and got back today to a deflated giantea that had moved 6" towards the other anemones.. I've watched it all day and it has been sitting in the same condition/position... The mouth is still tightly closed and even though my parameters checked out, I still did a 10% water change. Now I'm wondering if there is a chemical issue going on between the nems.. I would have thought the gigantea would have been winnnig that battle as it is huge compared to the 3 small rock flowers... If this situation does not change, I'll remove the rock flowers and see what happens. I don't want to do anything too quickly though as all the nems were fine in the same tank for a couple of weeks before I left.

Does anyone have any experience or related information? Thanks!

 

[Jamie1210]

hmm... how big is your system? i've had my gigantea for 4 weeks now, and there were already 4 rock flower anemones in there before i put the gigantea in. Have not had any problems. (My tank is 56 gallons)

 

[c-me-fish]

Hi Jamie. Total system is contained within the display tank itself which is a 160g. It is run sumpless, with water changes being done every 3-4 weeks. I'm glad you've had success, especially since we introduced our nems at about the same time.. I'm hoping it's just expelling all its water content and will fill right back up in the next couple of days. There has been no change to condition/position today, and the lights will be going out shortly.

 

[c-me-fish]

This morning it had moved an inch closer to the other nems (still 4.5 feet between them), the mouth was gaping a little, and it had lost a few tentacles which were in various areas around the tank. I immediately removed the rock flower anemones, put them in the sump which I separated from my display, and did a 10% water change. It was all I could do before having to go to work. I'm a little afraid of going home...

 

[c-me-fish]

Got home too late to truly see how it was doing, but has now moved back away from where the rock flowers were.. I just put in a 200 micron filter sock with some marineland carbon (passively as I litterally strapped the sock to the light leg) and will now have to wait and see once more. Fingers crossed!

 

[c-me-fish]

Last night the mouth was huge, looked like it has been burnt (very slimy, discoloured, and swollen), and the nem was lying face-down in the sand. I picked it up and put it on top of the rock structure it called home right-side-up in hopes that a miracle would happen. I just checked on it, and although it is still sitting in the same spot, I'm not sure it's due to it's own will or due to the subsided water movement during the night... At this point I have lost hope and now think I'm going to lose it..

 

[stickleback]

I'm gutted for you. after having a gig for 4 years and then potentially seeing it die. Has anything else changed in your tank? flow, lighting, params, livestock?

 

[c-me-fish]

Thanks stickleback.

I've been pretty torn up the last few days as I did end up losing it... even though I did get it out of the tank, there must have been a piece left somewhere as my water has been a little cloudy since it died. I inspected the body to see if perhaps it had managed to eat something it shouldn't have but it came out like jelly.. nothing inside...

Nothing else changed, and everything else in my tank still looks happy.. this is despite the current cloudiness and slight parameter changes. The tank looks pretty bare on that side now, and my poor clowns are still lurking there, but hopefully there won't be any other loses.

I've concluded that the introduction of the rock flower anemones brought some sort of pathogen with them that the gigantea didn't have a defence for. All I can do now is continue to provide the best care possible for everything else I have. Thanks for reading this.